ABSTRACT Legislative frameworks that support gender equality are crucial for addressing structural inequalities, protecting women's rights, and achieving gender‐equitable land degradation neutrality (LDN) outcomes. This study examines the extent to which national‐level policies and legislation governing LDN and related sectors incorporate gender considerations and assesses their potential to advance gender‐equitable LDN outcomes. The analysis focuses on Nigeria—a country severely affected by land degradation and a long history of gender marginalisation. We applied a gender analytical framework that captures three broad levels of gender engagement: (1) gender mainstreaming, (2) experience of gender and (3) the degree of action taken to reduce gender inequality. The analysis revealed three main findings. First, foundational laws and outdated policies, including the Nigerian Constitution and the Land Use Act, are largely ineffective in advancing gender‐equitable LDN. These laws use gender‐neutral language that obscures systemic disparities and lack enforceable mechanisms to protect women's land rights and ensure their participation in governance. Second, more recent policies (developed within the past decade) demonstrate moderate to high levels of gender engagement. They incorporate gender‐focused measures such as advocating for women's land rights, promoting gender‐balanced decision‐making, ensuring gender‐sensitive financing and improving gender‐disaggregated data. Third, despite Nigeria's stated gender commitments, gender integration within LDN‐related laws remains largely symbolic, offering superficial acknowledgment of gender disparities without prioritising enforceable measures to address structural inequalities. Advancing gender‐equitable LDN outcomes in Nigeria requires shifting from symbolic recognition to enforceable reforms that challenge discriminatory norms and practices. This study offers actionable insights for policymakers in Nigeria and other LDN‐committed countries seeking to enhance gender integration in legal frameworks.

This study examines the implementation and effectiveness of gender mainstreaming strategies in agricultural extension services across four districts of Uttar Pradesh, India. Using a descriptive research design, the study surveyed 60 extension personnel across Hamirpur, Unnao, Amethi, and Agra districts. The research findings reveals significant gender disparities within extension services, with women comprising only 21.67 percent of the extension personnel and 93.33 percent of the organisations reporting merely 0-20.00 percent female field officers. Despite these imbalances, 70.00 percent of the extension personnel actively implement gender-inclusive strategies, including minimum participation quotas, collaboration with women’s groups, and schedule adapted to accommodate women’s needs. The study finds that 81.67 percent of the personnel consistently collected sex-disaggregated data, though implementation challenges persist, including insufficient fund, cultural constraints, and logistic barriers. Critical gender mainstreaming activities include gender sensitivity training, partnerships with Anganwadi workers, establishment of women’s Self-Help Groups, mobile-based advisory services, and technical workshops. The research study highlights the need for increased recruitment of female extension officers, enhanced monitoring systems, and dedicated funding for gender-focused programs to address persistent gaps in agricultural extension services. These findings contribute to understanding the current state of gender mainstreaming in agricultural extension and provide actionable recommendations for improving gender equality in agricultural development.

This research endeavors to examine the potentials and constraints of gender-inclusive diplomacy in Pakistan by using a framework of intersectional feminism. Notwithstanding the progress at the international level in integrating gender inclusivity into foreign policy, women in Pakistan could not be promoted in the foreign service and diplomatic structures. While figures such as Ms Maryam Nawaz, Ms Maleeha Lodhi, Ms Hina Rabbani Khar, and Benazir Bhutto show women’s potential role in the diplomatic sphere. I take their presence to reaffirm symbolic markers rather than systemic change. This study raises a question: what structural, cultural, and institutional barriers restrict women’s participation in Pakistan’s foreign policy-making? Methodologically, the study employs qualitative research analyzing frameworks of gender equality in politics and Foreign Affairs. Comparative analysis with feminist foreign policy models offers a yardstick for evaluating Pakistan’s approach. Findings uncover that women's exclusion is not merely based on gender but is designed by intersecting factors of religion, class, and regional identity. Gender mainstreaming efforts in Pakistan remain limited, as they often fail to account for these layered identities. The study concludes that women’s representation is inadequate to accomplish inclusivity. Therefore, Pakistan must adopt structural reforms, including training opportunities and new employment frameworks for women. Since gender inclusive diplomacy is a strategic necessity for Pakistan, it should strengthen its diplomatic efficiency, long-term stability and global credibility by including women in diplomacy. Ultimately, inclusive diplomacy emerges not as a symbolic gesture but as a strategic necessity.

