Open AccessBurden of Proof: Documentation of an HIV Prevention Program in Ghana
Author(s) -
Kathleen Inglis
Publication year - 1969
Publication title -
anthropologica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.18
H-Index - 18
eISSN - 2292-3586
pISSN - 0003-5459
DOI - 10.3138/anth.60.1.t23
Subject(s) - documentation , accountability , deference , politics , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , political science , ethnography , public relations , sociology , public administration , medical education , medicine , law , family medicine , anthropology , computer science , programming language
Globally, HIV programs face pressure to document their accountability and achievements using “evidence-based” criteria or “monitoring and evaluation” (“M&E”), yet little is known about how M&E occurs on the ground or its social and political effects. This paper explores how NGO actors in Ghana experienced routine documentation of a USAID-funded HIV program. Drawing upon 20 months of ethnographic fieldwork, I illustrate how M&E documentation reproduces hierarchical aid relations by engaging NGO actors to self-govern through unexpected strict adherence to documentation requirements. I explore institutional supervisors' frustration with their deference to documentation to further show how inequality is indirectly reproduced.