Inspiring people @WUR: Eunice Likoko

“I started working here in January of 2020, exactly three months before the pandemic hit. When I just finished my orientation, we went into lockdown. So, I feel like I started twice.”

What struck you during your first days at Wageningen University?

“I'm from Kenya. I was born there, did most of my basic education in Kenya and started my career in Kenya. I had done other development work assignments in Kenya, Sweden and the USA, but this was my first long term job outside of the country and in Europe. The first thing I did notice was how different everything was, in terms of how impersonal the different work environment systems are. The orientation process was very efficient, but impersonal. Everything is online. Everything is a link. Everything is well organized. There's a folder for everything with a lot of information to read and very few people to talk to. So I clung on to one of my colleagues who was in the same gender research team. He basically showed me the ropes.”

“There's a lot of people on staff who have worked or studied here before. They are familiar with how things work. For the few who do not have a Wageningen University background, it's like being thrown in the deep. I noticed that there were a lot of assumed knowledges. For me it was a new culture, a new country, a new system. I really felt like an outsider.”

From the perspective of inclusion and diversity, did something stand out?

“I was the only black African employee in the office at that time. Now it has changed a lot. We have a lot of other colleagues from African countries that have come and left. Being in a team that works on gender and inclusion, I also immediately noticed that there was surprisingly a lot of more women in management that I had never seen anywhere before at that point. That was positively refreshing having been in academia for a while. A lot of projects are definitely more men dominated.”

It's the official vision of Wageningen University that it doesn't matter at all who you love, what language you speak, where you were born or what you believe. Do you agree with that?

“I do agree with the spirit of the phrase, to make sure that everybody belongs. However, it negates the fact that not everyone has the same experience. It depends on your background, where you have been to school, where you have lived, that does matter.”

“Having been one of the people who joined the team not speaking Dutch, I think you really do see the difference. My colleagues at WCDI are very diverse and a lot of them have lived in other cultures, so they are very aware and to a large extent they do interact and keep emails in English. But outside the WCDI team, there's always reminders that you are ‘the other’. If you join a new project, you’ll find all the documents are in Dutch. If you join an email thread, all the previous emails are in Dutch. If nobody has the sensitivity to remember that there are some people who don't speak Dutch, then you have to live in the translation world. I do appreciate the fact thatit's easier for people to express themselves better when they speak in Dutch. But if the organization is intentional about having a diverse community, with people from all over the world, then there should be a sense of preparedness and ability to meet each other halfway. It's my attempt to meet the Dutch culture halfway and hope they will extend the same favor back to us.”

Do you have then any suggestions to improve this?

“It would be nice to have a regular review of some of these core administrative tools every so often, just to make sure that the review team is a bit more diverse in terms of experience, background, in terms of age, in terms of competence with technology. Just try and make sure that the review process involves in-depth engagement of diverse groups and analyzes of as many user needs as possible. Recently, there was a review of some of these online systems. I immediately volunteered because I had a lot to say. But they said, oh, sorry, the review session is only in Dutch, so we can't have you join. Unfortunately, this is an example of how our institution missed out on great feedback that could have been meaningful.”

Your research is focusing on empowerment strategies to support women.

“If we intend to succeed as human beings, if we intend achieve the most that we can in whatever field, we cannot have some people being subpar to others. My assumption is that everybody in the world is part of a team, like a football team. They're all playing together, whether it's in farming or in research or in food production. If half of your team is not empowered to play fully, you're going to lose the game. That is how I see empowerment: who in the team is not empowered? Unfortunately, in most contexts it is women, and it has been women for a long time.”

“Because of community organization systems, patriarchal systems, faith systems, in many cultures it was accepted that women can live a less quality life. That they don't really have either the right or the ability to access all the opportunities that are there. For us to really reach our ultimate potential, we need to continuously check who is below the standard of living that is acceptable, why is this the case, and figure out how do we stop this from happening, and how do we support those who are living this life to have a better quality of life.”

Do you see any improvement?

“I do think there's a lot of progress. While women have historically faced more barriers, I see evidence of empowerment efforts that benefits society as a whole. There are a lot of women who now have voice, have access to resources. They are able to stand up for themselves, take care of their families, be equal players in the community, in the family, in institutions. More and more, women bring their input into research projects - that is something that was lacking in academia; when you have people of different backgrounds or communities, we all bring different insights.”

“I do see there is improvement, in the sense that there is more awareness and conversation about gender and efforts to address barriers that affect women. On the other hand, I think that there is mixed understanding or even misconception when you mention gender or women empowerment. It is often misinterpreted to be a women’s issue - as opposed to a societal issue - that gives women advantages over men, Similarly, it is interpreted as being tough on men or as an insensitivity to the plight of some men in communities.”

You're studying inclusive empowerment strategies. What strategies are more successful than others?

“All strategies first of all need to be contextually relevant. You really have to understand who you're working with. The discussion around equity and making it fair for everybody, making sure everybody has the same exact opportunities, is a good step. But depending on the context, different groups have different needs. If you want to do an empowerment strategy, first you have to understand how this particular group of people are disempowered. And then examine what you are trying to do with them - does it match their needs? There's definitely more need for thought of how empowerment strategies are matching with the needs in different contexts. Unfortunately, many times when we do a research project, you do one proposal and you're applying it to several countries. Each of those countries, however, has a unique dynamic.”

“And when we talk about empowerment, oftentimes people think of women as one homogenous group: assuming that all women, need this one thing. We need to ask what do those different groups of people need? Gender is really a core part of the team of humanity. Our strategy needs to look beyond women and also examine men; this includes looking at the relationships between them, the structures that determine their relationships, and questioning norms, values, and mind shifts that leave some parts of our communities disempowered. If any part of the team is struggling and disempowered, at the end of the day, the team cannot win. For us to win, we need to continuously look at gender as a strategic issue.”

If you apply this vision to the Wageningen University, do you see opportunities for improvement in Wageningen itself?

“In the university’s objectives, there's this vision for equity. But when we look at the five research groups, they are organized in very siloed ways. How are we making sure that the gender empowerment narrative is a strong collective organizational ambition that is in all the research groups? Not as an add-on, not as a footnote so that we can get donor funding for projects, but as an intentional strategic lead theme that we really do want to address. I look forward to the day where we'll have engineers who are thinking: okay, we want to design this irrigation system for low- and middle-income countries, but who are the users? What are the men doing? What are the women doing? How do we make sure that our solution is really taking into account the cultural elements that are happening in different communities? I don't see enough of it. Similarly, the budget allocation in different projects for the gender component is not commensurate with what is given to other research and intervention areas. Yet for a good gender intervention project to happen, you really need to invest in it. It is a call for a cultural shift, a behavioral shift, which takes time. As long as we're not putting our money where our mouth is, it will not really achieve the desired results.”

You're finalizing your PhD on governance and inclusive development. What will be your next step?

“I hope to invest a little more of my time and resources and energy to look at how policies align well with the different projects that are there. We have a lot of small, effective policy projects that are really doing great work. However, the success of small pilot projects is not being embedded into the existing policies. I'm hoping to focus more on that, on governance.”

“At the same time, I hope to continue working with different experts. Often, we have one gender person in a small gender department that focuses on gender in an institution or in a project. My hope is to have everybody be aware and incorporate principles of gender into different disciplines and departments. Because as long as everybody thinks that their research, their strategy, their proposal is neutral with no gender implications, we are still missing the mark.”