The Gender Development Institute is one of the tools created by GPI to increase public awareness and promote gender equality discussions among several sectors of stakeholders including NGO functionaries, technocrats, teachers, government functionaries, media practitioners, private sector and politicians, both female and male. Our experiences with girls have demonstrated the importance of community awareness in supporting girls to practice what they learn in GPI towards the positive expression of safe and pleasurable sexuality. The pre and post test evaluation process during the GDI trainings reveal the high level of ignorance and misunderstanding of gender concepts. Thus the GDI has proved to be an important opportunity for creating understanding of the concepts of gender, gender equality and gender mainstreaming which have been largely misunderstood.

The GDI, from the analysis of our evaluation, has also served as a tool for expanding the dialogue and understanding of adolescents, their sexuality issues, their sexual and reproductive health and rights challenges from a gender perspective. For the purpose of widening the coverage of the parts of the country and persons reached, we conduct two GDI trainings per year in Benin and Calabar Centres. The Gender Development Institute (GDI) has the advantage of expanding the scope of the supporters of GPI programmes as more and more people who participate in the GDI trainings get to understand and appreciate the role of GPI.