Advocacy

Book Review: Knowledge, Policy and Power in International Development: A Practical Guide

This review appears in the Evidence and Policy journal, where it is now available free online (after I protested about the scandalous, rip-off $30 they were charging). Or you can just read it here. Note to self: in future, I will not write anything for journals that are not open access (thanks to Owen Barder for that suggestion).

In recent years, the public and policy debate over climate change, ‘climategate’, and the debacle of the Copenhagen Summit (and seemingly the wider UN negotiations) has brought home the tenuousness of the links between knowledge and public policy-making. ‘Do the research and they will come’ is clearly not a credible doctrine. Knowledge, Policy and Power, written by a group of researchers from the Overseas Development Institute, tackles some important aspects of these links, building on ODI’s strong track record on the interface between research and policy-making.

The book has good instincts – sceptical of all things linear, of researchers claiming to know more than they do, stressing the importance of values, beliefs, assumptions, taboos and other group pressures, hidden power and in/exclusion in what are often portrayed as neutral processes of research and debate. There is ample discussion of the relative strengths and weakneses of different kinds of knowledge, whether derived from practice, ‘pure’ research or the people themselves.

Youth at the Forefront of Anti-Corruption Movement

Jiwo Damar Anarkie from Indonesia is a young co-founder of the Future Leaders for Anti-Corruption (FLAC) a local NGO, and he uses storytelling and hand puppets to teach integrity to elementary school students.

"They're very young, at the stage where character building is still possible. Storytelling is one of the most effective ways to do so," said Anarkie.

The organization did an initial road show in four schools in Jakarta, and later built partnerships with Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi (KPK, Corruption Eradication Commission), allowing the team to reach more schools in more cities as well as to train more storytellers and purchase more hand puppets.

'Bricifying' International NGOs is Hard Work: The Challenges Facing Oxfam India

I spent last week trying to understand an intriguing experiment. About five years ago, Oxfam GB’s 'white men in shorts' left India, along with all the other Oxfam affiliates, and a new, completely Indian-run Oxfam India took over. All part of ‘Bricification’ within the Oxfam family (there’s an Oxfam Brazil in the pipeline too).

So what’s changed? After a period of reflection Oxfam India has opted for a strategy combining programming with increased levels of advocacy in areas such as smallholder agriculture & climate change, natural resource management, right to education and health, violence against women and women’s empowerment, along with a hefty dose of emergencies work and disaster risk reduction. Its two ‘emerging themes’ are urban poverty and ‘India and the World’ – for example the impact of Indian investment in Africa, or India’s role in the G20.

But it hasn’t been easy. The apparently unanswerable political logic of ‘Indianizing Oxfam’ has faced some pretty steep challenges, as I found out in a consultation with partners from Indian civil society. These come in two broad areas: political and financial.

Celebrities, Politics, and Development: Is it a Good Mix?

The use of celebrities to promote causes and political campaigns has been around for some time. It’s nothing new, yet it's a fascinating topic. With the U.S. election just around the corner, celebrities seem to be popping up everywhere endorsing their preferred candidate, speaking out on issues they deem important, and raising money, lots of money, for the campaigns. As Sina mentioned in a previous post, there is not a doubt that celebrities are effective in attracting attention to issues, but as he said “noise is not the same thing as impact.” The level of influence celebrities have on policy-making and affecting change on the ground has long been debated.

Meetings with Remarkable Women: Lan Mercado’s Journey from Megaphone to Microphone

Lan, the megaphone years, circa 1985 A while back, I wrote about some amazing Oxfam women I met in East Africa. Here’s another, this time from the Philippines.

Lan (real name Lilian, but Filipinos never use real names) is one of those quiet but effective (and very determined, and maybe not so quiet….) women that abound in development work. She was formerly our country director in the Philippines, but has now moved to head up a project on ASEAN (more on that below). She is also yet another Oxfam woman with a remarkable story. In 1988, as a 28 year old Communist Party activist in the Philippines civil war, her own Party denounced and arrested her on trumped-up charges of being involved in an intra-Party assassination. They held her for 6 months in the mountains, blindfolded and handcuffed in a cage. She and the other prisoners were tortured physically, mentally and emotionally. At least she avoided the fate of prisoners in other camps, who were forced to play ‘eeny meeny miny mo’, with the loser taken out, killed, and their blood smeared over the remaining prisoners.

Development Theory v Practice: Visiting Oxfam’s Work in Mindanao

For me, one of the most fruitful aspects of ‘field trips’ such as last week’s visit to see Oxfam’s work in the Philippines is the exchange it sets up in my head between the academic literature and debates I’ve been ploughing through in the UK, and the reality of our work on the ground. A good trip confirms, improves or adds to your thinking, and occasionally shows you that you have got it all wrong. This was particularly true on this occasion as our staff and partners in the Philippines are both real thinkers (one guy passed a long car ride by listening to a lecture on Hegel on his laptop ‘for fun’) and activists (more on that tomorrow). The quality of discussions in a Manila seminar on active citizenship and food justice was truly impressive – nuanced and open minded, with no sign of the dogmatic, fissiparous Left I saw on my last visit in 1998 (when I had to give the same lecture twice because different fractions refused to sit in the same room). First some (relatively minor) new insights from all these interactions:

Campaign Art: I Predict...

