Women's Voice and Leadership Midterm Report

Women’s Voice and Leadership PA KI STAN

Mid-Term Report

Acknowledgements: We wish to acknowledge the following women’s rights organization project partners in Pakistan for co-creating the WVL-P project mid-term review, by contributing their time, insights and contexts. They helped drive the components, structure, and content of this mid-term review, and provided valuable perspectives and feedback: Advocacy Research Training and Services Foundation; Association of Business, Professional and Agricultural Women; Awaz-eNiswan; Breaking Barrier Women; Development Empowerment Women Association; National Organization for Working Communities; Pakistan Rural Workers Social Welfare Organization; Roshni Welfare Organization; Saiban Development Organization; Society for Human Advancement and Disadvantaged Empowerment; Ujala Seher Organization; and, Women in Struggle for Empowerment. We also want to acknowledge the immense time and efforts of the Oxfam in Pakistan country team in ensuring the mid-term review’s completion, as well as the various consultants who have supported different aspects of the mid-term review process. We would also like to acknowledge the support of Strengthening Participatory Organization (SPO).

The full Mid-Term Review Report was authored by Uzma Latif in close collaboration with Oxfam Canada, Oxfam in Pakistan, and the local women’s rights organization project partners. This report is an abridged version of the original report.

March 2023 For more information, questions, and concerns about this report, please contact:: Oxfam in Pakistan Erum Sharif, MEAL Coordinator ESharif@oxfam.org.uk

Oxfam Canada Richa Sharma, Program Officer, MEL

richa.sharma@oxfam.org

Disclaimer: This report was commissioned by Oxfam for the project, “Women’s Voice and Leadership - Pakistan,” with financial support from Global Affairs Canada. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect the opinions held by Oxfam or Global Affairs Canada. It should also be noted that the statistics in this report are not comparable to national-level statistics. The study was conducted with sample groups from specific project areas; thus, the statistics are not coherent with national standardized data. While every attempt has been made to ensure data quality, we recognize that there may be certain limitations in this sense. Neither Oxfam nor Global Affairs Canada can guarantee the precision of the data included in this report. Additionally, the borders, colours, denominations, or other information shown on any map in this report do not reflect any judgment

by Oxfam or Global Affairs Canada with regard to the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of any such boundaries.

Women’s Voice and Leadership - Pakistan is funded by the Government of Canada through Global Affairs Canada

CONTENTS 3

CONTENTS 5 Figures and Tables 6 List of Acronyms and Abbreviations 7 Executive Summary 7 Overview of Mid-Term Review (MTR) Process

Executive Summary

8 Findings 9 Recommendations

07

10 introduction 10 Project Overview 11 Context

12 Methodology 14 findings 14 PILLAR 1 – Nurturing strong and resilient organizations (1100) 19 PILLAR 2 – Expanding transformative programming and advocacy of WROs (1200) 23 PILLAR 3 – Fostering opportunities for knowledge generation, innovation, linking, and learning among WROs (1300) 25 Mainstreaming of Sustainability 27 CAT4GJO Reflections and Assessment

introduction

10

30 Case Studies 30 Gender Leadership Program 31 Organizational Level Transformative Change Process

32 Challenges and Lessons Learnt 34 Recommendations 34 Recommendations for WROs 34 Recommendations for Oxfam

Methodology

12

4 WOMEN’S VOICE AND LEADERSHIP: PAKISTAN — MID-TERM REPORT

Pillar 1 – Nurturing strong and resilient organizations

19 Pillar 3 – Fostering opportunities for knowledge generation, innovation, linking, and learning among WROs

14

Pillar 2 – Expanding transformative programming and advocacy of WROs

27 23

CAT4GJO Reflections and Assessment

CONTENTS 5

Figures and Tables 16 Figure 2: Relevance, Effectiveness, and Efficiency of various WVL-P capacity strenghtening initiatives under Pillar 2

21

Figure 3: Average % change in Domain and corresponding capacity areas, across all WROS

29

Table 1: Data Collection Sources for WVL MTR

13

Table 2: Pillar 1 Outcomes and Relevant Interventions

14

Table 3: Pillar 2 Outcomes and Relevant Interventions

19

Table 4: Pillar 3 Outcomes and Relevant Interventions

23

Table 5: CAT4GJO Tool

28

6 WOMEN’S VOICE AND LEADERSHIP: PAKISTAN — MID-TERM REPORT

List of Acronyms and Abbreviations ARTS Foundation

Advocacy Research Training and Services Foundation

ABPAW

Association of Business, Professional and Agricultural Women

AAN

Awaz-e-Niswan

BBW

Breaking Barriers Women

BOD

Board of Directors

CAT4GJO

Capacity Assessment Tool for Gender-Just Organizational Strengthening

DEWA

Development Empowerment Women Association

EAD

Economic Affairs Division

ED

Executive Director

GAC

Global Affairs Canada

GI

Group Interviews

GLP

Gender Leadership Program

HRDN

Human Resource Development Network

KII

Key Informant Interviews

KPK

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

MEAL

Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning

MTR

Mid-term Review

NOW Communities

National Organization for Working Communities

OCA

Oxfam Canada

OiP

Oxfam in Pakistan

PCW

Provincial Consultative Workshops

PM

Project Manager

PMF

Performance Measurement Framework

PRA

Participatory Rural Appraisal

PRWSWO

Pakistan Rural Workers Social Welfare Organization

RWO

Roshni Welfare Organization

SDO

Saiban Development Organization

SHADE

Society for Human Advancement and Disadvantaged Empowerment

USO

Ujala Seher Organization

VAWG

Violence Against Women and Girls

WISE

Women in Struggle for Empowerment

WRO

Women’s Rights Organization

WVL

Women’s Voice and Leadership

WVL-Pakistan

Women’s Voice and Leadership-Pakistan

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 7

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This Mid-Term Review Report provides a progress update on the Women’s Voice and Leadership – Pakistan project (WVL-P), told from the perspectives of project partners including local women’s rights organizations (WROs), national and provincial alliances, short term grantees, Oxfam in Pakistan (OiP), and Oxfam Canada (OCA). This report captures some of the project achievements, contributes to collective learnings, identifies challenges and lessons learned, and good practices on supporting WROs in their transformation towards becoming gender just organizations within the framework of WVL-P.

Overview of Mid-Term Review (MTR) Process The MTR process was designed using a gender transformative approach and at every step, WROs were involved. The aim was to ensure that the WROs were engaged in an empowering process that provides space for mutual learning, as opposed to being an extractive exercise. To this end, various participatory activities were built in throughout the review process. All WROs were asked to provide their feedback, including from Executive Directors (EDs), Board of Directors (BODs) and various staff members about the focus, scope, methodologies, and end This poem featured is a collaborative effort by two WRO products they would like to see from the review staff members, from August 2022. It offers the perspective of a victim of forced marriage, and calls for stopping this process. This consolidated feedback was used to practice. design the entire MTR process. All WROs completed an organizational survey, tracking and rating their progress on key learning questions and across the Performance Measurement Framework (PMF) indicators. This was followed by two participatory Provincial Consultative Workshops (PCW) arranged in Islamabad and Karachi, where all WROs and alliance members were invited and each WRO was invited with three staff members including ED, Project Manager (PM) and Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) focal person. During each workshop, four processes were rolled out: 1.

Rapid assessment of Capacity Assessment Tool for Gender-Just Organizational Strengthening (CAT4GJO)

by WROs;

2.

Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) with EDs, Alliance Representatives and short grantees;

3.

Group Interviews (GIs) with participants of Gender Leadership Program (GLP), WRO staff, and alliance representatives; and

4.

Reflective exercises

Key learning questions used to guide the review process focused on four of the six OECD/DAC review criteria including1: effectiveness, relevance, efficiency, and coherence. The MTR also explored how WROs understood sustainability.

1

https://www.oecd.org/dac/evaluation/revised-evaluation-criteria-dec-2019.pdf

8 WOMEN’S VOICE AND LEADERSHIP: PAKISTAN — MID-TERM REPORT

THIS MTR WAS INCLUSIVE of not only WRO EDs, but their staff (program, operational and administrative), BODs, volunteers/interns, women leaders in staff, GLP members, alliances and selective issue-based grantees.

Pre-workshop Survey from all WROs Feedback from WROs on MTR engagement strategy – February - March 2022

mid-term Report November 2022 – March 2023

3

1 2

Consultation meetings with OCA, OiP, WVL-P MEAL Working Group (including MEAL focal persons from core WROs) – June - August 2022

5

4

CAT4GJO re-assessment across all WROs

Participatory Provincial cluster base consultation workshops in Islamabad and Karachi

7

6

Validation workshop and consultant feedback to each WROs – September 2022

Findings Effectiveness: The technical and financial support provided to WROs, along with the technical capacity and institutional strengthening were effective in bringing about changes at a personal and organizational level within WROs. Along with capacity strengthening, the internalization of gender transformative values and principles within WROs, was effective in changing organizational culture, shifting values, improving program quality and leadership. The GLP was a standout intervention, which was very effective in influencing the transformative change process within each WRO towards becoming a more gender just organization. The engagement of WROs with alliances, and subsequent capacity strengthening initiatives along with mentorship and guidance of OiP was effective in increasing connection, communication and effective networking of WROs with likeminded stakeholders and improve women centric agendas of alliances. This will likely improve the collective engagement for advocacy and lobbying on gender sensitive policy change and implementation in Pakistan.

Relevance: The interventions under WVL-P have been relevant to the needs of WROs to transform them into gender just organizations, who can deliver quality campaigns, programming on women’s rights agenda and can effectively advocate for gender-sensitive policy change and implementation in Pakistan. The integration of CAT4GJO into the project design and processes was significant in ensuring relevance of project activities, especially on policy development work, and on capacity and institutional strengthening of WROs. This improved their management and gender transformative leadership in values and practice within WROs. Thematic knowledge, such as on intersectionality, and technical skilled based capacity, such as gender transformative programming (MEAL, participatory rural appraisal [PRA], gender analysis etc.) were relevant for WROs in improving the depth and quality of programming. Engagement with alliances, capacity strengthening activities, including advocacy skills and digital media, and mentorship of OiP staff was relevant to the needs of WROs in improving their engagement with wider, like-minded stakeholders. This will likely improve the effectiveness of women’s rights voice for policy change and implementation in Pakistan.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 9

Efficiency: The interventions under WVL-P were implemented efficiently, not only in terms of providing value addition resources to WROs but also in terms of enabling WROs to use these resources in a time and cost saving manner. The institutional support, in terms of financial resources, policy and strategic work, along with in-house capacity of staff and gender transformative programming capacity provided resources for WROs to improve their governance, management, sustainability and deliver gender transformative programming and advocacy on women’s rights agenda. The personal growth of staff, shift in values and practices within WROs and the knowledge and tools provided by WVL-P, enabled WROs to use the resources efficiently. The engagement with alliances provided WROs with the resources to connect, network and engage with like-minded stakeholders and it is likely that the collective engagement will improve the effectiveness of gender sensitive policy change and implementation related work in Pakistan.