Constitutional Court Decision Number 169/PUU-XXII/2024 is a new chapter in the struggle for gender mainstreaming in Indonesia through a legal approach. This study aims to analyse the significance of this decision as a progressive legal instrument to promote gender equality in legislative institutions. The research method uses normative juridice research. The findings reveal that this decision reconstructs the MD3 Law with two major breakthroughs: first, it reinforces the phrase ‘prioritising women's representation’ at the leadership level of the Council's Organs as an imperative command; second, it requires the proportional distribution of female members throughout the Council's Organs based on the principles of balance and equity. The implications of this ruling structurally transform the political landscape of parliament by preventing the domestication of women and opening up access to participation in all policy areas.

Women play a crucial role in accelerating the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 5, which focuses on gender equality. At the village level, women's participation in planning and policy formulation through the Village Action Plan (RADes). This research employs a descriptive-analytical method, collecting data from literature, policies, regulations, statistical reports, and studies related to women's empowerment and the implementation of the SDGs in the village. The results show that women make a significant contribution to village development achievements, including improvements in the quality of human resources, family welfare, and environmental sustainability. However, limited representation of women in decision-making forums, gender-biased social norms, budget planning that is not fully gender responsive, and limited disaggregated data are still obstacles. The Village SDGs, the Women-Friendly and Child-Caring Village (DRPPA) program, and RADes demonstrate positive developments in expanding women's leadership and promoting peaceful, gender-equitable village governance. Therefore, strengthening gender mainstreaming, capacity building, institutional support, and monitoring mechanisms are needed to ensure women's transformative role in sustainable development at the village level.

Abstract Indonesia's vigorous support of the ASEAN Gender Mainstreaming Strategic Framework (AGMSF) presents a compelling paradox. Despite possessing a comprehensive domestic legal architecture for gender equality, its championing of a regional framework appears redundant. This article argues that the apparent contradiction reflects a dual-track strategy in which regional norm-building is used to reinforce domestic governance while enhancing Indonesia’s standing in ASEAN. It examines Indonesia’s framing of the AGMSF, the factors shaping the translation of regional commitments into national practice, and how global gender norms are articulated alongside locally grounded ethical narratives. The article adopts a qualitative descriptive-analytical design grounded in constructivist International Relations. Data come from analysis of the AGMSF, Indonesian and ASEAN policy documents and official statements, and relevant scholarly and policy literature. Qualitative content analysis, supported by selective discourse analysis, is used to trace dominant themes and justifications. Findings show that Indonesia positions itself as a norm entrepreneur and presents the AGMSF as a non-coercive, capacity-building vehicle for localizing global gender equality principles to fit the ASEAN Way. It is also framed as an external lever for peer learning and reputational incentives to address persistent implementation gaps at home. The article concludes that the AGMSF is a strategic supplement rather than a redundant policy layer. It contributes to limited scholarship on ASEAN gender governance by linking norm entrepreneurship, regional institutionalism, and value negotiation. The findings imply that regionally resonant frameworks can strengthen domestic implementation and call for future comparative and field-based research across member states.

