ABSTRACT
Gender mainstreaming, operationalized through a range of programmes and initiatives aimed towards gender equality and increasing access for female students, has been a feature of the Tanzanian Higher Education sector for three decades. Institutions have been required to localize and operationalize national policy commitments into their institutional architecture through gender policies, awareness-raising programmes, and associated teaching and research activities. Access for female students has improved over time. However, gender inequalities with unchanged cultural norms allow unequal structural power relations to persist in higher learning institutions (HLIs). Using data collected at 14 HLIs, this chapter maps the landscape of gender mainstreaming efforts in Tanzanian Universities. This chapter explores how gender equality, the primary objective of gender mainstreaming, is conceptualized and operationalized within this sector. Through semi-structured interviews and policy analysis, it finds a range of agent-based and structural institutional barriers affecting gender policy design and implementation, including the dominance of technocratic thinking, lack of political will, lack of gender expertise, and weak and inconsistent funding to support gender awareness and transformation efforts. This chapter provides a systematic overview of the progress and the pitfalls of the Tanzanian experience and points to pathways that could amplify the transformative potential of gender mainstreaming.
