RE: The pervasive power of western evaluation culture: how and in what ways do you wrestle with ensuring evaluation is culturally appropriate and beneficial to those who legitimise development aid? | Eval Forward
This is not so much a ‘how to’ but something I struggle with at times, when doing an evaluation and trying to track gender outputs/outcomes. How far do we say that issues of gender equality and women’s empowerment should be applied in a project, and therefore to evaluate it accordingly?
I was accused once by a local evaluation team member of not respecting local cultural norms. The accusation was that in that culture, women don’t participate in meetings, work outside the home, etc. and only men were the likely stakeholders - and by asking questions about this, including from that team member (in what I felt was a respectful manner), I was not being culturally appropriate.
Personally I feel that if the project stakeholders have agreed activities should be done in a certain way, and especially if there are national/local gender strategies or commitments, then it is fair to discuss lack of compliance in the evaluation. Otherwise we are ignoring commitments to improve the status of women and just supporting ‘business as usual’, even if it isn’t local cultural practice. Naturally we need to consult with project staff or local sources to ensure we understand the issues and aren’t blundering into a highly sensitive issue, or ignoring a local method of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE). It might be that the local stakeholders haven’t been fully consulted or informed about the need to involve women (or ethnic minorities or castes, or whatever the specific sensitivity is), and that is another issue for the evaluation. But I don’t feel that as evaluators, we should simply ignore the way things are done.
RE: The pervasive power of western evaluation culture: how and in what ways do you wrestle with ensuring evaluation is culturally appropriate and beneficial to those who legitimise development aid?
Hi,
This is not so much a ‘how to’ but something I struggle with at times, when doing an evaluation and trying to track gender outputs/outcomes. How far do we say that issues of gender equality and women’s empowerment should be applied in a project, and therefore to evaluate it accordingly?
I was accused once by a local evaluation team member of not respecting local cultural norms. The accusation was that in that culture, women don’t participate in meetings, work outside the home, etc. and only men were the likely stakeholders - and by asking questions about this, including from that team member (in what I felt was a respectful manner), I was not being culturally appropriate.
Personally I feel that if the project stakeholders have agreed activities should be done in a certain way, and especially if there are national/local gender strategies or commitments, then it is fair to discuss lack of compliance in the evaluation. Otherwise we are ignoring commitments to improve the status of women and just supporting ‘business as usual’, even if it isn’t local cultural practice. Naturally we need to consult with project staff or local sources to ensure we understand the issues and aren’t blundering into a highly sensitive issue, or ignoring a local method of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE). It might be that the local stakeholders haven’t been fully consulted or informed about the need to involve women (or ethnic minorities or castes, or whatever the specific sensitivity is), and that is another issue for the evaluation. But I don’t feel that as evaluators, we should simply ignore the way things are done.
Best wishes, Pam