Gender lost and gender found: BRAC's GQAL Programme

This article describes and analyses the Gender Quality Action-Learning (GQAL) Programme of BRAC, a large rural development NGO in Bangladesh. This works with men and women field-staff and managers in a process of issue-analysis, action planning, and implementation (the GQAL cycle) to address organisational change and programme quality concerns that is informed by an understanding of gender. Gender, meaning women or the relations between men and women, is sometimes lost as deeper issues of power and instrumentality surface. The greatest challenge for the Programme now is to explore the gendered nature of both, and find ways to change gender bias along with other organisational, structural, and process features that promote gender inequity both within BRAC and in the delivery and impact of its social change objectives.