This is fantastic and has definitely changed my mind on the potential effectiveness on these kind of interventions. The importance and scale of the problem is enormous that’s fore sure but I’ve wondered about tractability and this write up has definitely moved me towards thinking this area might justify more money.
Of the few women I know well here in Northern Uganda, almost half have been physically abused by their husbands—a horrendous reality. But after seeing a bunch of “Gender based violence” programs in our community here in Northern Uganda, I’ve always felt discouraged and that it wasn’t achieving anything—but maybe it has been moving the dial in a positive direction but the effect has been small enough or I haven’t been alert enough so haven’t noticed.
I’ve wondered one other thing about NGO programs here. In high income western countries, my impression was that womens’ rights were largely improved by activism, especally organised womens’ groups fighting against patriachal systems and noms over an extended period. I’ve wondered if NGO money programs here in places like Uganda could stifle the ability and motivation of women to properly organise and might delay meaningful societal change which empowers women. There are endless NGO organised womens’ rights marches and millions poured into community programs, while there is close to zero appetite or actual grass roots fight to change the horrendous patriachal system here where physical abuse of women is still accepted as a norm by the majority of people.
If that was the case and NGO work was delaying underlying societal change that could potentially be a pretty serious negative effect of anti-violence programs.
But this could well be a correlation rather than causation.
On the other hand funding serious activist movements could be incredible value for money.
This is fantastic and has definitely changed my mind on the potential effectiveness on these kind of interventions. The importance and scale of the problem is enormous that’s fore sure but I’ve wondered about tractability and this write up has definitely moved me towards thinking this area might justify more money.
Of the few women I know well here in Northern Uganda, almost half have been physically abused by their husbands—a horrendous reality. But after seeing a bunch of “Gender based violence” programs in our community here in Northern Uganda, I’ve always felt discouraged and that it wasn’t achieving anything—but maybe it has been moving the dial in a positive direction but the effect has been small enough or I haven’t been alert enough so haven’t noticed.
I’ve wondered one other thing about NGO programs here. In high income western countries, my impression was that womens’ rights were largely improved by activism, especally organised womens’ groups fighting against patriachal systems and noms over an extended period. I’ve wondered if NGO money programs here in places like Uganda could stifle the ability and motivation of women to properly organise and might delay meaningful societal change which empowers women. There are endless NGO organised womens’ rights marches and millions poured into community programs, while there is close to zero appetite or actual grass roots fight to change the horrendous patriachal system here where physical abuse of women is still accepted as a norm by the majority of people.
If that was the case and NGO work was delaying underlying societal change that could potentially be a pretty serious negative effect of anti-violence programs.
But this could well be a correlation rather than causation.
On the other hand funding serious activist movements could be incredible value for money.
What do you think?