People, Spaces, Deliberation bloggers present exceptional campaign art from all over the world. These examples are meant to inspire.

Land Law Advocacy for Farmers in China

Photo Credit: Landesa.org Even though Chinese law offers farmers protection from land grabs, readjustments, and other confiscations, news reports paint a different picture of embattled farmers defending their land from local officials working in concert with developers. In fact, every year 3-4 million farmers lose their property to land readjustments and other forms of compulsory forfeiture in China.

Many of these farmers do not know their legal rights. According to independent surveys, fewer than 30% of farmers have heard of China’s Property Law, the most important law governing properties, and land rights. As a result fewer than 10% of Chinese farmers ever appeal to administrative and judicial institutions when their land rights are violated.

How Can an NGO Campaign against Rape in Armed Conflict? An Inspiring Case Study from Colombia

I recently ran a fascinating workshop with colleagues at Intermón Oxfam (Oxfam’s Spanish affiliate) at which the different country programmes brought examples of change processes at work. One that particularly struck me was about our work in Colombia on sexual violence and conflict. Here’s the write up, jointly authored with Intermon’s Alejandro Matos.

The campaign began in 2009, jointly agreed by Intermón Oxfam and 9 national women’s and human rights organizations. The main aim was to make visible, at national and international level, the widespread use of sexual violence as a tactic by all sides in the armed conflict, and the gaps and failings in the responses of the Colombian state, in terms of prevention and punishment, the end of impunity and the care of women victims.

George Clooney: An Advocacy Masterclass?

It is all too easy to be cynical about celebrities backing causes. You wonder: are they serious or is all this for show? Did the public relations people ask him or her to do it to sell more tickets or help recover from a scandal? And things have happened around celebrities championing all manner of causes that fuel the cynicism. A story in a recent issue of The New Yorker magazine covers the phenomenon very well: ‘Looking Good: The new boom in celebrity philanthropy’ by John Colapinto (March 26, 2012, page 56). In it you will find fascinating stories about what different celebrities have been up to and how things are turning out. This summing up attributed to Ken Berger of Charity Navigator, a watchdog group, says it all:

Interview with Jennifer Siebel Newsom, Director of "Miss Representation"

At a screening at the World Bank of Miss Representation on March 8, I had the opportunity to interview the film's director, Jennifer Siebel Newsom. What struck me during the interview was Newsom's firm commitment to changing how women and girls are portrayed in the mainstream media and her use of social media to instigate a conversation and advocate for change. Newsom also mentions that she wants to build a bridge to men and boys, who are a big part of the solution and talks about an upcoming project aimed at men and boys. Hope the interview provides some insights and provokes discussion.

Maya Brahmam's Interview with Jennifer Siebel Newsom

The New Advocates

Today, or so the conventional wisdom goes, if you have a compelling issue and a laptop, you can influence people and win hearts and minds in the process. Hence the rise of online advocates, such as Change.org, who run campaigns for groups like Amnesty International for a fee. See the related article in the Washington Post. In Change.org’s case, the general public can create online petitions for free and get help and visibility for their campaigns.

Change.org was originally conceived as a nonprofit, but now it and other companies with a social purpose, e.g., Patagonia Inc., are part of a new and emerging group of “benefit corporations.” What are these corporations and how will they affect us in the future?

#2: Activism versus Advocacy

Our Top Ten Blog Posts by Readership in 2011

Originally published on February 8, 2011

In recent weeks, we have seen how citizens in several countries have taken to the streets in great masses to demand change. While real change is yet to be seen, it’s most certain that things will never be the same. In thinking about activism in the public sphere, and what methods are most effective in bringing about social and political change, the University of British Columbia recently hosted an interesting seminar, entitled “Advocate or Activist: What is the best way to effect change?” The panel included: Stephen Toope, UBC President; Jacqueline Kennelly, Assistant Professor, Carleton University Department of Sociology and Anthropology; and Ronald Deibert, Associate Professor, University of Toronto Department of Political Science. They raised a number of interesting points, which I will try to capture in this post. Here’s also a link to the podcast.

To Index or Not To Index

Here’s an interesting twist on advocacy around anti-corruption: Global Integrity, which publishes the Global Integrity Report on governance and anti-corruption in 107 countries around the world, has stopped publishing its Global Integrity Index, which ranks countries according to their overall scores. While the report still contains quantitative data and qualitative reporting on the health of individual countries’ anti-corruption frameworks, the organization made a conscious decision to discontinue the index aspect of the report.

Why? Apparently, Global Integrity found that while the index generated good publicity for Global Integrity, it was less effective as an advocacy tool. (It also notes that it has scaled down the number of countries it covers, which gives the index less utility.) “Indices rarely change things,” notes Nathaniel Heller on the Global Integrity blog. “Country rankings are too blunt and generalized to be ‘actionable’ and inform real rebate and policy choices.”

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