Women’s Empowerment: the HEART of the challenge

1. Women’s Empowerment:the HEART of the challenge Elisa Martinez, CARE USA Program Impact, Knowledge and Learning Team CI Global Conference – November 10 2008

2. Session Overview: Tell the truth (or as close as you can get) Section 1:Awakening to the challengeCARE International’s SII on Women’s Empowerment Section 2:Deepening the challengeEngaging the whole

3. Section 1: Awakening to the challengeCARE International’s SII on Women’s Empowerment

4. Section 1 Overview • The why and how of impact research in CARE (2005-2008) • What have we learned about CARE’s impacts? • What are some of the strategic implications, and how are we pursuing these in our work today?

5. Starting Points: CARE’s Vision & Principles We seek a world of hope, tolerance and social justice, where poverty has been overcome and people live in dignity and security. CARE will be a global force and a partner of choice within a worldwide movement dedicated to ending poverty. We will be known everywhere for our unshakable commitment to the dignity of people. CARE International Programming Principles 1: Promote Empowerment 2: Work in partnership with others 3: Ensure Accountability andPromote Responsibility 4: Oppose Discrimination 5: Oppose Violence 6: Seek Sustainable Results

6. Driving our Discourse: Strategic Impact Inquiry at CARE Goal Deepen a culture of learning and critical inquiry through: Accountability Empowering Analysis Continuous Improvement Use participatory, rights-based methods that are empowering in themselves Offer stakeholders in and out of CARE evidence to assess our work Research for organizational action. Aggressively share lessons with others RIGHTS BASED APPROACH PROGRAM QUALITY ADVOCACY

7. The SII on Women’s Empowerment: In a Nutshell What internal, organizational variables are associated with higher – and lower – levels of impact on women’s empowerment and improving gender equity? What contributions are CARE programs making, if any, to the empowerment of women and the advancement of gender equity? • Year 1 - Launching • In depth site research (5 sites); Desk analyses of evaluations, proposals, C-Pin • Year 2 - Broadening • In depth site research (24 sites); Desk analysis of C-pin, Promising Practices Inquiry 24 countries 35 (+1000) projects +350 staff; 5 CI members • Year 3 - Probing • In-depth comparative research (6 sites) on empowerment and HIV/AIDS risk • Year 4- Knowledge Sharing • Summarizing, producing program guidance, publishing and promoting externally

8. Defining Women’s Empowerment We understand empowerment as the sum total of changes needed for a woman to realize her full human rights – the interplay of changes in: in her own aspirations and capabilities (agency), in the environment that surrounds and conditions her choices(structure), in the power relations through which she must negotiate her path(relations). Any individual indicator of progress can only be properly assessed and valued in the context of how it advances that whole.

9. Structure Routines, conventions, relationships and taken-for-granted behavior Agency Institutions that establish agreed-upon significations (meanings), accepted forms of domination (who has power over what or whom), and agreed criteria for legitimizing the social order Carrying out our own analyses, making our own decisions, and taking our own actions. Empowerment involves poor women becoming the agents of their own development 23 Sub-Dimensions Agency Relations Carrying out our own analyses, making our own decisions, and taking our own actions. EMPOWERMENT Connecting with other social actors, building relationships, joint efforts, coalitions, and mutual support, in order to claim and enact agency, alter structure, and so realize rights and livelihood security Structure Relations Routines, conventions, relationships and taken-for-granted behavior Empowerment involves poor women becoming the agents of their own development Array and quality of social interaction. What are the preferences, habits, expectations that women have of their relations with other women, men, and institutional actors? Institutions that establish agreed-upon significations (meanings), accepted forms of domination (who has power over what or whom), and agreed criteria for legitimizing the social order Women’s Empowerment Framework

10. So… impacts of CARE’s work? HEADLINES Phase 1 : Dodging Structures and Relations Phase 2 : Wide-screen dreams, narrow screen tools Phase 3: Rethinking empowerment, once more.

