DISCUSSION POINTS

1. Links between women working in development NGOs
   • How are women organising themselves? At national level? At international level?
   • How could existing links be strengthened and new ones created?
   • What should be the goals and action strategies for such networks in the short ... medium ... and long term?
2. Links between women working in development NGOs and women from developing countries
   • What efforts have been made to create such links?
   • How effective have they been?
   • How could existing links be strengthened and new ones created?
   • What should be the goals and action strategies for such networks in the short ... medium ... and long term?
3. Women's organisations in developing countries
   • How are women in the South organising themselves?
   • How could these efforts be strengthened?
   • What should be the goals and action strategies for such organisations and networks in the short ... medium ... and long term?
   • How can South-South links between women's organisations be festered?
4. Links between the women's movement and the development movement
   • What efforts have been made to create such links? At national level? At international level?
   • How could existing links be strengthened and new ones created?
   • What should the goals and action strategies for such networks be in the short ... medium ... and long term?

INTRODUCTION TO WORKSHOP 5

IMPROVE COMMUNICATION AND COORDINATION BETWEEN WOMEN INVOLVED IN DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS AND PROGRAMMES

Wendy Poussard (Australia)

The guidelines for this topic suggest that we look at four different sets of links:

1. among women working in development NGOs
2. between women in development NGOs and women from developing countries
3. among women's organizations in developing countries
4. between the women's movement and the development movement.

We are asking the same questions about each:

1. What kinds or forms of organization already exist?
2. How can these links be strengthened and new ones created?
3. What should be the goals and strategies (short, medium and long term) for these women's networks?

If we look at how women are organizing now, we can see some - general trends.

We are organizing in strong and creative ways using diverse and dynamic strategies. There is a great determination to share those strengths which are experienced and valued by women, a concern for process and meaning, for the right use of words and symbols, a respect for reality, a rejection of rhetoric and pomposity, a rejection of the oppression of hierarchies and orthodoxies. I met women in the poorest and the richest countries with very different cultures and circumstances and it always seems to me that the things that unite us are stronger than our differences.

I think the long-term goals of all these linking groups are the same too, although the words I use now to define our goals are not the best or the final ones...

These networks are for changes. Their purpose is not to legitimate or protect the status quo. They seek a more equitable distribution of resources and a greater respect for human persons and human struggle. They stand against exploitation and violence.

Our Australian network began when women working in aid organisations and groups for development education and social change began meeting, just a few of us in one city at first. We were concerned about the marginalizing effects of planned economic change on women. We could see that women are not just left out, but further disadvantaged by many aid programmes and development plans. A parallel concern was that in our own work, we too are marginalized in a development industry dominated by male planners and decision-makers.

When we began to meet, we were surprised to find that we had no other forum to discuss these questions, that there are very few opportunities for women to share experiences, perceptions and strategies. So we invited women from other cities to join our discussions and we planned a national workshop which set out our basic philosophy and made recommendations to the government aid programmes and NGOs. After this workshop, groups continued to meet around Australia, and that is how our network was born.

One important characteristic of the way we work is that we meet in local groups simply as ourselves, not as delegated representatives of other organizations. If women meet as representatives (of aid agencies, for instance) they come together with a pre-determined agenda of competing interests, and must carry a baggage of aspirations and myths which obscure our own priorities.

If we are to create a new concept and practice of development, there must be free meetings of minds and hearts. The debate and the priorities chosen in this free space flow back forcefully into other organizations and forums.

We are still trying to work out an organizational structure and process which is consistent with our aims. We are a national organization composed of autonomous regional groups and we are committed to a process by which policy is made by the membership, and by consensus. To maintain the information flow and channels of communication which are necessary for such wide participation, we must be, usually, a heavily bureaucratized group!

Another of our network's continuing disputes and problems has to do with money. To organize costs money, and it is difficult to organize at a regional and national level, impossible to organize at an international level, unless resources are available. Quite early in the history of our network, the Australian Development Assistance Bureau, which is the bureau administering the aid programme within the Australian Foreign Ministry, offered funding for WADNA to employ a coordinator, and then to undertake a project identification mission in Pacific countries. We did employ a coordinator, and we did identify aid projects in the Pacific, together with Pacific women's groups, which subsequently received about two million dollars in funds from Australian donors. There is a continuing debate in the network as to whether this funding has made us just another aid agency and has compromised our attempts to be in true solidarity with Third World women. Although we manage one large project and funding for others, our attitude to aid has always been ambivalent.

