“INTERSECTIONALITY - NOT JUST ANOTHER BUZZ WORD
where rightsholders are, observe them, and then explain how Voice can support their organising. activities with accompaniment aiming to strengthen grantee partners capacity to submit grant applications that meet the Voice eligibility criteria has also been important. Thus, teams conduct information sessions and open clinics on calls for proposals as well as proposal writing workshops to support potential grantee partners. Complementing outreach Voice recognises that no stand-alone activity can be considered as the most successful, since distinct groups have unique characteristics when it comes to being reached.
seemingly uncharted waters”. However, navigation systems were also found through collective brainstorming. Voice teams sought to test out outreach methods ranging from getting airtime in local radio shows and “crashing” weekly female religious group meetings, to starting discussions with beauty salon clients in Mali and utilising mobile chat applications for the LGBTI community like Blued. In countries such as Indonesia and Nigeria, teams reported early success with using snowball outreach and virtual outreach methods. In addition to the medium, Voice teams learned early on about the necessity to connect the content of calls for proposals to the context and realities of rightsholders. In the Philippines and in Kenya, the teams noted early on that it was important to be present Being Flexible to be responsive Internal systems and ways of working have evolved, informed by continuous learning with Voice stakeholders. Working across Africa and Asia and across the systems of consortium partners, we have learned the value of diversifying our approaches and responses. This is critical to ensure that we can engage with Voice rightsholder groups on sensitive issues within the different contexts. Customised approaches in our grant-makings helped us get closer to realising our dream to ‘leave no one behind.’
The idea of supporting groups facing multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination was embedded into the design of Voice as a grant making facility right from inception. Starting from 2017, the application of an intersectional approach was put in practice. In general, the identities that are more visible in the work of grantee partners that Voice has supported, that intersect each other, generating context of discrimination and marginalization are: Indigenous women, youth or elderly with disabilities, women with disabilities, elderly women and women and young people with and LGBTI identity. From this learning, our calls for proposals became intentional on intersectionality;
“Voice considers the most marginalised and discriminated groups as those with multiple grounds for vulnerabilities. Therefore, a strong preference will be given to projects that intend to work with more than one target group to address overlapping or multiple vulnerabilities.” A deeper discussion on Voice’s experience with intersectionality is outlined in chapter Ill, section 3 “Breaking the silos: From vertical to horizontal ‘siloing’. Since its inception, there’s been a tension between the ambitions of Voice, like the effort to ‘Walk the Talk’ and to be as inclusive and accessible as possible, and the human resources available. The teams delivering the Voice programme in the ten Voice countries consist of a programme officer, a finance officer, and a linking, learning & amplifier officer, complemented by a global coordination team. 5 The current structure has been established based on recommendations made in the mid term review that not only encouraged further decentralisation of grant management to the country level. It also highlighted the Back to building block one: people
Take for example the empowerment grants, targeting (informal) groups or organisations to raise awareness, develop transformative leadership, build confidence and skills and work against stigmatisation of marginalised and discriminated groups. We tried out applications and reporting by audio and video. We also launched Calls for Proposals using videos and/ or radio such as in Laos and Nigeria respectively. From September 2018 through March 2019, Dutch consultancy firm MDF -commissioned by the MFA-carried out a Mid-Term Review (MTR) on Voice. Findings assert that Voice has been successful in offering the space and freedom to apply and test many different approaches, even though they have not all been equally
successful. Innovative and inclusive outreach methods for grant making, meant to enhance flexibility in application (i.e., allowing in local language, non-written formats) haven’t been used as much as expected. Write-shops and hands-on support (‘ping-pong process’) are successful methods that Voice uses to make the application process easier and more inclusive. However, we note that these methods are also quite labour-intensive.
5 The global coordination team consists of a programme manager, finance coordinator, linking & learning coordi- nator, two regional roving grants officers, two regional monitoring & evaluation officers, two amplifiers, and a project officer.
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