On 18 September 2025, we first announced our new Certificate peer learning programme for gender in emergencies. The first course, a primer on the topic, then launched on 6 October.
As of 21 January 2026, the gender community of The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) now reaches 6,592 practitioners. This amazing growth is the result of the first primer “going viral”, and a testament to the Foundation’s learning communities that responded to the call to action, joined the course, and spread the call for enrollment far and wide.
On 14 October 2025, The Geneva Learning Foundation issued the first call for domain experts to support and guide the programme’s future development.
In humanitarian work, hiring processes are frequently opaque. Specialized topics like gender in emergencies have relied primarily on closed networks led by Global North gatekeepers with impressive credentials and “field” experience. Our thinking was that this excludes or marginalizes practitioners who live every day in the “field” where global humanitarians deploy during emergencies.
Here is what we learned when we opened our roster to both INGO networks that remain concentrated in the Global North and to our own networks that connect over 80,000 health and humanitarian workers, primarily based in local communities of the Global South.
Seeking a guide on the side
The call for applications issued in October 2025 sought a specific type of professional: the “Guide on the side”. This is a facilitator tasked with holding safe and brave spaces for humanitarian practitioners to find solidarity and deepen their analysis.
The Geneva Learning Foundation prioritized several core requirements for this role:
- Deep domain expertise in gender in emergencies, for example in areas like Rapid Gender Analysis or risk mitigation for gender based violence.
- A practice grounded in intersectional, feminist, and decolonial analysis.
- A practice in line with our conviction that practitioners who are there every day hold the essential knowledge required to solve complex problems.
- Full professional fluency in English, French, and other languages to facilitate complex and nuanced discussions across linguistic divides.
Who answered the call: a demographic profile
We received 61 applications from 26 countries, 49% of them from women. The largest concentrations of applicants are found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria, which together account for 41% of the total. However, for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, men represent 67% of the applicants, while Nigeria shows a more balanced split with 55% men and 45% women. Four countries (Spain, Jordan, Morocco, and South Africa) had only female applicants, whereas applicants from three countries (Ethiopia, India, and Senegal) were all men.
Women from the Global North, primarily residing in countries like Spain, Greece, and Switzerland, consistently presented the most extensive institutional pedigrees, citing decades of experience authoring global strategies and leading interagency coordination for major international organizations. In contrast, applications from women in the Global South, although fewer in number, were characterized by grassroots activism and authority derived from personal lived experiences of conflict and displacement. Men from the Global South represented a significant portion of the pool, particularly from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria, and their profiles frequently combined technical public health roles with a deep commitment to adapting global guidelines to complex local realities. Notably, no applications were received from men residing in the Global North for this specific call.
Beyond credentials: vague claims versus tangible artefacts
A critical part of our analysis involved distinguishing between vague, unverifiable claims and tangible examples of achievements. Many applicants stated they were “passionate about gender” or “committed to equity” without providing evidence of how this commitment manifested through what they have actually done in their work or life. Passion may be necessary, but it is unlikely to be sufficient without analysis.
Some candidates provided concrete examples. Here are four examples:
- Localized technical tools: One applicant developed culturally relevant glossaries and training materials in Arabic to decolonize the language of gender and protection. Another led the design of a Menstrual Health and Dignity Project that promoted youth leadership and gender justice in partnership with local networks.
- Documented field leadership: Candidates shared evidence of leading national level Rapid Gender Analyses in displacement sites, where they trained local teams and validated results directly with communities.
- Integration of gender into technical sectors: Several health professionals shared how they successfully integrated gender sensitive strategies into outbreak preparedness and large scale immunization campaigns.
- Strategic policy influence: One candidate led the development of a global gender justice strategy that centers decolonial feminist approaches and prioritizes collaboration with women led organizations.
The intersection of professional background and lived experience
A significant dimension shared in many motivation letters was the “why” that informs their practice. For these individuals, expertise is not just a credential. It is a lived reality that is both personal and political.
- Survivors and activists: Several candidates identified as survivors of conflict and displacement. They stated that their commitment to gender equity was not learned from books but was “painfully and personally lived”.
- Identity as expertise: Applicants from the Global South shared how their own multicultural and multilingual identities allow them to navigate power dynamics that Western centric frameworks might miss.