Our network is now in contact with hundreds of women and women's groups around the world and we have a special interest in women's struggle and action in the Pacific island nations. We have successfully influenced the policy and rhetoric of government and NGO aid programmes, and the level of funding available to women through the aid programme has greatly increased. To define our future directions and to establish a strong continuing programme of action at local and national levels are challenges we must now meet.

I see many women's groups in Third World countries which are sustained and united by the immediacy of their struggle. Their struggle for survival is so urgent that the value and purpose of their solidarity is clear. Women's networks in industrialized countries lack this clear sense of purpose. I think we may only survive if we have clear and tangible links with organizations of Third World women who are willing to help us find our way. Otherwise our organizations will be shortlived or diverted into action programmes which are peripheral to our aims.

All around the world, I see women forming similar networks for solidarity, mutual support, lobbying and action campaigns. I think we can go much further. We need links which are less reactive and more innovative. There may be a place for feminist development NGOs at national and international levels and for feminist consultancy and research groups.

It is important for women development workers to make links with women's causes and networks in politics, the arts and industry and with women scientists and technologists, women artists and writers, researchers and interpreters of culture, and educationalists and economists. We need information systems which allow us to know who's around, and who we can call on. This will require a sensitive appreciation of the political situation of women in countries where to organize is dangerous.

Regional and international networks need to have a public face, but also need to be partly hidden or protected against attack and co-option.

The quality of relationship of NGOs with Third World women depends very much on women project-officers, field officers and policy makers. This is also true of bi-lateral and multi-lateral programmes. These women, together with Third World women can find cracks in even the most monolithic establishments so that some of the resources of these establishments can be used for action controlled by and benefitting women.

Nevertheless, I think NGOs and government programmes have an institutional mind-set which sees women as the recipients, the weak ones, the objects and targets of development. This will only change if women change it and take over the management and prevailing ideology of development.

We could work towards global medium-term goals, e.g. that in 10 years time, 50% of development programmes should be controlled and managed by women. We could also set goals for the rechanneling of technological expertise into areas more in accord with women's priorities (e.g. adequate water supply and food production and safe contraception).

I want to make just a couple of points on the question we have raised about creating forums for grass-roots workers. I think we could convince aid donors to make this a funding priority, so perhaps we should think through the implications of such a strategy.

I also think we shouldn't concentrate too exclusively on international meetings such as Nairobi because women in each place will have their own choices about the most appropriate scale of interaction. In many places the most valuable and productive meeting may be with women from the next island or the other side of the mountain and to facilitate such meetings may be as difficult and as time-consuming as to arrange an international gathering.

We need both broadly based networks for global solidarity, and local and specialist networks. Networks for support and ideas, and networks that can get a job done.

REPORT OF WORKSHOP 5

IMPROVE COMMUNICATION BETWEEN WOMEN INVOLVED IN DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS AND PROGRAMMES

Rapporteur: Joyce Yu

The group divided its discussion into three sections:

• Basic principles
• Needs
• Specific ideas

The main conclusions from these three discussion areas were as follows:

Basic principles

Emphasis should always be placed on the need for the method of communication to be geared to the particular intended audience. Clearly there will be major differences therefore between different cultures and also between different groups within a culture.

Material should always be relevant both socially and culturally. There is an urgent need for more short, concise material, relying heavily on visuals.

It should be recognised that the process of producing communication materials is in itself a very important learning experience.

Although there is still a major need for simply produced materials that are not reliant on sophisticated technology, there is also a need for women to become more familiar with new technologies and to become more proficient in exploiting them.

Needs

There is an urgent need for more women to train in all kinds of communication skills.

A 'How to do it ' section on communication methods might be included in the Resource Guide.

There is a need to strengthen networks of women working in all aspects of development. There is a need both for general networks and for more specific issue networks, for example on health, housing etc.

Specific Ideas

In this section ideas were discussed for getting a greater women's perspective in the various forms of mass media as well as the potential for developing specifically women's news services.

There was discussion of how the women's movement worldwide might link into the new INTERDOC project - a project to link together a network of groups exploring the use of new information technologies for the exchange of feasibility studies, experiences and findings.