Coherence: The interventions under WVL-P and how they were implemented were coherent with gender transformative principles and values, which is a cornerstone of the overall project design. Gender transformative principles and values were integrated into the processes of project implementation, communication and consultations with WROs. For example, the co-creation process of developing the baseline through CAT4GJO along with capacity to use tools and methodologies, such as MEAL, PRA, and gender analysis, promoted values and principles of participation, inclusion and empowerment. The interventions were successful in internalizing gender transformative principles and values within WROs and facilitating shifting of power within organization.

Sustainability: WVL-P not only included aspects of sustainability from design to implementation of the project, but was also successful in achieving sustainability ‘wins’. The commitment to develop and strengthen enduring partnerships between WROs, alliance, networks and stakeholders at community, service delivery and policy level is essential in continuation of project outcomes, after WVL-P. Institutional strengthening and capacity strengthening have been vital in improving resilience of organizations, strengthening women’s voice and leadership, and increasing outreach of WROs. These changes towards a gender just organization are likely to be sustainable after the WVL-P ends. Financial sustainability remains a significant concern for WROs, along with the sustainability/retention of skilled human resources, the onus of which does not solely lies on WROs but the ecosystem of the development sector has to work collectively around it.

Recommendations For WROs Walk the Talk!

I nvest in business development - alternate fund-raising avenues need to be explored trengthen culture of self-accountability S at the senior level The trickle-down effect of training done by WVL needs to be further institutionalized

by WROs Improve quality of context and risk analysis Prioritize strengthening relationships with alliances Generate informal discussion avenues between staff and board members for collective ownership of the vision and mission of the WRO

For Oxfam Engage with BoDs of WROs on issues related to accountability and conflict of interest Alliances, WRO and knowledge generation: as per the MTR, pillar three will be a continuous challenge and to address the issue, more strategic direction is required from now onwards from WVL GLP should continue beyond the project ontinue Legacy of WVL- Keep the focus C of strengthening women voice & agency; though, there is a need to engage with men to address toxic masculinities Build Collective understanding of Women Leadership

10 WOMEN’S VOICE AND LEADERSHIP: PAKISTAN — MID-TERM REPORT

INTRODUCTION Project Overview WVL-P is a five-year, $8 million project funded by Global Affairs Canada (GAC) and implemented by OCA, in collaboration with OiP. The project is part of GAC’s Women’s Voice and Leadership (WVL) Program, a global initiative to support the capacity and activities of local and regional women’s organizations and movements seeking to empower women and girls, advance the protection of women’s and girls’ rights, and achieve gender equality. The project, which started in February 2019 and ends in June 2024, was in its fourth year of implementation at the time the review was carried out. The baseline was conducted in 2020 and a final evaluation will be carried out at the end of the project. This MTR focused on assessing the changes achieved at an outcome level and gathered collective learning for possible adaptations for the remainder of the project.

WVL-P aims to strengthen the individual and collective capacity of WROs, women’s rights activists and coalitions within the women’s movements in Pakistan. The project works with 12 WROs, 4 provincial alliances, and 1 national alliance, which are very diverse in geographical and thematic areas, as well as capacity in terms of programming and resources. The project partners are located across all provinces in Pakistan – Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), Balochistan, Punjab, Sindh, and Islamabad.

ABPAW WROs

DEWA

Alliances Short term grantees

as of August 2022

HRDN

KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA

SDO

AAN

ISLAMABAD CAPITAL TERRITORY

USO

BBW

Feminist Friday

SHADE

PUNJAB

WISE RWO Mumkin Alliance PRWSWO

BALOCHISTAN

SINDH

PAKISTAN NOW Communities

Women Lead Alliance Balochistan

Legislative Watch Group ARTS Foundation

INTRODUCTION 11

Context At the time of this MTR, the new NGO regulatory bill (approved in November 2022) continued to pose as a risk factor for WVL and WROs. Multiple regulatory mechanisms, with lengthy process of approval from decision makers, limited availability of foreign funding for gender equality, cases of human rights violations as per media reports, off and on imposition of section 144 stopping public gatherings of more than 2-4 persons, and frequent political rallies with road blockages continued to affect the space for OiP and WROs. WVL had continuously been sensitive to this context and responsive in planning, strategizing and implementation, which minimized the risks developing out of this contextual factor. The guidance and assistance to WROs in fulfilling pre-requisites of Economic Affairs Division (EAD) registration was an important factor in providing a supportive environment for WROs to pursue their individual efforts to have robust systems, including required documentation such as EAD registration to apply for funding from international donors. Some of the critical contextual shifts and transitions are provided below to better situate WVL during project implementation from 2020 – 2022.

Mitigating affects of COVID-19: The incidence, scale and effects of COVID-19 were an important contextual reality of WVL since early 2020, which could not be envisioned during the project design and development stage. Steps taken by WVL-P to mitigate the challenges of COVID-19 included adjusting its operational modality, making use of the inherent flexibility of programming within WVL, use of online platforms, providing safety

kits to WROs, adjustments in WRO plans and proposals to reflect the changes in need due to COVID-19, and providing continuous guidance and support to WROs. This led to minimizing any safety risks of WROs, responding to COVID-19 needs of the partners, and allowing sustainability of WRO’s mandate within their communities during a global pandemic.

Political Landscape: The power politics within the political landscape of Pakistan, often at the cost of issue-based politics, led to immense polarization within society, as a whole, and institutions, media and WROs. This environment made it difficult navigation for OiP and WROs to continue to promote and advocate for women’s rights at a community level and policy/ legislative work at provincial and national level. The polarization in political landscape between main political parties2 is reflected in the provinces, which makes national level policy dialogue and policy and legislative change altogether harder.

Until recently, two of the provinces (KPK and Punjab) were governed by PTI, with a looming threat by PTI to dissolve these assemblies to go for fresh mandate; Balochistan is governed by a coalition of parties; Sindh is governed by PPP; and National assembly is governed by PDM where main share of power is with PMLN. Political instability and volatile situation, which started from ousting of Prime Minister (of PTI) in a vote of no-confidence3 and PDM coalition parties to come in power, will continue in the short term.

Such a volatile situation has already triggered widespread protests, political gatherings and conflict between protestors and state institutions (similar to the ones seen in May 2022), which canimpact the WVL activity implementation.

Economic Situation: The economic environment of Pakistan, during the project implementation period, was affected by COVID-19 until early 2021. After a brief growth in macro-economic indicators in 2021,4 the economic environment continued to decline due to instability in internal politics in 2022 and rising fuel prices. Overall, the rising taxation, inflation in basic commodity prices and raw materials for industries meant not only increasing levels of poverty but also increasing unemployment,5 which disproportionately affects women and girls. The current economic condition and that in the short term will continue to be characterized by large fiscal deficit, decline in foreign exchange reserves and rates, high raw material and basic commodity prices, high unemployment and slowdown of economy (low GDP).

This is due to political instability and is further compounded by natural disasters.6 Floods 2022: Widespread flooding (started from July 2022) affected almost two-thirds of the country (KPK, Southern Punjab, Interior Sindh and Balochistan). As of 8th Oct 2022, 1700 people died, more than 12,867 injured and 33 million displaced.7 This has affected activity implementation and operations of two partners particularly i.e., SHADE (from Balochistan) and ARTS Foundation (from Sindh).

Flooding caused destruction of infrastructure, agricultural land, livestock and communications at a much greater scale than 2010 floods.8 This will lead to extreme food shortages, loss of income (especially in rural and semi-urban settings) and huge import bills for the country, which will further put pressure on an extremely weak economy.

2 Pakistan Tehreek Insaf (PTI), Pakistan democratic movement (PDM), a coalition of 13 political parties mainly PPP: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League -N (PMLN), Jamate ul Islam Fazalar Rehman (JUI-F) and some smaller provincial parties.

3 The Prime Minister was removed on 10th April 2022.

4 https://www.economist.com/asia/2020/09/30/is-pakistan-really-handling-the-pandemic-better-than-india 5 https://pkrevenue.com/tax-to-gdp-ratio-estimated-at-10-8-in-fy22-economic-survey/ 6 https://www.economist.com/asia/2022/07/28/pakistan-may-be-able-to-avoid-a-full-blown-economic-crisis 7 SitRep report, NDMA. 8th Oct 2022. http://cms.ndma.gov.pk/storage/app/public/situation-reports/October2022/fWqJM62jd74KvRZ91PLJ.pdf 8 https://www.economist.com/asia/2022/08/30/pakistan-has-been-hit-by-its-worst-floods-in-recent-memory

Support transformative change

12 WOMEN’S VOICE AND LEADERSHIP: PAKISTAN — MID-TERM REPORT Recognize power and privilege

Put women’s rights actors at the centre of our work

METHODOLOGY Honour context and complexity

Celebrate diversity and challenge discrimination through transformative an intersectional approach Support change Nothing about me without me

Recognize powerMTR and privilege The approach of the process was designed in line with the core values and principles of WVL’s approach.

The approach not only focuses on the process but also highlights the “inward reflection” process of the Do no harm consultant, while Support transformative change Putwho women’s rights leading actors at thethe centreprocess of our work needs to be aware of their own position, privilege and power. The lead consultant and some team members were part of the initial CAT4GJO process at baseline and were well Balance learning and accountability aware of the history and ideological positioning of WVL. The fundamental elements of the consultant team’s Recognize power and privilege Support transformative change Honour context and complexity approach were derived from the core approach of Oxfam’s Meal principles including: Support knowledge for transformational change Put women’s rights actors at the centre of our work Support transformative change Recognize power and privilege Celebrate diversity and challenge discrimination through an intersectional approach

Understand MEALtransformation as an approach under the gender Honour and complexity Commitcontext to organizational Put women’s power rights actors at the centre of our work Recognize and privilege Nothingtransformation about me without me journey just Support transformative change Celebrate diversity and challenge discrimination

through intersectional approach Honouran context and complexity Transfer power to the partners aswork a participant Put rights actors at the centre of our Do nowomen’s harm Recognize power andand privilege in the review reflection process Nothing about me without me

Celebrate diversity and challenge discrimination

Balance learning and accountability Highlight the role of the evaluator as a facilitator Honour context complexity through an intersectional approach Put women’s rightsand actors at the centre of our work Do no harm who understands power relations Nothing about me without me Support knowledge for transformational change

Honour context and complexity Celebrate diversity and challenge discrimination Value the collective Balance learning and accountabilitygeneration of knowledge based through an intersectional approach on its diverse context and social values Do no harm Commit to organizational transformation

Celebrate diversityforand challenge discrimination Support knowledge transformational change

Nothing about me without me Provide learning approach orientation for evaluation exercises through an intersectional Balance learning and accountability

Commit organizational transformation NothingtoMEAL about mein without meprogramming, with a “Nothing about Root safe Do no harm me without me & Do No Harm” approach Support knowledge for transformational change

Do no harm

Position MEALandas an integral part of social transformation Support transformative change Balance learning accountability Commit to organizational transformation

Balance learning and accountability Recognize power and privilege

Support knowledge for transformational change

How didSupport theknowledge WVL-P Project MTR adopt for transformational change Put women’s rights actors at the centre of our work a participatory MEAL approach?

