Gender Action Learning System (GALS)
Women and men draw shared household and community visions with simple pictograms, then plan, track and pass the method peer to peer.
Start small
Run a 1 to 2 day vision journey and gender balance tree workshop with 15 to 20 couples from one existing group, led by one or two people already trained in GALS. Cost is mainly venue, pens and flipchart paper. Each participant commits to teaching two others, and the group reviews its drawings again after about 3 months.
The problem
lack of women's social leadership
Where it fits
Rural, often low-literacy farming communities organised in cooperatives, savings groups or farmer field schools, with an anchor organisation to train the first champions. Developed under Oxfam Novib's WEMAN programme and piloted or implemented in more than 11 countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America. Works best when tied to a livelihood or value chain such as coffee or dairy, with both spouses involved, trained champions, and a way to keep the peer-to-peer spread going after project funding ends.
The principle underneath
When households draw their own vision and map who does the work and who owns the assets, the inequality becomes visible and negotiable inside the family first. Pictograms remove the literacy barrier, and each participant teaching others spreads leadership skills without depending on outside facilitators.
Who to call
Oxfam Novib (WEMAN programme); Linda Mayoux (co-developer of GALS); IFAD gender and household methodologies team; Bukonzo Joint Cooperative Union, Kasese, Uganda; Rwanda Agriculture Board RDDP team; IWMI (CGIAR GALS assessment, Malawi).
Watch out for
Members join without knowing what the method is for. Champions get weak follow-up and too few master trainers or materials. Organisations do not adopt it formally, so it stays at household level. Gains in household decision-making do not carry through to top leadership posts. Evidence is mostly self-reported. Careful design matters when men are brought into the same groups.
Where it comes from
Developed from about 2007 to 2008 by Linda Mayoux with Oxfam Novib's WEMAN programme and local partners including Bukonzo Joint Cooperative and Green Home Organization for Women's Development in Uganda. Scaled with IFAD grants to Rwanda, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Ghana and elsewhere from 2011 to 2014. Openly published manuals; the method's own protocol is that each person who learns a tool teaches others.
Where it's worked
Nkhotakota and Balaka, Malawi (CGIAR) · 2024 to 2025
17,666 people reached; 98% of 1,417 respondents reported more participation by women in community decision-making, but only 41% reported gaining leadership skills and 24% organisational uptake.
DocumentedSource
Rwanda Dairy Development Project, 12 districts · 2019 to 2023
210 farmer field school groups, 840 champions, at least 5,448 members. 62 to 68% of GALS members reported gaining leadership skills versus 37 to 42% of non-members (quasi-experimental, self-reported).
DocumentedSource
Uganda value chain pilot, scaled to Rwanda, Nigeria and Sierra Leone · 2009 to 2014
Oxfam Novib / IFAD pilot reported positive outcomes and was scaled from 2011 to 2014, with husbands sharing more farm and household work and more women controlling assets, income and land (qualitative).
DocumentedSource
Bukonzo Joint Cooperative Union, Kasese, western Uganda · 2004 to 2015
GALS used since 2004, estimated to have benefited about 5,000 members. Women made up 85% of the cooperative and held a 55% board majority; coffee output grew from 13 tons to over 300 tons in 2014. Won the 2015 SCAA Sustainability Award.
DocumentedSource
Where it failed
Rwanda Dairy Development Project assessment (2023): about 76% of members did not know what GALS was for when they joined, community dissemination was mostly rated moderate, only 31.6% rated their goal achievement as high, and men still held most top group leadership posts. Malawi assessment (CGIAR, 2026): only 24% reported organisational uptake and only 31% found the social empowerment map relevant. Both studies rely mostly on self-reported data.
Related Fruit
- TreeBarefoot women solar engineersVillages choose older women to train as solar engineers, who then electrify and maintain their own community's power.
- TreeWomen's self-help group federationsSmall neighbourhood groups of women save together, then federate upward so their members gain a collective voice in local government.
- TreeReserved seats for women in local governmentLaw reserves a share of council seats or council head posts for women, often rotating which seats are reserved, so women hold real local power and communities get used to seeing them lead.