Swedish development cooperation treats gender equality as both a universal value and a precondition for democracy and sustainable development. Armenia and Georgia, two priority countries for Swedish aid in the South Caucasus, provide a useful comparison for understanding how these ideas travel, are contested, and are reshaped in practice. While Armenia’s government has been relatively supportive of gender equality initiatives, in Georgia the increasingly authoritarian ruling party has aligned with anti-gender movements and intensified its repression of civil society. Drawing on theories of translation and actor-centered democratization, and based on initial fieldwork with donors and local civil society actors, this paper examines how Swedish-funded projects on gender equality and LGBTQI+ rights are interpreted and implemented in these diverging contexts. The analysis highlights the different opportunities and constraints faced by local organizations, and how international support may foster engagement in one setting while reinforcing polarization in another. By comparing Armenia and Georgia, the paper aims to contribute to broader debates on the geopoliticization of gender and on the challenges of advancing equality and rights in contested political environments.
