A bold and practical proposal for the post-2015 framework

Joanna Wheeler

This post previously appeared on 22 March 2013 on the Participate blog. Subscribe to their blog for regular updates on the Participate initiative.

At the opening of the Advancing the Post‐2015 Sustainable Development Agenda conference in Bonn last month, Horst Kolher noted wryly in his opening remarks that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon asked the High Level Panel (HLP) to be ‘bold and practical’ in its recommendations for the post-2015 framework.

So far, it would appear that many of the proposals circulating are neither. Many are extremely technical, and seem disconnected from the realities of people living with extreme exclusion and marginalisation.

As the High Level Panel prepares the report of recommendations for the post-2015 framework, due to be finished at the end of May, it is an important moment to critically reflect on what these bold recommendations might look like.  One of the civil society declarations from Bonn aimed directly at the High Level Panel called for structural transformation that addresses ‘the failure of the current development model, which is rooted in unsustainable production and consumption patterns and exacerbates inequality as well as gender, race and class inequities.’ This is certainly bold in comparison to the current MDG framework, which leaves inequalities largely untouched.

Whilst the panel appears to be listening to civil society’s recommendations – for instance the recent Bali High Level Panel Communiqué released after the HLP meeting at the end of March, refers directly to the civil society declaration in Bonn, around the need for a new framework to ‘manage the world’s production and consumption patterns in more sustainable and equitable ways’ -  there is still too little being said about how to achieve the massive changes that would be required for sustainable development and social justice to be achieved on a global scale.  Skepticism and wariness characterize the views of many in relation to what is likely to be a protracted inter-governmental negotiation process. These have not had a good track record lately.

Here’s a bold and practical suggestion for the High Level Panel (and all those involved in trying to influence the post-2015 framework): citizen participation.  Not just citizen participation as in asking people living in greatest poverty to tell people in the UN what they want, but citizen participation as in creating opportunities for people to have a real say in the decisions that affect their lives. Not just citizens as in people holding passports for a particular national government, but people everywhere with the right to have rights, irrespective of their official status, gender, sexuality, disability, age, race, or religion.  Citizen participation is a bold approach for the post-2015 framework, because it turns much of received wisdom about ‘aid’ and international frameworks on its head:  it is not just about a small global elite ‘hearing the voices of the poor,’ but about creating sustainable and long-term mechanisms for citizens to be involved in decision-making at all levels (from local to global).  What is missing from all the talk about how to make the new global framework tackle the big problems facing all of us, is a focus on who needs to lead that transformation: citizens, themselves. Early findings from the Participate initiative show that top down policies and interventions frequently fail to respond to the everyday realities of those living in poverty, and increase their sense of powerlessness.

If it is done well, citizen participation would shake the very foundations of the current global power structure, getting to the root causes of poverty rather than just the symptoms.

Citizen participation is also practical in that there is already a long-track record of a range of approaches and mechanisms to citizen participation, and a large body of research that points to some clear ‘do’s’ and ‘don’ts’ if you want meaningful citizen participation.  Consider where democracy is really flourishing at the moment:  while the US and many countries in Europe face financial crisis and political apathy, Brazil, India, South Africa, the Philippines, and others have been at the forefront of innovations in citizen participation.  There is a lot of evidence about how citizen participation can deliver better outcomes, in terms of citizens more capable of claiming their rights, states that are more accountable and responsive and societies that are more cohesive and inclusive.

According to the Participate initiative, the global framework could do at least two things to encourage meaningful citizen participation: strengthen the capacities of citizens to claim their rights (and of institutions to respond); and build in citizen-led processes of regulation and monitoring to really hold governments and agencies to account for their commitments in the post-2015 framework. (See Chapter 5 of ‘What Matters Most’ report).

This is not to suggest that citizen participation is a silver bullet.  It comes with its own potential problems and draw-backs, not least of which is the risk that it is used to keep people busy participating about relatively inconsequential questions, while the real power is exercised elsewhere.  It must be adapted to the particular circumstances and power dynamics in which it is used.  No global framework can really achieve a context-specific approach to addressing entrenched problems.  But a global framework can enable more opportunities for citizen participation that others can take up at local, national and regional levels.

The most compelling reason for taking citizen participation seriously in the post-2015 framework is not the view of a researcher at IDS (or anywhere else), but rather that it is a demand being made by people living in extreme poverty and marginalisation in over 100 countries. The Participate initiative has found that many of those living in the greatest exclusion and marginalisation believe that their meaningful participation can make development more inclusive and sustainable. People want to have a say in the actual decisions that get made about them.  If the international community were to listen, it would be truly bold.

