Translating Sexuality Education in Ethiopia and Kenya: A Multi-Sited Approach

Abstract

In this article, we explore how comprehensive sexuality education (‘CSE’) is being translated across different sites in Ethiopia and Kenya. The comprehensive approach to sexuality education is seen as both a tool for implementing numerous internationally established rights around sexuality and reproduction and it is also increasingly recognised as a human right on its own alongside the right to health and education. However, it is strongly contested by various actors and on multiple sites in terms of its claim of being culturally relevant and sensitive and it is also instrumentalised as a norm-spoiling tool used to contest related norms around sexual and reproductive health and rights (‘SRHR’). With this empirical study, we contribute to research on the translation of contested norms and ideas in different contexts. We problematise the difficulties of the universal language underlying human rights approaches and the ambiguity of comprehensive sexuality education when considering the extent to which CSE can develop emancipatory potential through translation. Focusing on the practices of translation among and within these different transnational sites, we examine where and how contested norms such as CSE are translated, arguing that a focus on researching sites of translations allows us to grasp the varieties of translation.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding

This work was supported by Fritz Thyssen Stiftung.

Notes

1 See, eg, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, opened for signature 18 December 1979, 1249 UNTS 13 (entered into force 3 September 1981); Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, opened for signature 27 October 1995 (entered into force 22 December 1995); Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, opened for signature 11 May 2011 (entered into force 1 August 2014).

2 James J Ponzetti (ed) Evidence-Based Approaches to Sexuality Education: A Global Perspective (Routledge 2016).

3 See, eg, Family Watch International, Cultural Imperialism: The Sexual Rights Agenda (online) 22 July 2020 <https://familywatch.org/2020/07/22/cultural-imperialism-the-sexual-rights-agenda-2/> (last accessed 24 February 2022).

4 See, eg, Christine Panchaud and others, ‘Towards Comprehensive Sexuality Education: A Comparative Analysis of the Policy Environment Surrounding School-Based Sexuality Education in Ghana, Peru, Kenya and Guatemala’ (2019) 19(3) Sex Education 277; Family Watch, Comprehensive Sex Education: The Harmful Effects on Children (online) <https://www.comprehensivesexualityeducation.org/wp-content/uploads/Harmful-Effects-10.17.17.pdf.> (last accessed 24 February 2022).

5 Rebecca Sanders, ‘Norm Spoiling: Undermining the International Women’s Rights Agenda’ (2018) 94(2) International Affairs 271.

6 United Nations Population Fund (‘UNFPA’), Report of the International Conference on Population and Development, Cairo, 5–13 September 1994, Report No A/CONF.171/13/Rev.1 (1995).

7 See, eg, the development of the ‘It’s All One Curriculum’ by the Population Council: Nicole Haberland and others, It’s All One Curriculum Volume 1: Guidelines and Activities for a Unified Approach to Sexuality, Gender, HIV, and Human Rights (Population Council 2011 edn, first published 2009) <https://www.popcouncil.org/uploads/pdfs/2011PGY_ItsAllOneGuidelines_en.pdf>.

8 UNFPA, UNFPA Operational Guidance for Comprehensive Sexuality Education (online) 1 December 2014 <https://www.unfpa.org/publications/unfpa-operational-guidance-comprehensive-sexuality-education> (last accessed 24 February 2022).

9 Such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) Committee, the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and the Beijing Declaration, which were reinforced and reviewed by the ICPD+5 (1994) and the Bejing+5 (2000) as well as the Conference on Population and Development (CPD).

10 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (‘UNESCO’) and others, International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education: An Evidence-Informed Approach (UNESCO 2018, 2nd edn) 16.

11 As above.

12 See, eg, INERELA+, Save the Children Sweden and UNESCO, Religious Leaders’ Handbook on Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (2019) <https://resource-centre-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/asrhr_handbook_-_final.pdf>.

13 Both countries are also signatories of the Maputo Protocol (2003), which strengthens Sexuality Education through measures of gender sensitisation and human rights education: Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Wmen in Africa, opened for signature 1 July 2003, African Union, (entered into force 25 Novemer 2005) <https://au.int/sites/default/files/treaties/37077-treaty-charter_on_rights_of_women_in_africa.pdf>.

14 A prominent example of such a program is a Dutch computer-based curriculum called ‘World Starts with Me’ (WSWM), which initially adapted CSE to the Ugandan social and legal framework and has since been implemented in 19 Asian and African countries, including Ethiopia and Kenya.