Commit to organizational transformation Commit to organizational transformation 1) Consultation with WROs on their expectations and needs from the Honour context and complexity MTR, including discussion with WRO MEAL staff to build collective understanding and ownership of the MTR process, including Celebrate diversity and challenge discrimination collectively making keyapproach decisions around MTR modalities through an intersectional

“MEAL methodologies helped me to unlearn my internal biases and then relearn about diversity and inclusion – that is a step towards real transformation”.

— Male MEAL Officer

“It is a journey of self in which we are analyzing ourselves and our organizations, through our mutual discussions, contradicting our own thinking & notions and forming new opinions.”

— PM of a WRO

2) Rigorous discussions with the OiP and OCA teams to crystalize the Nothing about me without me expectations about this exercise and layout the design of the MTR 3) Desk Review Do no harmand online WRO organizational survey (filled by all staff members) as the first step of knowledge generation, to define and specify the areas of exploration during the PCWs Balance learning and accountability 4) Throughout the MTR, the local WRO partners engaged in a series of participatory MEAL reflectionchange Support knowledge for transformational activities, using innovative methodologies like peer-toCommit to organizational transformation peer storytelling, photostories, cellphilming, painting, and poetry.

The data from these activities are integrated throughout this report in order to capture and honor the WROs’ experiences and perspectives

Staff from BBW sharing the organizational transformative journey through painting, August 2022

METHODOLOGY 13

5) A collective reflection process in the PCW facilitated for collaborative reflection and learning. Daily reflection sessions were conducted with the WRO participants, and at the end of each day a debrief session between the consultants and Oxfam team were held to discuss their own reflections and learnings from the day.9 7) Information was collected systematically from various tools and a cross reference sheet was developed to map information gathered against specific PMF indicator and/or area of exploration. The information presented in this report is drawn from qualitative and quantitative information generated from the WRO organizational survey, and the KIIs, GIs, and CAT4GJO self-assessments completed during the PCWs. 8) Each learning question and finding was holistically validated by multiple tools, and presented during a validation workshop, to facilitate an inclusive process that generated collective learnings.

“Before joining WVL I was unable to travel freely, I felt insecure in order to move independently and my confidence level was very low. WVL has contributed in raising my confidence level while working with diverse groups. I was a bit judgmental about other groups and used to criticize them for no reason but that has changed a lot!”

— Self-narrated story of a Female MEAL Officer

Table 1: Data Collection Sources for WVL MTR Data Collected from various Streams, Tools & Respondents Survey

CAT4GJO

Key Informant Interviews

Group Interviews

10 WROs completed the surveyone WRO could not fill it due to flood emergency.

Another WRO could not fill the survey due to high turnover over staff

12 WROs

Description

Respondents

Description

GIs

Respondents

WROs/ Alliances

WROs-ED

12

Women Leaders from GLP

2

13

9 WROs

Alliance Representatives

9

WRO Staff

2

16

8 WROs

Issue based Grantees

2

4

3810

11 WROs &5 Alliances

Total

23

8

67

Total Participants: 69

Total Participants: 42

(PM and MEAL) EDs, Alliance representative

9 During the workshop, a session was conducted to finalize the format of the final MTR report; the layout and structure of this report is based on suggestions from the participants. It was agreed that an accumulative report of WVL will be written without mentioning the names of each WRO. CAT scores will be aggregated across the WROs per domain and capacity areas.

10 The increased number is due to the presence of members of the Provincial Alliance in Karachi Workshop.

Reflections from the Facilitator “I was part of the CAT4GJO process during the baseline and now when I was facilitating CAT during the MTR, I could see a marked difference” “The interaction between staffs and EDs have improved, it is more on equal terms, though not yet ideal but there has been a visible positive power shift. Now EDs are more open while listening to their staff and on the other hand staffs are also candidly challenging their EDs; thus, demonstrating shift in power within the WROs.” “Also, while facilitating CAT4GJO, I was observing the interactions at WRO level, therefore while doing KIIs I was able to probe further on areas which needed further clarity. The process of doing a CAT4GJO followed by KIIs helped me to draw meaningful yet objective conclusions/recommendations”

MTR consultant Uzma Latif, MTR validation workshop, September 2022.

14 WOMEN’S VOICE AND LEADERSHIP: PAKISTAN — MID-TERM REPORT

FINDINGS WVL-P’s theory of change is strategically designed to address and interact among different outcomes/pillars, which collectively contribute towards the overall project impact. It is important to emphasize that in reality, it is difficult to. compartmentalize each pillar, as all are interconnected and contribute in augmenting other pillar results.

PILLAR 1 – Nurturing strong and resilient organizations (1100)

Pillars

Intermediate and Immediate Outcomes

Major Interventions11

PILLAR 1: Nurturing strong and resilient organizations that build on feminist values, practices, and principles

Table 2: Pillar 1 Outcomes and Relevant Interventions

• I NTERMEDIATE OUTCOME 1100: Improved management, programming, and sustainability of local women’s rights organizations in Pakistan, particularly those representing vulnerable and marginalized women and girls

• Thematic capacity strengthening: PRA, GBV case management, resource mobilization etc. Facilitated reflective spaces within WROs to reflect and share their transformative journey, leadership, management styles and understanding of feminist values. Gender leadership program’ for women leaders

• I MMEDIATE OUTCOME 1100: Strengthened capacity of WROs to effectively manage their organizations • I MMEDIATE OUTCOME 1120: Enhanced women’s leadership capacity rooted in gender transformative values and practices

• Institutional strengthening: developing strategic plans, HR, procurement, safeguarding, gender policies etc., of WROs. Review and development of operational and management policies and practices for more gender responsiveness and reflexiveness.

• Resource Management – Multiyear core grant funding to WROs (as a core partners/ project Beneficiaries) to support their management and operations.

Relevance Overall, the interventions under pillar 1 were relevant to the context and needs of each WRO. Each WRO have their unique geographic context; cultural environment, program focus, and their exclusive institutional journey with their own challenges and gaps, and hence have different needs, which created diversity in the WVL-P project. E.g., WROs working in the remote as well as urban areas of Balochistan and KPK have very different experience/needs and cannot be compared with another WRO working in the provincial capital of Sindh or Punjab.

Similarly, such diversity exists across provincial, sub-provincial areas, such as interior Sindh to south Punjab, and across urban/rural lines. The CAT4GJO tool allowed WROs to identify their individual institutional capacity gaps and identify critical and particular needs. WVL-P developed capacity strengthening and institutional strengthening plans corresponding to the needs and gaps identified by WROs. This element in the strategic design of WVL-P was a major contributor to ensuring that the interventions are relevant to each WRO. It also enabled WVL-P to design and implement interventions, which were relevant to the WROs. Interventions, such as policy development (gender policy, HR policy), trainings of different capacity themes e.g., GBV, PRA, resource mobilization etc. were relevant in bringing about an improvement in the management, programming, sustainability and improved gender transformative leadership within WROs. Some of the key findings mentioned below highlight the relevance of the design and implementation of interventions to the intended change under pillar 1: 11 These are only major interventions and many activities have not been added here due to brevity purposes.

FINDINGS 15

• A s a result of interventions under pillar 1, 9/10 WROs surveyed reported an increased ability to lead their management (1100a).

• All the WROs surveyed (10/10) reported an increased ability to manage and/or govern their organization (1110a). Respondents from the GI with WRO staff revealed that HR policy, gender responsive budgeting, financial management, strategic planning, improvement in work environment, and other policy development/updates were relevant changes that improved the overall management and governance systems within their organizations. All WROs surveyed (10/10) reported using various best-practice governance and management practices (1100b).

• Among those surveyed, 9/10 WROs reported improved genderresponsive budgeting and financial management (1110c) • All the WROs surveyed (10/10) reported improved leadership within their organizations for gender transformative values and practices (1120b). Institutional changes and changes in management/ governance practices are the result of relevant interventions, which were successful in bringing transformative changes at a personal level. The interventions under pillar 1 have been relevant to the ‘personal level’ of change process for WRO ED’s. All EDs revealed personal growth in their capacity, such as in their understanding, ability to mentor and communicate, and to lead their organization.

These respondents widely expressed that because of WVL-P engagement, support and capacity building, they feel more empowered (power within), to lead their organizations.

• Even though external changes in context affected project implementation, 89% of the WRO EDs believed that support of WVL-P enabled them to meet contextual challenges, especially COVID-19.

They highlighted the flexibility in programming, COVID-19 kits, awareness on SOPs and OiP’s implementation of SOPs as relevant and critical to mitigate the challenges posed by COVID-19.

“Apart from procurement, we included iddat leaves for females for the first time, we also added time relaxation for the females, in case they are late in coming to office or if they need to leave early.

I would give its credit to the WVL-P program because before them, I did not even know if the policies could be made or changed. After WVL, I was able to enhance my leadership ability, develop and amend policies and make our organization more gender just organization”.

— Female ED-KII

“Prior to WVL-P, we used to have an organizational culture which was not open, friendly or interactive, and sensitive issues were not discussed or dealt with in a proper manner. Post-trainings, our internal environment has changed and we are able to discuss issues of sensitive nature within our office, it has become more genderresponsive and has improved our ethical policies”

Effectiveness

— Female ED-KII

• In the WVL-P project, the strategic developments and involvement of gender transformative lens under pillar 1 were extremely effective in achieving the intermediate outcome 1100. WROs internalized the process and adopted changes, at an organizational policy and practice level, in their management, governance and programming that is enabling them to become more gender just organizations.

Some of the key findings, supporting our assessment, are below:

“My mindset before WVL was that I always used to think the other people are more competent than me. WVL-P’s project trainings empowered me, built my confidence, and my ability to lead, mentor and coach my staff has increased. This was a great support for me as an ED”.

• All the 12 EDs of WROs testified to an increase in their ability to lead their organization as a result of improvement in programming, management and sustainability initiatives. This was also corroborated with survey findings, where all of the participating WROs reported an increased ability within their WROs to manage and/or govern (1100a). All the WROs also conveyed using new and/or improved governance and management practices (1100b).

• In terms of improvement in management, governance and programming, EDs in KII and WROs through Survey, reported key changes in policy and practice. HR policy & practice, strategic planning, financial management and gender budgeting practice, and procurement were some of the main policy and practice level changes indicated by EDs. One of the EDs shared that “This was for the first time, ever, that we have worked on strategic planning for our organization and now that we have, we feel more confident in what we are doing”.

— ED-KII

“Before WVL, women were mostly not in key positions, as there was no concept of women working in key decision-making position. Now we have recruited more women as meal officer, program officer etc., in decision making positions.”

