Abstract

Background: This article describes the efforts of a group of donors and activists to collectively develop a national base line on organisations working for human rights in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) in Kenya to develop an ongoing monitoring and evaluation process.Objectives: The purpose of the base line was to support both activist strategising and ongoing reflection, and more effective donor collaboration and grant making.Method: Drawing on interviews with key stakeholders, the authors examined the dominant approach to funding and evaluation on social change globally. They analysed the impact of this dominant approach on developing and sustaining a SOGI movement in Kenya. They developed an alternative theory of change and participatory methodology and worked with a range of donors and SOGI organisations to conceptualise and support the collaborative collection of information on four themes: legislation and policy, organisational mapping, political and cultural context, and lived experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people.Results: This was a useful process and tool for activists and donors to develop a shared understanding of the current context and capacities influencing efforts to promote SOGI rights. It served as a basis for improved strategising and participants expected it to prove useful for monitoring progress in the longer term.Conclusion: This theory of change and participatory approach to base line development could be helpful to donors, activists and monitoring and evaluation specialists concerned with supporting social change in the region and globally.

Highlights

  • Programme officers in large grant-making institutions, as well as the evaluators they contract, face a range of challenges

  • But in the last five years, there has been growing attention amongst international human rights funders to find ways in which to support activists working to address the inequality, violence and discrimination faced by people on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity

  • We mapped the information that we collected on the organisations that were working on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI)-related issues against the model of organisational development that we had developed

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Summary

Introduction

Programme officers in large grant-making institutions, as well as the evaluators they contract, face a range of challenges. A little recognised aspect of this challenge is the struggle programme officers have in linking individual grants to overarching programme goals, and being able to demonstrate how individual grantees are making a specific contribution to achieving these This is especially so in relation to meaningful social change, which almost by definition requires a large number of organisations and individuals working over a long period of time on a variety of different fronts. The Funders for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Issues (FLAGI) report that between 2007 and 2010 there was a 35% increase in the funds going to advancing the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in the global South and East (Funders for LGBTQI Issues 2011) This reflected both an increasing amount of resources longstanding funders had dedicated to this work, as well as the entry of a number of new sources of funding (primarily US and European-based private foundations, and bi-laterals). From 2009 to 2012 the Foundation provided support to 11 ‘intermediaries’ working broadly on human rights and women’s rights to make small grants to grassroots SOGI organisations in Africa, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and South East Asia

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