Women’s rights organisations (WROs) have responded to the shifting international aid landscape of the last two decades. This report focuses on how this has occurred within the changing national contexts of Bangladesh and Ghana. It identifies the strong influence external financing has on what organisations do and how they go about it, and offers a model to be used by WROs in other countries in their own context and to respond accordingly. It highlights the tension between local, national and international interests in promoting gender work in development.
Key findings:
- National context has shaped the different origins and mobilising strategies of the organisations studied.
- In Bangladesh NGOs developed as a result of foreign development aid, that supported both government and NGO programmes. WROs formed in the 1980s flourished by aligning themselves to NGOs and to pro-democracy movements.
- In Ghana, while women’s rights struggles were already manifest in the 1980s, it was not until the return to multi-party politics in the 1990s that women’s organisations developed with a further process of formalisation.
- WROs contributed to, and have been shaped by, international women’s rights activism, particularly in the run up to and aftermath of the Beijing Women’s Conference in 1995 whose global platform for action has influenced local agendas. The Beijing process stimulated international donors to pay greater attention to women’s rights, applying similar procedures in both countries.
- The case studies show that WROs became more institutionalised with funding when formal structures were put in place (regular staff, monitoring and evaluation structures established and regularised). In both countries this was credited as having brought order and systems, extended outreach and exposed the organisations to new ways of working and networking. The organisations became more expensive to run as volunteerism declined, programmes expanded and hired staff had to be paid.
- While there is encouraging evidence that none of the organisations studied have taken on new agendas, or surrendered to an environment psuhing international agendas, donor funding has had an undeniable impact:
- In Bangladesh the search for financial sustainability when donors are unable and unwilling to give institutional grants for the development of the organisation has driven WROs to taking on more and more short-term projects, neglecting longer-term goals and more local needs.
- Ghanaian WROs struggle to cope with ever-changing policy priorities and reporting requirements.