– Respondent from WRO staff during GI

16 WOMEN’S VOICE AND LEADERSHIP: PAKISTAN — MID-TERM REPORT

• In terms of gender responsive financial management and budgeting, 9 out of the 10 responding WROs believed that they have become more gender responsive, since WVL engagement (1110c).

• The WVL initiatives not only had positive effect on women leadership within WROs, but also on gender transformative values and practices within their management and operations (CAT4GJO). All of the WROs agreed that they have improved leadership in gender transformative values and practices, including self-care. Two of the most common drivers of this change in leadership given by WROs were an ‘Increased women in Leadership positions’ and ‘shift in values and practices’ within their WROs. Additionally, ‘pro-active steps’ taken by WROs e.g., allocated space for women staff for prayer/rest, HR policy changes e.g., sensitive travel policy, safety audits of field locations and self-care practices are few examples of how WROs brought changes in their values, practices and policies that strengthened women’s voice and leadership.

• The gender transformative value and practices had positive implications on women leadership within WROs. As stated by WROs, of all the leadership positions available across WROs, 75% of them are with women (1120a).

WROs reported a range of different positions as leadership positions and their opinion are guided by their individual understanding of what a leadership position is. Through surveys, WROs explained that in their perspective leadership position has four important characteristics; ‘Power to make decision’, ‘opportunity to participate in decision making process’, ‘responsibility’ and ‘power to hold others/self / accountable’ (CAT4GJO).

Therefore, there was a diverse range of positions which were considered as leadership positions, ranging from executive director and board members to project managers, coordinators and social mobilizers. The staff during the GIs also highlighted that reflective spaces created within WVL-P enabled them to demonstrate their voice and confidence.

“Before WVL we didn’t have many policies, now there are some new and some old policies, which have been revisited and refined. We did not used to have ‘code of conduct’, we also did not use to get it signed by the staff but now we have made it official and display it in the office. We have made an induction book, whoever joins, reads it first and usually, it takes 2 days for them to process it. Initially, I used to spend a lot of time on micromanagement but now that we have a written road map, it has become easier for us to get the policies implemented as they are written in one place. We also have designed a form especially for resignation, to make sure that whoever leaves the organization fills it up first. This has reduced my responsibility and workload because whoever leaves, we make sure that he/she does not owe any outstanding tasks or owe any staff member any money and vice versa. These are all small examples of how policy work has helped increase ability to lead and improve management practices” — Male ED of a WRO

Figure 1: Relevance, Effectiveness, and Efficiency of various WVL-P capacity strengthening initiatives under Pillar 112

Psychosocial wellbeing

GLP

Fundraising proposal writing and resource mobilization

Online course on safeguarding

Community mobilization and PRA tools

Relevance

3.8

3.8

3.9

3.8

3.5

Effectiveness

3.8

3.7

3.8

3.5

3.3

Efficiency

3.6

3.8

3.8

4

3.4

12 WROs were asked to rate various WVL-P capacity strengthening initiatives for relevance, effectiveness and efficiency on a scale of 0-4, with 0 being the lowest and 4 being the highest score.

FINDINGS 17

Efficiency13 Interventions under pillar 1 have been very efficient in bringing about the desired change of improving the management and programming of WROs. Not only were the interventions timely, but also, they complemented each other and synergized to add value for WROs by improving their resources and how they used those resources. Different interventions efficiently provided support, build in-house capacities of staff within WROs and effected changes at personal and institutional level to bring about the desired changes in management, governance and transformative leadership within the WROs. • In the case of institutional strengthening of WROs, we can see that the capacity strengthening initiatives along with institutional strengthening initiatives, together brought value addition for WROs to improve its management/governance and programming (see Figure 1). The engagement of WRO staff and EDs with WVL initiatives led to personal growth of staff and a change in organizational culture. This complemented and synergized with the changes in governance/management practices adopted by WROs as a result of WVL institutional strengthening initiatives, such as institutional documentation or strategic planning. Both of these factors, together, improved the efficiency of WROs as it improved their ability for management and governance from the available resources.

When asked to highlight factors that improved their ability to lead and improve their management/governance and programming of WROs, the most highlighted reasons were: personal growth/growth in staff; new/updated policies; increased institutional capacity; new/updated strategic planning process; change in organizational culture; and institutional documentation (1100a).

“We have started believing more in transparency and sharing information among staff and board members. Development of policies and our effort of putting them into practice has ensured this transparency and sharing of information.”

— KII-ED

“Before joining WVL I was unable to travel freely, I felt insecure in order to move independently and my confidence level was very low.

WVL has contributed in raising my confidence level while working with diverse groups. I was a bit judgmental about other groups and used to criticize them for no reason but that has changed a lot!” Self-narrated story of a Female MEAL Officer — Female ED-KII

• In terms of programming, we can see that effect of capacity strengthening initiatives on the in-house quality of staff within WROs along with support of knowledge and tools, provided by WVL to WROs, together improved the resources of WRO and efficiency of using those resources for programming. When asked to highlight factors that improved the programming of their WROs, EDs highlighted adoption of gender transformative principles, GLP, growth of staff along with knowledge and tools such as MEAL, gender responsive budgeting and planning and conceptual clarity. This all has made WROs more self-reliant on their existing staff skills and thus saving extra cost of hiring expertise from outside. Similarly, the time cost of staff is manifold to produce program implementation support materials (training manuals, content writing, case studies) which maximize the potential use of their acquired skills of programing and project management.

Partner discussion during Provincial Cluster Workshops, August 2022

13 This analysis is based on the evaluation questions, which focus on value-addition rather than only cost efficiency.

18 WOMEN’S VOICE AND LEADERSHIP: PAKISTAN — MID-TERM REPORT

Coherence The interventions under pillar 1 were coherent with gender transformative values and principles of the WVL-P program. The changes reported by WROs highlight how the project’s activities/ interventions/processes have helped them to internalize these values and principles. Below are some examples of these changes: • Gender transformative values and principles have been part of all the training initiatives carried out by WVL-P under Pillar 1 and Pillar 2. The values and principles were translated in all the processes, communication and consultations that happened between WROs and OiP team. The design of WVL-P is unique as it has operationalized the core values of participation, inclusion and empowerment within the whole project cycle. For example, baseline assessment done through CAT4GJO, developing the logical framework of the project in consultation with the partners, the process of developing the annual work plans are few examples in which the principles were put into practice.

“After WVL induction, we felt that we are working a lot and we get mentally tired. Now we have worked on psychosocial well-being, and we engage in refreshers every two months.

We also have an annual retreat, and at a day-to-day level, we ensure celebrations like mango party, staff members birthday and other such little steps.

Our major learning is that our productivity has increased”.

—Female staff member

• Respondents from the GI with WRO staff widely revealed that women in decision-making positions are, in fact, very much empowered to make decisions. Respondents also highlighted that after engagement with WVL-P, trainings and reflective spaces, there has been a visible change at organizational and personal level that led to more women in decision-making roles (1120a). In one of the GI with staff, staff from three of WROs were collectively vocal in saying that “women who are in leadership positions have complete decision-making power. It is a policy and a personal level shift, as both were essential to claim decision-making power while remaining in leadership positions”. Such reported changes indicate internalization of gender transformative principles of ‘shifting power’ and values of empowerment within WROs. • Similarly, in terms of changed practices within WROs that promote gender transformative values and principles, respondents in GI with WRO staff revealed practices such as improvement in staff gender ratios, work environment, psychosocial well-being practices and an increase in women centric focus within their WROs (1100b). For example, one of respondents in GI with WRO staff shared how psychosocial well-being practices, often overlooked, have improved the performance, productivity and therefore improved their organizations management.

Box 1: Peer-to-peer story telling by the women of WVL-P Saira Falka Sahito joined ARTS Foundation in 2021 as a Program Manager. Professionally, her background was different from social work environment, but she became very passionate about this work. After joining WVL-P, there were many opportunities and different trainings, which capacitated her knowledge, like PRA tools and gender transformative budgeting. The organizational journey with WVL-P impacted her personality as she started internalizing the gender transformative principles and how to grow along with them, and she is using these principles in her daily routine life.

Now, she has more enhanced qualities in networking, building linkages and connectivity. These learnings create an impact in the people around her, and the communities she is working with. She feels empowered as now she can travel alone by road on long routes and she can write articles on women and girls issues and pro-woman laws. WVL-P has motivated and enhanced her leadership qualities.

FINDINGS 19

She is Sadaf Ajmal. She joined BBW in 2017 as a founding member.

She took initiative with other members and started working as a volunteer. Her professional background was totally different from social work environment, but she became very passionate about this work. Before WVL-P, as a banker, there was no new activity to do, the work was very monotonous. After joining WVL-P, there was so much new exciting and fascinating work such as GLP, different trainings like proposal writing and fundraising, and gender responsive budgeting. In the journey of WVL-P, the organization started growing. It has developed a conducive working environment along with the management of proper documentation. This journey has impacted her personality as she started internalizing the gender transformative principles and has a clarity of vision.

PILLAR 2 – Expanding transformative programming and advocacy of WROs (1200) Table 3: Pillar 2 Outcomes and Relevant Interventions

PILLAR 2: Expanding transformative programming and advocacy of WROs

Pillars

Intermediate and Immediate Outcomes

Major Interventions

I NTERMEDIATE OUTCOME 1200: Enhanced delivery of campaigns and programming by women’s rights organizations to advance gender equality in Pakistan

• WROs Programming strengthening in planning and implementation – through advocacy & campaigning initiatives – Strengthened the capacity of WROs to deliver campaigns and programming through developing advocacy plans, at provincial and national level.

• IMMEDIATE OUTCOME 1210: Improved technical capacity of WROs to promote and advocate for women’s rights and gender transformation

• Capacity strengthening on digital campaigning, mobilizing and engaging youth

• IMMEDIATE OUTCOME 1220: Improved gender-transformative programmatic capacity of WROs to respond to key women’s rights issues

Relevance

• WROs trained on gender-transformative planning, political participation, civic engagement, PRA tool and on other specific themes, such as GBV case management, for gender transformative programming.

• Grant Initiatives to enhance thematic and technical support for WROs. The issue based, responsive funding mechanism enabled WVL to support WROs in implementing gender transformative initiatives and advocate for women’s

“Our programming lens always

Overall, the interventions under pillar 2 were relevant to the capacity used to be women focused but needs of WROs and improved their gender transformative program within that we never applied quality. In addition to digital campaigning, other specialized advocacy the concept of intersectionality. skills such as understanding existing policy and legislative frameworks for women’s rights and protection and on enactment and formulation Now, after WVL, we focus on mechanisms for policies, laws and framing the rules of business were intersectionality and try to include found to be extremely relevant to address the gaps identified in the everyone, especially women CAT4GJO. WROs not only identified improvement in their ability to deliver from marginalized communities.” quality gender transformative programming and advocacy skills but — WRO Staff member the trainings, technical support, gender transformative approaches, concepts and tools are being actively used by WROs and been helpful for them. The interventions supported them to engage with a wider group of stakeholders through organizing events, consultations, training, awareness raising session, safe spaces interactions, knowledge café, learning café, exposure visits, field exposure, international and national interactions through learning forums, trainings

20 WOMEN’S VOICE AND LEADERSHIP: PAKISTAN — MID-TERM REPORT

seminars, orientation sessions, counselling sessions, and meetings on a range of different themes. Some of the themes were inclusion and disability, forced marriages, women’s right on public spaces, and girl child education etc.

