According to the Community for Understanding Scale Up (CUSP), a feminist perspective implies that we must “recognize the strength of ‘working with communities’ and not ‘working for or on communities,’” and that these suggest profoundly different approaches. Formed from eight organizations that work across several regions on scaling gender-based social norms-shifting approaches, in a webinar on March 30 at 4 pm EAT/9 am EDT, CUSP members will present their recent publication, Enhancing Social Norms Programs: An Invitation to Rethink “Scaling Up” from a Feminist Perspective.
Key learnings from this document include an analysis of metaphors used to describe growth and expansion. Scaling up, CUSP argues, has connotations in the business world that often lead to a focus on quantifying organizational structures and packaged components, and risks overlooking the principles often needed for structural change. The preferable Growth in an ecosystem, by contrast, fosters collaboration across power and place and emphasizes solidarity, shared analysis and vision, with nimble evolving processes that emphasize learning, according to the document.
From 2020 to 2021 CUSP analyzed and described characteristics of expansion and adaptation that are consistent with a feminist approach, and synthesized their conclusions in a 57-page publication. ExpandNet Secretariat and CUSP Member Dr. Rebecka Lundgren published a blog about the publication, available at this link.
Laura Ghiron, of the ExpandNet Secretariat, will provide remarks during the webinar. To register and join the conversation, please register using this link: https://bit.ly/3IusZGe.
