A review of the unintended gender effects of international development efforts

There is widespread recognition among scholars, international aid providers and evaluators of the need to take into account unintended outcomes development efforts. Practitioners have also signed on charters that promise they will do their utmost best ‘do no harm’. This article focusses often overlooked gender effects. A rigorous literature review was conducted reveal some most prominent consequences as documented in primary research studies. Five prevalent effects were identified: (1) household dynamics, (2) anti-foreign backfire, (3) overburdening women, (4) human trafficking sexual exploitation (5) hype. While not all are negative, reported jeopardise intended interventions. provides both a call tool analyse more systematically