Topicality. The full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the russian federation has had a profound effect on the country's economy, resulting in widespread closures, relocations, and business pivots among small businesses. However, a countervailing dynamic has become evident. From August 2022 to February 2025, the number of newly registered small businesses increased from 132,000 to 763,000, while 685,000 ceased operations over the same period, indicating intense churn and renewal. In the context of this period of renewal, there has been a marked increase in the visibility of women as economic actors. The proportion of women among new sole proprietors has increased to 61%, with significant regional variations and sectoral patterns that show a tendency towards services, education, retail, and garment production. In contrast, men continue to be concentrated in construction, transport, logistics, and programming. In light of the aforementioned context, the article addresses a policy problem that has not yet been resolved: namely, the question of how public regulation and support can be designed in such a manner as to transform women's small businesses from a survival response into a durable driver of territorial communities recovery. Aim and tasks. The research is aimed on the development of the mechanisms of state support for women's small business in the territorial communities of Ukraine in the context of post-war recoveryn and European integration. The tasks of the study include the analysis of tendencies of women's small business development in Ukraine under the modern challenges, study of the national and EU institutional basis for the women's small businesses development, design of the model state program for the development of women's entrepreneurship support, with mechanisms and tools for its implementation. Materials and methods. Methodologically, the study combines descriptive analytics with a targeted SWOT analysis of women's entrepreneurship at the community level, identifying the following: strengths (motivation, adaptability, social orientation); weaknesses (limited finance, skills gaps, network deficits); opportunities (donor support, digital markets, PPPs, gender mainstreaming); and threats (macroeconomic volatility, labour shortages, inflation, entrenched bias). In order to internationalize the lens, the paper aligns national measures with the European Commission's A Guide to Fostering Women's Entrepreneurship (awareness, lifelong entrepreneurial learning, access to finance, umbrella networks, data/analytics), mapping each action to feasible Ukrainian instruments. Research results. The article presents a comprehensive model of public support for women’s small entrepreneurship in the context of territorial communities post-war recovery, which is built upon five interrelated components. First, financial inclusion encompasses access to grants, state guarantees, concessional loans, and vouchers for rental and equipment. Second, an important element is “smart” regulation and the provision of priority access for women entrepreneurs to the public procurement system. Third, the educational and mentoring dimension covers the establishment of regional entrepreneurship development centres, training programmes in financial and digital literacy, as well as mentoring from experienced experts. The fourth block incorporates infrastructural and social factors, including the operation of business incubators, co-working centres, the development of women’s cooperatives, and expanded access to social services, particularly preschool education and eldercare. Finally, the fifth dimension consists of social and communication measures aimed at promoting women’s success stories, creating networking platforms for experience exchange, and conducting information campaigns. The proposed model is tailored to the needs of territorial communities and is designed to strengthen social cohesion by prioritizing support for internally displaced women, female veterans, and residents of the regions most affected by the war. Conclusion. The findings suggest that harmonizing Ukrainian policy with EU practice, while tailoring instruments to local constraints, can raise business survival, expand decent employment, and strengthen fiscal resilience at the municipal level. The contribution is twofold: firstly, it consolidates a fragmented support landscape into a coherent, gender-responsive policy architecture; and secondly, it offers a practical roadmap for embedding women's small entrepreneurship in territorial recovery strategies. Subsequent endeavours will centre on the formulation of a succinct indicator system to oversee outcomes, encompassing business creation and survival, finance access, job quality, and social inclusion. This will facilitate rigorous evaluation and iterative enhancement of support programmes.

In Zimbabwe, climate change and entrenched gender disparities in agriculture, where women form 70% of smallholder farmers, demand urgent policy action. Women face systemic barriers like patriarchal land ownership (only 28% with formal titles), time poverty (20-hour workdays), and exclusion from climate committees (61% barred). Using mixed methods (a survey of 420 households, 24 focus group discussions [FGDs], and 9 interviews; SPSS 28, NVivo 14), this study evaluates gender-responsive climate-smart agriculture (GR-CSA) effectiveness in Chivi District, with broader relevance for sub-Saharan Africa. Results show that while 89% of CSA programmes claim gender mainstreaming, only 14% offer childcare, a critical gap given 78% of women care for children under five. Solar irrigation schemes reduce water collection time by 32% and boost yields by 45%, but male-dominated extension systems (89% lack female agents) perpetuate knowledge asymmetries. The study quantifies a 9.8-hour daily gender labour gap, explaining low CSA adoption rates (OR=0.43 for female-headed households). The findings reposition GR-CSA as a practical human rights issue, aligning with CEDAW and the SDGs (notably SDG 5 and 13), which mandate equitable resource access, decision-making participation, and protection from systemic discrimination in climate adaptation. This research provides robust quantitative evidence on gendered adoption barriers and advocates for legally binding quotas, labour-saving technology subsidies, and gender-responsive budgeting to address the $100M annual productivity gap identified by UNDP (2022). The study underscores that gender equity in agriculture is both a legal and moral obligation, and that transformative policy is essential for realising women’s rights and climate resilience in Zimbabwe and similar agrarian contexts.

The study aims to evaluate gender mainstreaming efforts at a state university in Cebu. It examines the pillars of tertiary education: instruction, research, extension, and production, as well as the entry points of gender mainstreaming: projects, policies, people, and enabling mechanisms. The respondents are represented by the different stakeholders: administrators, GAD focal persons, faculty, non-teaching staff, and students. Interviews with duty bearers and focus group discussions with claimholders were conducted to gather responses from key informants. The study shows that duty bearers have initiated efforts to mainstream gender in the institution. It also presents challenges in gender mainstreaming, as described by respondents. In addition, the results point out that the lack of understanding and appreciation of gender mainstreaming resulted in superficial implementation in the university. It further recommends increasing capacity-building seminars to improve awareness and appreciation of gender mainstreaming.

