I’ve been thinking about this book for a long time. It doesn’t just touch on the concept of the ‘tradwife’; the idea that the bar is set very high – and that we’re trying to achieve something that is an ideal but not attainable – also applies to our own sector. And not so much in terms of the actual work we do, but in the way we still feel we have to prove ourselves.
These days, civil society organisations are expected to achieve an almost impossible level of perfection. You have to be transparent; every euro must be traceable. Overhead costs must be kept to a minimum, so you have to work as efficiently as possible. It is important to be independent, and therefore somewhat critical of the powers that fund you. And at the same time, you have to be politically adept – that is to say, well-connected to that very same power – because without relationships with The Hague or Brussels, you’ll get nowhere.
These are four principles that are constantly at odds with one another. Being radically independent costs you political access. We’ve seen that. Being politically adept costs you sharpness. Are you still doing the right thing, then? And being efficient comes at the expense of time and space, which are also needed to do things carefully and responsibly. I’m not saying anything out of the ordinary when I say that this is precisely the standard every organisation in the sector tries to meet, because this is what they’re assessed on.
Just prove it
On top of that standard comes a second one: you’ve got to prove it too. Evaluation frameworks such as IOB and OECD-DAC require measurable, attributable, preferably linear impact. But the work that really matters concerns structural change, shifts in power dynamics, peace, human rights, equality and the processes associated with them – which are, by definition, slow, political and rarely attributable to a single organisation.
So the sector is constantly faced with an impossible task: not only doing the right thing, but also proving it in a way that the ‘right thing’ rarely allows itself to be proven.
This is most evident in evaluations, as has been the case again recently. Rigidly applied frameworks assess what is measurable, not what is true. This constantly clashes with reality. It is often left to policy officers, who know the practical realities, to compensate for this rigidity: to explain what a figure does not reveal, to advocate for flexibility where a framework does not allow it. Not because the standard is being applied incorrectly, but because the standard remains workable only thanks to people who can translate it into what actually happens in reality.
It is the standard that is flawed, not the organisations
Just as with Natalie, the problem lies not with who is falling short, but with the bar itself. As long as we apply a standard that demands transparency, efficiency, independence, political agility and measurable impact all at once, there will always be a gap between what organisations deliver and what is asked of them, no matter how well, dedicatedly and carefully they work.
That is no reason to abandon accountability. It is, however, a reason to be more honest about what we are actually asking for and why. And perhaps this moment offers just the right opportunity to do so.
The sector has recently had to let many people go, due to budget cuts and expiring partnerships. That is, first and foremost, a loss. But it is also a time when existing systems are already being overhauled, and thus an opportunity to build something new in which there is more room for trust, and less for regulatory pressure that was never fully sustainable anyway.
The consequences for others
Without wanting to give away the ending of Yesteryear: it gradually becomes clear that it is not only Natalie herself who pays the price for clinging to an unattainable ideal. It is, above all, the people around her who bear the consequences of something that was not their own choice. And that is something we can recognise in our sector. We have tried for so long to clear the high bar without it ever really being possible that reality has caught up with us: fierce criticism, profound misunderstanding and, ultimately, cutbacks, which have led to many staff leaving, organisations being unable to achieve as much, and, ultimately, people in the Global Majority being hit the hardest. Just as with Natalie, it is ultimately not the person who set the bar, but the one who least chose it, who ends up paying the price.
That is precisely why now is the time to reassess together what we want to achieve, to look after one another better and to make way for a new system centred not on perfection, but on trust and change.
Visual by Bojana Boncheva