We are working with IOM to create the Inclusion Marker, a revised version of their existing gender marker. Our approach combined a desk review, staff surveys, key informant interviews with experts and IOM teams, and technical working group consultations. We wanted to know: How well is the current marker working? Where does it fall short? And how can we make it more practical, more accountable, and more embedded in real programming decisions?
What we learned echoes some of what we know from other gender markers across the sector: while the marker can help support gender-sensitive project design, it is rarely used to its full potential. Overcoding is a main issue with projects “coded” as gender responsive without clear evidence. Even when gender analyses or assessments exist in proposals, they rarely translate into outputs or activities. The marker was also rarely revisited after the design phase, used more as a checkbox exercise rather than a learning or reflection tool for program quality. Accounting for disability, LGBTQIA+ inclusion, and age considerations in “coding” remains a challenge and finally, staff capacity and training varies widely, particularly those without a gender background.
Rather than reinventing the tool entirely, together with the IOM gender team, we have been working on embedding the marker across the full project cycle, ensuring stronger links between needs assessments and actions, and adding layers to track intersectional considerations and partnerships with women-led organizations. Hopefully, reframing the marker as a learning tool, encouraging reflection and adaptation rather than just compliance.
But beyond this project, our discussions with experts who have worked on gender and other markers raised interesting questions: Are Gender Markers still the right tool? Do we keep revising or start fresh? And how does language impact our understanding of markers?
Some questioned whether gender markers should even exist in their current form, that it’s time to move beyond markers to more bottom-up approaches that embed gender integration into flexible, context-specific processes rather than relying on predefined “scoring” systems. Others saw the marker as a crucial accountability tool, providing a measurable way to track progress and ensure we don’t just assume we are integrating gender—we prove it and quantify it. Others pointed out that gender integration goes far beyond any marker—that a tool can help structure conversations, but it cannot replace the deeper work of shifting organizational culture, priorities, and funding structures.
Language Matters: The very term “marker” was also questioned. Some experts noted that the word itself implies a “scoring” system and reinforces a mindset where projects chase high scores rather than focusing on meaningful gender integration. That relying on the gender continuum as a base for classification simplifies gender integration to a linear process (always aspiring for transformative programming) rather than a dynamic context specific process. One expert shared: "If we want to move away from this constant scoring obsession, should we even be calling it a marker?"
So, do we keep revising or start fresh?: We are working to make the revised marker more practical, reflective, and embedded across the program cycle, to track real gender integration rather than just intention. But the question remains: should we keep refining these tools, or do we need a radical shift in how we embed gender in programming? Maybe the answer is both? Improve what we have while remaining open to new, more transformative approaches. Maybe we stop treating gender markers as a solution, and instead see them as one piece of a much larger system that needs to evolve.