Globaldev careers: The gender and social inclusion specialist

CANBERRA — The humanitarian and development sectors have become increasingly aware of the need to promote inclusivity in their programs. That means ensuring that they work for everyone, including groups such as women or people with disabilities, who might face unique challenges in accessing the benefits of development work and whose needs have not always been included in the past. Building inclusive development programs requires legal, social, and analytical thinking to ensure that disadvantaged groups are at the core of projects’ work. That is where gender and social inclusion specialists come in. Arthi Patel started her career in Australia working in refugee law before taking on her first role in development as a volunteer supporting a women’s legal organization in Mongolia. “That was a fantastic introduction to development work and working alongside amazing women who were grappling with their society moving from a communist state to a democratic state and what it meant for the life and livelihoods of women,” she told Devex. On returning to Australia, Patel completed a master's degree in international and social development before moving to her first role with the Australian aid program, where she sought out experts in the field of gender and social inclusion to learn from the best. Today, she works as an independent gender and social inclusion consultant supporting development programs in the Pacific. Speaking with Devex, Patel shared her insights into the best and most challenging parts of the job and how this kind of work is changing. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. What does a gender and social inclusion specialist do, and how do you see the impact of your work? I can be involved in a program at various stages — design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, and training. At the program end, my work is very much about ensuring that the implementation of a program takes proper account of diversity. … If I come in at the implementation stage, often the first thing that I do is sit down and work out what is the strategy for the program — what we mean by “gender equality” and “social inclusion.” An analysis of the issues identifies the strategies we are going to implement and the resources that will be needed. On the monitoring and evaluation side, I need to make sure there are indicators that consider the impact on men, women, people with disability, children — whatever the analysis that needs to be generated. It is important to have that language in the monitoring and evaluation framework; otherwise, it won’t get measured. “The work we do reaches a lot of people who are usually excluded.” --— Arthi Patel, gender and social inclusion consultant And on the training side, it is important to begin with what we mean by “gender and social inclusion.” For each program we need to identify key priorities — targeting everyone is not possible. So narrowing the focus where a difference can be made is important. Then it is about bringing it back to what it means for people in their job. I help people to connect to the concepts on a personal, values basis because that drives their own willingness to make change. … The impacts I see can be very diverse — from exposing new people to these concepts to improving visibility for local women’s organizations. I’ve been a strong advocate for women’s organizations in the Pacific, and an impact of my work has been shining a light on the good work they do. What is the best — and worst — part of the job? It can be a challenge working on projects where gender or inclusion is tagged on, rather than being a focus from the beginning. When gender and social inclusion is tagged on, it very rarely succeeds in supporting disadvantaged groups. Engaging with people is the best part, and being able to help people understand how a focus on gender and social inclusion can make a difference. One of the things I push is that this is everyone’s business; it is not something you do on the side or simply a service I provide. For a lot of people working in development, they want to change the world and address inequality — tapping into this motivation helps me. The work we do reaches a lot of people who are usually excluded. Bringing that exclusion to light has helped shift the concept from an add-on to something that is fundamental — and not too scary. What skill sets have you found to be most valuable, or what skills have you focused on building to progress your career? No. 1 is the technical skills. Having a legal background and skills in human rights has been very valuable for me, and then combining this with the political analysis and social analysis skills that are important to bring to the job. On top of that is the communication skills. Being able to communicate in a clear and concise way in all areas of this job is important. A skill I have focused on building to progress my capacity in this space is partnership brokering. I’m an accredited partnership broker, and this is about bringing people from different “world sets” together to implement a common purpose. It’s become a skill set I now use in all areas of my work. In this work, it is important to have expertise in your space, but it is also important to look more broadly at all areas of social inclusion — gender, race, disability, income, and more which all intersect to create inequality. But it is also important to have the people skills to engage across sectors to collaborate and share knowledge. You shouldn't try to do everything — which is what I would tell anyone considering a career as a gender and social inclusion specialist. How have you seen your work change as the sector has changed? There has been increasing recognition that this work is at the core of development — not just something that can be tagged on later — as the sector has changed. Global feminist movements and a recognition that gender and inequality is harmful for both women and men has helped shape this change. There has been a deepening of analysis and understanding and willingness to take on and think about inequality in other ways. But there is still a long way to go to ensure all the work we are doing is accessible to everyone.