Can organizational frameworks drive institutional change and results for gender equality? A case study of UNICEF

The international development architecture, including multilateral institutions such as the United Nations, continues to play a significant role in the movement for gender equality. How development organizations are structured and how they work can contribute to reinforcing gender inequality or to dismantling it progressively. We apply Gender at Work’s analytical framework – which focuses on the organization as both a solution and a problem – to the case of the United Nations Children’s Fund, to understand whether and how its organizational frameworks and policies since the 1980s have contributed to the project of advancing gender equality. We find that gender-equality policies and action plans have succeeded in framing the organization’s values and principles on gender equality, have helped define its programmatic focus, and have served as internal and external advocacy tools. While they have improved awareness of the importance of gender equality and been supported by senior leadership, including through enhanced resource allocations, they do not have broad-based ownership yet, and the work relies on individual commitment across the organization, which varies. Internally, men and women have similar perceptions of the importance of work on gender equality but experience the organization and the workplace very differently, showing that the organization still has work to do to create truly inclusive and egalitarian workplaces.