Articles authored by Wallace, Tina

Drawing on recent research, the author explores how far and in what ways UK NGOs have tried to incorporate gender into the policies and procedures of their international development work, and how far a formal recognition of gender issues is shaping the way each organisation functions. The author assesses the strengths and weaknesses of different strategies (such as specialist staff or units, formal gender policies, gender training, equal opportunity recruitment policies, and mainstreaming) for transforming organisational practice.

This paper reports on some of the generic findings arising from research being undertaken in the UK, South Africa, and Uganda into the ways in which the management tools currently promoted by official donors are passed down the aid chain, through UK NGOs, to civil society organisations in the South. The increasing competition for donor funds is both squeezing out the smaller NGOs, and also setting an increasingly standardised approach, with the resulting loss in diversity.

A workshop was convened in February 2008 to identify the role of civil society organisations (CSOs) in the post-Paris Declaration aid agenda, prior to the High-Level Forum to review progress towards achieving aid harmonisation held in Accra in September 2008. The article highlights the many concerns about the focus on the mechanisms rather than the purpose or impacts of aid; the ways in which donors force through their own agendas; and the continuing gap between rhetoric and practice on issues such as gender equity and local ownership.