Challenging Gendered Inequalities in Global Health: Dilemmas for NGOs

Abstract

This article considers the implications of the changing funding landscape in global health for NGOs in the health sector, particularly where they have aspired to promote gender equality and justice through their health work. The article reflects on the tensions that arise as a result of the growing influence of business norms within health funding alongside what critics have termed the 'scientization' of global health, and it considers the gendered implications of these developments. It is argued that it is due to the under-valuation and marginalization of community-based work that provides spaces for women's voices in the design and delivery of health interventions that large-scale 'technical' interventions receive priority. The article examines what this means in terms of NGOs' ability to work towards producing transformative change around gender -and indeed racial -equality.The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier draft of this article. Development and Change 47(4): 782-797.

Donor dilemmas in a fragile state: NGO-ization of community healthcare in Guinea-Bissau

“…The observed bypassing of the Ministry of Health through the use of NGOs reflects donors' practice in fragile states (Acht, Mahmoud, and Thiele 2014;Dietrich 2013;Gutting and Steinwand 2017). Although there are some positive aspects of collaborating with NGOs, there are challenges (Banks and Hulme 2012;Banks, Hulme, and Edwards 2015;Buse and Walt 1996;Doyle and Patel 2008;Gideon and Porter 2016;Hearn 1998Hearn , 2007Pfeiffer 2003). The pros and cons of the NGOization of revitalized community healthcare in Guinea-Bissau listed by donor representatives, NGO workers, Ministry officials and local health professionals are already recognized in the literature.…”

“…NGOs have also been criticized. Involvement of NGOs can lead to increased fragmentation of aid activities, lack of coordination and inadequate management (Pfeiffer 2003;Buse and Walt 1996;Gideon and Porter 2016). In post-conflict states, formal institutions may suffer from donors' reliance on NGOs, as they, at times, run parallel services that undermine the services of the state, and they also compete with the state for funding and competent staff (Aman and Aman 2014).…”

Positioning kindness and care at the centre of health services: A case study of an informal health and development programme oriented to surviving well collectively

“…The programme discussed in this paper is an example of an initiative that worked with the quotidian realities of this socialist state system in unconventional ways. As a small scale, and largely unofficial initiative, the Birthwork programme exists in contrast to health development investments that have prioritised large scale technical investments globally (Gideon and Porter, 2016), as well as in Laos. While integrated with larger efforts to reduce maternal morbidity rates, the programme is demonstrating the potential of a different approach.…”

Fear of Disconnecting: Global Health Imaginations and the Transformations of the Taiwanese State

“…Some scholars taking this view have shown how states and their sovereignty were transformed as they engaged with transnational organizations and financial resources (Brown 2015;Harman 2009;Hartwig et al 2005;Kaufman 2012;Long 2018;Powers 2016). Others have argued that transnational capital contributed to the mushrooming, remote governing, and reconfiguring of local nongovernmental organizations (Dehesa 2017; Gideon and Porter 2016;Jönsson and Jönsson 2012;Knutsson 2014;Swidler and Watkins 2017;Thörn 2016). Still others point to the reformation of identity and citizenship as globalizing scientific knowledge and biotechnologies travel across borders (Biehl 2007;Cassidy and Leach 2010;Decoteau 2013;Esacove 2016;Fassin 2007;Howard-Payne and Bowman 2018;Nguyen 2005;Persson 2016).…”