Rosalind Eyben

Choosing Words with Care? Shifting meanings of women's empowerment in international development

Abstract ‘Womens empowerment’, as used by international development organisations, is a fuzzy concept. Historical textual analysis and interviews with officials in development agencies reveal its adaptability and capacity to carry multiple meanings that variously wax and wane in their discursive influence. Today a privileging of instrumentalist meanings of empowerment associated with efficiency and growth are crowding out more socially transformative meanings associated with rights and collective action. In their efforts to make headway in what has become an unfavourable policy environment, officials in development agencies with a commitment to a broader social change agenda juggle these different meanings, strategically exploiting the concepts polysemic nature to keep that agenda alive. We argue for a politics of solidarity between such officials and feminist activists. We encourage the latter to challenge the prevailing instrumentalist discourse of empowerment with a clear, well articulated call for social transformation, while alerting them to how those with the same agenda within international development agencies may well be choosing their words with care, even if what they say appears fuzzy.

Emerging and Submerging Powers: Imagined Geographies in the New Development Partnership at the Busan Fourth High Level Forum

Abstract The geopolitics of development is in a state of uncertainty and transition that the Busan High Level Forum both mirrored and contributed to. Busan established a new discourse of international development cooperation in which the old donor-recipient relationship is replaced by an equator-less landscape of a multi-stakeholder global partnership. But by analysing the Busan preparations and conference through textual analysis and participant observation we found it to be a fractured landscape of variable imagined geographies, suggesting that the question of who is ‘North’ and who is ‘South’ will continue to shape global negotiations on the future of development cooperation.

Thinking about change for development practice: a case study from Oxfam GB

Development practice is informed by theories of change, but individuals and organisations may not make them explicit. Practitioners may be unaware of the extent to which strategic choices and debates are informed by disparate thinking about how history happens and the role of purposeful intervention for progressive social change. In the past few years, some Oxfam GB staff have been creating processes to debate their theories of change as part of an effort to improve practice. In this context, the authors introduce four sets of ideas about change, with a discussion of how they have been explored in two instances, and some of the challenges emerging from this process. Through explicitly debating theories of change, organisational decision-making processes can be better informed and strategic choices made more transparent.

The road not taken: international aid's choice of Copenhagen over Beijing

Abstract A decade after the United Nations conferences on gender equality and social development, this paper explores their policy origins and discusses their differential impact on international aid since 1995. The author draws on her direct experience to consider why Copenhagen led to Poverty Reduction Strategies and the first Millennium Development Goal, whereas Beijing has become largely invisible in the mainstream world of aid. She argues that the powerful influence of economic rational choice theory associated with bureaucratic modes of thought has meant that the central debate in development policy has remained that of growth versus equity. Beijings agenda of societal transformation offered another paradigm of development that has remained marginal. The paper concludes with a proposal. If international aid policy could handle more than one paradigm and thus be more open to different ways of thinking about economy, society and politics, aid agencies would be better able to support transformative processes for social justice.

Harmonisation: how is the orchestra conducted?

Harmonisation of donor efforts is one of the current buzzwords in the world of official aid. However, while it is an attractive idea in theory, as long as donors do not recognise and address the operations of power in the aid relationship, harmonisation is likely to be counterproductive in promoting locally initiated responses to development challenges.

Participatory action research into donor-recipient relations: a case study

This article describes the exploratory and preparatory phase of a research project designed to use co-operative enquiry as a method for transformative and participatory action research into relations between donors and recipients in two developing countries, Bolivia and Bangladesh. It describes the origins of the idea, the conceptual challenges that the authors faced in seeking funding, and what they learned from this first phase. The authors analyse why the researchers, as well as the potential subjects of the research, were uncomfortable with the proposed methodology, including the challenges arising from their own positions and the highly sensitive nature of the topic. They explain why they decided to abandon the project, and they reach some tentative conclusions concerning the options for participatory action learning and research in development practice.

Myths to Live By: Beijing Narratives

The author draws on her own experience as a feminist bureaucrat involved in the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing to make the case for multiple feminist narratives of Beijing that woven together can create a myth that points to the importance of collective organising that cuts across state–civil society boundaries.

Book Reviews: The United Nations Intellectual History Project

Oxford Development Studies includes occasional review articles of books we consider important contributions to development studies. In this issue, we review nine of the 17 volumes that make up the Intellectual History of the United Nations, which was led by Louis Emmerij, Richard Jolly and Thomas Weiss. The Intellectual History Project, originally conceived by a great UN civil servant, Sidney Dell, has provided massive and impressive documentation of the UN’s role and influence in political, economic and social affairs. Here Dominik Zaum reviews three volumes concerned with security and politics; José Antonio Ocampo’s review covers three books related to the role of the UN in economy and statistics; and Rosalind Eyben discusses three volumes concerning the UN’s role in relation to gender, human rights and social justice. As these reviews indicate, these volumes describe and analyse the varied but heavily constrained role of the UN in affecting global norms and policy, its contributions, its failures and the challenges it faces. In each of the three arenas, the reviews illuminate the ongoing tension that confronts the UN project between the ideals of global cooperation and universal rights and the actuality of realpolitik.