Struggles for womens rights in the policy spaces of international aid and development

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Struggles for womens rights in the policy spaces
of international aid and development

• Rosalind Eyben
• July 2008

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Pathways of Womens Empowerment

• A research and communications programme linking
  academics, activists and practitioners to find
  out what works to enhance womens empowerment..
• By involving policy actors and practitioners
  directly in our research and learning, we hope
  our work will be in itself a catalyst for change.
• www.pathwaysofempowerment.org

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Feminist policy activists in international
development organisations

• Explores the strategies, tactics and room for
  manoeuvre of feminists working from inside
  international development organisations

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Development resource flows
Citizen
Donor country civil society INGOs
Donor government
Multilateral agencies
Global funds
Recipient government
Foundations
Local civil society
Public and not for profit
Citizen
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Working institutionally
If you were looking for a very positive
interpretation you would say what the
technocratic, slower profile, lower profile of
achievement has done is create the possibility
that we can now talk about a vision for gender
equality and womens rights, which we couldnt
have done before. It would be legitimate to
interpret what we did as overly technocratic, and
not sufficiently challenging, but it felt right
at the time
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Engaging with discourse
There is the old argument about not using the
Masters tools but disagree with this you can
use the Masters tools for other ends.
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Actors and relationships
You can become so entrenched in your identity as
an activist against a dominant structure that you
dont see the opportunities. youre just
painting an entire field of people a particular
colour
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Networks
Feminists working inside an international
organisation use their institutional base to
mobilise actors and discourses creating and
making use of networks within and beyond their
own organisation and crossing state-society
divides.
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 Policy change occurs through networks
optimally engaging with actors, discourses and
institutions.
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Making change happen?

• I am definitely contributing to rebuilding and
  regenerating this present structure. Theres no
  question about it. And at the same time to get
  anything done, I subvert it. I break the rules
  and I subvert it.
• When things go wrong if you interpret it as,
  well maybe they dont get it, or maybe they can
  be persuaded, or maybe they just need to come at
  it a different way, it keeps many more doors
  open

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Conclusion

• Relatively fluid and purposively
  non-institutionalised social actor networks are
  the drivers of policy change and identifies a
  number of organisational, discursive and
  actor-oriented strategies that that feminist
  policy activists in head offices of international
  development organisations are using to that end.
• Feminist researchers and civil society activists
  should not disregard but support the efforts of
  those working for womens rights from the inside
  of development aid bureaucracies