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Strong State Policies on Gender and Aid: Threats and Opportunities for Norwegian Faith-Based Organisations

This article presents a case study of how Bistandsnemnda (BN)/Digni, an umbrella organisation for Norwegian mission organisations and churches, responded to increased pressure from the Norwegian state to focus on gender equality and women's rights as part of their development aid work. BN initiated a special programme called Women Empowerment and Gender Equality in which the organisation displayed an unusually strong involvement. The level of involvement implied that BN exceeded its given mandate as an umbrella organisation, creating tensions and reactions among the members. We discuss this level of involvement, looking at both external and internal factors. We argue that BN's involvement in this programme should be understood in the light of BN's and the member organisations' considerable economic dependence on the Norwegian state and the symbolic importance of gender equality in the production of Norwegian national identity. These two factors led to strong pressure to comply with state policies on gender and aid. This was reinforced by political ambivalence about faith-based organisations receiving state funding; a scepticism that has been fuelled by some rather conservative gender policies in a number of BN's member organisations. A one-sided focus on external political pressure does not, however, provide sufficient explanation for what happened in this particular case. We argue that BN's strong involvement was simultaneously driven by individuals who were committed to gender equality. The pressure from the Norwegian state gave these actors an opportunity to push for more gender-sensitive policies among the member organisations.