• A ll of the WROs surveyed (10/10) reported improved ability to promote and advocate for women’s rights and gender transformation (1210a). Furthermore, 9/10 WROs surveyed reported increased ability to deliver quality programming (1220a). The respondents from GIs with WRO staff shared that newer concept e.g., intersectionality and gender transformative lens have helped them to improve the quality of their programming.

“After engagement with WVL, we started using MEAL techniques. For example, we do voice recording or video and ensure structured feedback from the community one way or another. This is done in a way that community assists us in monitoring and evaluating our work. ” — WRO Staff member

• Thematic/technical/skill-based capacity strengthening initiatives contributed in bringing depth and quality to the programming of WROs as they were relevant to their specific needs (1220a). For example, a GI respondent (WRO staff member) highlighted that MEAL tools are helping them improve monitoring of programming while putting the lens of gender transformative approaches with specific reference to MEAL principles. WVL -P’s support through a training on resource mobilization (financially and technically) was widely recognized as relevant and useful.

Provincial Consultation Workshop, August 2022

Effectiveness Overall, interventions under pillar 2 were effective in improving the technical capacity of WROs. The effectiveness of the interventions under this pillar were based on the outreach of the WROs and depth/ quality of WRO’s programming.

• Almost two-thirds of the EDs interviewed, shared that their outreach has increased after engagement with WVL-P (1200a). This was also reflected in the findings from the WRO survey. They have linked the expansion with use of digital media engagement as their profiles were developed and they were also trained on digital campaigning, especially on involving youth within their work (1210b).

“When we started using PRA tools after our training, we understood how it was improving our programs. We used time/activity and seasonal calendar. We are primarily involved in rural areas and that is why seasonal calendar helped us in understanding the issues of women members of our community.”

— Staff member

FINDINGS 21

• Almost, all the respondents in GI with WRO staff agreed that their ability to deliver quality programming has increased (1220a). This was also reflected in the WRO survey as 9 of the 10 WROs had similar views on increased ability of their WROs to deliver quality programming. For example, using gender analysis tools equipped the WROs to engage more effectively within their communities for GBV, where they developed their understanding on the legal and Islamic perspective of inheritance, whereas for forced marriages they learnt about legal and Islamic rights of girls and boys.

“Earlier we used to join the campaigns launched by other WROs and now we have the ability to design and launch our own campaigns at local level.

— Staff member

• All of the WROs surveyed (10/10) reported their confidence in technical ability for advocacy and campaigning for gender transformative programming has increased (1210a). This was corroborated in KIIs with EDs where all respondents also felt their technical ability has increased. Both in survey and KII, the awareness and knowledge from the capacity building trainings and initiatives were identified as the major reason for increased ability to promote and advocate on women’s rights. Some of the examples include digital campaigning, virtual cafes, FM radio programs, bill boards, public stickers, village level committees to advocate at village level, article writing, blogs, and case studies for Facebook pages. Some WROs shared that based on their learnings from WVL-P, they have also initiated other smaller campaigns e.g., each one -teach one, cybercrime, sexual harassment at workplace and reclaiming public spaces for women (1200c).

Figure 2: Relevance, Effectiveness, and Efficiency of various WVL-P capacity strenghtening initiatives under Pillar 2

Efficiency WVL -P was not only successful in equipping WROs with the resources, in terms of capacity strengthening for gender transformative programming and funding mechanisms to pursue their programming agendas, but also enabled WROs to use these resources efficiently through networking and increased connectivity with wider stakeholders to advocate on women’s rights issues. Interventions under pillar 2 were efficient in terms of timely completion, and have generated value for WROs by increasing gender transformative programming capacity, outreach, and strengthening connections for advocacy on women’s rights issues.

22 WOMEN’S VOICE AND LEADERSHIP: PAKISTAN — MID-TERM REPORT

• Respondents from the KIIs with ED felt that increase in depth of programming is indicative of the efficiency of interventions, under pillar 2, in terms of building resources of WROs and then using those resources efficiently for value addition. They are better able to respond to the needs of their constituencies, which has increased their outreach in communities and across other district/provincial level stakeholders (1200a).

• Mentoring support from WVL was widely acknowledged by WRO staff in GIs as vital and useful to increase engagement, outreach, and connectivity.

• Digital media engagement is an efficient method of increasing outreach of WROs and increasing engagement, especially with youth. Six of the 11 responding WROs in GI with Staff shared examples of increased connectivity with youth and women, through their digital media engagements (1210b).

• The knowledge and tools provided by WVL to WROs have been efficient in increasing the quality of gender transformative programming through increasing the ability of WROs to use their knowledge resource efficiently. From gender responsive planning, gender budgeting to gender transformative programming and MEAL, the initiatives under pillar 2 have been valuable resources for the WROs. • WRO staff identified MEAL, gender responsive planning and focus on intersectionality as key factors in improving programming quality as a result of engagement with WVL (1220a).

“In our area, children go to school via a small boat then they walk for 4 kms to reach school. We inquired about the boatman and whether he is dependable or not as girls have to travel with him. We took the initiative and recommended them a school boat, on the model of a school van. One that is designated for the school kids only and with a trusted boatman. That initiative was really helpful for the community”.

— Staff member

“Initially we used to write proposals but we never really thought of doing it from the perspective of gender-responsive budgeting. Now, we scrutinize our proportion a lot and we need to see where and for whom are all the resources being allocated”.

— WRO Staff member

Coherence The interventions under pillar 2 were coherent with gender transformative values and principles of WVL program and the changes at immediate and intermediate outcome level were reflective of empowerment, inclusion and participation principles.

• Respondents from KII with EDs shared that there has been an increase in community level programming and advocacy initiatives, which is inclusive of communities. Some of the examples given by respondents were village level committees to advocate at village level, female enrollment in local school (each one, teach one), use of sticker in local public places, local FM radio programs and billboard etc.

Photo Story on transformative gender-just organizational journey by WISE, August 2022

• In term of supporting WROs to develop their plans and then compete for support from funding mechanism, the respondents shared that they felt more empowered, participatory and inclusive in these activities. One of the respondents shared that “they feel that for the first time we are in a more of driving seat of designing and running these community advocacy engagement”, since their engagement with WVL. • Tools such as Gender Analysis, PRA tools (peer wise ranking, problem tree) were some of the examples given

by WRO staff that improved their programming quality (1220a). These tools are reflective of operationalizing gender transformative value and principles within the programming of WROs.

FINDINGS 23

PILLAR 3 – Fostering opportunities for knowledge generation, innovation, linking, and learning among WROs (1300)

Table 4: Pillar 3 Outcomes and Relevant Interventions

PILLAR 3: Fostering opportunities for knowledge generation, innovation, linking, and learning among WROs

Pillars

Intermediate and Immediate Outcomes

Major Intervenations

INTERMEDIATE OUTCOME 1300: Increased effectiveness of national and subnational women’s rights platforms, networks, and alliances to effect gendersensitive policy change and implementation in Pakistan

support and value addition: Carefully selected provincial • Alliance and national alliances and supported their secretariats to resume their active functioning which was drastically reduced due to shrinking spaces for civil society in recent past 2-3 years.

• IMMEDIATE OUTCOME 1310: Enhanced women’s collective engagement and action for gendersensitive policy change and implementation

• IMMEDIATE OUTCOME 1320: Strengthened capacity of WROs to use evidencebased knowledge and best practices to influence policy and practice on women’s rights

• The alliances were supported to formulate their provincial advocacy plans which were provided financial support for implementation.

a national secretariat i.e., HRDN to develop a cross • Supported provincial learning platform where the alliances may reflect on the new research findings / legislative and policy analysis and gender budget tracking for informed advocacy. The national secretariat also developed project website to effectively highlight WROs and alliance work among themselves as well as to the larger public.

• Capacity

Strengthening on Networking and Influencing -The engagement between WROs and alliances was facilitated, initially at a strategic level and then increasing their engagement through coordination meetings and events. Through meetings and events, relationships with sympathetic policy makers, parliamentarians, and women’s caucuses were fostered.

• Invested in increasing the capacity of WROs to identify evidencebased knowledge and best practices introduced through research knowledge creation under short term grants

Relevance The interventions under pillar 3, are relevant to the needs of WROs and alliances, and to achieving collective engagement between both for effective policy level influencing through lobbying and advocacy.

The interventions have been relevant to enable local to provincial level networking of WROs with various stakeholders, increasing the shared knowledge, learnings and collective strength of alliances and WROs. • Respondents

from KIIs with alliances were of the view that connections with different stakeholders at community, district and provincial level, expertise and knowledge and access to communities is being shared between them and WROs. • Majority of the WROs surveyed (8/10) believed that engagement with alliances has increased their networking with various stakeholders (1300a).

• Alliance

representatives identified the engagement by WROs, structured activities of WVL-P, and short-grant work, have been useful for them in lobbying and advocacy of legislative and policy work (1320b).

“One of the benefits of engagement with WVL has been that WROs are working with communities, specifically women, whom we didn’t had much direct access to before. Now we involve women from communities. This way we are able to coordinate with WROs more and at the same time we are able to engage with women at a community level.”

— Alliance Member

24 WOMEN’S VOICE AND LEADERSHIP: PAKISTAN — MID-TERM REPORT

Effectiveness The interventions under pillar 3, have been effective in bringing about some of the intended changes at an immediate outcome level, particularly through providing a platform for connection, communication and engagement to WROs, enhancing alliances’ women centric agenda, and supporting engagement between WROs and alliances. At an intermediate outcome level, the accumulative advocacy work by all provincial alliances supported under WVL turned in resuming the collective efforts of WROs to influence the implementation gaps of laws selected for influencing within WVL life.

It is important to highlight that advocacy/lobbying initiatives are directly linked with the stability of the government and responsiveness of the legislators. While the effort to engage with them was promptly done but desired results were difficult to achieve.

The dynamics in the external context that includes COVID-19 and then political turmoil has posed serious challenges in achieving desired outcomes of the initiatives taken by the provincial and national alliances. The interventions are more than likely to continue developing relationships and increase coordination in collective engagement between WROs and alliances, which will positively affect outcome at an intermediate level.

• Six of the 11 WROs in GIs shared that the engagement with alliances have been useful for their WROs at an activity level. The main mode of engagement between WROs and alliances was through meetings and coordinating activities at district/provincial level with alliance.

One of the respondents from the GIs with WRO said “We had no links with any alliance working at policy level prior to WVL. Now we are a part of a larger provincial alliance” (1310a).

“We are only able to create momentum by resuming our collective actions and build pressure and address few implementation gaps in laws and policies related to women and girls. We could also ensure regular union of alliance members, building relationships with pro women stakeholders and gathering media allies which is turning into achieving some key milestones.”

