If I were one to give in to pessimism I could have predicted the Kavanaugh outcome. Just like I foresaw a Trump victory. Sexual assault is the only traumatic event where aspersions are made against the victim. The immediate concern is less for the victim and more for the accused including organisations.
OGB and pretty much the entire aid sector have known about the extent of sexual exploitation and abuse in the sector for more than a decade. Not doing more to prevent SEA and protect employees that experience it from personal injury looks like gross negligence in light of this years revelations.
Nancy Kachingwe told me that the handling of this scandal by DFID is beginning to look like the handling of historical sexual abuse by the Catholic church. She said attention was focused on reputation and brand protection rather than real change.
Nancy said there were no safe spaces. And no baseline figures for Africa to measure progress. There is no evidence of change and the is no confidence in the things being done. No one is feeling safe. Not enough being done and dissatisfaction with responses from IAO’s.
“What have you done? I will not defend you if you don’t show me that you’re doing something in t his space. After all, anyone can deliver services. You’re no better that anybody else. In fact you’re worse. We need to have our own structures in the south. We’re going to hold you accountable. If you’re going to fail so be it. We have to take all this apart. There was too much blame on the fact that its happening in affected communities anyway. We need to have our own process. We shouldn’t be implementing other people’s plans.” – Nancy Kachingwe
Another African sister told me that the ‘this Safeguarding agenda and compliance is leading us nowhere very fast.’ Why I asked. ‘Box ticking, technicist approach. No power analysis. All about ‘compliance’ and policy assurance.’ Without a power analysis and a shift in power there can be no sustainable solution.
“DFID has reduced development work to a mere box ticking, upward accountability, compliance exercise. What happened to the DFID who thru the PPA supported us to innovate? To deeply engage and shift boundaries? Where is the DFID that stood by us when we challenged power? When we together learnt from women how change happens and how to shift power? Does DFiD see its role as understanding and shifting complexity? Or does it see its role as helping tick boxes on a template? If they are really serious about women’s rights, about VAW, and shifting all that- then they must support processes and ways of working which are beyond mere box ticking… informed by feminist analysis, and practice, as well as values.”
There is a growing disillusionment and disdain for the aid sector in the global south. The donors are not living the values they are preaching and refuse to accept it. I’m hearing this sentiment expressed in different threads across countries and regions. There is a growing perception that western donors cannot be trusted and that they use money to bully the recipients into uncritically accepting biased, flawed and disempowering assumptions and frameworks.
MzAgams 