1. NGOs and Advocacy
Lecture given by Duncan Green
Head of Research at Oxfam GB
Notre Dame University, September 2009
Part of a series of From Poverty to Power lectures.
2. From Poverty to Power:
Notre Dame lecture programme
NGOs and Advocacy
How Change Happens
Power and Politics
Poverty and Wealth
Risk and Vulnerability
The International System
The Global Economic Crisis
Climate Change
3. NGOs and Advocacy:
Structure of Presentation
A tour of the NGO zoo
NGOs and campaigning
Case study on Trade and the WTO
Comparison with climate change campaign
4. Some stuff about Oxfam
International NGO with affiliates in 13 countries,
and operations in more than 100
Total programme spend of $828m in 2007
Main spending items are long term development
and emergencies
Began as Oxford Committee for Famine Relief in
1942, trying to relieve hunger in nazi-occupied
Greece
Oxfam America based in Boston, $73m turnover in
2008, http://www.oxfamamerica.org
5. The fragmented NGO Universe
North v South
Development v Environment v Consumers
Secular v Church
Big v Small (General v single issue)
Service Delivery v Policy oriented
Programmes v Campaigns
Activist/Radical v Mainstream/Reformist –
movements v military discipline
6. Where do INGOs get their ideas from?
Keynes’ Scribblers: Ancestral memories of the NIEO,
dependency theory, Gramsci, Marx etc
Academics, esp the iconoclasts (Rodrik, Sen, Chang)
Interaction with domestic concerns (eg climate change)
Case studies and history > econometrics or modelling
Governments or multilaterals (UN, World Bank)
Developing Country radicals (Vandana Shiva, Walden
Bello, Martin Khor)
Programmes and partners (experience on the ground)
Each other:
– Balance varies between NGOs
7. The rise of lobbying and campaigning
Roots in Programmes (islands of success in a sea of
failure)
NGOs saw need to shape/check northern policies (anti-
apartheid, Central America, IFIs, debt, trade, climate
change)
And need to change ideas and beliefs to build a mass
constituency for change
Leading to the rise of public policy lobbying and global
campaigning
But bulk of staff still involved in programme and
emergencies
8. Campaigning
The best campaigns have:
– A villain
– A problem
– A solution
– Example: TRIPS/Access to Medicines
Villains of choice: Northern Governments, IFIs, WTO,
TNCs
But can mean an easy ride for: domestic capital, DC
governments and NGOs themselves!
9. How does Oxfam campaign?
An awful lot of emails, teleconferences, meetings
and listserves….
Insider
– Lobbying
– Research: combined primary, secondary and
‘killer facts’, quality media
Outsider
– ‘Pop Mob’; mass media; celebrities; branding
(white bands)
Alliances
– Global Campaign on Education, Make Poverty
History, Jubilee 2000, Climate Action Network,
10. How does Oxfam design a campaign?
Specify range of possible changes you want to
investigate
Define Change Goal
Apply Power Analysis to develop an initial
influencing strategy
11. Power analysis: phase one
What needs to change to achieve this (what laws,
policies, practices, relationships need to change)?
What are the drivers and obstacles to change?
(e.g. attitudes and beliefs, political groups,
financial/commercial interests, lack of a feasible
practical proposal)
What are the political opportunities for change
(e.g. legislative timetables, elections, international
negotiations & summits)
12. Power analysis: phase two
At what level are decisions made (international,
national, state, politician or official)
Who are decision-makers and institutions that
determine the change?
Among these groups and individuals, which are
– most easily influenced by Oxfam?
– the lost causes?
– the ‘shifters' - the undecided or persuadable?
Who influences the people in this last group, who are
often the principle target for our campaign?
Design your campaign and get stuck in…
13. Why do governments listen?
They usually don’t, but when they do, it’s because NGOs:
Agree with them
Talk their language: ‘tell a story’ – a narrative based
on limited research; (CAP)
Move the public (e.g. Church NGOs on debt)
Are skilled media operators
Sometimes spot emerging issues before civil
servants (PWYP)
14. Pause for typical NGO self doubt:
Have we got too good at campaigning?