— Alliance Member

“We need to understand that nothing concrete happens in a year or two, we are only able to create momentum and build pressure within this time bracket.”

— ED WRO

“We realized that we have been engaging at a district level. After engaging with provincial alliance gave us a new dimension of influence at a provincial level for meaningful implementation of for formal mechanisms under the Early Child Marriage Restraint Act (Sindh). The alliance has facilitated us making inroads to policy corridors in this regard.”

• There

were two policy advocacy agendas validated by the alliances, during MTR, which were achieved by their collective efforts at provincial level. Lobbying for a Local Government Act, Punjab is an ideal example where different streams of WVL-P worked together to achieve the greater objective for the enactment of the law and bring changes in it. The WROs in Punjab conducted various district level campaigning activities which contributed in building a momentum.

However, the provincial alliance took a lead and engaged with various stakeholders that included provincial legislators, Ministry — WRO ED for local government and other provincial networks and alliances.

Likewise, the process of drafting the amendments to domestic violence bill were materialized through the collective working of all the partners (1320a).

ability to engage with alliances and platforms have improved over the period of engagement with • WRO’s WVL. Those WROs, who prior to WVL, had relationship with alliances, have reported an increase in strength of the relationship and engagement with alliances as a result of support of WVL. Similar trends were observed through the survey, where almost 9 out of 10 WROs identified that their ability to engage with alliances has improved (1310a). One of the respondents from the GI with WRO revealed, “As an individual WRO, our ability has increased but it is not because of alliances. WVL has increased our ability through training and empowering us. That is why we are able to engage alliances in a better way.” However, WROs reported limited improvement in their abilities to engage with alliances, which indicates gaps and challenges in the effectiveness of this engagement. We will go into the details of challenges later in this section.

• 3 out of 5 alliances said that they have used evidence and knowledge to influence policy and practice during lobbying and advocacy events (1320b). For this purpose, they have reported to use knowledge products from short-term grantees, and statistics from government sources.

FINDINGS 25

Efficiency Interventions under pillar 3, have been somewhat efficient to the extent of developing WROs resources but not in terms of WROs using these resources efficiently. Activities such as strengthening capacity of WROs to engage with alliance, networking between WROs and alliances, have been efficient in providing linkages and platform to WROs for collectively raising their voices. Interventions under pillar 3 have potential to be efficient in terms of WROs efficiently using their strengthened capacity, networking and engagement and create value in achieving the outcome in a timely manner. However, there are risks and gaps that need to be addressed. We will explain some of the common challenges and risks in the ‘challenge’ section.

Respondents from Survey shared that alliances were most beneficial in ‘gathering likeminded organizations’, providing opportunities to ‘build relationships’ with likeminded people and organizations and in their ability to ‘convene and coordinate meetings and joint activities’.

One of the challenges shared widely by WRO staff in GI was that the relationship between alliances and WROs is weak. It is very limited in engagement and only at the level of activity implementation and not at strategic level with common vision.

Coherence

“Working with alliances has helped us in developing connection with like-minded organizations and stakeholders” — WRO Survey respondent

“The engagement with the provincial and national alliance helped us to access new platforms to raise actual voice and in increasing visibility of our work” — WRO Survey respondent

“We do not have any actual connectivity with alliances. It is limited to only conducting activities and no strategic partnership. There are fewer common issues and aims between us and that is why we have not been able to take any tangible steps. However, this certainly is a gap that we can work on”.

Based on the evidence shared in the above sections, we believe that the interventions under pillar 3, have been somewhat coherent with the needs of WROs, especially in terms of networking and developing linkages and relationships with likeminded organizations. Furthermore, these interventions have also been coherent with operationalizing — GI Respondent gender transformative principles and values, especially ‘empowerment’.

Staff from WROs, during GI, shared that capacity strengthening trainings (advocacy and campaigning) and consultative meetings with stakeholders that included academia, media, provincial legislators and provincial legislative assemblies have cross linked with interventions under pillar 2 and empowered the WROs to engage with alliances and interact with alliance members.

Mainstreaming of Sustainability WVL-P has consciously included aspects of sustainability right from the design phase and throughout implementation. Oxfam and partner WROs feel strongly that it is important to highlight those aspects of programming so that one can give due weight to those sustainability ‘wins’ already achieved and to support comprehension of how the programme will focus on sustainability in the remaining time of the project.

Based on the views gathered during the MTR, it was acknowledged that sustainability is a multi-dimensional concept. WRO EDs defined it in their own way emphasizing various aspects of sustainability including financial sustainability, skilled human resources, organizational mandate and outreach, and structural and programmatic focus: a. Financial Sustainability: WROs have given most weightage to financial sustainability, as it has been widely acknowledged that funding for women’s rights has been reducing which not only affects WROs but more importantly it affects the broader agenda of women’s rights in Pakistan.14 b. Skilled Human Resource: Changes at a personal level (personal growth), as reported by EDs and WRO Staff,15 are more likely to be sustainable in nature. The capacity strengthening of staff increased the inhouse capacities and skills but also had associated concerns over staff retention. One of the challenges of sustainability in terms of building in-house capacity and skills is that it increases the probability of capacitated staff to leave the organization for better opportunities, especially when the funds availability is limited for a WRO. 14 “Assessing National Funding for Women’s Economic Empowerment in Pakistan” by Asia Foundation. September 2022.

15 Refer to Efficiency section for reference to evidence.

26 WOMEN’S VOICE AND LEADERSHIP: PAKISTAN — MID-TERM REPORT

c. Organizational Mandate & Outreach: WROs who have started using or increased their use of digital, online media for outreach and engagement in advocacy, can be expected to continue to do so even after the end of WVL. This is because they have increased their outreach, especially among youth. The engagement and outreach achieved on their social media and other online platforms has acted as a catalyst for their online identity. This will help them to continue engagement and outreach for advocacy in future. However, at the same it is also important to ensure that there is no dependence on paid promotions for outreach relative to organic reach. Organic reach has more positive and sustainable engagement compared to paid outreach.

Additionally, improving quality of digital content, focusing on organic engagement and using more critical KPIs to measure effectiveness of their digital engagement are some of the steps that they can take to counter this sustainability risk. d. Structural and Program Focus: All WRO EDs believed that improvements in management, governance, and gender-transformative programming has helped them to be sustainable after the engagement with WVL-P. Organizational policy development work has improved the organizational sustainability since it improved their ‘in-house capacities and skills’ and helped them in achieving a focus and consistency in their organizational focus.

Box 2: Key Takeaways on Sustainability • The commitment to develop and strengthen enduring partnerships with civil society organizations is built into the project design from the very beginning, thus enabling a continuation of project outcomes beyond the project cycle. These partnerships were not limited to the organizations that are part of WVL-P’s institutional strengthening stream but also cultivated to include alliances, networks and stakeholders at community, service delivery and policy levels.

• Institutional strengthening through strategic planning, gender transformative policies/procedures and technical support to improve resource mobilization have contributed in building resilient organizations who can promptly respond to challenges of working on women’s rights. Additionally, the project strengthened the technical capacities of WROs by mainstreaming gender responsive budgeting, PRA tools, gender analysis etc., into their functional and programmatic strategies.

• The capacity strengthening of staff delivered as part of the project aimed to facilitate knowledge, attitudes and behavior changes, underpinning/leading to the strengthening of women voice and leadership by improving participants’ ability to claim the space within their work spaces and personal lives. This is because there is a genuine uptake of knowledge and tools by the WROs, which would continue to be useful for them to design, implement, monitor and evaluate gender transformative programming. Training the staff of WROs not only facilitates sustainability of that organization but also is a long-term contribution towards the social sector as the knowledge, skills and confidence of an individual remains as an asset for the wider society.

• The shrinking funding landscape of Pakistan especially for pushing forward women’s rights agenda, architecture of development sector, regulatory framework that govern the organizations are key challenges for organizations who are striving for gender transformation. Though the challenges seem daunting, the resolve of WROs and their struggle to sustain themselves with or without institutional funding gives hope. There is an urgent need for focused advocacy with funding agencies and government to prioritize gender transformation. The need/gap for women-focused programs/projects can only be highlighted if a detailed gender budget analysis of the existing funding portfolios is done comprehensively, which will provide evidence for advocacy.

FINDINGS 27

Provincial Cluster Based Workshop, August 2022

CAT4GJO Reflections and Assessment CAT4GJO is a process-oriented tool that aims to work with the WROs over a period of time; though it quantifies the results in numbers but it significantly relies on the process and the nature and form of group dynamics – people who are part of the assessment. During the baseline study, it was clear that CAT4GJO process along with its gender transformative approach challenged the conventional thinking of almost all the WROs surrounding assessment. The CAT4GJO process during the MTR was done using an abridged version and emphasized on determining the change – positive or negative. It is important to highlight that during the provincial workshops where CAT4GJO was deployed, thorough reflective sessions were done before and after the CAT4GJO process. Some of the participants during the MTR were new staff and were new to CAT4GJO as well, however they were supported by the people already familiar with CAT4GJO. The CAT4GJO ranking very clearly shows a significant increase in all the domains (Table xx).

However, domains 1-3 (women transformative leadership, gender just structures and policies and organizational

Box 3: Facilitator note on CAT4GJO While reading through this section of the report it is important to keep a note of this discussion as that will situate the CAT4GJO findings within a more realistic paradigm: • The tool was run as a baseline exercise to assess the capacity of the WROs at a time where those WROs were being identified as prospective partners. Based on their previous experiences of “due-diligence” the participatory mechanics of this exercise proved challenging for all the WROs – as documented in the Baseline Report of CAT4GJO. • A quick run of the same tool was done before the MTR within the WROs. During the MTR, all WROs were going through the assessment third time and were quite comfortable with the tool.

• During the MTR, almost all the WROs reflected that their previous rankings were “high”. “We were trying to push for high rankings during the baseline because of two reasons: 1) We thought high capacity rankings would ensure a long term partnership which is how conventional model of working in development sector during partner selection works; 2) After spending more than two years within these domains and capacity areas we have now completely understood and also internalized the spirit and meaning behind these terms. Thus, this time have ranked ourselves “realistically”.”

• It is important to note that “realistic ranking” does not mean low ranking – it indicates deeper understanding of the terminology while situating it within the operations of their WROs. • Analysis highlights that if previous ranking was at 3 in one particular domain, then even after two years of investment that WRO has ranked it again at 3 – indicating their improved understanding and more importantly it indicates internalization of these concepts at individual and organizational level.

• A participant gave an example to explain the same point: “Initially (in the baseline). gender transformation for us was ‘number of women in an organization’ i.e., how many women are present in an organization/board but now we understand that it is much more than that, it is about power sharing, claiming space, decision making and resource sharing.”

