“May you always be as beautiful as you are today:" Gender Mainstreaming and International Aid Organizations

Scene: A project proposal on rural poverty alleviation is due to a multilateral donor in a few days.

Boss: Hey, remember to insert 50% women’s participation in the project.  Gender was a big emphasis in the RFP.

Proposal Writer: Do you really think we can guarantee 50%?

Boss: Eh… fine, 30%.

Proposal Writer: [Sounding of computer keys clicking away.]

This anecdote sums up the way I have seen NGOs treat “gender mainstreaming”, the once-radical (and very obvious) idea that international aid affects different genders differently.  For example, training farmers in more environmentally-friendly agriculture techniques will affect women differently than men.  In a given East African country, women may be more likely to labor in the fields, but men may be more likely to decide what to plant and where and how to sell.  Training will affect these gendered relationships with agriculture differently, depending on the type of training, who receives the training, and who gives it.  The training could also re-enforce gendered dynamics or challenge them.  Thus, gender mainstreaming helps us to think about and plan for this when designing programs.  The United Nations defines it as follows: “Mainstreaming involves ensuring that gender perspectives and attention to the goal of gender equality are central to all activities - policy development, research, advocacy/ dialogue, legislation, resource allocation, and planning, implementation and monitoring of programmes and projects.” 

The NGOs I have worked with or studied have not operationalized this, even if it is a centrally important idea and adopted organizational policy.  At best, I have seen “mainstreaming” translate into trying to include women in a program usually without a clear strategy for doing so.  I have rarely witnessed a critical conversation about the implications for men, and I have never witnessed one about non-normative genders.  (I think the international public and community health fields are exceptions.)

In addition to poorly designed organizational systems, donor timetables, and other factors, recent experiences have made me wonder what weight misogyny, sexism and sexual harassment in aid organizations play in this.  As a female aidworker, I am regularly sexually harassed and have even been groped by several male aidworker colleagues, particularly in some countries.  Usually these colleagues are from societies in which sexism and misogyny are widespread and institutionally endorsed.  Sometimes, however, western aidworker colleagues socialized in relatively more liberal, equitable societies act similarly.  In the country where I currently work, the least offensive compliment or toast male colleagues can muster for me is this: “A toast to the beautiful girl among us,” or, “May you always be as beautiful as you are today.”  What about a toast to the evaluation officer who just helped you realize that your implementing partners are using your poverty alleviation program funds to enrich wealthy, corrupt elites in a conflict-prone, border region?  “To your health” would be just fine too.

I think it is impossible for people with deep-rooted unawareness of male privilege and structural sexism to implement aid programs that are thoughtful in how they address and interact with gender.  Perhaps, then, we should start internally when it comes to gender-mainstreaming and try to have critical conversations about gender within our own organizations.  After all, many folks would argue that one of the biggest impacts international aid organizations have in their "beneficiary countries" are on the very people they employ.

This gets at the bigger question of how the individual values and the systems in which aidworkers are socialized  actually affect the quality of programs we implement.  Do we need to adopt certain values, ethics, and outlooks as aidworkers?  Is this possible?  How can we cultivate more gender equality in our own institutions?  I would love to hear other people’s thoughts and experiences.

"Medieval Surgeon Barbers:" Michael Kleinman on International Aid

“I think we’re like medieval surgeon barbers.  We’ve put up a sign outside, and we’re happy to operate on you, but we don’t really know what we’re doing.  We don’t really understand the systems we’re trying to change in these fundamental ways…”

“It's impossible to do aid without some level of abstraction and simplification… it becomes problematic though when we start to drink our own koolaid and when we forget that the categories that guide our own intervention are inherently limited.  None of our conceptual understandings, none of the ways in which we divide the world, adequately describe an individual, much less a given situation.  Instead, they simply reflect our need to give aid to those who need it as opposed to those who don’t.  So, we can provide inputs, we can feed starving children, we can provide basic services for at least most of the time for a limited duration.  I’m beginning to wonder if our ability to do anything more is fundamentally constrained… What if we simply lack the understanding to design interventions that address any sort of complex causality?  I think we need to be more open about facing our own limitations.”

-Aidworker Michael Kleinman at Yale University "Future of Development" Conference (23 April 2010)

What does international aid and a leech have in common? Welcome to my blog.

International aidwork is currently on a long, bumpy journey.  We are moving from something akin to medieval medicine, with barber surgeons and leeches, to something more like modern medical practice with proven interventions and widely-implemented ethical standards.  Today, most international aid organizations are still at the point where – upon discovering a sick person –  they throw leeches on the wound to see what happens.  Sometimes the leeches save the person’s life.  And sometimes they kill the person.  Usually, we don’t know why either outcome occurred.  In fact, sometimes we don’t actually know which outcome occurred.  I believe we can have proven interventions, qualified professionals, standards, and a widely-adopted and practiced ethical code, as in the medical sector in many countries.  At the very least, we can be more honest with ourselves and the so-called “beneficiaries” of our aid about what we know and don’t know, in addition to the limitations of our help.  But this is a very long way from where we currently are.

I am of the first generation in which people set out to be educated, critical international aidworkers (not colonists, missionaries, or travelers, but true, international public servants).  Up to ten years ago, nearly all aidworkers wound up in this work by accident.  They were dissatisfied lawyers, social workers, doctors, and others.  My generation is the first to approach it a legitimate, professional track.  We have classes in it, experts to learn from, and now even whole degree programs dedicated to it.  We’re not volunteers or “bleeding-hearts”.  We are serious and critical analyst-actiontakers.  We are fiercely committed to finding out what works, what does not work, and why.  We are also committed to genuine, respectful partnerships with the communities to whom aid is provided.  And we want to change the way aidwork has been done, managed, and led.

This blog is about my experiences as one member of this new cadre of international public servants.  It’s also about my struggle as one of the many people who are trying to catalyze this growth in the international aid business. 

Please also note: These opinions are my own and do not represent any of the organizations I have worked for or for which I currently work.  I don’t plan to mention specific names.  Please comment widely.  My opinions are always developing, and I appreciate your feedback.

So, onward with the revolution!  Thanks for reading.