Development workers employed by international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are commonly classified as national (local) or international (expatriate) staff members. The distinction is presumed to reflect the varieties of expertise required for the work and the workers’ different biographies. I examine the experiences of Angolans working in an international democratization program to demonstrate how some professionals at the lowest tiers of international development NGOs engage in social practices that strategically emphasize or conceal certain skills, kinds of knowledge, or family circumstances to fulfill industry expectations of “local staff.” Doing so allows them access to employment with international organizations and pursuit of a variety of personal and professional goals. These practices reinforce hierarchical inequalities within the development industry, however, limiting these workers’ influence over programmatic action. I argue that professional distinctions among development workers are social achievements and instruments of strategic manipulation by individuals and NGOs rather than accurate reflections of work or workers. The case study provides insight into the institutional reproduction of hierarchical inequalities and the complexly social reasons why those who suffer their limitations may act in ways that reinforce, rather than resist, unequal social structures.

Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of international development programming is expected to produce “evidence-based” insight for both policy and practice. While supportive of evidence-based decision making, critics of contemporary M&E practice charge that it reflects the development industry’s deepening audit culture, causing deleterious effects. I offer the example of a democratization program in postwar Angola to examine how the design and conduct of M&E in this case reinforced social boundaries and hierarchies of power among the program’s own staff members. These professional staff hierarchies effectively barred ground-level evidence noted by implementation agents from being incorporated into the program’s formal knowledge base. The case demonstrates that monitoring and evaluation procedures within development programs, and perhaps in other bureaucracies, must be examined for their social uses and effects among practitioners. These effects not only weaken the production of actionable knowledge for development but, by reinforcing social inequalities within the very industry tasked to combat them, also structurally threaten the endeavor.

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