Feminist approach to foreign policy - stakeholder engagement workshops: evidence report

3. Methodology

In October 2022, Scotland’s International Development Alliance and the Scottish Council for Global Affairs were contracted by the Scottish Government to hold a series of consultative workshops to explore further what Scotland’s feminist approach to foreign policy could look like in practice.

Four online workshops, organised in collaboration with the Scottish Government, were held between November 2022 and January 2023. They each focused on one of four key areas:

• International development
• Peace and security
• Climate justice
• Trade justice

The 97 workshop participants represented diverse organisations and networks from Scotland and other parts of the UK; from across the Global South, including Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Iraq, Jamaica, Kenya, Malawi, Mexico, Mozambique, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Rwanda, South Africa, Turkey, Yemen and Zambia; and from countries that have already adopted FFPs or have active civil society constituencies pushing for FFP, including Canada, Sweden, France, the USA and Switzerland.

Participants were leaders of women’s networks, civil society leaders, activists, development professionals, scholars and staff of international organisations. They were invited based on their knowledge and expertise of the issues. Consideration was also given to their ability to represent wider networks.

We prioritised hearing from individuals in the Global South^[4], ensuring in particular participation from Scotland’s key partner countries: Malawi, Zambia and Rwanda, as we made the assumption that it makes strategic sense for the Scottish Government to focus its efforts on areas where it already has relationships.^[5] We also wanted good representation from Scottish civil society, both women’s organisations and groups involved in the issue areas: international development, peacebuilding, climate justice, and trade. We also sought to learn from feminists in countries that have the longest experience with Feminist Foreign Policies, namely Sweden and Canada, and feminists with international organisations such as UN Women.

Serious efforts were made to ensure at least 50% of participants in all workshops were from the Global South, including by inviting extra potential participants. Unfortunately, there was in practice a relatively high drop-out rate even from those who had confirmed their attendance. In some cases, participants attended part of the discussion but had to leave early.

Participants received a short briefing paper a week before each workshop, introducing the topic, the Scottish Government’s powers and record to date, what other FFPs have included on the topic, and setting out discussion questions. The workshops involved brief introductions to the topic, small group discussions, facilitated by independent facilitators, leaving us free to take comprehensive notes, and a plenary. Within a fortnight of each workshop, reports were drafted and circulated to participants for verification and comment.

A fifth in-person workshop was held with 25 participants in Edinburgh in February 2023. It aimed to develop the suggestions generated in the online workshops into more concrete and measurable recommendations for policy and actions for the Scottish Government. As it was designed as an in-person, interactive, collaborative, policy-writing workshop, participants were mostly from Scotland. Participants were reminded, however, that their task was to be guided by the voices of women, particularly those from the Global South who had contributed the ideas in the online workshops.

Participants were sent the workshop reports in advance and asked to come prepared to work-up the ideas into policies that would enable the Scottish Government achieve what the online workshop participants want to see happen. Participants at the in-person workshop represented human rights organisations, peace and development organisations, community organisations, climate action groups, academia and the Scottish Government.

Participants were tasked with developing SMART policies. This is a familiar acronym from the policy-making world but in this workshop was given a feminist tweak. It was explained that the aim was to develop policies and actions that are:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Actionable
• Relevant
• Transformative

The first two are relatively self-explanatory. Our aim with the third, “actionable,” was to ensure proposed actions and policies fall within the remit of the Scottish Government, rather than requiring powers reserved to the UK Government. Our aim with “relevant” was to ensure that the proposed actions and policies fall under Scotland’s external affairs more than domestic policy.^[6]

Most importantly, we tweaked the T from its traditional use in this acronym as “time-bound,” to mean “transformative.” In order to develop a feminist approach, as we have seen in the discussion of FFPs above, an emphasis on transformation of the structures driving gendered inequalities and insecurities is crucial. With this bullet point, we were encouraging participants to ask: does the policy do more than include women; does it contribute to tackling the structures that drive gendered inequalities, insecurities and injustice?

In writing up the ideas and recommendations, we drew primarily upon the notes from the final workshop but also referred back to the initial workshop reports so as to avoid omitting any SMART policy recommendations. Due to the time-constraints of the online and in-person workshops, not all of the recommendations are as SMART as we had aimed for. Where a suggestion is not yet fully developed into a SMART proposal, we have erred on the side of inclusion, so as to capture the range of creative feminist recommendations made in the workshops.^[7]

All the recommendations in this report come from workshop participants but as many ideas have multiple originators, especially as proposals from the online workshops were further developed in the final workshop, we have summarised and synthesised for clarity and concision.^[8] We have endeavoured to stay as true to the views expressed as possible. All participants have had two opportunities to comment on the findings: on the individual reports of each workshop as well as on a draft version of this report.

We have sought to include the views of those who commented on the reports where possible, subject to the SMART conditions set out above. We acknowledge that the nature of this process means that some participants will be dissatisfied. We have indicated where an idea or recommendation seemed to garner a high degree of consensus and where not.

It is important to note that there was not always consensus. Particularly perhaps in trade, some of the views from different women’s organisations and feminists from the Global South were not just diverse, but actually diametrically opposed. Some argued that the Scottish Government should do more to support women entrepreneurs in the Global South gain access to markets and finance, for example, and others argued that this is precisely the wrong thing to do as it risks trapping women in a global trade system that is inherently exploitative of women and destructive of the environment.

These sorts of debates were not confined to the trade workshop and are common in all deliberations over FFPs. They present a challenge to the Scottish Government. Our approach in this process and report has been to try and respect both the more “reformist” and more “radical” positions, in the belief that reforms can – if they are designed with the intention of so doing – contribute to structural change. As such, in the case of trade, we include recommendations that encourage the Scottish Government to contribute to transforming the trade system and to take actions that make it less harmful to women, other marginalized groups, and the environment in the meantime.

Participants in all the workshops are listed in Appendix 1.

The five workshops produced a wealth of dynamic, creative and potentially transformative ideas and recommendations. These are set out in the remainder of this report. The recommendations are grouped under the themes used for the online workshops, but many of the recommendations address a multiplicity of sectors, such that this report should ideally be read in its entirety.