Ring a bell, bang a pot, ask whether it's OK

Breaking the silence on violence may be taken literally these days. The Indian Bell Bajao campaign urges people to ring a bell when they witness violence against women. They can use a distinctive ding-dong for their mobile phone, downloadable from the Bell Bajao site. This reminds me of the South African soap opera Soul City, which has introduced a new form of community response to violence against women: pot-banging! A soul city episode shows neighbours leaving their homes and banging kitchen implements together to stop violence in the heroine's home. Apparently the practice has made its way into real life in South African townships. In a joint venture with the makers of these campaigns and a third edutainment specialist, Puntos de Encuentro, Oxfam Novib has documented using edutainment media for social change. Find it on the Oxfam KIC portal (URL below, link list).
Another new initiative against gender-based violence is consentissexy, a web-based project with students in South Africa. (I write it in one word because I don't want any anti-adult content filters to block my site!) The campaign may appear a tad too outspoken for very conservative societies, but its message is universal: in intimate relationships, no consent is not OK! And I find the design delightful, with its appealing, positive messages. The picture above is lifted from the campaign site.

Talking about grids...

A few days ago I presented Mary B. Anderson's grid for analysing work on conflict. Another favourite four-square box is by the late anthropologist Mary Douglas and political scientist Aaron Wildavsky. It visualises Grid and Group Cultural Theory, which I find highly relevant to social development. I first came across this model in Douglas's polemic "Traditional culture - let's hear no more about it", delivered at a World Bank Symposium on "Poverty and Culture" (2002). Douglas rejects the idea of culture as a form of collective thinking which, in its "traditional culture" incarnation, is assumed to hamper development and rational economic behaviour. She points out that thinking is an individual act.

Reflecting on Peace Practice - an application

In early March, the German Welt friedens dienst (WFD or "World Peace Service") celebrated its 50th anniversary with an international conference in Berlin. Guest Mary B. Anderson, President of the Collaborative for Development Action (CDA), shared critical reflections on peace work and, in a workshop, demonstrated the importance of defining one's notion of peace and one's theory of change before engaging in such work. The CDA Reflecting on Peace Practice research into the work of some 200 NGOs suggests that effective peace work addresses all four quadrants of the grid above (from CDA's Confronting War, 2003). The grid is not a planning tool but can be used to screen ideas for activities that better flow from a rigorous conflict analysis.

Perceived Equality

German is great for big words. Even simple things grow to importance: for example, the post office used to call phone books Fernsprechteilnehmerverzeichnis, i.e. "speaking-at-distance-participants'-directory". Clumsy but accurate.

Thanks to a grammar permitting near-boundless word fudging we can get amazingly precise and poetic. Today, reading up on a 2008 conference on 21st century feminisms, I have come across a beautiful term: Gleichheitswahrnehmung - "perception of equality", or "perceived equality". For those who don't read German, I'll call it GHW. In her summary of the conference, Katrin Bremer raises the issue of GHW among young women in Germany.

Still travelling...

...now in Ramallah, to facilitate the mid-term evaluation of a project on women's rights. Just arrived today; I haven't been to the West Bank since 2005 and am amazed by the amount of construction that must have taken place in recent years. I am in a new hotel in an entirely new neighbourhood. The cab has brought me straight to Ramallah, on roads I do not know or remember, through those tall walls that were not here before. I have no idea where I am. I hope to find out tomorrow. For anyone who knows their way around - here's the view from my room...

Greetings from Phnom Penh

...where I spend most of this month, head over heels in an evaluation with a major Cambodian human rights organisation. This is why there won't be any new postings before the end of the month. Warm greetings! (The Khmer statue of Liberty is from a hotel in Phnom Penh...)

The learning contract

In a recent conversation with Charles Shamas, humanitarian law expert with a background in cognitive sciences, we discussed connections between “law” and cognitive development. We believe that the success of a development programme depends to a great extent on cognitive development processes, i.e. the acquisition of new perceptions and knowledge systems, i.e. learning, among the actors involved. In a nutshell: if you want to gain fresh insights and skills, or support others in their learning processes, you must leave the safe territory of familiar knowledge so as to accommodate new, previously unknown mental objects. “Old” certainties may be shattered by new discoveries. “Can you live with ambiguity?” is a key question for job interviews in development NGOs. People deal differently with change. Individual life histories shape people’s ability to accommodate, to welcome the sense of destabilisation that comes with cognitive change. Situational factors play a role, too: experimentation feels less risky in a friendly, stable environment than in an oppressive or very unpredictable one.

German CEDAW Report - the personal remains political

Today, experts from 28 German NGOs have submitted the 2008 CEDAW shadow report to the Ministry of Family, Senior Citizens, Health and Youth. Given our demographic structure, this Ministry should be the most powerful of all, serving the majority of the population... It isn't. What if someone sneakily added "Men" to the Ministry's list of clients? Would its budget see a steep increase?

