Do international training programmes on gen- der equality have transformative potential? - An exploration into a gender programme.

Sammanfattning: This is an exploratory study attempting to expand the limited literature covering international training programmes (ITPs) with a gender focus. ITPs are a capacity development tool used by organisations such as, among others, Sida. This study focused on one such gender ITP called “Local Democracy and Social Sustainabil- ity with a Gender Perspective”, which was conducted by the International Centre for Local Democracy (ICLD). The question addressed in this study was whether the Gender programme was transformative or integrationist. To answer this ques- tion, arguments were used from debates about gender mainstreaming, about the strategies towards gender equality and about transformative versus integrationist capacity of such strategies. Fieldwork was also conducted in Serbia, one of the participating countries of the Gender programme, with interviews comprising a large part of this effort. The study found that there were some transformative as- pects to the Gender ITP but that there were also several issues, such as a failure to both challenge power and social relationships and acknowledge the existence of an active opposition to gender equality.