Gender equality experiences both progress and setbacks at the national and international levels. It has nevertheless become a normative principle of global governance, promoted and materialized through international instruments such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Beijing Platform for Action, and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. However, the integration and implementation of these commitments at the national level reveal persistent tensions between international discourse and the institutional practices of States. The objective of this article is to analyze how internal power structures condition the fulfillment of international gender equality regimes, using Costa Rica as a representative case study. Drawing on the doctoral research Analysis of Political-Institutional Dissonances in Gender Mainstreaming: The Case of Public Policies in Costa Rica (2018–2024) (Calvo, 2025), it examines the gap between the international commitments assumed by the Costa Rican State and the effectiveness of its national public policy on gender equality, focusing on the implementation of the National Policy for Equality and Gender Equity (PIEG 2018–2030). The article is based on a theoretical-critical analysis that connects domestic politics with the international human rights system, through a qualitative approach. The theoretical framework integrates contributions from Feminist International Relations theory, Social Constructivism, Neoinstitutionalism, and Feminist Foreign Policy, to explain how international gender equality norms are created, diffused, and internalized, and how these dynamics are mediated by power relations and the institutional capacities of States. The results show that political-institutional dissonances—conceptual, normative, structural-administrative, symbolic-discursive, cultural-subjective, organizational-governance, and technical-methodological—reflect the tension between the country’s international legitimacy and the limitations of its state structure in achieving coherent compliance with multilateral commitments. The article concludes that gender mainstreaming in Costa Rica’s public policies is a political process conditioned by power relations and institutional culture, in which political will emerges as a key variable for institutional transformation and for ensuring coherence between domestic policy and international projection. This study contributes to the field of International Relations by positioning gender equality as a central axis for analyzing power, legitimacy, and global governance.

Gender mainstreaming in social work education requires moving beyond policy commitments to ensure that gender perspectives are meaningfully integrated into teaching and learning. This study examines how gender-responsive pedagogy is implemented in a Spanish public university and how these practices relate to students’ self-efficacy for gender-sensitive social work. A sample of 166 undergraduate students completed validated measures of gender-responsive teaching, self-efficacy, and institutional climate. The instruments demonstrated strong psychometric performance. Results indicate that while gender-related content is incorporated into curricula, practice-oriented and participatory pedagogies are less consistently used. Students reported high confidence in gender knowledge and attitudes but lower confidence in applied skills. Teaching methods, rather than content coverage, showed the strongest associations with self-efficacy. Institutional reforms at the degree and course levels were positively linked to teaching practices and student outcomes, whereas governance-level changes showed weaker associations. These findings highlight the importance of aligning institutional commitments with pedagogical innovation to advance gender equality in social work education.

This article examines how gender is co-produced by humans, technologies, and institutions in Indonesian higher education, reframing “gender literacy” as a posthuman assemblage rather than an individual competence. Existing studies on gender education largely focus on attitudes, curriculum content, or gender mainstreaming outcomes, leaving underexplored how learning management systems, surveillance, uniforms, and administrative forms silently encode and enforce gender norms. Addressing this gap, the study proposes a framework of posthuman gender literacies that maps intra-actions among students, devices, platforms, and regulatory texts. Motivated by tensions between state commitments to gender equality, ed-tech expansion, and persistent exclusion of non-normative bodies, the research seeks to clarify how seemingly neutral educational technologies reproduce or unsettle gender binaries. Methodologically, the study employs qualitative multi-sited research in two Indonesian universities, combining policy analysis, platform/interface walkthroughs, and critical multimodal discourse analysis of online classrooms, forms, and assessment dashboards. Preliminary findings indicate that platform defaults, data categories, and interfaces strongly steer students toward binary, heteronormative identities while also opening small spaces for tactical subversion. These insights inform national gender mainstreaming agendas and campus-level governance. The article concludes by outlining policy implications for gender-responsive ed-tech design, institutional data categories, and lecturer training oriented to posthuman gender justice.