15 Sarah C Keogh and others, ‘Challenges to Implementing National Comprehensive Sexuality Education Curricula in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Case Studies of Ghana, Kenya, Peru and Guatemala’ (2018) 13(7) PLOS ONE e0200513; Marielle L J Le Mat and others, ‘Mechanisms of Adopting and Reformulating Comprehensive Sexuality Education Policy in Ethiopia’ (2020) 35(5) Journal of Education Policy 692; Marielle L J Le Mat and others, ‘Moulding the Teacher: Factors Shaping Teacher Enactment of Comprehensive Sexuality Education Policy in Ethiopia’ (2021) 51(6) Compare 862; Esther Miedema and Georgina Yaa Oduro, ‘Sexuality Education in Ghana and Mozambique: An Examination of Colonising Assemblages Informing School-Based Sexuality Education Initiatives’ in Louisa Allen and Mary Lou Rasmussen (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Sexuality Education Palgrave Macmillan 2017 69; Natalie C Browes, ‘Comprehensive Sexuality Education, Culture and Gender: The Effect of the Cultural Setting on a Sexuality Education Programme in Ethiopia’ (2015) 15(6) Sex Education 655.

16 Rahil Roodsaz, ‘Probing the Politics of Comprehensive Sexuality Education: ‘Universality” versus “Cultural Sensitivity”: A Dutch–Bangladeshi Collaboration on Adolescent Sexuality Education’ (2018) 18(1) Sex Education 107; Rahil Roodsaz and An Van Raemdonck, ‘The Traps of International Scripts: Making a Case for a Critical Anthropology of Gender and Sexuality in Development’ (2018) 6(4) Social Inclusion 16.

17 Ekua Yankah and Peter Aggleton, ‘The Manufacture of Consensus: The Development of United Nations Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education’ in Louisa Allen and Mary Lou Rasmussen (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Sexuality Education (Palgrave Macmillan 2017) 53.

18 Esther Miedema, Marielle L J Le Mat and Frances Hague, ‘But Is it Comprehensive? Unpacking the “Comprehensive” in Comprehensive Sexuality Education’ (2020) 79(7) Health Education Journal 747.

19 Miriam Bak-McKenna, ‘Feminism in Translation: Reframing Human Rights Law through Transnational Islamic Feminist Networks’ in Rebecca Ruth Gould and Kayvan Tahmasebian (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Activism (Routledge 2020, 1^st edn) 317.

20 Sally Engle Merry, Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International Law into Local Justice (University of Chicago Press 2006); Peggy Levitt and Sally Merry, ‘Vernacularization on the Ground: Local Uses of Global Women’s Rights in Peru, China, India and the United States’ (2009) 9(4) Global Networks 441. 

21 Levitt and Merry, above note 20 at 446.

22 Susanne Zwingel, ‘Women’s Rights Norms as Content-in-Motion and Incomplete Practice’ (2017) 2(5) Third World Thematics 675.

23 Sally Engle Merry and Peggy Levitt, ‘Remaking Women’s Human Rights in the Vernacular: The Resonance Dilemma’ in Lars Engberg-Pedersen, Adam Fejerskov and Signe Marie Cold-Ravnkilde (eds) Rethinking Gender Equality in Global Governance: The Delusion of Norm Diffusion (Palgrave Macmillan 2019) 145; Merry, above note 20; Levitt and Merry, Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International Law into Local Justice, above note 20; Susanne Zwingel, Translating International Women’s Rights: The CEDAW Convention in Context (Palgrave Macmillan 2016); Anna van der Vleuten, Anouka van Eerdewijk and Conny Roggeband (eds) Gender Equality Norms in Regional Governance: Transnational Dynamics in Europe, South America and Southern Africa (Palgrave Macmillan 2014).

24 Shweta Singh, ‘In between the Ulemas and Local Warlords in Afghanistan: Critical Perspectives on the “Everyday,” Norm Translation, and UNSCR 1325’ (2020) 22(4) International Feminist Journal of Politics 504; Felix Anderl, ‘Global or Local Solidarity? That’s the Wrong Question: Relationality, Aspiration and the In-Between of Feminist Activism in Southeast Asia’ (2022) 19(1) Globalizations 1; Tobias Berger, Global Norms and Local Courts: Translating ‘the Rule of Law’ in Bangladesh (Oxford University Press 2017, 1^st edn); Lisbeth Zimmermann, Global Norms with a Local Face: Rule-of-Law Promotion and Norm-Translation (Cambridge University Press 2017).

