Christian Aid gender strategy: just and equitable power relations
Our 2017 gender strategy reaffirms and renews our commitment to prioritising gender justice, especially for women and girls, throughout the organisation and in our work.
Our vision is to end poverty, and in our corporate strategy 'Partnership for Change', we identify three main goals which will help us to achieve this:
- Ensure just power relations
- Ensure equity and sustainability
- Ensure resilient and thriving societies
Gender injustice is rooted in unequal power relations and the most pervasive gender inequality is between women and men. Gender injustice violates human rights, constrains choice and agency and negatively impacts upon people’s ability to participate in, contribute to and benefit from development and humanitarian relief.
Unless we can help create just and equitable relationships between women and men of all ages and diversities, we will be unable to achieve equitable, sustainable, resilient and thriving societies. Gender justice is, therefore, at the heart of Christian Aid’s work.
We also recognise that inequalities intersect and create complex disadvantages that compound gender injustice and poverty. We therefore take an inclusive and intersectional approach that enables us to address how inequalities, such as sexual orientation, ethnicity, age, class, religion, caste and disability, intersect with gender inequality and perpetuate poverty.
Our being made “male and female” is a gift of God, and should be experienced as joy for humankind. When gender becomes a weapon of oppression then something is badly wrong.
Leave no one behind
Through our inclusive approach we can tackle barriers to gender justice that are global, and internal to Christian Aid, in a way that is targeted, sustainable, transformative and ‘leaves no one behind’, as set out in the Sustainable Development Goals.
To this end, we continue to focus our work on challenging patriarchy and promoting the empowerment of women and girls, with recognition that men can also be adversely affected by patriarchy and ideals of ‘masculinity’. We also seek to broaden our understanding of gender to include, where relevant, transgender and minority genders, who face increased violence and exclusion.
Our vision
Our vision is of gender justice for all: of a renewed world where all people, regardless of gender, can live alongside one another in mutually empowering relationships; are empowered to pursue their human rights and fundamental freedoms; and are valued as equal and active participants in the social, political, cultural and economic wellbeing of their households, communities and societies. As well as global barriers to gender justice, we recognise that there are also internal barriers within Christian Aid to overcome.