How can aid agencies promote local governance and accountability? Lessons from five countries.

This post also appeared on the World Bank’s ‘People, Spaces. Deliberation‘ blog

Oxfam is publishing a fascinating new series of papers today, drawing together lessons from our programme work on local governance and community action. There are case studies from Nepal (women’s rights, see photo), Malawi (access to medicines), Kenya (tracking public spending), Viet Nam (community participation) and Tanzania (the ubiquitous Chukua Hatua project), and a very wise (and mercifully brief) overview from power and governance guru Jo Rowlands. Here are some highlights:

“Governance is about the formal or informal rules, systems and structures under which human societies are organised, and how they are (or are not) implemented. It affects all aspects of human society – politics, economics and business, culture, social interaction, religion, and security – at all levels, from the most global to the very local.

Most people experience the most immediate impacts, fair or unfair, of governance at a very local level. It is where women experience gender inequalities most keenly, for example in the way that issues that particularly concern them tend to get de-prioritised and their participation obstructed. In most political systems, it is also the place where ordinary people should, in theory, be best placed to participate in governance, for example by voting for their local councillors, taking part in local committees or protesting against laws or actions that they don’t think are fair.

Local people may face barriers of language, ethnicity, gender, class, poverty, access to information, or simply lack the confidence to speak out. They face the visible formal and informal structures of power, such as village or neighbourhood committees, service user groups, tribal councils, dominant families or castes, and formal structures of local government. They also face power dynamics such as business interests or patronage relationships based on debt and obligation.

It is essential for anyone working on governance to make a thorough analysis of local power relations, drawing on history and culture, specific economic realities and the interests of different groups of people. This analysis can then shape the options and approaches that a development programme uses, informed by how change has happened in the past and might happen in the future.

Oxfam differentiates between three key aspects [see diagram, below]: people claiming rights, institutions willing and capable of delivering rights, and people in positions of power with the will to make it happen.

When you deliberately address these relationships and processes, i.e. the arrows in the diagram, interesting things happen to the way issues are tackled in practice. For example, in Kenya, very high levels of mistrust existed between local community members, local councillors and local authority officials. Although there were institutional structures of decentralisation for local decision making, neither community members nor local authority officers knew enough about them to successfully implement them. The tools of social auditing provided a mechanism to address the knowledge gaps and rebuild damaged relationships.

All the case studies show how it is essential to work with both citizens and people in authority in order to achieve positive change in local governance. This might be about finding or creating spaces for constructive engagement between people and authorities, as in the ward meetings organised by women in Nepal. It could involve working with citizens to raise awareness and knowledge about their rights and about how local governance works, so that they can make relevant demands and monitor effectively how resources are used and accounted for, as in Malawi and Kenya. It may require working with officials and elected representatives to increase understanding about how to work accountably and transparently and to understand the benefits of actively involving citizens in planning and monitoring, as in the Tanzania example. Or it might be about working with officials to understand how particular legislation or regulation should work, as in Kenya.

A recurring theme across the individual stories is the importance of focusing action about local governance on the real, tangible interests of local people – health, education, livelihoods, water and sanitation. Women in Nepal moved into participation and leadership in committees and user groups on these issues; in Tanzania, communities became organised around setting up new market spaces for local women to sell produce, or around land rights.

Anyone working on local governance needs to be aware that in many contexts where there is not a culture of speaking out, individuals may be putting themselves at risk if they confront authority.  It is vital to ensure first that individuals who want to take that risk are supported, both from inside and outside the community, and that ideally the demands come from a group that has built the strength, skills and confidence to demand the changes they want to see. In Nepal, women did take a number of risks – facing opposition from husbands, and senior community members – but the support they received allowed them to prove themselves and to join with others in becoming change-makers within their villages.

Accountability and transparency are proving useful entry points for engaging the various actors and processes to help navigate the minefields of power relations. It is also clear that people who take on official responsibilities do not necessarily have the competency to carry out those roles. Therefore, well-targeted support and training for office-holders can go a long way in building better governance relationships.”

Jo identifies some particular ‘issues and challenges’, including:

Culture change: Making change in local governance often requires culture change as much as a change in structures, processes and representation. (particularly true on gender rights and women’s voice).

Access to information: As Maimuna says in the Tanzania case study, “Ignorance is a killing machine”.

Things can take time: Some changes can happen quickly, but the changes in culture and in deeper attitudes required to ensure system and process changes stick can take much longer (decades).