25 Antje Wiener, The Invisible Constitution of Politics: Contested Norms and International Encounters (Cambridge University Press 2008).

26 Thomas Linsenmaier, Dennis R Schmidt and Kilian Spandler, ‘On the Meaning(s) of Norms: Ambiguity and Global Governance in a Post-Hegemonic World’ (2021) 47(4) Review of International Studies 508.

27 Amitav Acharya, ‘How Ideas Spread: Whose Norms Matter? Norm Localization and Institutional Change in Asian Regionalism’ (2004) 58(2) International Organization 239.

28 Lisbeth Zimmermann, ‘More for Less: The Interactive Translation of Global Norms in Postconflict Guatemala’ (2017) 61(4) International Studies Quarterly 774.

29 See, eg, Kiyoteru Tsutsui, and Hwa Ji Shin, ‘Global Norms, Local Activism, and Social Movement Outcomes: Global Human Rights and Resident Koreans in Japan’ (2008) 55(3) Social Problems 391.

30 Roland Robertson, ‘Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity’ in Mike Featherstone, Scott Lash and Roland Robertson (eds) Global Modernities (Sage Publications 1995) 25.

31 Sally Engle Merry, ‘Transnational Human Rights and Local Activism: Mapping the Middle’ (2006) 108(1) American Anthropologist 38.

32 Levitt and Merry, above note 20 at 446.

33 As above.

34 Merry, ‘Transnational Human Rights and Local Activism: Mapping the Middle’, above note 31 at 49.

35 Mona Lena Krook and Jacqui True, ‘Rethinking the Life Cycles of International Norms: The United Nations and the Global Promotion of Gender Equality’ (2012) 18(1) European Journal of International Relations 103.

36 Gülay Caglar, Elisabeth Prügl and Susanne Zwingel (eds) Feminist Strategies in International Governance (Routledge 2013).

37 Jacqui True and Michael Mintrom, ‘Transnational Networks and Policy Diffusion: The Case of Gender Mainstreaming’ (2001) 45(1) International Studies Quarterly 27.

38 Zwingel, Translating International Women’s Rights: The CEDAW Convention in Context, above note 23.

39 Conny Roggerband, ‘International Women’s Rights: Progress under Attack?’ (Working Paper No 26, KFG, January 2019) 1.

40 Singh, above note 24.

41 As above.

42 Susanne Zwingel, ‘How Do Norms Travel? Theorizing International Women’s Rights in Transnational Perspective’ (2012) 56(1) International Studies Quarterly 115; Zwingel, Translating International Women’s Rights: The CEDAW Convention in Context, above note 23; Zwingel, ‘Women’s Rights Norms as Content-in-Motion and Incomplete Practice’, above note 22.

43 Zwingel, ‘Women’s Rights Norms as Content-in-Motion and Incomplete Practice’, above note 22 at 676.

44 Zwingel, Translating International Women’s Rights: The CEDAW Convention in Context, above note 23 at 19.

45 Zwingel, ‘Women’s Rights Norms as Content-in-Motion and Incomplete Practice’, above note 22 at 676.

46 Penelope Andrews, ‘Violence Against Aboriginal Women in Australia: Possibilities for Redress within the International Human Rights Framework’ (1997) 60(3) Albany Law Review 917 at 934.

47 Bak-McKenna, above note 19 at 318.

48 Singh, above note 24 at 506.

49 Xavier Guillaume and Jef Huysmans, ‘The Concept of “the Everyday”: Ephemeral Politics and the Abundance of Life’ (2019) 54(2) Cooperation and Conflict 278.

50 Singh, above note 24 at 512.

51 Miedema, Le Mat and Hague, above note 18.

52 Browes, above note 15.

53 There are observable differences as to when sexual education was addressed within the countries’ education plans. In Ethiopia, for example, it is only mentioned by the Ministry of Education in 2009 as a strategy to address HIV/AIDS, while Kenya began a sexual education program as early as 1998: see Le Mat and others, ‘Mechanisms of Adopting and Reformulating Comprehensive Sexuality Education Policy in Ethiopia’, above note 15 at 3.

