The EU’s Gender Action Plan III (GAP III) is an ambitious and wide-ranging plan to achieve gender equality in the EU’s external action. This is the final briefing note of the three-part series that looks at GAP III implementation two years into its release.

We focus on the EU’s efforts to promote women’s economic empowerment in its foreign and development policy. We ask to what extent women's economic empowerment (WEE) objectives are pursued in a comprehensive and integrated manner in EU external action, including through the programming of EU external resources, innovative financing modalities and the Team Europe Initiatives (TEIs). Our focus is mainly on mainstreaming as a core strategy to promote WEE consistently and at scale.

We argue that there is room for more comprehensive and coordinated approaches around WEE, along with strengthening expertise and ownership of the women’s economic empowerment agenda in the EU delegations and member states. The Team Europe approach and Initiatives bring many opportunities to advance gender equality and work together to promote WEE. Still, it should be ensured that gender equality considerations are mainstreamed in the TEIs in a way that enables transformative, long-term impact.