Q&A: Stretching gender norms without breaking relationships

NEW YORK — When Women for Women International launched 26 years ago, the nonprofit expected that many of its operating countries in conflict would graduate to post-conflict status. That hasn’t happened as quickly as hoped, according to CEO Laurie Adams. The rising prevalence of protracted crises and conflicts means a readjustment of what it means to operate in some of the most dangerous conflict and post-conflict zones, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Eastern Congo, and Northern Nigeria, Adams told Devex. “ Every single year, when we try to bring our country director from Afghanistan into the U.S., we have never once gotten a visa.” --— Laurie Adams, CEO, Women for Women International Women for Women International has had 15,000 women in conflict and post-conflict countries go through their one-year program that focuses on building business skills as well as awareness of the value of women’s work and gender equality. Local leaders oversee the training program, which often results in women growing their businesses and income, according to Women for Women International. Their work is far from over, Adams said. In a recent interview with Devex, she explains what it means to operate in conflict zones today, and how her organization, like many others, feels the impact of the “shrinking civil society” space. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. The nature of conflict is changing, as it becomes more protracted and also increasingly within countries. How is this influencing your work? Women for Women is 26 years old now. Around 10 years ago we talked about working in post-conflict countries. And it is true that we have seen Kosovo, Bosnia, and Rwanda all achieve post-conflict status. There we've evolved from having a direct operational response to supporting local NGOs. But in all of the other countries that we opened up in, sadly, it's not post-conflict at all. You see women and girls being more and more affected over the past decade as both carrying responsibility, but also being dragged into the conflicts. Unfortunately, it's made our jobs much more in need than when we were founded. If you take the trifecta of what we call the triple nexus of extreme gender discrimination, extreme poverty, and high levels of conflict, there are something like 280 million women who are facing all three of those extremely difficult circumstances and who would need our services. So the number of women who could qualify for Women for Women programs is actually increasing? Yes. Extreme poverty is shifting from Asia — places like India and China, where we've seen great improvements — and is now more centered in conflict-affected areas. If you don't have a state, if you don't have a government that can provide services and invest in its people, then you're going to see an exacerbation of an inability to address extreme poverty. The nature of conflict and the protracted nature of conflict is a factor. The high levels of displacement are an enormous factor. You see extremely challenging circumstances to try to overcome poverty, unless we as a global community can come together to invest in communities and invest in women to build citizenship and peace and prosperity from the bottom up. We're not going to solve this by investing in governments that aren't serving people. I imagine there are a lot of bureaucratic challenges, such as visa issues, you are encountering with your work. How does this impact your work? You're absolutely right. I remember the first time we when we were starting to work with our finance team to do a money transfer for Syrian refugees to northern Iraq. The money didn't get through, obviously. It took months and months and months. We network with other international NGOs and local NGOs as we find out what people who've gone before have learned. The visas are a real challenge for us. Every single year, when we try to bring our country director from Afghanistan into the U.S., we have never once gotten a visa. “We have staff that are talking to the Taliban as well as to the government. That kind of community engagement as a way to maintain protection and security is critically important.” --— I have just come out of the budget meeting and the amount of questionable claims we have from governments requiring more taxes from us is an interesting link to the shrinking civil society space. We've had women who were on the way to our programs, stopped in the street by people who believe women shouldn't get educated. And our staff and change agents have had to go and negotiate with local leaders to get safe passage for women to classes. What are the strategies you are using to ensure that you can still operate safely in these conflict and post-conflict zones? Women for Women is 70% funded by individuals. This means that in places like northern Nigeria, Afghanistan, and Congo we haven't had too many staff let go in accordance with grant cycles. We've been able to use our unrestricted resources to continue to invest in our local staff and our local programs in a consistent way. In Afghanistan, we've been managing to work in not only four really dangerous places, but we opened up in a new place last year. So when other NGOs were scaling back, we actually were able to continue and even expand. It's also that combination of long-standing staff who are trusted in the communities we work with, and in connections with different sides of the conflict. We have staff that are talking to the Taliban as well as to the government. That kind of community engagement as a way to maintain protection and security is critically important. We also take a lot of time in choosing who to work with and we spend time in communities explaining what we do. The community is part of choosing who is most marginalized to go into our program. We understand conflict as a time when norms are thrown up in the air and can be reshaped. That can be a force for good, if we take advantage of it. It can also be worse for bad. We talk about wanting to stretch gender norms without breaking relationships. That requires really deep knowledge of the culture.