Assessing GoT/TRC Programming for Gender Sensitivity: Methodology

Originally, I had planned to solicit questionnaire-based feedback on current programming – as well as recommendations for improvement – from field teams embedded in 10 of the 19 operating camps within Turkey. In fact, the first three weeks of my time in Ankara were spent refining and reviewing the questionnaire with headquarters’ staff for applicability and ease of use. At the beginning of week four, it became clear that the organization was no longer willing to support a camp-wide gender assessment of operations and management practices within the camps themselves. Because of this, the experiences, observations and perceptions of Turkish Red Crescent field team members are necessarily excluded from the source material supporting this research.

The second plank of the research platform consists of interviews with actors who are external to camp operations, management and programming. Among these actors, the following are represented: a consultant with deep subject matter expertise in Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) and reported face-time with Syrian refugees themselves; officials from the US State Department, the International Office of Migration (IOM), the UN World Food Programme (WFP), and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR); and the country director of International Crisis Group/Turkey.  My attempts to gain access to the camps themselves were consistently vetoed by leadership in the Department of International Programs at the Turkish Red Crescent, which is where my summer internship was based.

In no way do I think that interviewing a handful of stakeholders will provide a complete and holistic picture of where and how programming has impacted Syrian lives, but a systematic adjustment of expectations leads me to believe that this is a good place to start, and perhaps an area of inquiry that could be furthered by additional research. As I will explain in forthcoming sections, the GoT has deliberately cordoned off I/NGO, UN and EU access to camps, which has led to imperfect, incomplete and delayed needs assessments in the field. Perhaps more than anything, this paper may function as a call to other professionals in the field to find creative ways to access the people who need technical expertise within Turkey the most.

This research is qualitative in nature and derived from in-person interviews that lasted between 60 and 90 minutes each. I asked each interviewee a series of questions aimed at soliciting their observations, experiences and perceptions of how TRC/GoT programming currently addresses the unique and conflict-connected needs of women and men living within the camps.