Brandeis University Proseminar presentation by Oxfam's Duncan Green from March 2012.

1. INGOs, Aid and Change
Duncan Green
Brandeis Proseminar
March 2012
Lecture 5

2. The rise of lobbying and campaigning

3. How does Oxfam campaign?
 An awful lot of emails, teleconferences,
meetings and listserves….
 Insider
– Lobbying
– Research: combined primary, secondary and
‘killer facts’
 Outsider
– ‘Pop Mob’; media; celebrities; branding (white
bands)
 Alliances
– Oxfam International, Climate Action
Network, Trade Justice Movement, Make
Poverty History, Jubilee 2000

4. And a fair amount of dressing up

6. How does Oxfam design a campaign
(ideal world version)?
 Specify range of possible changes you
want to investigate
 Scope the context, institutions, agents
and events that shape the change
 Select the most promising candidates
for sustained influencing work
 Apply Power Analysis to develop an
initial influencing strategy

7. Campaigning ‘Toolbox’
Persuasion
Tools

8. Why do governments listen?
 They usually don’t, but when they do, it’s
because NGOs:
– Have legitimacy due to field presence
– Move the public (eg Church NGOs on debt)
– Are skilled media operators
– ‘Tell a story’ – a narrative based on limited
research, with good frames and killer facts
– Build unusual alliances (e.g. with private
sector, or developing country governments)
– Sometimes spot emerging issues before civil
servants (PWYP)

9. Compare that previous slide with this
killer fact…
In 2003, the average European cow
received support of $2.62 per day in
agricultural support, which is more than the
daily income of half the world's people.
Which will you remember?!

10. What to campaign on?
 The best campaigns (and
therefore research) have
– A villain
– A problem
– A solution
– Example: TRIPS/Access to
Medicines

11. Favourite Targets and Issues
 Northern Governments
– Environmental impact; land grabs; Aid;
 IFIs
– Debt; conditionality; megaprojects
 TNCs
– Extractives; Pharma; Labour standards,
ethical consumerism
 Trade
– Ag subsidies; regional trade agreements
(EPAS)

12. Blind spots and weaknesses
 Southern governments often get off
lightly - comfort zone is global
 Better at blocking bad stuff than
winning good stuff
 Slow in responding to shocks as
opportunities (Planners rule)
 Better at getting money than changes in
policy
 Too much policy, not enough politics?
 Often neglect ‘framing’

13. Where next?
 Rise in multipolar campaigning
– National coalitions
– Continental organizations
 More thought on framing and long term
change
 What do we ask for when there is no
money? (taxation, regulation, soft law)

14. Example of good responsive
campaign: The Robin Hood Tax
 Picks up and rebrands ‘Tobin Tax’
 Responds to the moment
– Governments desperate for new sources
of revenue
– Public anger with bankers

15. And recruits some great actors.....

16. New kinds of change strategies at
national level
 Research evidence
– Russia disability campaign
 Elections focus
– Zambian health spending
 Accelerating Evolution
– Chukua Hatua,Tanzania
 One programme approach
– Vietnam Education
 ‘Convening and brokering’
– Takistan Water and Sanitation Initiative

17. Last word to some Madrid advertising
students

18. The Aid System

19. Big Numbers, but not that big
1800
$1630bn
1600
1400
1200
$ billion
1000
800
600
400 $7-9.5bn (half
$129bn (cf. 58
200 in 2000 from Gates
Foundation)
0
Global arms spending ODA Philanthropy

20. And likely to get smaller

21. Dilemma: is aid like oil?
 Impact on
– Policy (conditionality)
– Institutions (transaction costs, paying the piper)
– Politics (severing the social contract)
 How big is the political deficit, and how can good
aid overcome it?

22. Good v Bad Aid
 Do: fund watchdogs, fund long-term, support state
capacity, put government in the driving seat, ensure
downwards accountability
– Measles vaccines save 7.5m lives 1999-2005
– Education for All
– Rise in General Budget Support (but still tiny %)
 Don’t: overcomplicate, impose conditions, support
parallel systems, poach staff or tie aid
– Over 2 year period, Uganda had to deal with 684
different aid instruments from 40 donors, just for
central government funding

23. New thinking on aid
 Planning v Markets v Networks
 Can aid system mimic evolution?
 Cash on Delivery
 Aid v Do no harm (Birdsall 2005)
 Aid in a downturn
– Pressure on Value for Money and
measuring impact
– Risks of technocratic magic bullets -
charter cities, Independent Service
Authorities etc

24. Group Discussion
 How does aid support or harm
progressive social change?
 How does it need to be reformed?