Abstract:
Gender mainstreaming has been the most “modern” policy approach to gender
equality, all over the globe. It also serves as a policy strategy to ensure equality
for women in society. Sri Lanka is seriously pondering on uplifting gender
mainstreaming strategies in the 21st century. This study investigates the extent of
development in gender mainstreaming in Sri Lanka from 1978 to 2015. The main
aim of the research was to examine the nature and adapting levels of gender
mainstreaming during the period under investigation to explore related initiatives
and their implementation in the country over three specific periods. To explore
Sri Lanka’s progress, data were gathered from government-developed documents
focused on economic policy through documentary analysis employing both
qualitative content analysis and thematic analysis. Both the literature review and
the findings of the analysis of policy documents revealed two key findings.
Despite Sri Lanka’s efforts to incorporate a gender perspective to a certain extent
in its policy process, it appears that these attempts lack genuineness towards
establishing gender mainstreaming as a new policy strategy. Instead, the focus
has often been substantial on gender mainstreaming within donor-funded
projects. Notably, Sri Lanka lacks a consistent, well-developed national policy
on gender mainstreaming. The study reveals that in Sri Lanka, gender
mainstreaming is frequently conducted symbolically, leading to the consequence
that a majority of economic policies are gender-blind. Moreover, none of the
policy documents focuses on women, who are engaged in informal sector
employment nor cater to women´s needs. Further, it is apparent that many of the
documents are largely concerned with the ‘practical needs of women’ or
‘practical gender needs’ or ‘welfare programmes’ for women rather than
‘strategic gender mainstreaming’.