28 WOMEN’S VOICE AND LEADERSHIP: PAKISTAN — MID-TERM REPORT

resilience and sustainability) have shown the greatest overall increase at 32%, 30% and 29% respectively. Changes in these three domains have also been highlighted by the EDs and during the GIs with WRO staff. Also, as per the plans and reports of WVL-P, these three domains have received a very heavy investment in terms of institutional strengthening through the GLP and various capacity strengthening initiatives (e.g., gender budgeting, PRA tools).

Domain 1: According to the WROs, the conscious and systematic effort to mainstream women and girls’ rights within the management of WRO as well as in the program has made a significant effect on women’s transformative leadership - it created and opened space and generated a healthy conversation within the organizations about the need for such changes. The focus of women’s inclusion in critical positions within WRO and then strengthening them with specialized programs (especially GLP) and trainings have been cited as the key reason for a positive change in the first domain. Based on the discussions within this domain, the shift in understanding remained the high point as staff talked at length about how well they now understand about power and exclusion, critical need for diversity and women’s leadership. Women staff highlighted that through various trainings, their conceptual knowledge has improved which is helping them to internalize these concepts and then make changes within their personal and professional lives.

Table 5: CAT4GJO Tool Capacity Domain

Capacity Areas

Domain 1

Women’s Transformative Leadership

CA1

Reflective Leadership on Gender and Diversity

CA2

Cultivating Women’s Confidence and Leadership Capacity

Gender-Just Structures and Processes

CA3

‘Living our Values’ - Gender-Just HR Policies and Practices

CA4

Collaborative Management and Decision Making

CA5

Self-Care, Collective-Care, and Organizational Culture

CA6

Promoting Environmentalism and Ensuring Environmental Best Practices

CA7

Strategic Planning

CA8

Mobilizing Resources

CA9

Gender-Responsive Financial Management

CA10

Undertaking an Intersectional Approach to Operations and Programs

CA11

Fostering Intergenerational Learning and Exchange

Strategic Gender Justice Relationships and Linkages

CA12

Working in Network/Coalitions

CA13

Communicating and Sharing Knowledge

CA14

Fostering, Strengthening, and Sustaining Movements

Transformative Gender Justice Programming and Advocacy

CA15

Design and Implementation of Gender-Transformative Programs, Including Standalone, WomenSpecific Programs or Projects

CA16

Engaging Men and Boys as Allies and Beneficiaries of Gender-Just Communities

CA17

Routine Involvement of People we Work With in Program Development and Implementation

CA18

Feminist Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning

CA19

Women’s Rights and Gender Justice Focused Advocacy and Campaigning

CA20

Ensuring Safe and Ethical Programming

CA21

Child Protection

CA22

Safeguarding, Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, and Ensuring Safety

Domain 2

Domain 3

Domain 4

Domain 5

Domain 6

Organizational Resilience and Sustainability

Safeguarding

FINDINGS 29

Domain 2: Likewise, as discussed in the previous section focused interventions related to institutional strengthening have contributed towards significant positive change in this domain. Strategic planning, gender strategy, and human resource policies were frequently cited examples, which addressed issues, related to travel safety of women, flexible working hours, creating a safe workspace with a focus on collective care.

“It is my good luck that I have been with this project for a long time, we do CAT4GJO at our office every 6 months and evaluate ourselves, regardless of what we did , yesterday there was lot to learn from the process.”

Domain 3: In the third domain, WROs have explained that sustainability – WRO staff in terms of financial stability is extremely critical. However, they also explained that staff retention, consistency in organizational mandate and strong viable programming has contributed towards improved outreach leading to more sustained future.

They also demonstrated that clear and viable organizational policies also contribute towards making WROs sustainable.

Figure 3: Average % change in Domain and corresponding capacity areas, across all WROS

Domain 4: The domain on working with alliances and strategic relationship showed a percentage increase of 21%, one of the least change among all domains, a finding also validated through the analysis of other tools as well. Most of the WROs gave examples of their existing relationship with multiple networks/groups/alliances; however, it was noted that not much meaningful engagement was happening with those platforms. It is important to note here that while discussing this domain, the effective relationship between WVL’s supported provincial alliances was also discussed in detail and it was clearly stated that most of the engagement was happening at the ED level and WRO staff was not aware of it. Although, there has been a shift in which provincial alliances have worked with the WROs to conduct field level advocacy events. The role and effectiveness of national alliance was also clear among the WROs. Domain 5: The domain on transformative gender justice programming and advocacy has shown a 25% positive change in the last two years. The focus of this domain is on core gender programming and identifying how more depth and space can be created to bring a lasting change at the community level. The analysis clearly indicates that more effort has been put in place to strengthen WROs at the institutional level with an assumption that the capacity will eventually strengthen the programming aspect simultaneously. All WROs had given an account of multiple reasons for this e.g., one WRO explained that currently their organization is only practicing MEAL at the project level and would need to develop an institutional level MEAL system which will help in designing more innovative and relevant project designs. Likewise, the newer trainings of PRA, power and gender analysis need to be integrated into the organizational practices.

30 WOMEN’S VOICE AND LEADERSHIP: PAKISTAN — MID-TERM REPORT

Domain 6: Safeguarding scored the lowest as compared to the other domains; WROs highlighted the fact that though the policies have been formulated, the practices need to be implemented in true letter and spirit. The complex yet subtle shades of exclusion, discrimination and violence faced by women that restricts their voices and discourages them to claim their right to safe working environment needs more capacity strengthening initiatives. The online surveys conducted by WVL indicates the useful of the various steps while highlighting the need for more accountable and transparent organizational system. The transition towards a gender just organization has begun but it is important to highlight that the context of Pakistan is quite regressive towards women and that is translated within the ingrained thinking and systems of individuals and organizations- a battle which needs long term rigorous support, accountability mechanisms and strengthening women’s voices.

CASE STUDIES Gender Leadership Program We have separately analyzed GLP, as an intervention and its implementation, and its effects on achieving outcomes in addition to analyzing its effectiveness, relevance, efficiency and coherence.

Though GLP, as an intervention, comes under pillar 1, we believe that the effect of GLP runs across pillar 1 and 2 outcomes. This was also evident from the KII and Surveys analysis. GLP was recognized by EDs as essential to increasing their ability to lead their organizations, since it greatly improved the quality of their participating staff, in terms of their understanding, abilities, participation and confidence.

One of EDs reflected on institutional strengthening: “Our core staff has been strengthened. Initially our female staff was not confident, but now after GLP, their confidence has developed. It is evident in the two females we sent for GLP modules.” Similarly, responses from the survey also revealed that GLP has been essential in improving the ability of WROs to advocate for women’s rights and gender transformation GLP, as an intervention, has been very effective (useful) and relevant to the needs of women staff within WROs. The process has empowered them in taking a more leadership role in their personal life and in their organizations. The respondents widely acknowledged the empowering GLP training process. Almost all the candidates mentioned how the process was about them, and their self-awareness and selfrecognition, which was a unique empowering experience. One of the respondents shared “initially I used to have social anxiety when things would go wrong but now, I take responsibility, voice my perspective and hold people accountable” GLP’s implementation and how it was moderated by facilitators was widely recognized by respondents as a key to making GLP an effective intervention. Specifically, the trust and relationship with the moderators and the steps taken to ensure confidentiality was very much acknowledged by participants as essential to them engaging in the transformative process.

“It was the first time in my life, where I was given a huge space and asked to own it. I was able to tap the power within and this was an empowering experience for me” - GLPier

“So in our office, there was not enough space for women and there was a CCTV camera right above our head, which made us uncomfortable. Before GLP, I used to voice opinion, but to no avail.

After GLP, I raised my voice with everyone and took a leadership role in getting the CCTV camera removed. We also took stand on the issue of space. We now have one pink room with females and 2 rooms are with males. After our office had developed code of conduct, I voiced that we display it on the wall to create an environment guided by those codes.”

- GLPier

Some aspects of changes brought about as a result of GLP will sustain in future. For example, respondents were of the view that the trust, connections and relationships that they have developed with each other have been very valuable to them and will be sustainable, even after WVL’s engagement ends.

Based on the note takers reflection and responses from GLP members, one of the most immediate effects of the workshop was their increased level of self-confidence and their understanding of leadership and power. This was fully reflected in their participation, engagement and responses during the GI, which was at contrast with other tools implemented with WROs.

FINDINGS 31

We tracked the changes that were brought about as a direct result of GLP modules on a personal level, family level, organizational and community level. Among the responses from the GI participants, change at personal level and organizational level were most widely reflected by the respondents. These were followed by changes at their household and community level.

There is a strong evidence of a positive power shift within WROs, as a result of GLP. Almost all the respondents acknowledged how GLP modules helped them into bringing these power shift within their organization and in positively influencing gender responsive management and governance changes in practice and policy within their WROs.

“A lot of credit goes to Oxfam team who conducted the modules. At the start they said whatever we are going to do is going to stay within us, and we gave an oath that we will maintain privacy with everyone.

Through the modules, they stick to their oath. Even the male waiters were asked to leave the hall. We also kept the privacy and confidentiality. Many people asked me what went on but because of the oath I never told anything.”

- GLPier

Organizational Level Transformative Change Process: Saiban Development Organization As a result of its engagement with WVL, SDO progressed along the transitionary stages of its transformative process.16 They developed and adopted changes in management and operational policies, procedures and practices, in programming and advocacy for women rights, which reflect a transformative change toward a more gender just organization. SDO was successful in developing and implementing Strategic plan, financial management policy, procurement policy, HR policy and Gender policy. Separate rooms for females, pick and drop service for employees, iddat leaves for females, flexible timing, maternity and emergency leaves for females, providing women sanitary boxes in female washrooms are some of the HR and operational policy and practice changes adopted by SDO. This is also to the credit of GLP impact on staff, who were more confident, vocal and empowered to influence these changes. Other steps, such as forming complaint mechanism and putting whistle blowing policy into practice, recreational events for staff and BOD, staff work acknowledgement events, and other such pro-active steps changed the organizational culture. SDO promoted women in leadership positions, with 60% of decision-making positions are women (overall 50% female staff).

“Before WVL, it was a one man show without a proper system and focus, but now it is a sustainable and recognized organization, with a proper focus and mandate, infrastructure, policies and procedures. We are now consciously facilitating women’s leaderships through adopting recommendations and ensuring they are institutionalized.”

— SDO Staff

“Before WVL, we were engaged in activity based short term work and we used be a part of other people’s campaign. Now, we are working on longer term projects, with a more programmatic level engagement where we now have our own advocacy agenda rather than working on other’s agenda.”

These changes in management, operations and organizational culture, along with WVL initiatives, helped SDO to improve the quality of its programming, as it adopted a more focused approach with a clearer vision, equipped with knowledge and tools to plan, implement, monitor and evaluate gender transformative programming. Community focused programming through women’s – SDO Staff voice forums and reflection circles at tehsil level, gender budgeting, use of PRA tools such as seasonal calendar and social mapping are some examples of changed practices, adopted by SDO, that improved their planning and implementation of gender transformative programming. Additionally, SDO adopted MEAL tools, such as photo voice, Storytelling, Cell filming across different activities. With a strengthened institutional capacity and quality program delivery, focus of SDO improved and rather than activity-based work for others whose values resonated with them, they had a clearer vision of their own agenda and developed strong linkages with different networks/coalitions at district and provincial level.