Risk management: Local and national governance are both about political processes, and carry significant levels of risk. This risk can include violence, fear, crack-downs on individuals or groups and a closing of space to operate for particular actors.

Areas where we need to do more thinking? How to deal with patronage systems, corruption and decentralization; improving our understanding of urban governance (the examples are all rural).

Final (very sensible) voice of experience:

“As well as being informed by good analysis, [future governance work] will also be informed by serendipity – watching for the chance combinations of the right person/people, the right moment, the right focus, the right alignment with other events – requiring good judgement and probably inevitably, whatever the expectation about how change will happen, a certain amount of sheer luck.”

Are Grey Panthers the next big thing in campaigning?

It’s probably a sign of my advancing years, but I’ve been wondering whether NGOs are missing a trick by endlessly targeting young people to become their activists. Sure, they’re the leaders of tomorrow, but what about us wrinklies? This all came to a head when I went out for a beer with a friend of mine who recently turned 60. He has money, contacts in the music business and elsewhere, he’s an entrepreneur, and a progressive, with decades of history in the co-op movement. And now he’s retired with time on his hands. But all he ever gets from NGOs like Oxfam is appeals for money, never for his time or experience.

Think about it, the 60s generation now passing into retirement has money, skills, networks and time. Students have none of those. There are plenty of examples of  ‘old men (and women) in a hurry’ who are remarkably effective lobbyists, from retired CEOs to the formidable nuns I used to work with at CAFOD, with decades of activism under their belts. Why aren’t we harnessing them properly?

So what might a ‘Grey Panthers’ movement look like? It would have to be very different from your standard NGO campaign. GPs are too savvy and experienced to want to just send off standard emails, join demos or sign up for Facebook pages. Tactics would have to be more tailored to their experience. For example, here’s how an elite influencing GPs model could work:

1. Find a few champions – typically retired captains of industry who now want to give something back. Find an appropriate mission for them – if they were in the construction industry, set them loose on corruption in contracts; if they were civil servants, maybe a lobby of their former departments; if ex-bankers, the Robin Hood Tax beckons.

2. Ask them to pull together a group of like-minded GPs (maybe trawl your database for a few candidates to add to their own contacts) and draw up a two year strategy for lobbying and advocacy on the relevant issue.

3. Give them some kind of franchise to campaign on your behalf and use your brand, but as a semi-autonomous group. They would need to report back, and be accountable to the organization, but they would have a high degree of independence and initiative so they can use their experience to maximum effect.

The only example I’ve come across is the Amnesty International Business Group, which was founded by a classic

Sir Geoffrey (third from right) networking

old-man-in-a-hurry, Sir Geoffrey Chandler. A former senior manager at Royal Dutch/Shell, Sir Geoffrey was a force of nature, more than willing to march into boardrooms and unleash his cut glass accent to promote human rights in the private sector. And if there’s one thing such people understand, it’s how to get round internal obstacles to progress, and spot management excuses for inaction (whether in the lobby target or, indeed, the NGO).

The story of the AI Business Group also shows the difficulties (sorry, I mean ‘challenges’) that can go with working with a bunch of self-confident, assertive older people. It was wound up three years ago, partly because, as one insider told me ‘a semi-autonomous group of grey eminences that report back and consider themselves to be accountable was rather more than some of them were prepared to accept, especially when there were differences of strategy/approach with regard to business and human rights’. NGOs hosting GPs may have to manage a trade-off between effectiveness and the brand risk posed by a bunch of stroppy mavericks doing their own thing.

Some of this is happening already. At the global level, there are ‘the elders’ (they sound a bit like a bad sci-fi plot, but the intentions are clearly good); groups like HelpAge International organize older people to campaign on ‘their’ issues, like pensions. But it shouldn’t stop there. I’m not a campaigner these days, but it seems like the Grey Panthers are a huge, untapped resource that is only going to grow as our societies age. So why aren’t there more such groups? Over to you for ideas, suggestions or examples of GPs in action, and for would-be GPs to say what would work for them.

Also, in a flagrant steal from Simon Maxwell’s blog, I’m going to start running the odd online poll. First up, should NGO campaigning devote more resources to older activists? And no easy ‘both – and’ responses allowed: more time on grey panthers means less on students and youth. If the technology works, there should be a poll at the top-right of this post. Over to you.

