Part of a series of lectures by Duncan Green, Head of Research at Oxfam GB on key issues raised in his book From Poverty to Power.

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…

23. And a poor working environment…

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