The In-Betweens: Why the distance between design and delivery still defines outcomes
There is a renewed global focus on gender right now, alongside a growing pushback on women’s rights and feminist movements. But across much of our work in East Africa, a more familiar tension keeps resurfacing: the gap between what we design and what the systems actually deliver.
Discussions at the Comparative International Education Society (CIES) 2026 Conference reinforced this: that policy can shift on paper, but behaviour, attitude, and norms continue to determine what changes in practice. A panel on girls’ education and peace which I helped organised captured this clearly, demonstrating that progress is real, but remains uneven, gradual, and never automatic.
The same dynamic is evident across current global gender priorities, including those shaping the UN80 agenda. The direction is clear. But how these priorities are accommodated within real systems, under real constraints, is where complexity emerges.
Below, I reflect on four tensions that continue to surface, especially in East Africa.
1) Gender, learning, and life outcomes are still not consistently connected
We still measure success largely through access and attainment. Those metrics matter, but they are not enough.
In many of the systems we work with, the real question is what education leads to. Whether learning translates into improved livelihoods, strengthens agency; and whether it improves safety, health, and long-term well-being.
There is growing momentum around smarter measurements, including longitudinal approaches. However, in resource-constrained contexts, this immediately raises a practical tension. What can we realistically track over time, and what remains invisible because it is hard to measure, politically inconvenient, or simply under-resourced?
This is also where emerging tools, including AI, raise a real possibility. Could we capture impact in more continuous, lower cost ways without creating new harms, reinforcing bias, or excluding the very learners we are trying to reach?
2) The shift from gender responsive to gender transformative approaches is not linear
The continued focus on girls’ education remains essential. There is still unfinished work, and in many places the basics are still contested.
At the same time, there is growing recognition that outcomes are shaped by broader norms and systems that affect both girls and boys. This shift is important, but it is not always easy to translate into policy or practice. The work becomes more complex, not less.
Re-entry guidelines illustrate this clearly. In several contexts, they are designed to support learners who drop out for different reasons, including pregnancy, caregiving responsibilities, and economic pressure. In practice, they are often most visible through the lens of teenage motherhood. That focus is both important and necessary. At the same time, there is an opportunity to ensure that the full range of pathways into and back from school—including those affecting boys and other non-pregnancy-related circumstances such as extreme poverty, are equally reflected in how these guidelines are communicated, understood, and implemented. The distance between policy intent, translation to programs, and everyday implementation is where many of the real challenges sit.
3) Collaboration is a priority, but power within collaboration is less visible
The UN80 conversation has placed strong emphasis on integration, partnership, and doing more with limited resources. But collaboration is never neutral.
Who defines the problem shapes the solution. Whose evidence is prioritised shapes what gets funded. Who holds decision making power shapes what is implemented. And how accountability is shared shapes whether and which outcomes are measured (or tracked) and sustained.
These dynamics are not always spoken about openly, yet they quietly determine what collaboration actually delivers.
4) We are generating insight faster than systems can absorb it
Across the sector, there is no shortage of frameworks, tools, evidence, and recommendations. The issue is not ideas. The issue is knowledge utilisation.
System level implementation takes time, alignment, financing, and sustained capacity. In many contexts, systems are being asked to adapt faster than they realistically can, while also navigating reform, tight budgets, and competing priorities.
None of these tensions are new.
But they feel sharper now, as education systems across the region balance urgency for reforms?? with constraints, and ambition with what is feasible. Closing the gap between design and delivery will require more than stronger policies or better data. It will require sustained attention to how systems interpret, adopt, and act on both, and to the power dynamics that shape those processes.
I am curious how others working in similar contexts are navigating this gap, especially when global priorities, local realities, and system constraints do not neatly align.
Edith Kemunto, RELI Africa
