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Women and Civil Society: Capacity Building in Yemen

 | 
Maggy Grabundzija
, 
Blandine Destremau

A joint reflection to share our experience

Dominique Anouilh

Texte intégral

1In 1994, France created the Social Development Fund, to promote local developmental action, close to the population, thus becoming French cooperation’s main tool for supporting civil society initiatives.

2The first FSD, or FSD I, began in Yemen in 2005, and lasted four years, aiming to strengthen civil society and to contribute to the country’s social-economic development, and to reducing poverty. As poverty especially affects women in rural areas, projects helping them were made a priority. With € 1,000,000 in budget, the first Social Development Fund sponsored 18 projects involving over 90 NGO’s in Yemen.

  • 1 Blandine Destremau (coordinator), Safa’a Rawiah, Antelak al-Mutawakel and Gabool al-Mutawakel, (YL (...)
  • 2 A capacity-building program for the senior & junior NGO beneficiaries of FSD II was developed in 2 (...)

3At the end of 2008, a French-Yemeni team of experts conducted an evaluation of the program overseen by sociologist Blandine Destremau1. The point of this was to give an appraisal of the projects funded within the framework of this first FSD, in order to prepare for its second phase, FSD 2, launched in February 2010, with a new budget of € 700,000. Its conclusions helped, first of all, shape an outline, regarding the new FSD, on how to strengthen non-governmental Organizations, by increasing senior NGO training, and by accompanying their partnering up with junior partners2. But, in between the lines, what the evaluation really brought up was the question of the FSD’s capacity to help bring about social change, especially with regards to women’s situation, the main beneficiaries targeted by the program. What type of change had it helped create? How had it affected, both directly and indirectly, its beneficiaries? It quickly became clear to the French embassy it had to look further into this issue, in order to help its partners, particularly NGO’s on the ground, reflect upon the matter themselves, and stand back to reassess the way they conduct work, and their strategies.

  • 3 Sara Ben Nefissa, Maggy Grabundzija et Jean Lambert, Société civile, associations et pouvoir local (...)

4This theme clearly came within the purview of the French Centre in Sana’a for Archaeology and Social Sciences (CEFAS), already conducting research on civil society organizations in Yemen3 as well as along the theme of “Gender transformations in the Arabian Peninsula & the Horn of Africa”: the French embassy therefore appointed it to conduct such an analysis.

5This work is divided up into two parts:

  1. An introduction written by Blandine Destremau, aiming to provide a sense of perspective to the impact study by replacing it within the context of the various schools of thought on questions of gender and development.
  2. An impact assessment carried out in the field by Maggy Grabundzija, an anthropologist, focusing on two of the eighteen projects funded by the Social Development Fund: the project for the “promotion of girls’ education via a program reinforcing the capacities of local junior NGO’s” carried out by the Society for Development & Children-SOUL and the project for the “improvement of girls’ education in rural areas in Yemen, a community-based approach” developed by ONG SADA Society for Women. These two projects were chosen for their respective work in the area of girls’ education in rural areas.

6We will take the opportunity afforded by this preface to heartily thank SOUL and SADA NGO’s which accepted their work and the results attained by both projects be analysed within this study. Their involvement in such an approach shows their maturity and their capacity to adopt a critical stance regarding on their own way of conducting work.

7This publication is the result of such a process, bringing together sponsors and NGO’s wishing to improve, with the help of researchers, the impact of their work. This isn’t as much a manual on how to run a «successful» project in gender and development, as it is a joint reflection by partners wanting to share their experience, and to learn from them.

Notes

1 Blandine Destremau (coordinator), Safa’a Rawiah, Antelak al-Mutawakel and Gabool al-Mutawakel, (YLDF), “FSD Evaluation/Civil Society” ([Évaluation du FSD/Société Civile] in French), # 2003/84, February 2010, 11th February 2009.

2 A capacity-building program for the senior & junior NGO beneficiaries of FSD II was developed in 2010 in association with the Yemeni Social Fund for Development which funded it entirely.

3 Sara Ben Nefissa, Maggy Grabundzija et Jean Lambert, Société civile, associations et pouvoir local au Yémen: actes de la Table Ronde «Société civile, citoyenneté et pouvoir local» [Civil Society, Associations and Local Power in Yemen: Proceedings of the Round Table Discussion on “Civil Society, Citizenship and Local Power”], Sana’a, 1–3 July 2006, Sana’a, CEFAS-FES, 2008 (one volume in French and English, 332 p. and one volume in Arabic, 394 p.) and Anaïs Casanova, Guillaume Jeu, La liberté d’association au Yémen: une compilation de la législation relative aux associations et aux fondations [Freedom of Association in Yemen: a compilation of legislation relative to associations and foundations], Sana’a, CEFAS, 2007, 202 p., (Cahiers du CEFAS n° 5), in French and in English.

Auteur

Cooperation attaché Cooperation and Cultural Action Section (SCAC) The French Embassy in the Republic of Yemen

Le texte et les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont sous Licence OpenEdition Books, sauf mention contraire.

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