Name: Committee on Development Ordinary meeting
Uploaded: 2026-09-02T08:45:00+00:00
Duration: 6044 s

04:57 - 06:51

Speaker 1

Okay, we will resume our agenda. And we move to our next item, which is item seven on our agenda. And we will welcome Dr. Petra Debusscher from Ghent University, who will join us remotely. Dr. Debusscher will present a study on the gender equality in European Union development aid, assessing the dual approach of gender mainstreaming and targeted actions, which was requested last year by our committee.

She is a researcher at the Ghent Institute for International and European Studies and a lecturer in EU and global studies and has also previously acted as a gender expert for EU institutions. The study examines the effects of gender equality mainstreaming and targeted actions in EU development aid during the EU Gender Action Plan III period ending next year. Concluding that both tracks are indispensable and should remain in the next Gender Action Plan covering the period of the next MFF, the author gives recommendations to Parliament on how to strengthen and increase accountability of both tracks. Members from the FEMM committee have been invited to join us for this presentation in light of the ongoing joint DEVE-FEMM INI on GAP IV. The presentation will undoubtedly provide a basis for shaping its contribution to that process.

So, as I said, we're joined remotely by Dr. Debusscher. So if she is online and can hear us and see us... I think let me check to see that she's there. Oh yeah, yeah, you see her on the big screen. Oh yeah, I can see, there you are.

Okay, we can see you.

06:51 - 06:52

Okay.

06:52 - 06:57

Speaker 1

And we can hear you. So you have the floor for ten minutes, Dr. Debusscher. Thank you for joining us.

06:57 - 09:36

Speaker 2

Yeah, thank you very much for the introduction. So yes, the study examines how well the EU's twin-track approach is working, and our conclusion has been that both gender mainstreaming and the dedicated gender actions remain necessary, but that the balance is indeed uneven. So for the next period, the challenge is no longer simply getting gender into programming, into the policy documents, but the challenge is now to make sure it shapes implementation, budgets, economic opportunities, and decision-making. So, next slide please. So, starting with the good news, the EU has built over the past decade a really ambitious framework, especially under the current NDICI-Global Europe regulation.

We have these binding targets: at least 85% of new actions should contribute to gender equality, and then within that group, 5% should have gender as a principal objective.

And these targets have been tremendously powerful, together with other tools developed and bureaucratic innovations, including gender focal persons, the network, gender analysis, clips, have really made gender equality a routine management issue across EU development cooperation. So you also see this in the data, especially for NDICI-Global Europe, the EU has come really close to the gender mainstreaming target. Between 2021 and 2024, 84% of NDICI actions were marked G1 or G2, but only 4% of those were G2. So what we see is that especially gender mainstreaming has expanded considerably, including into previously untouched areas such as energy, infrastructure, digitalization, but dedicated gender action remains the thinner track. Next slide, please.

And this matters because the two tracks do really different things, and you need both of them.