This paper is prompted by our own gender review of Knowledge Services (KS) and the Mobilising Knowledge for Development (MK4D) programme at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS). We realised that while gender has been dealt with as a strategic issue by some within IDS (particularly BRIDGE and some of the IDS Fellows), gender equality has not been an explicit focus in the overarching strategies of KS, MK4D or IDS to date.

We decided to undertake a gender review as the first step in a broader gender mainstreaming process to measure what we are doing on gender equality, and more specifically, what we do well and where we can improve. Having explored our own foundations for a gender mainstreaming process, we are sharing these early findings and practice, to enable others within the intermediary sector and beyond to see what the practicalities of a gender mainstreaming process are.