54 Also referred to as Sexuality Education. National policies and curricula may use different terms to refer to CSE. These include prevention education, relationship and sexuality education, family-life education, HIV education, life-skills education, healthy lifestyles and basic life safety. Although the terminology is important when it comes to contestation, for the purpose of this article, we follow UNESCO and use the different terms for Sexuality Education.

55 Yankah and Aggleton, above note 17.

56 UNESCO and others, above note 10.

57 UNESCO and others fully defines CSE as ‘a curriculum-based process of teaching and learning about the cognitive, emotional, physical and social aspects of sexuality. It aims to equip children and young people with knowledge, skills, attitudes and values that will empower them to: realize their health, well-being and dignity; develop respectful social and sexual relationships; consider how their choices affect their own well-being and that of others; and, understand and ensure the protection of their rights throughout their lives: as above.

58 Frances Hague, Esther AJ Miedema and Marielle LJ Le Mat, Understanding the ‘Comprehensive’ in Comprehensive Sexuality Education: A Literature Review’ (University of Amsterdam 2018) 2.

59 As above.

60 As above at 3.

61 See, for example, Action Canada for Sexual Health & Rights, Is Sex-Ed a Human Right? (online) 10 May 2019 <https://www.actioncanadashr.org/resources/sexual-health-info/sex-ed/sex-ed-human-right> (last accessed 19 September 2021).

62 Ponzetti, above note 2, cited in Hague, Miedema and Le Mat, above note 58 at 12.

63 UNFPA, UNFPA Operational Guidance for Comprehensive Sexuality Education, above note 8.

64 UNFPA, Emerging Evidence, Lessons and Practice in Comprehensive Sexuality Education. A Global Review (UNESCO 2015) 13.

65 International Women’s Health Coalition, ‘Comprehensive Sexuality Education: What We Know’ (online) 2015 <https://web.archive.org/web/20211123184405/https://iwhc.org/resources/comprehensive-sexuality-education-know/> (last accessed 27 May 2022).

66 Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, opened for signature 1 July 2003, African Union, (entered into force 25 November 2005) <https://au.int/sites/default/files/treaties/37077-treaty-charter_on_rights_of_women_in_africa.pdf>.

67 African Union, Continental Education Strategy for Africa 2016–2025 (CESA 16-25) (online) <https://www.adeanet.org/en/system/files/resources/cesa_16-25_english_v9.pdf> (last accessed 24 February 2022).

68 International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations, Comprehensive Sexuality Education (online) March 2019 <https://ifmsa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Comprehensive-Sexuality-Education.pdf> (last accessed 24 February 2022).

69 Young People Today, Ministerial Commitment on Comprehensive Sexuality Education and Sexual and Reproductive Health Services for Adolescents and Young People in Eastern and Southern African (ESA) (online) 7 December 2013 <https://healtheducationresources.unesco.org/sites/default/files/resources/ESACommitmentFINALAffirmedon7thDecember.pdf> (last accessed 24 February 2022) at 2.

70 UNICEF, ‘Leaders from Eastern and Southern Africa Recommit to the Education, Health and Well-Being of Adolescents and Young People’ (Press Release, 7 December 2021) <https://www.unicef.org/esa/press-releases/leaders-esa-recommit-well-being-adolescents-young-people> .

71 Melissa Curvino and Meghan Grizzle Fischer, ‘Claiming Comprehensive Sex Education Is a Right Does Not Make it So: A Close Reading of International Law’ (2014) 20(1) The New Bioethics 72.

72 As above at 1.

73 As above.

74 For instance, the International Network of Religious Leaders Living with or Personally Affected by HIV and AIDS (INERELA+) has been actively involved in developing faith-based responses to CSE: INERELA+, Home (online) <https://inerela.org/> (last accessed 27 May 2022).

75 See, eg, INERELA+ and others, above note 12.

76 Roodsaz and Van Raemdonck, above note 16 at 16.

77 See, eg, Family Watch based in the US and their ‘Stop CSE campaign’ or CitizenGo based in Spain: Family Watch, STOP CSE (online) <https://www.comprehensivesexualityeducation.org/> (last accessed 27 May 2020); CitizenGo, Home (online) <https://citizengo.org/en-au> (last accessed 27 May 2020).

78 This became evident in Ethiopia, for example, when an Ethiopian celebrity surgeon and African Director of Family Watch advocated against CSE in a YouTube Video that went viral: Andres Schipani, ‘Sex Education Ignites Online Culture Clash in Ethiopia’ Financial Times (online) 11 June 2021 <https://www.ft.com/content/ef1cda72-1f47-4529-aa4b-a49352ac9a81> (last accessed 24 February 2022).