ABSTRACT The climate crisis deepens existing social inequalities, disproportionately affecting women and girls in low-income, subsistence-farming communities. While numerous initiatives have sought to integrate gender considerations into climate change policies, progress remains limited. This article examines climate change–related policies in Central America through a feminist institutional lens to understand why gender integration in policy design and implementation continues to lag. Using an abductive approach and qualitative analysis of policies and interviews with policy implementers, the study explores how institutional norms, values, and practices shape the (lack of) progress in gender mainstreaming. The analysis shows that institutions involved in climate policy function as inequality regimes, where gender equality is often treated as peripheral. As a result, gender integration efforts tend to produce oversimplified solutions, weak gender units, and insufficient resource allocation.

Purpose In the contemporary business landscape, the interplay of gender, sustainability and digitalization has emerged as a critical factor influencing firm performance. This study aims to systematically integrate scientific knowledge on these dynamics through a comprehensive literature review, identifying key trends and themes that link gender diversity policies, technological innovations and firm outcomes. Design/methodology/approach The study conducted a comprehensive literature review of 211 journal articles, with 63 selected for in-depth analysis using PRISMA. Thematic clusters were identified through qualitative analysis, focusing on how gender diversity, sustainability and digitalization contribute to firm performance. Findings Five thematic clusters were identified: “Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Environmental Management,” “Gender Diversity, Sustainable Development and Digital Platforms,” “Academic Research, Motivation and AI/Technology in Learning,” “Adoption and Behavioral Intention in Technology Use” and “Performance in Business and Agriculture with a Focus on Environmental Impact.” The findings demonstrate that integrating gender equality with sustainability initiatives and digital education enhances organizational adaptability and resilience. Gender diversity was also found to significantly foster innovation capabilities, making sustainability a strategic element that drives superior financial performance. The role of technology in bridging gender gaps and promoting equitable business practices was emphasized, showcasing its potential to empower women. Research limitations/implications The study is limited by its reliance on secondary data from journal articles, which may introduce selection bias. Future research could benefit from primary data collection to further validate these findings. Originality/value This study provides a novel integration of gender diversity, sustainability and digitalization in the context of firm performance. It highlights the synergistic effects of these factors on innovation and organizational success, advocating for gender mainstreaming and digitalization as essential strategies for sustainable management aligned with the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs).

The Philippines, with its commitment to gender equality, mandates all government agencies, including local units, to institutionalize gender mainstreaming across their systems, programs, and policies from the highest offices down to the barangays. Positioned at the grassroots, barangays have unique potential to advance gender equality in local communities. Despite national gender mainstreaming policies, significant gaps persist at the grassroots in translating them into concrete, measurable actions. This quantitative research aimed to examine the descriptive and associative relationships between the organizational competency and institutional capacity of rural barangays in relation to gender mainstreaming, and the extent of gender integration in the delivery of basic services and facilities. A descriptive correlational study was conducted among 200 barangay leaders and constituents in selected barangays in the province of Iloilo, Philippines in 2025, using a survey instrument. Results revealed that as an institution, the barangay has limited competency and capacity to fully implement gender mainstreaming. The delivery of basic services and facilities in the barangay is embedded with gender mainstreaming to a sensitive level. The competency and institutional capacity of the barangay council as an institution appear to have no relation or influence on the level of gender mainstreaming in the delivery of basic services and facilities, which means that other factors may be contributing to gender perspectives in service delivery. The barangay under study remains in the early stages of gender mainstreaming and can benefit from the assistance of other organizations for the capability building and enhancement of their gender mainstreaming strategies. Keywords: Public administration, Barangay Governance, Gender and Development, grassroots communities, Philippines

