Q&A: ICRW President Sarah Degnan Kambou

Q&A: ICRW President Sarah Degnan Kambou

As she settles into her new position as ICRW president, Sarah Degnan Kambou takes a moment to talk about everything from the pearls of wisdom she gained while working in developing countries, to what’s on her nightstand these days. Kambou responded to the following questions by e-mail.

Your early work focused on South and Southeast Asia. What interested you in these regions?

While at Boston University School of Public Health, I worked primarily on issues relating to health services delivery. At that time, the School of Public Health collaborated with sister universities in Indonesia, the Philippines, India and China on issues relating to health systems strengthening.

Like so many people in our field, I led my first independent study during my doctoral research. To my delight, faculty at the Department of Community Medicine at Tribhuvan University in Nepal agreed to sponsor my research on social and behavioral attributes associated with the use of prenatal care. We selected Pokhara, a large town nestled under the Annapurna range of the Himalayas, as the site … and I secured a research grant from the Center for Field Research at the Earthwatch Institute. We completed the first cycle of the study in Pokhara town in late 1989.

Unfortunately, we were never able to complete the second cycle in the lower hill villages of the Annapurna Range because civil war erupted in Nepal, and we had to suspend the research. Since I had a universal sample of all pregnancies delivered in the past year from the Pokhara cycle, I was able to conduct my analysis and complete my dissertation. As the political situation in Nepal stabilized, my friends at Tribhuvan returned to the faculty, and started the first School of Public Health in Nepal.

And how did you end up spending 11 years living and working in sub-Saharan Africa?

I gained my initial experience in Africa working as a senior program officer for CARE. Over the course of 11 years, I rotated through five CARE country offices: Togo, Zambia, Ethiopia, Mali and Cote d’Ivoire ... Through CARE, I was able to conduct some fascinating social science research on adolescent sexuality in poor urban settings, the practice of female genital cutting, and the vulnerability of mobile and mobility-affected populations to HIV. Even though I left CARE in 2002 to join ICRW, I’ve continued to collaborate with CARE on research exploring how to design gender-responsive health services and program interventions.

What did those years in Africa teach you?

While in Africa, I worked very closely with communities, and in many cases got to know individuals within those communities. Much of the time, I met and collaborated with good folks who were interested in improving the quality of their own family’s well-being as well as that of the community at large.

Through my program work, I learned that people understand their context and the issues that confront them better than anyone else. They know what strategies have been tried in the past, and can clearly articulate why past interventions have succeeded or failed. They have strong opinions on what is needed in order for future interventions to be successful, and can recommend how to overcome obstacles as they emerge down the road. When local politics come into play, people work it out themselves for the most part – in ways that usually move the agenda forward albeit at the community’s pace.

Most importantly, I learned that you need to start where people are on an issue – and accompany them as their understanding of the issue, and resolve to act, evolve. In Africa, I understood for the first time that research truly can be a parallel process of social change, and can be made accessible to all.

What was your most challenging moment – if any – in Africa and why?

I moved to Africa at a time when the continent was experiencing a lot of political unrest. In Togo and Cote d’Ivoire, I managed project teams under difficult and, at times dangerous, conditions. I developed a very keen appreciation for safety and security measures – not just having them posted on the office bulletin board, but consciously applying them at all times while at the office, during fieldwork and at home. Even in countries that were reasonably politically stable at the time, violent crime was on the rise in urban areas. Personally, my most harrowing moment occurred in Lusaka, Zambia. As I was driving to pick up my five-year-old son at a birthday party, I was car-jacked at gun point. Luckily it all turned out fine, but again, the incident reinforced my commitment to safety and security.

When you started doing this work, few people considered women’s roles in global development. Today the landscape has changed and more diverse groups “get it.” In your view, how has that change affected the work, and what remains to be done?

Today, many policy makers and development practitioners now understand that women play a critical role in the social and economic development of their community and country, and that including them in development efforts is not only the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do. Further, people working in development have become more familiar with gender as a domain, and are becoming more confident incorporating gender issues in their discourse on development. So people “talk” gender much more readily these days – a huge achievement attributable to women’s rights advocates. What policy makers and development practitioners now find challenging is how to apply gender concepts – that is, how to promote women’s empowerment and gender equality through policy and the design and delivery of services and community development activities. Also linked to that is how to expand promising gender-responsive services and programs so that larger numbers of people benefit.

Going from the conceptual to the concrete requires much greater depth and breadth of expertise in integrating gender dimensions into policy, services and programs. That’s where an organization like ICRW comes in. ICRW’s researchers have extensive experience studying the conditions in which women and girls live around the world, and crafting solutions to not only improve the quality of their lives but, ultimately, engage them fully in their communities’ development. As social scientists, we seek to understand how social roles and normative behavior intersect with other factors such as widespread prevalence of a sexually transmitted disease or limited access to education, which can produce different effects on the health, well-being and socio-economic status of women and men … We’ve also developed highly refined research methods that make it possible for people – women and men, boys and girls – to talk with us about these and other sensitive issues, like violence and partner abuse…

Today, governments and donors also are demanding measurable results so that they can report to their constituencies on the return on investment of foreign assistance funds or grant money. In light of these requirements for evidence-based results, ICRW is uniquely placed because not only do we know “how to” apply gender concepts in many sectors like health, prevention of violence against women and agriculture development, but we also know how to measure and document outcomes as well.

Has there been an influential woman in your life? If so, who and why?

My maternal grandmother, Mildred Stiles, was a matriarch and feminist. Trained as a concert pianist, she turned to teaching English in high school in the post-Depression, post-war era. She raised three daughters, contributed to her community and lived a long, independent life. She made me feel loved and special, but expected me to work hard.

You often tell people that they need to “get closer to the drums.” What does that mean, and why is this phrase so important to you?

The phrase “getting closer to the drums” alludes to the tradition of talking drums – or drum telegraphy – that is practiced in many parts of Africa, West Africa in particular. People use drums with variable pitch to communicate short messages over distance, with some drums able to be heard up to 10 to 15 miles away during the night. Talking drums are used to announce important events like the death of a chief, communicate danger or a celebration, and summon the community for important meetings.

When I use this phrase, I’m indicating that it’s critical for ICRW to get as close as possible to national and local discourse on social and economic development so that we understand its complexity, its nuances and its flow. To achieve our mission of empowering women and promoting gender equality, we need to contribute directly and meaningfully to that discourse. We want to be close enough to hear the message of the drums clearly, and have an opportunity to influence those drumming the message when and as appropriate.

On a lighter note, what are you reading these days?

I read several books at the same time. Depending on my mood, I’ll dip into something light and romantic or conceptual or dark and complex. I just finished “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett – a terrific read. I’m now reading “Tinkers” by Paul Harding and “The History of Love” by Nicole Krauss. Queued up on my nightstand, I’ve got “Development as Freedom” by Amartya Sen and “Fierce Conversations” by Susan Scott.

What is your most treasured possession, and why?

Kambou in 1994 with her two children, mother-in-law and other family in Cote d’Ivoire.

My most treasured possession is my family. Having traveled all over the world, and experienced war and its aftermath and learned about the importance of social safety nets, I’m convinced that things are not as important as people. If the house were burning, my husband and I would grab the kids – and the family photo albums. We have some remarkable photos of our parents and grandparents in their youth – and these are treasures.