Update: The comments have been very helpful in clarifying what NGOs are/aren’t already doing. They involve lots of older people in grassroots campaigns, but they do not seem to be using them in an ‘ambassadorial role’ as described in the post, a la Amnesty Business Group. That’s the bit I think we should reconsider.

Why Facebook and Twitter won’t be leading the revolution

Bah humbug. Great piece by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker taking apart the hype over twitter and facebook as a tool for social change. And being Malcolm Gladwell of tipping point fame, it’s much more interesting than that. Here are some highlights:

“The world, we are told, is in the midst of a revolution. The new tools of social media have reinvented social activism. With Facebook and Twitter and the like, the traditional relationship between political authority and popular will has been upended, making it easier for the powerless to collaborate, coordinate, and give voice to their concerns. When ten thousand protesters took to the streets in Moldova in the spring of 2009 to protest against their country’s Communist government, the action was dubbed the Twitter Revolution. [But] in the outsized enthusiasm for social media, we seem to have forgotten what activism is.”

Truly transformatory activism, like the US civil rights movement just celebrating its 50th anniversary, ‘is a “strong-tie” phenomenon’, based on close friendships and community ties that bind in the face of danger. In contrast,

‘The kind of activism associated with social media is built around weak ties. Twitter is a way of following (or being followed by) people you may never have met. There is strength in weak ties -our acquaintances—not our friends—are our greatest source of new ideas and information. The Internet is terrific at the diffusion of innovation, interdisciplinary collaboration, seamlessly matching up buyers and sellers, and the logistical functions of the dating world. But weak ties seldom lead to high-risk activism….. Social networks are effective at increasing [not motivation but] participation—by lessening the level of motivation that participation requires. The Facebook page of the Save Darfur Coalition has 1,282,339 members, who have donated an average of nine cents apiece… Facebook activism succeeds not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice but by motivating them to do the things that people do when they are not motivated enough to make a real sacrifice.’

In contrast

'I have a tweet'

‘The civil-rights movement was more like a military campaign… It was high-risk activism. It was also, crucially, strategic activism: a challenge to the establishment mounted with precision and discipline. This is the second crucial distinction between traditional activism and its online variant: social media are not about this kind of hierarchical organization. Facebook and the like are tools for building networks, which are the opposite, in structure and character, of hierarchies. Unlike hierarchies, with their rules and procedures, networks aren’t controlled by a single central authority. Decisions are made through consensus, and the ties that bind people to the group are loose. This structure makes networks enormously resilient and adaptable in low-risk situations. Wikipedia is a perfect example.

There are many things, though, that networks don’t do well. Car companies sensibly use a network to organize their hundreds of suppliers, but not to design their cars. [Networks] can’t think strategically; they are chronically prone to conflict and error. How do you make difficult choices about tactics or strategy or philosophical direction when everyone has an equal say?

The drawbacks of networks scarcely matter if the network isn’t interested in systemic change—if it just wants to frighten or humiliate or make a splash—or if it doesn’t need to think strategically. But if you’re taking on a powerful and organized establishment you have to be a hierarchy…. Boycotts and sit-ins and nonviolent confrontations—which were the weapons of choice for the civil-rights movement—are high-risk strategies. They leave little room for conflict and error. The moment even one protester deviates from the script and responds to provocation, the moral legitimacy of the entire protest is compromised.

[Some proponents] consider the new model of activism an upgrade. But it is simply a form of organizing which favors the weak-tie connections that give us access to information over the strong-tie connections that help us persevere in the face of danger. It shifts our energies from organizations that promote strategic and disciplined activity and toward those which promote resilience and adaptability. It makes it easier for activists to express themselves, and harder for that expression to have any impact. The instruments of social media are well suited to making the existing social order more efficient. They are not a natural enemy of the status quo.”

Go Malcolm. Grumpy old lefties and technophobes everywhere will be raising a glass. And of course none of this applies to blogs……

h/t Megan Weintraub

Social networkers fight back on the Guardian

Building women’s leadership – what works?

What can an NGO like Oxfam do to help build women’s grassroots leadership and participation? Just been reading a series of case studies from around the world, which throw up a strikingly similar set of conclusions. Drawing on experiences in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the UK, the study finds that progress relies on tackling structural barriers to women’s participation – for example over 40 countries have now adopted quota laws to set minimum targets for the selection and election of women to political office. Making sure these are implemented has proven a fruitful area for activism. Decentralization processes also offer a lot of opportunities for increasing women’s representation.