79 Hague, Miedema and Le Mat, above note 58.

80 Constitution of Kenya 2010 art 26(4).

81 Erick Kiprotich Yegon and others, ‘Understanding Abortion-Related Stigma and Incidence of Unsafe Abortion: Experiences from Community Members in Machakos and Trans Nzoia Counties Kenya’ (2016) 24 Pan African Medical Journal 258.

82 Astrid Blysta, ‘The Access Paradox: Abortion Law, Policy and Practice in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zambia’ (2019) 18(1) International Journal for Equity in Health 126.

83 Curvino and Fischer, above note 72 at 2.

84 UNESCO, Policy Paper 39: Facing the Facts: The Case for Comprehensive Sexuality Education (online) June 2019 <https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000368231/PDF/368231eng.pdf.multi> (last accessed 27 May 2022).

85 Yankah and Aggleton, above note 17 at 56.

86 As above at 64.

87 As above at 62.

88 Roodsaz, above note 16.

89 See, for example, the rejection of a paragraph on including CSE into a resolution on the prevention of violence against women and children at the World Health Assembly, which was advocated for by pro-family coalitions: Family Watch International, Victory! Controversial ‘Sexuality Education’” Rejected at World Health Assembly (online) <https://familywatch.org/newsletter-archive/huge-victory-controversial-sexuality-education-rejected-at-world-health-assembly/> (last accessed 24 February 2022).

90 Throughout our empirical research, we found abortion was often translated as access to safe abortion in both countries, which indicates that information in this regard only addresses access in the case of legally sanctioned exceptions to abortions rather than promoting a right to abortion in general. See, also UNFPA, Does UNFPA Promote Abortion? (online) January 2018 <https://www.unfpa.org/frequently-asked-questions#abortion> (last accessed 19 May 2022).

91 Le Mat and others, ‘Moulding the Teacher: Factors Shaping Teacher Enactment of Comprehensive Sexuality Education Policy in Ethiopia’, above note 15.

92 The Education Sector Development Plan of the Ministry of Education from 2015 suggests life skills education to encompass issues of comprehensive sexual education and CSE is mentioned in the Ministry of Health adolescent youth and health strategy from 2016 (AYH) which established the subject within co-curricular school activities and trainings: Federal Ministry of Education (Ethiopia), Education Sector Development Programme V (ESDP V) Programme Action Plan (2019) <https://www.unicef.org/ethiopia/media/1396/file/Education%20Sector%20Development%20Programme%20V%20(ESDP%20V).pdf>.

93 UNESCO, Partners Validated the Education for Health and Well-Being Communication and Advocacy Strategy for Ethiopia (online) 19 November 2020 <https://en.unesco.org/news/partners-validated-education-health-and-well-being-communication-and-advocacy-strategy-ethiopia> (last accessed 24 February 2022).

94 Ministry of Health (Kenya), National Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Policy (2015) 5 <https://web.archive.org/web/20170809084931/https://aphrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Ministry-of-Health-ASRH-Booklet-Final-1.pdf>.

95 Keogh and others, above note 15.

96 This may in part have to do with the ability of civil society organisations to advocate for CSE, as it is only since the adoption of Civil Societies Proclamation No 1113/2019 that CSOs in Ethiopia have been allowed to advocate for human rights issues through foreign funding: Civil Societies Proclamation No 1113/2019 (Ethiopia) [Enacted on 12 March 2019].

97 Keogh and others, above note 15; Le Mat and others, ‘Mechanisms of Adopting and Reformulating Comprehensive Sexuality Education Policy in Ethiopia’, above note 15; Susan Wanjiru Kiragu, ‘Exploring Sexuality Education and the Burdened Teacher: A Participatory Approach in a Rural Primary School in Kenya’ (2007) 25(3) Pastoral Care in Education 5; Mercelline A Ogolla and Miriam Ondia, ‘Assessment of the Implementation of Comprehensive Sexuality Education in Kenya’ (2019) 23(2) African Journal of Reproductive Health 110.

98 Finn Stepputat and Jessica Larsen, ‘Global Political Ethnography: A Methodological Approach to Study in Global Policy Regimes’ (Working Paper, Danish Institute for International Studies, 1 January 2015) 6.