Getting too close to DC governments and talking
N-S rather than power
Urge to be ‘taken seriously’ means we are seduced
by policy detail, but neglect vision-thing and
transformatory agenda
Too much focus on northern campaigning, when
the real changes often come within developing
countries
Much better at opposing than proposing: what are
we for, apart from process (e.g. policy space,
growth model)?
15. Back to campaigning:
The WTO and the Doha Round
God’s gift to trade campaigners?
…or…
Integrated Pest Management for NGOs?
16. Multilateral Trading System:
the positives
Rules more important for weaker players
Dispute settlement
Least worst balance of power
Disciplines on powerful countries
17. Multilateral Trading System:
the negatives
Expense (e.g. TRIPs) in terms of $ and people
Premature opening (e.g. ag, NAMA)
Policy space: actual and chilling effect
Balance of power still skewed e.g. Agreement on
Agriculture
18. Where does the WTO fit?
One of many constraints, and often the weakest cf
IMF, RTAs
But permanent via lock-in
More intangible ‘chilling effect’ in some areas
Good (and bad) ideas from WTO can influence
other processes
Key decisions remain domestic
19. Trade, liberalisation and development
Trade can be an important part of a growth strategy (East
Asia, Chile, Botswana, Mauritius)
But is trade liberalisation an outcome of development or an
initial condition?
Theory: more efficient allocation of resources, comparative
advantage
– Source: Anything from the World Bank
History: protection in early stages necessary but not
sufficient (infant industry and ag)
– Source: Dani Rodrik, In Search of Prosperity; Ha Joon
Chang, Kicking Away the Ladder
20. Compare that previous slide with this
killer fact…
“
In 2003, the average European cow
received $2.62 per day in agricultural
support, which is more than the daily
income of half the world's people.
” Which will you remember?!
21. Oxfam priorities on WTO
Policy Space on agriculture, industrial policy
Northern Market Access
Dumping
Northern subsidies, not just export subsidies
Bad rules, e.g. TRIPs and access to medicines
22. So what’s it like?
WTO ministerial 2003, Cancún:
a tough assignment…
24. What happened
Developing Country alliances got stronger
Flashpoints: investment and agriculture
The summit collapsed
Doha round now in deep freeze
– Is that a bad thing? It depends
25. Climate Change: make or break issues
Guarantees of finance from rich countries for mitigation
and adaptation in developing countries.
2020 mitigation targets for rich (Annex I) countries.
26. What do we need at Copenhagen?
A SAFE and FAIR deal
SAFE:
to reduce emissions sufficiently to avoid
catastrophic climate change.
FAIR:
so that rich countries finally take
responsibility for the crisis they have created,
committing to:
• Cut emissions first, furthest and fastest
• Financing for mitigation and adaptation in
developing countries
27. Climate Change v WTO
Similarities Differences
Role of blocs and DC Only winning is
assertiveness enough – blocking bad
DCs will grow stronger things is not enough
as negotiations Urgency – delays will
continue be costly
Differentiation between
DCs a minefield
Early influence is
easier
Domestic drivers
(unlike aid, debt)
28. Further Reading from the Blog
The Global Campaign for Education,
http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=615
A successful campaign on domestic violence in
Malawi, http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=313
Reforming US aid,
http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=266
Changing Georgia’s social protection system,
http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=157
Advocacy v service delivery in Russia,
http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=63
Influencing the state in Vietnam,
http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=59
29. Further Reading
Tools for Policy Impact, ODI,
http://www.odi.org.uk/RAPID/Publications/Tools_P
olicy_Impact.html
Knowledge to Policy: Making the Most of
Development Research, Fred Carden, IDRC 2009
http://www.idrc.ca/openebooks/417-8