Other barriers are cultural – stereotypes about women’s roles (often held by women as well as men) which see public office as a man’s job. In shifting these attitudes actions often speak louder than words – demonstrating the impact of women in leadership roles can be more persuasive than a dozen workshops (see the case study below). Identifying male ‘champions’ in positions of authority is another effective tactic. Other barriers include women’s ‘time poverty’ especially women with young children`- offering free childcare can have a huge impact on women’s participation.

Women getting into office is only half the battle – once elected, women frequently find that they are left to fend for themselves in what can be a very hostile environment. Many drop out. So establishing support networks for women in office can be vital: in Cambodia, Oxfam’s partner ‘Women for Prosperity’ established regular Female Councillor Forums where local councillors can gain experience of speaking in public and learn from and be supported by other councillors.

One of the most striking examples comes from the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel (OPTI). Arab-Israeli women are one of the most marginalised and invisible groups within Israeli society. Many have been adversely affected by the ‘Wisconsin Plan’, a welfare-to-work programme introduced by the Israeli government in 2005, that Oxfam’s partner, Sawt el-Amel (the Labourer’s Voice), has been active in opposing.

Under the Plan, which aims to cut public spending on welfare benefits by a third, people receiving state unemployment benefits now have to attend the Wisconsin Plan centres for up to 40 hours a week, and have to accept any job offered to them by the employment agencies, or participate in voluntary work. Anyone who fails to do so loses the right to claim benefits. If a family is dependent on state benefits, both spouses have to attend, even if one is fully occupied caring for young children at home. This is what particularly enraged women – even if they were not seeking paid work, they had to leave their children unattended and go to the Wisconsin Centre in order for their partners to continue to receive welfare payments.

In response to the hardship that the plan has brought to themselves and their families, women have become active in leading popular opposition to the Plan. Early on in the campaign, a ‘Women’s Platform’ was formed, rapidly becoming a source of leadership for the campaign as a whole. This is a significant and unprecedented move in conservative communities, where women’s presence in the public sphere has traditionally not been accepted.

The campaign has scored some notable victories, winning a number of important test cases in the courts. In addition, lobbying informed by the Women’s Platform and its members’ experiences of the Wisconsin Plan has resulted in legislated changes to the Plan, meaning in particular that unemployed single women with children under the age of 12 are now no longer expected to attend the Wisconsin Centre full-time.

One interesting aspect was that much of the anger came from the way the Plan was seen as an attack on women’s traditional roles in home and family. This allayed men’s opposition to the women getting involved and led to a painless, but ‘unprecedented social revolution’ in gender relations and the attitudes of men towards women taking a more active role in public life, according to one Sawt el-Amel publication (although it doesn’t offer any evidence for this). The Oxfam analysis wryly concludes ‘As a strategy for bringing about change, it is debatable whether prompting a direct discussion on existing gender roles would have been anywhere near as effective.’

I’ve seen this elsewhere – in Argentina, the mothers and grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo were able successfully to defy a bloody military dictatorship and protest at the disappearance of their children and grandchildren because they were acting in their traditional roles. Accustomed to preaching the benefits of ‘family and fatherland’, the generals did not know how to respond, and the madres opened up the first cracks in the dictatorship.

In the OPTI case, although there has clearly been a strengthening of women’s role in public and political life, but the way they’ve achieved this has also relied on traditional gender divisions in the family. The sustainability of these new roles, and efforts to strengthen women’s economic independence, will also depend on whether there are accompanying shifts in power relations between women and men at household level, with men and boys taking on some of the unpaid care work. There are indications that this is happening but it definitely needs more research. Otherwise, women could end up with the debilitating ‘triple day’ of unpaid work in the home, paid work in the economy, and community activism.

Why the UK held the line on aid spending, despite the recession

Apologies for a bit of British parochialism, but this story has wider ramifications. A combination of political leadership and grassroots activism scored a real victory for the UK aid budget yesterday. Here’s why.

All the headlines on Wednesday’s budget statement by Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance Minister) Alistair Darling were about the dire state of UK finances, and the extreme pressure building on public spending. Amazing then, that buried in the gloomy analysis was an important victory – the UK decided against cutting aid despite the recession. That decision meant that £700 million that had been under threat will now be spent on aid.  Read More …