Learning in a Ugandan gender advocacy NGO : Organizational growth and institutional wrestling

Abstract

The chapter explores organizational learning in a Ugandan gender advocacy organization, Action for Development (ACFODE), in the course of history of over 30 years. It identifies three instances of learning: changes in the habits of project implementation, changes in the advocacy approaches, and reformulation the ways of being an organization. Each of these instances include continuous institutional wrestling; between easily defined and measurable training approaches and activities embedded in daily life of communities, between contestation and co-optation in relationship with the state, and between being a structured modern organization or informal members’ meeting place. The chapter shows that organizational learning in NGOs requires remaining faithful to organizational core concern and tolerating continuous uncertainties and tensions presented by institutional environments, which lead to problematic situations that cannot be solved by any individual organization alone.