From Transition to Empowerment: An Interview with José Carbajo, Senior Advisor to Be That Girl Foundation

In a career spanning pivotal moments in history, José Carbajo has witnessed and contributed to transformative transitions—from Spain's move to democracy after Franco's dictatorship to the economic evolution of Eastern European countries after the fall of the Berlin Wall. As Senior Advisor to the Be That Girl Foundation, he brings a wealth of experience from his roles at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the World Bank. We sat down with José to discuss his journey, the values that guide him, and his insights into empowering young girls and women through education and opportunity.

What inspired you to start your career in international development?

My motivation was partly driven by the desire to apply the economics that I had learned at university. But also by the experience I had had during the political transition in Spain. When I joined the University of Valencia in September 1975, a couple of months later, the dictator Franco died, and the whole political transition started. That was a huge eye-opener for me because I saw, in real time, how structures changed and how society evolved — politically, economically, and socially.

I was lucky at one point later in my career to join the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which was set up after the fall of the Berlin Wall to help all the formerly centrally planned economies transform from dictatorship and centrally planned economies to multiparty democracies with open market economies. All of that was a fascinating tour de force of personal development, learning about the various tensions between economic and political structure. That eventually became, without much planning, a significant part of my career.

Which values guided you through this transition?

If I were to choose one guiding value, it's to help people improve their lives. That would be the higher-level objective and value. Then, I'm also driven by curiosity and the willingness to learn how systems work, how societies evolve, how economic principles can be applied. It's a combination of those elements.

How do systems work? How does society work?

It's a complex set of linkages that have to do with values, power structures, resource endowments and culture—the way people interact and relate at all levels: family, community, workplace. It's quite intricate when you think about it. Just recently, I was reviewing a series of episodes of a documentary called "La Transición," which was produced in the early 1980s to capture all the events that took place in Spain at the time of the systemic political change in the 1970s. It was very emotional because it took me back to when I joined the University of Valencia. It's fascinating to see the interplay of all these aspects.

How did it feel to go from a dictatorship to a free, liberal society? What was the greatest change you experienced?

The greatest change was the ability to make decisions by yourself. Before, you could feel that all the power structures in society were determined—they were given; others were choosing for you. During the transition, you realize that you are setting the rules from a democratic point of view. Through all the political structures, people are deciding how to organize society. It's the devolution of decision-making back to the people.

Once the ‘rules of the game’ are agreed, it's up to you to decide which way to go. One thing that became a model to other centrally planned economies in Central Europe and the former Soviet Union is the peaceful way in which Spain, using the prevailing political structures, identified and voted to eliminate the old regime and start anew. It was extraordinary when you think about it.

One of the key aspects was that Spanish society had advanced much more than the political structures. So, at one point, the entire system crumbled, helped, of course, by the biological death of the dictator.

Your experience at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development allowed you to look after many different markets. How did these experiences shape your understanding of emerging economies?

It was interesting to observe how rapidly societies evolve. The willingness of many countries, particularly in Central Europe, to join the European Union was an incredible magnet and drive because it set out many of the political and economic conditions that needed to be established prior to joining the EU

I fell in love with the mission of the bank, captured in Article One of the Agreement Establishing the EBRD, which indicates that the mission of the Bank is to help these economies transform into open societies and multiparty democracies. There is an economic mandate—to move into open market economies—and also a political mandate, which is difficult to sustain and interpret because you have a list of countries that are not fully democratic, but you nonetheless have to work with them or try to work with them.

Experiencing that firsthand was enlightening. I remember when I joined, the Chief Economist was Professor Nick Stern, most famous now for his work on the economics of climate change. I was grateful that he asked me to be the country economist for Belarus because it was one of the least developed. You had to go there and try to interpret that country and understand how it could transform, with a dictator who had been there (and still is) since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

It forced us, as economists, to identify and interpret criteria and performance indicators to assess how economies evolve from centrally planned to market-oriented. We had to assess progress because that was our role. In the case of the EBRD, you finance projects across the financial sector, industry, infrastructure, and then you assess the impact these projects have on the economy. We had to develop these frameworks from scratch because nobody had faced those situations before. It was something like a large-scale social experiment.

Which achievements during this time are you most proud of?

With Belarus, I don't think that we achieved that much, to be honest. In the office of the Chief Economist, we were just a handful of economists, and we had to do everything—we had to conduct country risk assessments, follow developments in political and economic changes. I had to befriend officers in Washington at the IMF because, at that time—the second half of the 1990s—the transparency of reporting by the IMF wasn't what it is now. You had to build relationships and say, "Hey, I'm the country economist for Belarus, Moldova, etc. Can you share the Article IV consultation report?". By the way, Moldova is now in the news because they just had a referendum on including the wish of its people to join the European Union in the Constitution, which passed.

I ended up working as a Country Economist for Romania as well. At some point, Nick Stern asked me to stop doing country work and focus on assessing the potential impact on transition to market of the projects financed by the Bank; that’s when I joined the Operations Committee Secretariat.

The fact that Romania ended up joining the European Union is one of the things you could say is an achievement, and that applies to other countries that were members of the EBRD and eventually joined the European family.

It's interesting because many people take the European Union for granted today.