Dealing with change

Development is about change. People in development agencies deal with change at many levels – including the personal one. Working in changing settings, meeting different people, eating different food, living far away from what we consider our homes require constant adjustment. This can be stimulating and enjoyable. It may also create tensions, which generate distress, conflicts... and ineffective work. Some humanitarian agencies offer optional counselling to staff in particularly difficult situations – but since it's not mandatory, people hesitate to ask for counselling or mediation.

We Can end All Violence against Women – Kenya

We Can was launched in Kenya on 27 November at the KICC, site of the 1985 World Women's Conference. The We Can Kenya alliance had arranged 1.500 chairs in a spacious tent, hoping for at least 1.000 visitors. But soon after the opening, another 500 chairs had to be brought in! Women and men of all ages and walks of life, from all over the country, came together to show their determination to end violence against women (VAW). We Can makes it clear that everybody, women and men, can and must take responsibility to stop violence in their own lives, in their own communities. The inclusive character of the campaign was underlined by the presence of two interpreters, who translated speeches and performances into sign language for a group of people with hearing impairments, seated near the front. It is a little-known fact that women with disabilities are at greater risk of VAW than able-bodied women. Overall, some 50% of Kenyan women have experienced VAW: one in two.

White Charity = white trash?

Commit Berlin, a young German NGO, has organised a series of lectures on eurocentrism in development co-operation (EZ = Eurozentrismus, full programme on com-mit.org/berlin). Last night's session focused on racism in German NGO fundraising; it was animated by Timo Kiesel, whose main theses can be found on whitecharity.de. Timo presented posters and billboards, chiefly by major Christian NGOs, and collected students' comments. None of the examples shown challenged common stereotypes about Africa; the anonymous children and women depicted suggested a reality in which they were helpless victims or, at most, quaint schoolgirls and farmers in folkloristic outfits and florid tropical settings. It was pointed out that, unlike fashion models, the individuals shown probably had no clue of the existence of these photographs and were not paid for posing. You hardly ever see an African man on such a poster - most likely that would perturb the viewer's "masculine", i.e. active, dominant regard on "feminine" Africans waiting for help or pursuing innocuous activities in a lush décor.

Learn without Fear

Plan International, in co-operation with the University of Sussex Centre for International Education, hosted the conference Learn without Fear – Looking at Violence from the Gender perspective in Hamburg, 12-14 November. I came across the conference announcement a couple of days earlier via a google search on „sexual violence at schools“ and „Africa“, and spontaneously decided to jump into a train to Hamburg to meet some of the people known in the field – Fiona Leach, for example, who has published on gender and education, or Peter Newell, Co-ordinator of the Global Initiative to End all Corporal Punishment of Children. Unfortunately, I could only attend the 13 November sessions. But that was extremely enriching.

Strong women

On 11 November, the development bank KfW in Berlin hosted its 46th roundtable on globalisation, with the title Development Needs Strong Women". An illustruous selection of German women's development experts discussed issues around gender and development. Unfortunately, much time was lost to a sterile debate about the translation of the term "gender" into German. But it is reassuring to learn that KfW, a major actor in German development policy, has developed a stringent gender mainstreaming strategy, defended by an impressive policy expert, and that the Ministry of Economic Co-operation and Development (BMZ) has equipped itself with a Gender Unit.
On the other hand, I was disappointed by some examples the speakers presented that focused on women's practical needs within female roles considered acceptable in mainstream culture, e.g. tailoring courses. Gender sensititive work must consider strategic needs as well, supporting women (and men!) who wish to challenge gender stereotypes within their societies. This happens, to a certain extent, when women play an active role as builders of their own water schemes - an example that was mentioned, to pay due respect to the panel. Personally, I am proud of a project we funded when I worked for Oxfam Germany: Afghan women engineers who could not exercise their jobs under the Taliban regime took refresher courses in engineering so as to put their skills to the service of national reconstruction. Here's a beautiful combination of the practical and the strategic.

Fundraising for Women's Organisations

Browsing in search of resources for smallish women's groups, I have come across this excellent new handbook by the Global Fund for Women: Fundraising for Change: A Practical Guide for
Women’s Rights Organizations. It is extremely legible and easily downloadable as a 12-page PDF (link in my list below). It even includes links to organisations funding women's groups.

Measuring progress in gender equality

Within the framework of its Global Project on Measuring the Progress of Societies ("of" societies, not "in" societies!!), the OECD has initated, since March 2008, www.wikigender.org - a platform for exchange on gathering empirical evidence and measuring change in gender equality. The site is managed by a team within OECD in Paris, with the support of an intriguing mix of partners, including UNFPA, the Norwegian and Swedish Ministries of Foreign Affairs, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the Indian Centre for Economic and Social Studies, as well as the World Bank group, among others.