- Commitment to unlearning: Many senior experts explicitly addressed the need for “continued unlearning” to recognize their own privilege and create truly inclusive spaces.
Divergent paths to expertise: local activism versus institutional pedigree
The call for applications revealed a profound bifurcation in the nature of expertise within the humanitarian sector. On one hand, a significant number of applications originated from practitioners rooted in local communities across Africa, Asia, and the Arab World. These candidates presented profiles characterized by grassroots activism and direct advocacy. What was distinct about their applications was the source of their authority: it was not solely academic but was often described as being painfully and personally lived. Some are founders of grassroots initiatives that work on dismantling systems of forced labor and modern slavery. Others are community health supervisors who coordinate responses in health zones facing extreme poverty and armed conflict. Their applications emphasized the importance of psychological liberation and rebuilding agency from within the community rather than through external intervention.
In contrast, applications from women based in the Global North, particularly from Spain, Switzerland, and Greece, held the most impressive institutional pedigrees. These profiles were marked by decades of experience shaping global policies and leading interagency coordination for major international organizations. They are the authors of global gender justice strategies, senior GenCap advisors who provide technical assistance to United Nations Humanitarian Coordinators, and architects of standardized guidelines for gender-based violence response. Their achievements are measured by the scale of their institutional reach and the creation of universal frameworks intended for deployment across diverse emergency contexts.
From a decolonial feminist lens, these differences illustrate what Ogochukwu Udenigwe and her colleagues describe as “hierarchical knowledge praxis”. In plain language, Global North candidates often function as dispensers of human rights and experts who generate knowledge for others to consume. This reflects the coloniality of power where the West remains the center of production while the rest of the world is positioned as a recipient.
Conversely, the local activist profiles represent a form of epistemic disobedience. They refuse to be reduced to passive beneficiaries or informants, and assert themselves as knowledge-holders whose firsthand experience is the most critical resource for solving complex challenges. Their applications challenge the saviourism narratives that often characterize international interventions by prioritizing relational accountability and indigenous histories of solidarity.
Solidarity as an act of unlearning and reclaiming
By opening our roster, we are not dismissing institutional expertise but rather creating a site where global strategic knowledge and ‘authentically intelligent’ local experience can meet as equals to solve problems that neither can address alone, to the benefit of both.
In this framework, solidarity does not mean “helping” the Global South from a position of superiority. Instead, it requires a two-way transformation:
- Global North allies can engage in a deliberate process of unlearning positional privilege and recognizing that their “expert” knowledge often excludes the lived realities of those they aim to protect.
- Global South practitioners can reclaim their status as knowledge-holders and experts who are capable of autonomous thought and innovation.
- Both groups benefit from working together to “delink” from Western narratives that pathologize cultures of the Global South and instead value indigenous histories of solidarity, such as the African tradition of “safe spaces”.
- This process fosters “relational accountability,” where the primary responsibility of a consultant is to the community served rather than to a distant donor or state bureaucracy.
- Legitimacy is best defined not only by institutional pedigree but by ‘relational accountability’ to the communities being served and the ability to turn shared insights into concrete action.
By opening the call to everyone with decolonial criteria clearly in mind, we hope to build a bridge across the chasm between “global” and “local” knowledge. True leadership in gender in emergencies requires the humility to listen and the courage to act upon what is heard. As this programme moves forward, our goal is to build an ecosystem where every practitioner, regardless of their geography, identity, or pedigree, can both contribute and benefit.
References
Bian, J., 2022. The racialization of expertise and professional non-equivalence in the humanitarian workplace. Int J Humanitarian Action 7, 3. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41018-021-00112-9
Sadki, R., 2026. Reimagining Rapid Gender Analysis as decolonial practice. https://doi.org/10.59350/rr0d3-3pk55
Sadki, R., 2025. Gender in emergencies: a new peer learning programme from The Geneva Learning Foundation. https://doi.org/10.59350/j3twk-d9x53
Udenigwe, O., Aubel, J., Abimbola, S., 2026. A decolonial feminist perspective on gender equality programming in the Global South. PLOS Glob Public Health 6, e0005556. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0005556
Wenham, C., Davies, S.E., 2022. WHO runs the world – (not) girls: gender neglect during global health emergencies. International Feminist Journal of Politics 24, 415–438. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616742.2021.1921601