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.

Assessing GoT/TRC Programming for Gender Sensitivity - Introduction and Scope of Research

Because I have no work to speak of at my organization, I want to spend my remaining blog posts socializing pieces of some original research that I have undertaken since early June. It makes sense, then, to begin with a quick overview of the how the region has been impacted by ongoing fighting in Syria before addressing the scope and limitations of the research itself:

Introduction

Since late 2011, the civil war in Syria has grown to such proportions that spectators increasingly warn of region-wide turmoil on several planes – political instability, military intervention, and humanitarian disaster. Concerned heads of Middle Eastern states continue to steel their administrations and electorate for the worst to come, which -- for Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey – has come to mean an outflow of Syrians seeking shelter and safety that, at the extreme, could lead to both the collapse of public services and increased military involvement in the Syrian theatre, two spillover effects that no country can reasonably manage in the long-term.

The degree to which each country has been exhausted by the influx of Syrian refugees differs from country to country, with Turkey fairing slightly better than its Middle Eastern counterparts, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq. As of May/June 2013, UNHCR reports the following figures for registered Syrians in surrounding countries: 500,654 in Lebanon, 472,764 in Jordan, 372,326 in Turkey, and 154,372 in Iraq; an accurate number of unregistered Syrians living within these countries is not currently known.[1] If Syria continues to slide into a state of protracted conflict, UNHCR predicts that conditions on the ground will force over half of Syria’s  population into dependence on foreign aid by the end of 2013[2], a grim reality that few could have predicted during the initial onset of tensions. 

Scope of Inquiry

This inquiry will focus entirely on Turkey’s response to the growing refugee* crisis within its borders through a gender lens. More specifically, this research will squarely assess the degree to which the Turkish Red Crescent (TRC), in close partnership with the Government of Turkey (GoT), has addressed the unique needs of Syrian women and men living within the 19 camps established in border regions near Syria. I acknowledge that the humanitarian crisis unfolding within Turkey bears several close connections with similar crises facing Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and to a lesser extent, Israel, but a region-wide analysis of the conflict through a gender lens is too broad to be fruitful.

The simple answer to why I have focused my research on Turkey alone is that I was awarded a Conflict Resolution Summer Program Fellowship through Georgetown University to intern at the Turkish Red Crescent for Summer 2013. I assumed prior to departure that as an intern, I would have helpful access to internal memos and documentation and would be able to speak freely and directly with TRC personnel in ways that would support sound research for the independent project of assessing the degree to which GoT/TRC understands and addresses gender- and conflict-specific needs of Syrians living in Turkey.

Because this research seeks to understand how well programs have addressed Syrians’ needs from a gender perspective, and a gender perspective “highlights women’s capacities and can indicate where opportunities are missed by relief interventions for making aid more effective by supporting women’s skills and capacities”[3], the research will ultimately seek to answer questions about the degree to which Syrian women have been both empowered and disadvantaged by programs developed and implemented by the GoT/TRC. It should be noted that while a comprehensive and responsible gender analysis demands the inclusion of how a conflict has impacted the capacities and vulnerabilities of men, the main focus of this paper will be on Syrian women living within camps, not least because women and children make up approximately 75% of camp resident populations and it is much more difficult (though no less important) to assess how Syrian men have been affected by this conflict because there is a high degree of mobility for men who move freely from the camps back to Syria to fight.[4]

A comprehensive analysis of the difficulties faced by Syrians living outside of Turkish camps lies beyond the scope of this research, but it will be useful to reference the wildly different realities of Syrians inside camps versus Syrians outside camps in order to better understand the GoT’s overall response to Syrians seeking refuge in Turkey. It will also be important to address some questions related to how ignoring the vast population of urban Syrians might impact more vulnerable groups – like women – in ways that have been carefully documented in Lebanon and Jordan.

Despite this paper’s primary focus on Syrians living within the camps, there is a desperate need to better understand the realities of urban individuals, particularly because the level of coordinated assistance outside the camps is significantly lower than inside the camps. As quantitative data is difficult to come by and Turkish officials have only recently started counting Syrians living in border cities and towns, the working estimate of how many Syrians currently reside unofficially outside of the camps is around 200,000, a figure that is much larger than the number of registered Syrians living within refugee camps.

This research covers program implementation from the start of the conflict in October 2011 up until the present and includes predictions and extrapolated analysis of future programming for camps that have not yet been built but are scheduled to come into being in the next 6-12 months.

---

[1] UNHCR Regional Response Plan 5. January to December 2013. 

