Evaluation of the Southern and Eastern Africa Regional Centre for ...

36group to do lectures, training, and to organise meetings, for instance. One graduatehad been sent to the central province in a leadership position after they saw hiscapability following the Masters. The graduates do training in the Police College andthey offer courses. The respondent stated that it is amazing what they have been ableto do. He said that they would even prefer 20 Zambians to take the Masters. Hebelieves that the course has contributed positively, even to the society andcommunity policing. When asked about whether the work on gender based violencewould have been developed without the graduates, one of the employers in thepolice stated that it would not have happened without them as they would not havethe skills. Before that most women, he observed, thought that it was the right of theman to beat them.3.5.2 Limits to ImpactThe selection of findings reflects an impressive range of arenas and influence. Thereremains, nonetheless, the assumption that graduates are able to impact institutionalstructures beyond their individual actions and skills acquisition. Although out of thecontrol of the Centre following graduation it is important to test these assumptionsthat graduates unleash influence in terms of the broader developmental impact of theprogramme. Beyond their own actions, many respondents stated it was simplydifficult to identify broader institutional impact. Some went further in activelydownplaying this type of impact. A significant correlation was made between theposition held by the graduate and whether influence was achievable. In Zambia, forexample, some of the graduates are in administrative positions, and may notinfluence as much as others in decision making or more political positions. Onerespondent, herself a graduate, suggested in Zambia that ‘the graduates impact is toosmall, it is scattered. I am not really seeing it.’An interesting case in point concerns magistrates or judges identified above asmaking more gender sensitive judgements, as documented. This inevitably impactson the cases that come before them. But whether a shift in institutional culturescomes about is highly questionable. One judge, for example, upon being pushedprecisely on this issue by the evaluators, immediately claimed it was far too ambitiousto expect an individual to exert wider influence in institutions. An individual isconstrained (and, conversely, enabled, at times) by personal issues in the workplace.Graduates also encounter hierarchies and the general nesting of power relationswithin institutional structures. In her own case, the judge in question had had to dealwith opposition from her superior to do the course.Another graduate commenting on the situation of the judge in question showed thatsome employers opposed taking the course. In contrast, ‘as long as you are the topperson, you can make institutional impact’, suggested one Zambian policeman. Inclose relation, one comment on the current deputy minister for Women’s Affairs,suggested as follows: ‘She (current deputy minister for Women’s) is even morepowerful than the minister herself, they were very active, the ministry of womenaffairs: it has never happened before that during the week of awareness on genderbased violence that the ministry would run a peaceful march in the streets on theissues of domestic violence and it came in the newspapers. It had never happenedbefore. It would not have happened if not for the course and focus provided’.Another graduate pointed out how change ‘starts from individual contributions to