99 As above at 4.

100 Zsuzsa Gille, ‘Critical Ethnography in the Time of Globalization: Toward a New Concept of Site’ (2001) 1(3) Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies 319, 326; George E Marcus, ‘Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography’ (1995) 24(1) Annual Review of Anthropology 95; for studying sites see also Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson (eds) Anthropological Locations: Boundaries and Grounds of a Field Science (University of California Press 1997).

101 Marcus, above note 101 at 96.

102 As above.

103 Susanne Buckley-Zistel, Raum in den Internationalen Beziehungen: Ein Überblick [Space in International Relations: An Overview] (Springer VS 2021).

104 Marcus, above note 101 at 106.

105 As above.

106 Matei Candea, ‘Arbitrary Locations: In Defence of the Bounded Field-Site’ (2007) 13(1) Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 167, 172.

107 The data collection phase in Ethiopia was interrupted in March 2020 due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

108 Johnny Saldaña, The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers (SAGE Publishing 2013, 2nd edn) 58.

109 Jo Reichertz, ‘Abduction, Deduction and Induction in Qualitative Research’ in Uwe Flick, Ernst von Kardorff and Ines Steinke (eds) A Companion to Qualitative Research (SAGE Publications 2004) 159.

110 Saldaña, above note 109.

111 Bob Simpson, ‘Ethical Moments: Future Directions for Ethical Review and Ethnography’ (2011) 17(2) Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 377, 389.

112 Rutgers, In Depth: The World Starts with Me (online) <https://web.archive.org/web/20210813023001/https://www.rutgers.international/what-we-do/comprehensive-sexuality-education/depth-world-starts-me> (last accessed 4 June 2022).

113 Luo is one of the most spoken languages in Kisumu and southwestern Kenya.

114 Ine Vanwesenbeeck and others, ‘Lessons Learned from a Decade Implementing Comprehensive Sexuality Education in Resource Poor Settings: The World Starts with Me’ (2016) 16(5) Sex Education 471.

115 Acharya defines pruning as ‘selecting those elements which fit the preexisting normative structure and rejecting those that do not’: Acharya, above note 27 at 251.

116 Teacher, male.

117 Consisting of local, regional and international NGOs, international organisations (IOs) as well as representatives of ministries such as the MoH and MoE.

118 Project manager, international organisation, female.

119 This is mainly connected to the notion of NGOs advancing so-called agendas on CSE as Le Mat and others point out: Le Mat and others, ‘Mechanisms of Adopting and Reformulating Comprehensive Sexuality Education Policy in Ethiopia’, above note 15.

120 As above.

121 Project manager, Ethiopian NGO, female.

122 Program officer, health-based NGO, male.

123 Project manager, international organisation, female.

124 Several members noted how the frequency of changing the terminology and convincing government representatives of CSE was also related to the high rate of staff turnover: Even when individuals in ministries began to support CSE, the validity of the framework was again challenged by these fluctuations, and new personnel would contest the concept and terminology once again.

125 UNESCO, Partners Validated the Education for Health and Well-Being Communication and Advocacy Strategy for Ethiopia, above note 94.

126 As above.

127 Project manager, international organisation, female.

128 UNESCO, Partners Validated the Education for Health and Well-Being Communication and Advocacy Strategy for Ethiopia, above note 94.

129 See Levitt and Merry, above note 20.

130 UNESCO, Concept Note: Regional Training of Trainers for Religious Leaders on CSE and SRHR Services for Adolescents and Young People (online) 27 June 2019 <https://cse-learning-platform-unesco.org/digital-library/concept-note-regional-training-trainers-religious-leaders-cse-and-srhr-services> (last accessed 24 February 2022).

131 As above.

132 After the training, a participant from a Muslim organisation commented that he felt the training session was not inclusive in the interreligious sense. Although the document on which the training was based referred to the two dominant religions in East and Southern Africa – Islam and Christianity – the speakers of the training sessions were exclusively Christian.

133 INERELA+ and others, above note 12.

134 This is in line with Zeynap Atalay’s finding on transnational Islamist NGOs who reconstructed the civil society concept by pruning it to some elements and claiming its original ownership: Zeynep Atalay, ‘Vernacularization of Liberal Civil Society by Transnational Islamist NGO Networks’ (2016) 16(3) Global Networks 391.

135 Manager and social worker, religious organisation, male.

136 As above.

137 As above.

138 Team leader and social worker, religious organisation, female.

139 Community health worker and facilitator, male.

140 As above.

141 As above.