Disasters, gender and human trafficking, while viewed together, present a complex challenge that disproportionately affects the vulnerable and marginalised. Natural and man-made disasters create conditions that worsen socio-economic vulnerabilities and increase the risk of trafficking. While exogenous factors such as natural or man-made disasters do not discriminate based on gender, endogenous factors such as people’s vulnerability, arising from poor socio-economic conditions and cultural constructs, do inhibit the female gender more. This often places women and children at greater risk of crimes of human trafficking. Over 90% of those trafficked for sexual exploitation are women and girls. The study attempts to see this gender-linked trafficking dimension in various phases of disasters—whether before, during and after—with particular attention to gender-based vulnerabilities. Engaging a calibrated view of secondary data sets coupled with proxy indicators used in some countries in this region, this article attempts to provide insights into the indirect—if not unicausal or direct—impacting nexus between the triad, namely gender, disasters and human trafficking, influencing the probability of trafficking. Harnessing the documented experiences of both natural disasters and man-made disasters, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the article reiterates the criticality of the gender component in shaping and navigating the differential influence of such events on the gendered experiences as well as the engendering of resilience to overcome the negative impacts of disasters, including human trafficking. The emerging trend is increased online trafficking, including in disasters, adding to the existing complexity of making the three Ps—prevention, protection and prosecution—of women subjected to human trafficking even more challenging. However, the article positions the actor perspective of women, namely women’s critical negotiating role in the interplay of disaster and human trafficking to women’s and thereby society’s advantage. The hybrid approach to physical and virtual trafficking in mitigating the disaster-driven trafficking of women and girls is the central theme of this article. It argues for the prioritisation and embedding of anti-human trafficking initiatives into disaster relief efforts, both short and medium terms, for sustainable impact in the long term. Consequently, with women-centred community participation as an essential stakeholder in all phases of disasters, anti-human trafficking initiatives can be sown, nurtured and promoted, and its adverse gender impact, including trafficking, can be offset. This requires gender mainstreaming policies and programmes based on risk assessments within the overarching approach to disaster management.

The article analyzes the role of the Public Prosecutor’s Office in promoting and guaranteeing gender public policies based on CNMP Recommendations No. 02/2023 and No. 03/2025, which consolidate a resolutive and anti-patriarchal paradigm. Using a qualitative, legal-analytical, and interdisciplinary approach, it examines normative frameworks, specialized literature, and institutional experiences. Despite formal advances, structural challenges persist, such as ministerial fragmentation, resistance to gender mainstreaming, and lack of integrated data. Achieving gender justice requires cultural change and continuous critical training. Feminist criminology is essential to overcome revictimizing practices and build transformative institutional responses.

ABSTRACT Since its establishment in 1945, UNESCO’s approach to gender equality in education has progressed through four key phases: legal provision for equal access to educational resources, education to enable female participation in economic development, addressing power dynamics to advance female development, and gender mainstreaming for empowerment. These shifts reflect a dynamic interaction between institutional frameworks, global priorities, and evolving theoretical perspectives. However, the gender equality strategies promoted by UNESCO have not fundamentally addressed the structural inequities within educational systems. The limitations of these strategies include the reproduction of gendered power relations, biases in global universalist narratives, and the absence of intersectional perspectives. UNESCO’s reliance on a liberal feminist framework tends to reduce complex gender politics to technocratic solutions that align with neoliberal ideals, thus limiting more radical critiques of the Global North’s dominant discourse. To foster true gender equality, it is essential to transform educational systems, decolonize knowledge, and strengthen the agency and voice of intersectionally marginalized groups.

This study focuses on women's vocational training policies and systematically compares differences in policy objectives, implementation mechanisms, gender responsiveness, and social outcomes across Shanghai, the UK, and Hong Kong through textual analysis and empirical comparison. The findings reveal three key trends: Shanghais policies prioritize adaptability to new employment forms and migrant womens needs; the UK faces structural challenges of gendered occupational segregation; and Hong Kong uses flexible mechanisms to address the balance between family care and employment. Based on these insights, the study proposes a womens training policy system centered on demand precision, mechanism flexibility, and gender mainstreaming to support migrant womens career development.

Gender inequality in education remains a persistent development issue across Indonesia, particularly in the eastern regions such as Nagekeo Regency, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT). This paper examines how cultural, structural, and policy-related factors interact to shape unequal access, participation, and outcomes between male and female students. Using a qualitative descriptive approach through document analysis of government reports, statistical data, and academic publications, the study identifies that early marriage, heavy domestic workloads, and patriarchal norms significantly restrict educational participation among girls. Despite the presence of national and regional gender mainstreaming policies, their implementation in Nagekeo has not yet achieved transformative results. The findings highlight that gender inequality in education is not merely an issue of access but also of power relations and social structures that continue to reproduce disparities. The study concludes that integrating gender-responsive budgeting, community awareness campaigns, and capacity building for local governments is essential to promote inclusive education and sustainable human development in eastern Indonesia.