Internews’ Gender Programming Framework

The core of Internews’ mission is to improve the health of information ecosystems in the countries and communities where we work. This can only be achieved by enabling people – across a diversity of lived experiences, identities, cultures, locations, and socio-economic backgrounds – to participate freely and safely within those ecosystems.

As a reflection of power inequalities, discrimination and harmful norms present across various realms of life, gender is a strong indicator of information inequality. The voices, perspectives and knowledge of women and gender diverse individuals, especially those across other marginalized or vulnerable backgrounds, are underrepresented and often undervalued across editorial leadership and decision-making, information production and in content. Gender also impacts access to and how people engage with information.

The Internews’ Framework for Gender Programming is a conceptual model that synthesizes and describes our work to make information ecosystem more equitable, inclusive and diverse, thus healthier. It considers four levels of intervention, each with its own objective, guiding us to reach our overall goal of enabling everyone to participate meaningfully and freely in their information ecosystems.