"gradual effort" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it to refer to an action that is done in a slow and steady manner. For example, "I was able to reach my goal through a gradual effort over the course of several months."
A senior Pakistani official said the operation was part of a gradual effort to bring the militants under control.
Around the country, gun rights groups are pressing what supporters call a deliberately gradual effort to ease state laws restricting the carrying of concealed weapons.
A1 Muslim Women Seek Inclusion A small number of Muslim women in the United States are challenging the lack of inclusion of women in worship and communal life, in a gradual effort that has met mixed success.
As the problems became evident, Fed officials said last year that they would study how the disclosure policy -- adopted initially as part of a gradual effort to become less secretive -- might be changed to avoid knocking the markets off balance.
Mrs. Clinton, who has been working on a memoir, has undertaken a gradual effort to re-engage politically and otherwise after years of remaining above the partisan fray and focusing on diplomacy.
In recent years, China has begun a pilot program that allows banks in a number of cities and provinces to settle cross-border trades in renminbi, part of a gradual effort by China to promote the use of its currency in international trade.
Analysts said the new quota was not especially large but still symbolically important because it appeared to be part of China's gradual efforts to overhaul its tightly controlled capital markets.
And instead of demanding new preconditions for talks -- an apology for the Cheonan, for example -- we should mount a gradual pragmatic effort to engage in new discussions, not as a reward for bad behavior or to talk for the sake of talking, but to make us more secure.
At this point, gradual grassroots efforts offer the best hope for a breakthrough.
"What we need is a gradual and structured effort to complete" the European monetary union.
It is not a one-time thing to achieve but a constant and gradual process and effort to gain that mark.