11. The SII Bottom Line • a portfolio on the rise, the payoff from 10 years of investment • Important empowerment gains – strongly focused at the level of women’s individual capabilities for more that 20 million men, women, and children over the past decade or more. • Some substantive and wider changes in structural aspects of women’s marginalization and in the social relations through which lasting changes in women’s empowerment will be achieved. • Yet… • Deep confusion about what women’s empowerment should mean for CARE, with little space/support for staff to clarify own beliefs and biases in the midst of competing visions among diverse women, men, and opinion leaders (donors, academics, other NGOs..). • Tension over competing theories of change, and their implications for how CARE should invest to achieve both best-in-class impacts on key dimensions of poverty/injustice AND lasting impacts on gender power relations • a portfolio riddled with missed opportunities to achieve deeper, faster, and more lasting changes in poverty and social justice.

12. 2006: How Many CPIN Projects state they deploy… Empowerment approaches 57% Empowerment + GED approaches 37% Empowerment + GED + Policy Advocacy 17% Emp. + GED + PA +rights-based approaches 15% Emp+GED+PA+RBA +focus on marginalization 11% Emp+GED+PA+RBA+Marg +citizen participation 10% Portfolio Sketch – 2005/2006 – some gaps 13% of projects in one sample (of evaluations) conducted gender analysis 2% of CPIN projects did gender analysis as part of project design; 12% had an explicit gender strategy; 1% did gender training for partner organizations; 1% raised awareness about violence against women; 9% raised awareness on women’s rights. Of 32 project proposalsin 2005, only about 10% articulated empowerment goals with a clear, context specific strategy and measures backing them up. 15% promise of deep impact 60% agency level impact 25% not so good How to interpret?

13. CARE Bangladesh - RMP A good project, But what might have been?

14. CARE Bangladesh Rural Maintenance Project • Technical focus on road maintenance, project coverage noted in terms of population served by roads. Major change noted in SII is the acceptability now of women working outside their homes, but associated challenges not addressed. • 166,750 women employed over 23 years in RMAs, show increase in incomes through savings investment, and some improvement in social status. Yet use of solidarity groups since mid-1990s could have increased numbers 3-5 fold, and resulted in more widespread social and political gains for women • Women staff known for being first on motor bikes in Bangladesh – but used only to supervise and monitor activities, not to reflect on methodology. When engaged, staff involved in SII produce a set of recommendations with far reaching implications – as project is closing • Capacities built of Union Parishads across Bangladesh, but no ongoing engagement on gender issues. Leverage potential used randomly by other CARE projects to gain acceptance by UP officials because of legitimacy provided by RMP

15. CARE Guatemala - FODEMH A good project. But what harms?

16. CARE Guatemala - FODEMH • Technical Diversion: Plan to support the position and voice of a nascent Mayan women’s citizenship rights organization, converted to more “classic” organizational strengthening and (literacy) service delivery project. • Accountability Conflict: Donor-required creation of a new development organization (ADIMH) from an existing women’s movement (FODEMH). Growing pains, internal conflicts, and deep staff-partner tensions arising from results management. • Spectacular Results: ADIMH grows from 10 to 110 members, and reaches 8,000 women with cascading rights training, and 1,350 with literacy training (70% literacy achievement among enrollees). • Weak Politicial Voice: Platform and capacity for policy advocacy on wider women’s issues not developed: advocacy alliances hostage to inter-organizational rivalries. • Mission Shift?: ADIMH seen as solid development partner (GTZ, CEFA), but not financially sustainable at project’s end, and in competition rather than coalition with wider women’s and Mayan political movements.

17. …Deliver tangible, technical, gender disaggregated outputs under contractual obligations …Focus on women’s capabilities, skills, knowledge without trying to influence gender norms …Begin and frequently ends with a donor contract (a “project”) …strongly individual, psychological, asset/service focused …able to mitigate the effects of poverty and social injustice, not eradicate/eliminate them …”seedlings” for such sustainable impact on underlying causes of poverty …Weak sustained learning between projects …reversible gains; longer term irrelevance of output and effects …increased workloads and violence against women and girls …Male abdication and feelings of worthlessness What Good Projects Do Well, Their Impacts, Their Opportunity Costs and Harms Good women’s empowerment projects typically… …that lead to impacts that are… …and create harms such as…