*The term “refugee” is not accurate in terms of the legal protections and status the GoT affords displaced Syrians seeking shelter within Turkey. Instead, the government has enacted a regime of “temporary protection” to describe the range of protections available to Syrians, which, in real terms, guarantees the right of asylum and freedom from forced returns but denies legal access to transfer to third countries as UN recognized refugees, legal employment, and education. However, for ease of readership, the term “refugee” will be used throughout to describe Syrians living in camps as well as urban areas.

[2] Martin Chulov. “Half of Syrian population ‘will need aid by end of year’. The Guardian. Available online at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/19/half-syrian-population-aid-year. April 19, 2013.

[3] Bridget Byrne and Sally Baden. “Gender, Emergencies and Humanitarian Assistance,” Bridge, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, 1995, p. 10.

[4] UNHCR Regional Response Plan 5. “Turkey.” January to December 2013. P. 212.

Acknowledging Reality, Fostering Change

“Women value family and take care of the home. You can best find them at church. Men value money and spend their time at work and with their friends. You can best find them at local bars and videoclubs.”

Stereotypes are ambivalent – we need them to cope with the complexity of life, they help us organize the many impressions our brains receive and direct our behavior accordingly, but they are also an obstacle to change and can even justify harmful acts. At a recent gender mainstreaming training, I experienced the challenge of working with stereotypes. Yes, we want to challenge gender stereotypes, especially those that violate women’s rights and limit their participation in decision-making. At the same time, in order for civil society organizations to mainstream their programs and ensure that women and men can and will participate, they need to consider where women and men are, what they do, when they have time, what their interests are etc. These discussions often lead back to gender stereotypes. Women get up early to heat up the water for their husbands to bath, prepare breakfast, and get the kids ready for school, before being able to go to work themselves. Similarly, in the evening, they prepare dinner, do laundry, help the kids with homework and get them ready for bed. While men might thus have time to come to community forums after work, women will most likely be busy at home and not come. Knowing these typical gender roles and activities helps CSOs schedule their activities in ways that are more gender-sensitive. At the same time, the discussion about gender roles reinforces stereotypes among the paticipants. “What did you learn today?” “We learned that women take care of the home and the children.” “We discussed that many women in our communities take care of the home and the children, right? So what does that mean for your programs?” It is a balancing act to talk about stereotypes and show the value of considering the roles that most men and women have, without sending the wrong message that these roles are set in stone and cannot or do not need to change.

Similarly, a recent training for radio stations provided them with skills in audience research so that they can be sustainable also when donors slowly withdraw from the country. When should the stations best advertise what for whom? Among the most successful ads in sub-Sahara African countries in transition appear to be ads for infant formula at times of the day when most women listen to the radio, and ads for liquor when wealthy (or aspiring-to-be-wealthy) men listen. Do we want to encourage more use of infant formula instead of breastfeeding? No. Do we want to encourage those with resources in a post-conflict and overall very poor country to spend them on liquor? No. Do we want the radio stations to become profitable so the media landscape won’t fall apart and remain diverse when donors withdraw? Yes. Again, it is a balancing act between acknowledging reality and fostering change.

Aids in this balancing act are research (so that we consider gender roles in our programming based on empirical data rather than mere stereotypes) and an encouragement to critically reflect on and cautiously articulate the findings (this is what the reality looks like but it does not mean that this is how it should or will always look like). Most of all, however, it is creative thinking: Point A is reality, point B is what we hope for – how can we move from the former to the latter in ways that are most beneficial, sensitive and ethical? Point A is fixed and it is not helpful to ignore it but the path we take to point B and the means to get there are our choice and open for creative solutions.

Skills for the Field

Five weeks into the internship, I want to briefly share which of the skills that I brought with me from my first year of graduate studies I have found most useful working in “the field”. During my first year of doing the Master’s degree in Conflict Resolution I have taken both classes that prepare me for applied work and classes that provide me with skills and knowledge I need for doing research. Working in Liberia now gives me the chance to assess which contents from the more applied classes have been most helpful.

First of all, I have learned to appreciate models and metaphors that are simple in form yet able to convey complicated content. Outside of the classroom and the academic/professional setting in general, it is impossible to assume that everyone understands the development/ conflict resolution jargon or sometimes even simply more difficult concepts of the English language. Just this week during a gender training in a rural setting, we noticed how a definition such as that “gender mainstreaming refers to the process of assessing the implications on women and men of any planned action, policy etc.” could easily overwhelm the participants. In these moments, using models, images, metaphors and examples can be even more helpful than using simpler language. This made me think of John Paul Lederach’s idea of using haikus: Once you have understood the complexity of an issue, you can condense it into a simple (and creative) form and in fact that way convey more than if you delved into all the aspects of it. Using for example the “conflict tree” to discuss root causes and effects of sexual and gender-based violence, or the “pyramid” to explain the difference between positions, interests and needs and the story about the two competing groups needing the peel and the juice of oranges respectively to illustrate it, seems more fruitful than using abstract concepts only. In the academic setting, these models and stories sometimes seemed a little silly (“another triangle?”) but here I have found them extremely useful.