Yes, and reflecting on that, for Spanish people like me, even though I was younger at the time, joining the European Union in 1986 was an aspiration fulfilled. It was a significant landmark in the country's transition, and also became a source of help, advice, and funds. Spain, on average, was then among the poorer countries in the European Union. It received substantial structural cohesion and structural funds that financed large amounts of infrastructure. Since its accession to the EU, Spain has changed a lot, and the EU has played a significant role in that transformation. The EU has many detractors, but when you look at it in perspective, it's an extraordinary experiment. Many people would like to have that kind of magnet, and it has guaranteed peace in Europe since the end of World War II.

What made you join Be That Girl as a Senior Advisor?

At a basic level, it's about sharing my experience in understanding how organizations work. That means trying to keep the big picture in mind. There's a modus operandi whereby Ottavia, the CEO, identifies and scrutinizes the partners that want to work with the foundation and access its resources. There's also the notion of seeing how these partners align with the portfolio, the mission, and the vision.

I play the role of being a sounding board, contributing to the interpretation of the framework that we have collectively created as the Be That Girl community. Given my experience, especially dealing with evaluation at the World Bank Group, where I was Director of a department that is designed to be independent, I bring concepts associated with monitoring, evaluation, and learning to the table. These are important because you want to do your best to achieve impact and identify criteria to assess whether the Be That Girl foundation is making a difference.

How do you think we should measure success when deciding which initiatives to fund and support?

There are two things. One is the potential to do good, along the lines of what we consider to be the key objective of empowering girls and young women. This involves them having self-determination in all life decisions, such as marital status, education, employment, as well as enjoying adequate health and well-being. That's the potential—to improve lives and provide agency to young women and girls.

The other aspect is to address risks because all the activities that Be That Girl Foundation supports are not unidirectional. It's not as simple as providing resources and expecting things to happen. There are many factors related to family circumstances, local conditions, culture, and more, that have the potential to influence the desired outcomes. We are mindful that we must strive to achieve the potential while addressing the risks at the same time.

What do you mean by risk?

Risk is understood here as the probability that things will not work out the way you expect. For example, you might identify a very promising candidate—a young girl in secondary education—and you want to support her all the way to university. However, there may be family circumstances that pull her back to a less promising reality. Therefore, you have to consider what measures you can put in place—such as mentoring or providing additional resources—that will help this young girl overcome the obstacles and achieve her potential. That's just one example on an individual level. Imagine this challenge when you're dealing with many individuals.

How do you balance vision and pragmatism in your work?

The way I think about it, whether in large or small organizations, is that you have to think big; and strategically. That's why the mission and vision are so important—you have to incorporate all these inputs behind your choice of mission and vision. Consider the problems and challenges that the world faces, and then try to link the tools and resources you have, to see how they may affect the world. How can you effect change?

We are also aware that our work is a drop in the ocean, but we have to start somewhere. People might say, "Be That Girl Foundation, you are reaching the lives of a few hundred women and young girls." And you might respond, "Yes, but there are many more out there, and every little bit helps; every contribution counts." There's a quote by St. Francis of Assisi: "A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows." I think the challenge is less about trade-offs and more about how you translate a big, seemingly intractable problem that has been there since the beginning of time - gender inequality - into actionable steps. You might say, "I'm going to look at it from this angle, and these are the resources that I have, and this is what I'm going to do." That's the secret, in my view.

If you had to assess a local leader who has an NGO promoting women's empowerment and the foundation is trying to decide whether to partner with them, which qualities would you look for?

It's a combination of factors. Experience and knowledge are crucial. The set of values that the person holds is also significant. Additionally, the team that this person has—the network of people—is important. They should have a strategic vision to understand the role their organization can play. Leadership involves identifying your role and being able to delegate effectively. It's part of the network notion I mentioned earlier.

How has your understanding of gender equality and women's empowerment changed since you've joined Be That Girl?

From a personal standpoint, it has continued to open my eyes to a much more detailed understanding of the challenges faced by many, and some of the tools that can be used to address them. Our contribution has been positive in many respects, but it's small compared to the scale of the challenge.

What we have done at Be That Girl Foundation is our own assessment of how we can address the significant challenge of lack of self-determination for women. We have identified tools and created systems or processes to select partners that we believe will do a good job. Time will tell, but so far, based on the evidence and experience we've accumulated over the last three years, this approach is working and has a lot of potential.

You mentioned earlier that the problem of gender inequality is an intractable one. Could you elaborate on that?

Watching the documentary I mentioned—the one about Spain in the 1970s—and noting that recently we had the 80th anniversary of the Bretton Woods Institutions (e.g., the World Bank, the IMF), you see that, in historical images, everyone involved in setting up these institutions were men. There wasn't a single woman. When I see newsreels and images of the Spanish transition from the 1970s, the government, the people in the rooms—the power was held by men. Women were relegated. Looking at it now, it makes you cringe. What's going on here? And yet I grew up in that environment.

It's been a massive transformation and change, happening at different speeds. What we're doing, perhaps on a micro-scale with Be That Girl Foundation, is trying to motivate that change in certain geographies where development is less advanced. Returning to the question of focusing on the big challenge and trying to identify how you can move the needle a little, there's a British economist, James Meade, a Nobel Prize winner, who once said, "I'd rather try to answer the right question, however imperfectly, than try to answer the wrong question perfectly."

Thank you so much for sharing your insights, José. It's been a pleasure speaking with you.

Thank you. It's been a pleasure discussing these important topics