18. So what’s it gonna take? Understanding context (and questioning our assumptions about it) • Equipping staff to face internalized and entrenched gender norms • Building community with others –movements, NGOs, donors • Challenging and strengthening a collective understanding of underlying causes of gender inequity in a given context, analyzing policies north & south • Working to truly understand the specific population groups we seek to serve Program Design (planning a coherent system of actions over time, for impact) • Articulating a transformational goal • Proposing a theory of social change (broadly), and hypotheses of what CARE/partners can do to shape impact across all TOC components • Building dynamic learning system to track progress: method & indicators • Design projects and non-project activities as a reinforcing system of entry points for change – linking concrete gains to relational work building solidarity groups and engaging men and elites, and advocacy to shift structures. • Testing / revision of the TOC – through staff reflection and external challenge Knowledge Exchange (protecting gains from the black hole of project closure) • Regular uptake of knowledge produced by others (development and social actors) • Staff gather & contribute their knowledge regularly to a wider knowledge base

20. 8 Characteristics of a Program • A clearly defined goal for impact on the lives of a specific group, realized at broad scale. • A thorough analysis of underlying causes of poverty and social injustice at multiple levels with multiple stakeholders. • An explicit theory of change that is rigorously tested and adapted to reflect ongoing learning. • A coherent set of initiatives that enable CARE and our partners to contribute significantly to the transformation articulated in the theory of change. • Ability to promote organizational and social learning, to generate knowledge and evidence of impact. • Contribution to broad movements for social change through our work with and strengthening of partners, networks and alliances. • A strategy to leverage and influence the use and allocation of financial and other resources within society for maximizing change at a broader scale. • Accountability systems to internal and external stakeholders.

21. The SII Bottom Line – Take 2 • Undeniable and valuable contributions to well-being and self-esteem of millions • Tendency to focus on agency, and at best to sow seedlings of change in agency and structures • Among our levers for change, two stand out: • Articulating clear a theory of change for women’s empowerment, in context • Building programs for impact, organizing project/non-project work in an agenda for long-term social change • Issues we must now confront: • Technical challenge: how to align resources, relationships, and accountabilities in a complicated organizational change like this? • Adaptive challenge: how to get at the underlying worldviews and power dynamics that define us as aid workers and as an industry, and that are major obstacles to doing what we know needs doing.

22. Session Overview Section 1:Awakening to the challengeCARE International’s SII on Women’s Empowerment Section 2:Deepening the challengeEngaging the whole

23. Section 2:Deepening the challengeEngaging the whole

24. Section 2:Deepening the challengeEngaging the whole Go back to your wisdom. If your child, your neighbor, a strangeris behaving in ways you dislike?How do you intervene?

25. Section 2:Deepening the challengeEngaging the whole Bring forth your wisdom. If I ask youhow do we tend to intervene as aid workerswhat do you say? How might this reflect the heart of the challenge?

26. A Provocative Premise: We struggle to promote women’s empowerment in more enduring ways because doing so challenges the comfort zone of our projects, our industry, our societies and ourselves (the technical challenge is really just the tip of the program-shift iceberg). Perhaps, going to the heart of the challenge meansdealing with women as they are, being genuinely open to inconvenient truths and dirty little secrets about ourselves and those we serve – without giving up the principles and goals that define us as a rights-based organization, and bind us in solidarity to pursue a better future.

27. Experiment with this idea That we each know more about empowerment than we are acting upon, and that we have much to learn… that we know more about how our intervening must change than we are acting upon. In groups of 5, read and discuss SII research quotes. Confront two key questions: (a) how do these passages relate to our own lived realities and known (if secret) truths? (b) What would CARE have to do, to relate better to the realities these passages, and your discussions, reflect?

28. How shall we assess your empowerment if… …you define power/strength in ways other than independence and autonomy? …you are powerful in one facet of your life, but not in others? …you accept cultural/social rules that grant you power, even as they harm you? …you don’t use condoms in your love relationship, even knowing your HIV risk? …you’re doing more, smarter, better… but nothing else seems to give? …you’re not sure this “empowered woman” thing is much of an improvement …you’re opportunistic in using strategies of confrontation and collusion to achieve your goals? …sometimes, you play the “power over” game, taking advantage of others, or competing in ways that put collective interests at risk?

29. Take Away Insights • Women are more complicated than we allow them to be b. Women’s empowerment = societal change c. Women’s empowerment lies beyond the scope of any one organization, let alone one time- and resource-bound project.