Determinants of Successful Gender Mainstreaming in Public Institutions: A Critical Narrative Synthesis
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Gender mainstreaming is widely endorsed as a strategic approach to gender equality in public governance, yet formal adoption does not consistently translate into institutional change. This paper synthesises scholarly evidence on the determinants of successful gender mainstreaming in public institutions, with particular attention to political commitment, institutional architecture, organisational culture, implementation capacity, resources, accountability, evidence systems, representation and inter-institutional coordination. The review is conducted as a critical narrative synthesis, informed by PRISMA 2020 reporting principles for transparency and assessed against the SANRA quality criteria for narrative reviews, rather than as a fully exhaustive, database-coded systematic review. Twelve core empirical and policy sources, verified against their original publication records, form the evidential backbone of the synthesis, supplemented by recent bibliometric work mapping the wider field. The evidence indicates that successful mainstreaming is multidimensional. The most consistently reported determinants are senior political and managerial commitment, clear institutional mandates, implementation capacity, gender competence, adequate resources, accountability mechanisms and organisational cultures that support rather than resist gender equality. Empirical studies further show that implementation varies according to the discretion and role perceptions of public servants, the distribution of authority, the availability of gender-disaggregated evidence, and the extent to which gender considerations are connected to budgeting, planning, monitoring and evaluation. The review draws a persistent distinction between procedural mainstreaming, which may produce policies, focal points, training and reporting without altering institutional power relations, and transformative mainstreaming, in which gender equality becomes consequential in decisions about resources, organisational routines, services and authority. An Institutional Gender Mainstreaming Success Model is proposed, in which political commitment and institutional architecture create enabling conditions while capacity, resources, accountability, data and organisational culture mediate implementation. The review concludes that public institutions should judge mainstreaming by changes in institutional practice and gender-equitable outcomes, rather than by the existence of gender policies alone.
Author: Roseline Onego
Institution: Kampala International University
Language: English
Subfield: Gender Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W7213787223