Strategic (Gender) Interests. Interventions addressing strategic gender interests focus on fundamental issues related to women’s (or, less often, men’s) subordination and gender inequities. Strategic gender interests are long-term, usually not material, and are often related to structural changes in society regarding women’s status and equity. They include legislation for equal rights, reproductive choice, and increased participation in decision-making. The notion of “strategic gender needs”, first coined in 1985 by Maxine Molyneux, helped develop gender planning and policy development tools, such as the Moser Framework, which are currently being used by development institutions around the world. NB: The purpose of introducing such distinctions between needs is to alert the programme specialist to the importance of addressing the structural challenges to women’s empowerment. It is not to lock women’s realities and experiences into rigid and pre-set notions of what is a strategic need versus what responds to a practical need. For, in many instances, changes in women’s practical conditions of life have an effect on power relations between men and women within the community.