Secondly, working in an international team and conducting trainings on partially contentious issues obviously requires good communication skills. In this regard, I believe that academic training in general (undergraduate as much as graduate) helps improve these skills indirectly through teaching students to reflect on their own positions, think critically, engage in intellectual debates with their peers and professors and learn to give and receive constructive feedback. More specifically, I find that having been introduced in the master’s program to the basics of facilitation and mediation and in more depth to negotiation techniques proves useful even outside of classical conflict settings. How do I react constructively as a facilitator when the participants to a gender mainstreaming training get into a heated debate over the issues of marital rape and homosexuality and I myself hold strong positions on them that might differ from those held by the majority of people in the room? Principles such as moving from a focus on the people to the issue, and from positions to interests/needs, as well as trying to find a common basis to agree on (e.g. using the rights-based approach and referring back to human rights principles that all agree upon) sound easy in theory but are challenging in practice. Yet, they are valuable principles to remember and seek to apply.

Lastly, the applied classes in conflict resolution have challenged me to get to know myself and my behavior in conflict situations better, which is useful for life in general and work in conflict resolution in particular. As an “accommodator”, how do I seek to pursue important yet difficult conversations to the end without prematurely stopping out of fear of possibly offending someone? How do I encourage people to openly express their opinions and feelings, knowing that it might make the discussion more challenging? How can I be culturally sensitive without falling into cultural relativism, a path that would fit my tendency of wanting to keep everyone calm and satisfied? Knowing myself better and trying to reflect accordingly on my behavior as a conflict resolution practitioner has definitely helped me in my work here in Liberia. I believe that in conflict resolution practice you draw just as much on general life experience as you draw on specific conflict resolution skills that you learned. Yet, while the former is largely unconscious, the latter is conscious, thus enabling us to reflect, evaluate and apply them more effectively.

Social Media Celebrations

This past few weeks has been extremely exciting for the U.S. legal system. DOMA was overturned, as was Proposition 8, Senator Wendy Davos (D-TX) enacted a historical filibuster to protect women’s rights, and Immigration Reform was passed in the Senate. All in one week! These historic, and might I say precedential decisions, have generated much excitement throughout the U.S. and as the three of us know, throughout the world. On a Wednesday morning, I anxiously sat in front of my computer g-chatting with Amanda Jessen (in Ankara, Turkey) and Gio Steel (in Budapest, Hungary) and live streaming the Supreme Court’s decision in regards to DOMA and Proposition 8. While all 3 of us shared our opinions, concerns and excitements, we were simultaneously rewatching clips on youtube and other news agencies from the filibuster the night before in Texas. Time zones can be challenging to stay up to date, but all three of us were sharing social media sources and trying our past to stay up-to-date as possible.

            When the Supreme Court handed down its decision on Wednesday, we erupted in happiness, Skype calls were made, Facebook statuses were posted, and Tweets were tweeted. These decisions helped Amanda to foster a budding friendship with a colleague in Turkey. While we couldn’t be there to hug and celebrate together, we resorted to the next best option: social media celebrations. Despite the distance that separates the three of us (and our families, loved ones and friends) social media allows us a vehicle to stay connected, stay informed and share important moments (whether they be positive or negative).

            This past week has highlighted the extreme importance and usefulness of social media in the Conflict Resolution field and for those working abroad in addition to its obvious usefulness. While there are many reservations and concerns about social media in certain fields, for example, the lack of validity, the potential to be used for malicious purposes and the overabundance of information, I would argue that social media aids strongly in information dissemination, fostering connections and solidarity.

            Social media mechanisms, such as facebook chat and Gchat allow those with a limited internet connection to stay abreast of current developments. Gio, for example, had what we like to say ‘spotty’ internet and could access chat services but was having a harder time live streaming. She was able to rely on the chats from us to understand minute by minute updates and foster a sense of solidarity.

            The Conflict Resolution field is extremely diverse and interacts with many other fields: international development, humanitarian intervention and defense efforts, amongst others. Social media is a way for us as students and practitioners to stay abreast of issues affecting other sectors. Even if it is simply knowledge dissemination social media serves as an impressive source of information and knowledge and sharing. By being aware and knowledgeable we, as practitioners and scholars, can stand in solidarity with those working in different fields. It is easy to become bogged down in issues that are directly related to our field and overlook issues that are equally as pertinent. Through Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and news sources, especially posts by organizations and colleagues, I am able to stay more knowledgeable of many more issues and topics, rather than just those that impact my work. As a community, we must stand in solidarity with one another and support the work and efforts of all conflict resolution practitioners.