Journal special issue highlights IDRC-funded research on gender-transformative approaches to improve sexual, reproductive and maternal health in Africa

The special edition features eight peer-reviewed articles produced by the Gender Transformation for Africa (GT4Africa) cohort. Funded by IDRC between 2022 and 2025, the cohort funds seven implementation research projects across the following sub-Saharan African countries: Ghana, Niger, Nigeria, The Gambia, Burkina Faso, Malawi and South Africa. In filling knowledge and practice gaps on what it takes to operationalize gender-transformative approaches, the journal supplement offers rigorous and localized research that addresses the root causes limiting women’s and adolescent girls’ healthy and respectful sexual, reproductive and maternal health experiences 

Gender inequality underlies health inequity across Africa, particularly in sexual, reproductive and maternal health. Challenges exist in current interventions and research on transforming gender norms and power relations, which tend to disproportionately focus on micro- and meso-level change, with little attention to the complexity of the required change to shift gender relations or structures of power. Moreover, much of the work happening on the ground in Africa to transform gender norms and power relations has either not been published or has been published with African thought leadership remaining invisible. The special edition aims to address these gaps by presenting contextualized and rigorous results from African-based scholars.  

The papers within the supplement are grouped under three themes: experiences of co-design for gender-transformative approaches, working with community health workers and peer facilitators, and working with men on maternal health.  

The supplement elevates locally led, policy-relevant research that is often underrepresented in global conversations. It also reflects IDRC’s long-standing investment in supporting Southern researchers to generate context-sensitive health solutions that have lasting impact.

A webinar to launch this supplement will be held on July 31, 2025. Register here