16 The purpose of this case study is to showcase the transformative process of change across the three pillars of WVL at an organization level.

Each WRO is at a different stage of transition within their transformative journey. The choice of organization, as focus of the case study, is based solely on the fact that through triangulating information across Survey, KII, GI and CAT4GJO, the transformative change process is prominent within SDO. These changes are reflected across the different transitionary stages across all the WROs.

32 WOMEN’S VOICE AND LEADERSHIP: PAKISTAN — MID-TERM REPORT

CHALLENGES AND LESSONS LEARNT 1. The GLP for women staff can safely be termed as a highlight of all interventions due to the impact it created at the individual level, which was also felt within the organizations. However, it created certain challenges as well. The design of GLP was to focus on “women only” and its modular nature created an “atmosphere of animosity or competitiveness” among the staff – as reported by women staff members during the GIs. Another reason that led to competitiveness, as shared by the GLP participants was the “project funding”, which was given to the women participants only. It is important to highlight that one of the GLP module specifically focused on supporting the participants to mitigate possible conflict situations arising within the organization.

One of the participants reflected on that aspect as she “managed to navigate” through the difficult situation within her organization. Also, WVL-P team conducted an abridged version of the GLP for the EDs as well – which was reviewed as an exercise that helped in doing “soul-searching”. A key learning from this exercise was to build cohesiveness in relation to this intervention among the staff; though there is no doubt that focus of WVL -P is rightly towards women and strengthening their voice but an auxiliary forum/ group/activity with men staff might prove useful with a focus on challenging their internal norms and biases. The aim is to address toxic masculinity directed towards not only women but also its impact on men themselves.

2. A critical challenge raised by EDs of WROs was the delay in disbursement of funds, which at times reduced the implementation time for the workplan to few months (6-8 months). The delays proved challenging at two levels: 1) internally it was linked with the disbursement of salaries of the staff, and 2) the pressure of completing the planned activities in the field within a reduced time frame. This was reported as an ongoing issue and some of the EDs explained how they had to use their personal/internal resources to ensure the retention of staffs. WVL-P team has been trying to work around this issue and has raised it many times with the GAC team. The reporting timelines and approval processes needs to streamlined while keeping in mind the end user i.e., WRO – something which need careful consideration in the future.

3. Another area that needs discussion is “safeguarding”. It is important to highlight that organizational policies, practices, and codes of conduct have been put in place among WROs. However, operationalizing it proved challenging especially within the communities. The time required from the women community leaders, their travel arrangements for attending the community events and protection needs of women and girls still remain out of the domain of such safeguarding mechanisms.

4. The culture of strengthening democratic values within a WRO as a need was raised multiple times; there seemed to be an underlying tension that is linked with space and authority of the EDs. More focus on (self) accountability and a conversation about succession planning also came across as a possible future course of action to address the issue. WVL can support in this transition through working with the boards of WROs especially focusing on the particular aspect of “conflict of interest” among board members and transparent management of WROs. 5. The most significant challenge to sustainability for WROs is financial and resource-based sustainability. Almost all of the EDs in KII highlighted fundraising as a major challenge to sustainability.

Majority of the respondents also highlighted proposal writing as a major hurdle to fundraising, which effects their financial sustainability. Based on the available information shared with us by WROs, the average success rate of proposals submitted to donors for WROs was is 27%. Writing winning proposals and successfully raising funds seems a significant challenge for WROs. 6. Registration with Economic Affairs Division (EAD), to receive foreign funding, will remain a big risk to the resilience of WROs in future. Though WVL has been facilitating them into fulfilling the pre-requisites to application for EAD registration, except for a couple, this remains a challenge for the rest. Though the registration process is a slow and time taking process, the remaining project period is a suitable and feasible time for WROs to complete this process of registration since that could lead these WROs open to potentially more opportunities of funding.

CHALLENGES AND LESSONS LEARNT 33

7. Another challenge of gender transformative focused programming and tools was managing the increasing community expectations and the pushback from their own board of directors. The participation and inclusion of communities has increased in the WRO programming, throughout the cycle of planning, implementation and evaluation.

However, the respondents felt that in decreased funding for women’s rights, the WROs will struggle to sustain the increasing community expectations.

8. In terms of using evidence to influence policy and practice, the responses and understanding of WROs was disappointing, especially given that a lot of resources had been spent to collectively identify issues and topics for short term grants, which were of high quality and relevant to policy and legislative change needs on women’s rights issues. Whereas 3 of the 5 alliances had used evidence generated through WVL and external efforts in lobbying and advocacy efforts, same results were not shared across WROs. Across EDs and staff, only 3 of the 11 WROs could give us some examples of using evidence to influence policy and practice. These were largely those organizations, who do some form of knowledge generation prior to WVL engagement. Others either did not do any knowledge generational work, or they didn’t used evidence in lobbying, influencing policy and practice work. Based on the discussion with WRO staff and EDs, we believe there is a genuine lack of understanding and appreciation of using evidence in lobbying and advocacy-based efforts. Therefore, there is a lack of buy-in into this approach, which needs be addressed. One of the respondents from the GI with WRO staff said “No, we have done nothing in regard to using evidence for lobbying or advocacy.

Because it did not click with us”. Another respondent said “Yes, Oxfam did share these knowledge products with us, I read one of those but I haven’t used them”.

Only one WRO ED could give a clear example of how WVL funded knowledge products from short term grants was used to influence policy and practice.

9. Lack of coordination between short grantees, alliances and WROs was a major challenge expressed by alliance representative. Specifically, alliance representative expressed that a lack of clarity on the future activities and agenda of WROs and without any collective engagement plan, it becomes a challenge for alliances to better plan and collectively engage with alliances. An alliance representative expressed “I think we need to improve our coordination. We did ask them about their advocacy priority through email, but at the Micro level, our themes do not match their themes”.

“There is no collective planning of engagement, and the engagement is not

structured. We do collaborate but it is ad hoc. You can say that the planning is there at the macro level but not at the micro level.”

– Alliance representative

10. Those WROs which are geographically placed in the provincial capitals were either part of the provincial alliances or became members after joining WVL have definitely enjoyed a more meaningful working relationship with the alliances. However, other remotely placed WROs found it challenging to collaborate on relevant advocacy agendas. There are many examples in which a gradual improvement can be seen but the notion of “people-led advocacy” and “action-campaigning” can be further strengthened through investing strategic support and developing the practical ways of working. Oxfam being a global advocacy organization can bring together multiple examples in this regard and add value. Respondents believe that they need to network with more alliances/platforms, stakeholders etc. This is to improve their ability to reach to a more diverse range of key stakeholders for advocacy on women issues.

11. Another challenge shared by alliances representatives was a lack of consistency in WRO representative who engage with alliances. They expressed, that resources that are spent in inducting WRO representatives are not fully utilized when there is frequent changeover of WRO representative, engaging with alliances.

“I would again mention here that we expect to have a steady knowledge base. First you teach a child ABC, next you teach him DEF, but every time there is a different child, one cannot move on to ABC again.”

- Alliance representative

12. Representatives from WROs expressed that continuous engagement with alliances is resource intensive, in terms of human resource and travelling cost, and without prior planning and relevant financial resources, continuous and frequent engagement with alliances become difficult. A common challenge expressed by short grantees, alliances and WROs, was on the nature of their engagement with alliances.

They feel that their linkage with each other is limited to activity-based engagement only rather than more institutional and strategic, with common vision.

“Our provincial alliance contribution is attending meetings and that is all. If they conduct activities, then they invite us. The whole engagement is like a soliloquy on their part, not a dialogue.”

– WRO staff

34 WOMEN’S VOICE AND LEADERSHIP: PAKISTAN — MID-TERM REPORT

RECOMMENDATIONS Recommendations for WROs Walk the Talk: Though the transition for WROs toward being gender just has been impressive, the subtle power differentials still manifests itself.

There is a need for the top leadership to make an extra effort of challenging themselves and invest in internalizing gender transformative principles.

For examples, when EDs engage with external stakeholders, this can be made more participatory through inclusion of wider staff. This will build a second line of leadership and improve the profile of their staff.

Strengthen culture of self-accountability at the senior level: The structure of WROs give space to EDs to make critical decisions, which can be detrimental for the program as well as the staff. Though the BODs of each WRO have been reformed and made inclusive but the accountability of the EDs towards the board needs further effort i.e., empowering the boards, which in the end will contribute towards improving the health of the WROs. Invest in business development: Financial sustainability of each WRO has been highlighted as a critical challenge, for which strategic effort and investment is needed in terms of hiring highquality staff and exploring newer avenues for fund raising e.g., corporate social responsibility funding or exploration of social enterprise model. This needs to be a high priority area for the remaining years of WVL. The trickle-down effect of training done by WVL needs to be further institutionalized by WROS: during the initial years of WVL the heavy investment made by WVL needs to be institutionalized through effective knowledge management and learning forums within each WRO. While retention of trained staff remained a challenge but knowledge can be stored, transferred and utilized further through effective induction packs, material and formal process of maintaining organizational history and knowledge.

Prioritize to strengthen relationship with Alliances: In a restricted space for women’s rights in Pakistan, it is extremely crucial for WROs to strengthen their collective voice, and relationship with alliances provides an excellent opportunity to do so. WROs need to designate staff members to engage with the alliances who have particular skill set on specific issues.

Improve quality of context & risk analysis: This is a significant exercise to bring depth to the program and needs focused time and effort in line with the gender transformative approach.

Eyes on the Vision: Due to the pressure of workplans, activities and burn-out rates, sometime we lose touch with our core ideology and basis of our existence. It is important to maintain a link with the gender transformative principles. This can be done through generating informal discussion between staff and board members for collective ownership of the vision and mission of the WRO.

Recommendations for Oxfam Engage with BoDs of WRO: While keeping in mind that boards of WROs are voluntary positions, it is important to engage with them to strengthen their role and contribution in strengthening a culture of accountability. Some carefully crafted interventions can add value to their functioning.

Alliances, WROs, and knowledge generation: Based on this review, strengthening the relationship of WROs with alliances and especially pillar three needs to be on the radar and to address challenges, continuous effort is needed to address the issues and more strategic direction is required.

GLP should continue: GLP should continue and contribute in developing a pool of women leaders – if the funding allows it should go beyond WVL as well.

Build Collective understanding of Women Leadership: Among the WROs there is a varied understanding of “women leadership” which has been shared in the earlier sections (Pillar 1 & 2). However, to qualify a change in leadership, it is important to define how WVL-P understands it and then can work to strive for it in the remaining course of the project.

Continue Legacy of WVL: There is no second opinion about keeping the direction and focus of WVL-P on strengthening women’s voice & agency. However, a significant contribution should be to engage with male staff members to address toxic masculinities and mitigate its effects on women and men as well.