Reflection and Action Tool: Integrating a Life Course Approach in Programming with Boys & Men for Greater Gender Equality

"Taken together, gender transformative programs that apply the life course principles more thoroughly have greater potential for long term impacts and achieving gender equity."

Developed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded Passages Project, the Reflection and Action Tool is designed to help users identify strategic programme entry points for engaging boys and men to foster gender equality. It is grounded in life course theory, which is an approach for analysing people's lives within structural, social, and cultural contexts. Applying a life course approach to programming with boys and men allows programmes to:

• Identify social norms and other factors that influence behaviours or programme outcomes during a particular life stage or transition;
• Understand when and how gender roles related to masculine norms change over the life course; and
• Identify opportunities to improve the health and wellbeing of men and boys, and for greater gender equality.

The life course approach emerges from the theory that one's life course is a series of age-related patterns of behaviour reflected in social institutions, personal experience, and social history in ways that give meaning to the passage of biological time. (See Related Summaries, below.) Using this approach for boys and men allows programmes to factor in the unique opportunities and challenges of specific life course stages and transitions: childhood through adolescence and adulthood. The five life course principles - lifespan, agency, time and place, timing, and linked lives - can have powerful effects on individuals' relationships, health, violence prevention, livelihoods, employment, and learning (formal education and otherwise).

The Reflection and Action Tool is divided into sections based on three phases of the programme cycle - design, implementation, and monitoring & evaluation - with the five life course principles woven throughout for consideration. In each section, the tool offers questions (general and programme-focused) to consider and actions to take. The questions are linked to suggested actions and are meant to help programmers and implementers reflect on how they can be most effective in engaging boys and men for gender transformation in that programme cycle phase. Meanwhile, the actions act as recommendations for activities to integrate a life course approach into that programme phase. Each section includes illustrative case studies and additional resources.

The Passages Project suggest use of the Reflection and Action Tool in a participatory team-based setting, such as a half-day team workshop during programme design. It can be used by practitioners of international development programmes, working in any discipline. To support note-taking and documentation of discussions, Annex 3 provides a template for adaptation and use during project reflections.