Gender equality humanitarian organizations worldwide are under growing pressure to move beyond policy commitments and deliver meaningful change on the ground. New open-access research from the Global Strategy Lab investigates how it happens.
On May 15, 2026, Adèle Cassola, Leah Watson, Siri Gloppen, Andrea Morales Caceres, and Steven J. Hoffman published a new two-paper series examining how two major international humanitarian organizations, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the International Rescue Committee (IRC), interpret, adapt, and implement gender equality norms in their policies and operations.
By combining a systematic analysis of organizational documents with 30 staff interviews conducted at headquarters and in country offices in Iraq, Sierra Leone, and Uganda, the series traced the journey from written policy to lived practice.
The analysis of organizational documents found strong alignment with global gender equality frameworks in both organizations, though consistency varied across sectors and country offices. But when the research turned to interviews about what staff experience on the ground, a more complex mosaic emerged: resource constraints, heavy workloads, and the fast-paced nature of humanitarian work create real barriers to gender-transformative programming. Without sustained funding and context-specific guidance, gender commitments risk becoming a tick-box exercise or even producing unintended consequences.
To close that gap between policy and implementation, the authors call for long-term resource commitments, stronger feedback mechanisms between field staff and headquarters, and a whole-of-organization approach to gender integration.
Both papers are published open access in The International Journal of Human Rights. Learn more about the project here.
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