Politics of the Possible: Gender mainstreaming and organisational change: Experiences from the field

What actually happens to organisations during gender and organisational change endeavours? This book takes an in-depth look at the experience of seven Novib partner organisations in the Middle East and South Asia which undertook a 'gender focus programme'. It presents field experiences of managing the politically sensitive agenda of promoting gender equality in non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and negotiating the contradictions between using organisational development tools and promoting gender equality. The book shows how organisational change for gender equality is an integral part of gender mainstreaming processes. It includes how and why change occurred and analyses the different strategies used by the partners in their organisations and programmes. As far as gender training is concerned, for instance, one partner used it successfully from the start to raise its staff's awareness on the broad issues and perspectives relating to gender; another partner decided instead to use the training space to focus first on the technical aspects of gender analysis to pave the way for more substantial discussions and training on patriarchy and women's rights when the staff was considered more ready and responsive. These seven organisations - unable to separate entirely the internal change process from their external work as NGOs - experienced a spill-over of gender justice concerns into their work in the field, with a variety of programme results