Our societies are marked by stark inequality and the exclusion of different people, including women and girls, people with disabilities, LGBTQI+ people, and ethnic and religious minorities.
At SDDirect, we work with communities, civil society, governments, businesses and others to foster a culture of active citizenship and greater accountability of all those who hold power.
We work to build inclusive societies where every citizen and community is valued and empowered to make their own choices about their development, act on these choices, and hold duty-bearers to account.
By applying a gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) lens, poor and socially excluded people can be better supported to access and claim knowledge, resources, rights and services. This allows them to participate in public life and build fairer, more inclusive communities and become active agents of change.
Our work is technically focused and grounded in practice which is objective and unbiased. Key products and services include:
Gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) analysis, strategy development, training and implementation support
GESI-aware political economy analysis (PEA), including SDDirect’s Gender, Inclusion, Power & Politics (GIPP) analysis
Design and advisory support to active citizenship, community voice and participation, and social accountability initiatives
Fast response ‘helpdesk’ facilities to provide the latest available evidence and analysis on key issues and questions
Disability inclusion mainstreaming, research, review, and analysis
Facilitation and advisory support to more inclusive and equitable development partnership-building
Development of ethical, ‘do no harm’ and safeguarding frameworks
Stakeholder mapping, engagement, and facilitation of multi-stakeholder dialogue
Monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) for governance-related programmes
Inclusive services, including promoting access to education and health services, including sexual and reproductive health and rights.
We provide technical leadership on GESI in governance programmes, including developing GESI strategies and promoting GESI mainstreaming throughout programmes. We take an innovative ‘looking inwards and outwards’ approach, working on GESI inclusion within our partnerships and consortiums as well as our programme work.
We deliver GIS programming in a diverse range of country contexts, including development and emergency settings. We take an intersectional approach to understanding and challenging the structural barriers that people face to social inclusion, including discrimination based on gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, and other factors.
If you would like to hear more about our work on Governance and Inclusive Societies (GIS), please reach out to Emma Haegeman, Head of Governance and Inclusive Societies Portfolio, EmmaHaegeman@sddirect.org.uk
A learning synthesis of the La Pépinière programme (French version).
The mini-pilots focused on adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) economic empowerment in the areas of mobile money/savings; social capital and inspirational role models; and social media interaction. The results of all three mini-pilots exceeded expectations in terms of improving financial independence, whilst two demonstrated improvements in AGYW decision-making on the use of their savings.
In 2016 we designed an Economic Empowerment Index for adolescent girls and young women. This index was rolled out through a large-scale quantitative survey, allowing us to test various hypotheses related to adolescent girls' and young women's economic empowerment. This report outlines the concepts, definitions, use and application of the Economic Empowerment Index for the Young Women and Adolescents in the Kinshasa context.
Qualitative study on norms and practices around romantic relationships, sexual intercourse and marriage of adolescent girls and young women in Kinshasa (French version).
Final report on 'The realities of adolescent girls and young women in Kinshasa: research about girls, by girls'. See below links to the full report, executive summary, and French version.
Report on adolescent girls and young women’s transitions and trajectories to economic empowerment (French version below).
To assess the potential for innovation, the La Pépinière programme completed an evidence review of "what works" to economically empower adolescent girls and young women. This contributed to the design of three 'mini-pilots' which ran from 2016-17 to test "what works" to economically empower adolescent girls and young women, and how to tackle the social norms that constrain their opportunities.
The Girl-Led Research Unit (GLRU) toolkit provides valuable material (describing approaches, exercises, etc) for those interested in pursuing peer-led research with adolescent girls. See French version below.
La Pépinière's programme approach was underpinned by its clear Participation Principles, which included meaningful engagement and valuing girls' time and contributions. These principles aimed to ensure girls' realities were understood and integrated into the design of research, pilot projects, and capacity building activities.
Four case studies were developed during the La Pépinière programme. La Pépinière's Gender Champions (thought leaders identified across civil society, government and the private sector) played a crucial role in these studies, as they worked to identify opportunities for change in key sectors and to implement strategic approaches through complementary activities. The case studies looked at:
