Gender Equality and Legal Frameworks Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Government policy officers, Legal advisers and legislative drafters and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 16 Nov 2026 Course code SD-GPS-063

Before you join: Participants should have practical experience in public policy, development programmes, humanitarian action, law, protection, human resources, social services or gender equality work.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Gender inequality is often sustained by laws that discriminate directly, policies that produce unequal effects, weak enforcement, inaccessible justice systems and public budgets that ignore different needs and risks. Public institutions, development programmes and humanitarian actors need staff who can identify these failures, interpret legal duties and convert commitments into enforceable reforms, funded services and accountable implementation arrangements.

This course examines the legal and institutional foundations of gender equality, from CEDAW, the Beijing Platform for Action and Sustainable Development Goal 5 to constitutional equality guarantees, anti-discrimination law and due diligence obligations. Participants learn to distinguish formal from substantive equality; conduct gender-responsive legal and policy analysis; assess discriminatory provisions; design reform pathways; and address barriers affecting women, girls and people facing intersecting forms of discrimination. The course also addresses gender-based violence, workplace equality, family law, land and property rights, access to justice, gender-responsive budgeting and humanitarian protection.

Teaching combines concise instructor briefings with legal case analysis, policy review, structured group work, simulated stakeholder consultations and application planning. Participants work with examples drawn from public administration, social protection, health, justice, local government, humanitarian response and development programming. They leave with a gender and law intervention package containing a legal analysis template, reform options matrix, implementation roadmap, accountability framework and monitoring indicators. Successful participants receive a certificate of completion.

The course is suited to professionals who already work with public policy, law, programmes, protection, inclusion, governance or service delivery and need stronger practical methods for advancing gender equality through legal and institutional action.

What you will be able to do

  • Interpret CEDAW, Beijing Platform and SDG 5 obligations for public action
  • Apply substantive equality and indirect discrimination tests to laws and policies
  • Conduct a gender-responsive legal and policy analysis using structured review criteria
  • Develop legal reform options addressing discriminatory provisions and enforcement gaps
  • Design access-to-justice measures for survivors of gender-based violence and discrimination
  • Prepare gender-responsive budgeting recommendations linked to legal and policy commitments
  • Build an implementation and accountability framework for gender equality interventions
  • Draft a workplace or programme gender equality action plan with measurable indicators

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Assess laws and policies using recognised equality and non-discrimination tests
  • Contribute credible gender equality recommendations to legislative and policy processes
  • Strengthen professional confidence when engaging lawyers, legislators and senior officials
  • Build practical approaches for addressing gender-based violence and justice barriers
  • Produce an individual application plan for a current institutional or programme challenge

For your organisation

  • Improves alignment between institutional action and international gender equality obligations
  • Reduces risks of discriminatory policies, exclusionary services and weak safeguarding responses
  • Produces clearer legal reform priorities supported by evidence and accountability measures
  • Strengthens gender-responsive budgeting and resource allocation decisions
  • Improves coordination among legal, policy, programme, protection and finance functions

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can interpret core international gender equality obligations and relate them to public duties.

  • Substantive equality, formal equality and indirect discrimination distinguished through legal tests
  • CEDAW obligations mapped to legislative, policy, budget and service duties
  • Beijing Platform commitments connected to institutional accountability mechanisms
  • SDG 5 targets interpreted alongside relevant human rights indicators
  • State due diligence assessed for public and private actor harms
  • Reservations, derogations and progressive realisation analysed against treaty obligations

Participants can assess domestic equality protections and identify discrimination risks in public action.

  • Constitutional equality clauses compared with statutory anti-discrimination protections
  • Protected characteristics and multiple discrimination defined for legal analysis
  • Direct discrimination identified through comparator and differential-treatment reasoning
  • Indirect discrimination tested using disproportionate impact and objective justification
  • Reasonable accommodation requirements applied to disability and caregiving barriers
  • Public sector equality duties translated into operational decision-making requirements

Participants can conduct a structured analysis of legal and policy provisions from a gender perspective.

  • Legal text review structured through rights-holders, duty-bearers and remedies
  • Problem trees separate discriminatory rules from implementation and norm barriers
  • Intersectionality analysis identifies compounded exclusion affecting specific population groups
  • Sex-disaggregated evidence tested for relevance, quality and missing data
  • Equality impact assessment compares intended outcomes with differential actual effects
  • Policy coherence checks align sector rules with constitutional and treaty duties

Participants can develop legally sound and politically feasible gender equality reform proposals.

  • Discriminatory provisions prioritised using severity, prevalence, feasibility and urgency criteria
  • Legislative gap analysis compares existing law with treaty and constitutional standards
  • Reform options distinguish amendment, repeal, regulation, guidance and administrative action
  • Regulatory impact assessment considers costs, benefits and unintended gender effects
  • Stakeholder mapping identifies ministries, legislators, courts, civil society and champions
  • Advocacy messages frame legal reform through rights, evidence and public value

Participants can assess institutional responsibilities for preventing and responding to gender-based violence.

  • Due diligence framework applied to prevention, protection, investigation and redress
  • Survivor-centred approaches protect safety, confidentiality, choice and informed consent
  • Referral pathways map health, police, shelter, legal aid and psychosocial services
  • Risk assessment distinguishes immediate safety threats from longer-term protection needs
  • Criminal, civil and administrative remedies assessed for survivor accessibility
  • Safeguarding procedures linked to reporting channels and accountable case management

Participants can design measures that reduce gender-related barriers to justice and public remedies.

  • Justice journey mapping identifies barriers from reporting through remedy enforcement
  • Legal aid models assessed for affordability, reach, quality and independence
  • Court procedures reviewed for privacy, trauma sensitivity and evidentiary barriers
  • Administrative complaint mechanisms tested for accessibility and timely resolution
  • Community paralegal approaches connected to formal justice and referral systems
  • Institutional data dashboards track case progression, outcomes and unresolved bottlenecks

Participants can identify legal and policy measures that address gender inequality in economic life.

  • Equal pay principles examined through work of equal value methodologies
  • Employment discrimination protections assessed across recruitment, promotion, leave and dismissal
  • Care economy policies analysed using unpaid care and time-use evidence
  • Maternity, paternity and parental leave provisions compared for equality effects
  • Social protection eligibility rules tested for informal work and caregiving exclusions
  • Land, housing and inheritance rights reviewed through gendered ownership patterns

Participants can connect gender equality obligations with public budgets and service delivery decisions.

  • Gender-responsive budgeting links policy commitments, allocations, outputs and outcomes
  • Budget tagging identifies spending relevant to gender equality objectives
  • Benefit incidence analysis examines who receives publicly funded services
  • Public procurement criteria address equal opportunity and supplier labour standards
  • Service standards incorporate safety, accessibility, affordability and time burdens
  • Performance indicators disaggregate coverage, quality, satisfaction and resource distribution

Participants can integrate legal equality duties into development and humanitarian programme decisions.

  • Human rights-based approach assigns participation, accountability, non-discrimination and transparency duties
  • Gender analysis informs needs assessments, targeting criteria and programme theories
  • IASC Gender with Age Marker supports design and monitoring decisions
  • Humanitarian protection risks assessed across displacement, shelter, food and cash assistance
  • Partner due diligence reviews safeguarding, referral capacity and non-discrimination commitments
  • Programme agreements specify gender outcomes, reporting duties and corrective actions

Participants can prepare an actionable plan for implementing and monitoring gender equality interventions.

  • Theory of change links legal reform to institutional and rights-holder outcomes
  • Implementation roadmaps assign actions, owners, milestones, resources and dependencies
  • RACI matrices clarify accountability across ministries, agencies and delivery partners
  • Indicator frameworks combine legal, institutional, service and outcome measures
  • Grievance mechanisms incorporate accessibility, confidentiality, remedy and feedback loops
  • Personal application plans prioritise immediate actions and stakeholder engagement steps

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Gender-responsive legal and policy analysis template
  2. Equality impact assessment checklist
  3. Legal reform options matrix
  4. Gender-based violence referral pathway model
  5. Gender-responsive budgeting review template
  6. Gender equality implementation and accountability plan

Who should attend

  • Government policy officers — translate equality commitments into laws, policies and services
  • Legal advisers and legislative drafters — identify discriminatory provisions and develop reform options
  • Development programme managers — align programme design with gender equality duties
  • Humanitarian protection specialists — strengthen legal protection and referral arrangements
  • Gender equality advisers — build evidence-based institutional interventions and accountability measures
  • Civil society advocacy managers — use legal standards in reform campaigns and public accountability

Skills and tools covered

Gender legal analysisEquality impact assessmentLegal reform designAccess to justiceGender-responsive budgetingAccountability planning

Tools and standards

CEDAW, Beijing Platform for Action, IASC Gender with Age Marker, Gender-responsive budgeting

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to establish legal concepts and international standards, followed by case-based review of laws, policies, budgets and service arrangements. Participants analyse realistic scenarios involving discriminatory provisions, gender-based violence, unequal employment treatment and barriers to justice. Group exercises apply equality tests, legal analysis templates and reform-option matrices. Simulated consultations test how public bodies, civil society groups and service providers address competing priorities. Individual application planning links course methods to participants' current responsibilities.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical experience in public policy, development programmes, humanitarian action, law, protection, human resources, social services or gender equality work. They should be comfortable reading policy documents, programme reports and basic legal or regulatory texts. Familiarity with national gender policy or human rights commitments is useful but not essential. The course does not require a law degree, litigation experience, prior training in international law or advanced quantitative analysis. Participants should bring examples of relevant policies, laws or implementation challenges where organisational rules permit.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

Participants need practical familiarity with public policy, programmes, protection, social services, law or gender equality work. A law degree is not required; legal concepts are explained through applied examples and structured tools.

Participants should bring a current policy, law, programme design, budget issue or implementation challenge they can use for application planning. Documents should be non-confidential or cleared for training use.

The course is designed for government officials, legal advisers, development and humanitarian practitioners, gender specialists, protection staff and civil society advocacy managers. It is particularly relevant for professionals responsible for policy reform, service delivery or institutional accountability.

This course concentrates on legal duties, institutional mechanisms, policy analysis and implementation tools rather than awareness concepts alone. Participants work with equality tests, reform matrices, access-to-justice approaches and gender-responsive budgeting methods.

Participants can review a law or policy for discriminatory effects, prepare a reform proposal, improve referral arrangements or strengthen gender indicators in a programme. The final module produces an application plan linked to a real work priority.

The course includes approximately 32.5 contact hours from 08:30 to 16:30 each day. Ten connected modules cover legal foundations, analysis, reform, protection, justice, economic rights, public finance, humanitarian action and implementation planning.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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