Read other recent blog posts from Participate:

• What matters most? Participate Initiative presents research to post 2015 High Level Panel
• ‘Share an idea so that you and I can change tomorrow’
• Post-2015 civil society consultations: our shared perspectives
• Participatory visual processes in Nairobi’s margins

Find out more about the Politics of Evidence

Susanne Schirmer

Yesterday a conference on ‘The Politics of Evidence’ got underway. It is convened by the Big Push Forward Initiative and hosted here at IDS, welcoming about 110 participants for two days.

For all those who haven’t been able to make it to the conference, the final plenary session will be live streamed at 15.45GMT this afternoon (Wednesday 24^th April). This final session aims to bring together and synthesize the conference debates in generating ideas for collaborative efforts in tackling the drivers as well as the consequences of the current politics of evidence with respect to supporting transformative development.

You can find out more about the conference proceedings on the Big Push Forward website where Brendan Whitty has been blogging with reflections on the first day of the conference and Rosalind Eyben has outlined the conference aims and provided two papers prepared in advance of the conference.

Alternatively, follow the conference on Twitter (#evpolitics).

Sue Schirmer works as Communications Coordinator for the Participation, Power and Social Change team at IDS.

Debating the ‘politics of evidence’

Chris Speed

With just a few days left until the “Politics of Evidence” Conference tomorrow , we are all very excited for the coming conversations and experience-sharing with various programme participants from around the world! As a platform to systematically scrutinise roles of “evidence” and the results agenda in transformational development, we are looking forward to the plenary presentations and group discussions surrounding these contentious and important issues. During the conference, we will be sharing participant experiences and information via video, photos and narratives on various social media platforms to share and engage with others in the global development community. Even though the conference is now closed for participant registration, the final plenary session will be live streamed at 15.45 GMT on Wednesday, 24 April.

This conference comes at a time when international development practitioners and policy makers continue to debate and challenge existing modes of social change initiatives and evidence-based practices. Some of the key points participants will be debating involve:

• the meaning of “the politics of evidence” and why it is important
• transformative intentions and impacts of various approaches on evidence of and for change
• what factors and relationships are involved in driving less useful practices and protocols
• people’s acceptance or rejection of these existing practices and protocols and the ensuing alternatives for transformational development

Some of the conference goals include for the participants to collectively generate:

• conceptual clarity about “the politics of evidence” and space for debates and practices around development results
• mapping of consequences on all levels regarding current foci on evidence and results
• strategies and new ideas to deal with results-oriented measurement
• ideas for collaborative efforts to address and challenge the “politics of evidence”

There have been numerous interesting debates and online discussions around the “politics of evidence”. A recent blog post from Rosalind Eyben and Chris Roche spelled out well the arguments going into a conference such as this. Some key points include acknowledging and challenging our “philosophical plumbing”, understanding the politics of our “knowledge generation” as development practitioners and the value of reflexivity in challenging existing practices. I really enjoyed this particular quote from Eyben and Roche:

Those of us working as practitioners, bureaucrats and scholar activists in international development cannot escape the contradiction that we are strategizing for social transformation from a position in a global institution – international development – that can and does sustain inequitable power relations, as much as it succeeds in changing them.

 As an MA student at IDS who will be rapporteuring and assisting with social media at the conference, I am personally excited for the conversations that will be taking place next week. In particular, the exchange’s potential for shaping future development policy and practice. We look forward to you joining us on Twitter (#evpolitics) and with our live stream at 15.45 GMT on 24 April!

Chris Speed is an M.A. student in the Participation, Power and Social Change programme at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS). Follow him on Twitter: @ChrisLSpeed

Storytelling in Development Practice

Hamsini Ravi

‘Reflective Practice and Social Change’ is one of the modules on offer to MA students here at IDS , convened by the Participation team. The course offers a stimulating weekly space to try out and reflect on practices that can potentially make us better development practitioners. In the session on storytelling and narratives, we reflected on the number of ways stories can be used in development practice.

We unanimously agreed that stories are a powerful, yet underrated medium. Humans are socialised through the myriad of stories, bonds are created, history is relived and lessons are learnt through stories. The non-profit sector is a treasure chest of humbling and powerful stories of men and women, seeking and braving change. Stories have the magical power to liven up a 500-page annual report that no one wants to read; they can foster a shared organisational spirit in a room full of people working in different contexts and capacities; as well as lend depth and meaning to an evaluation study.

In the context of a development organisation, stories and storytelling can be used in:

• Research
• Monitoring & Evaluation (M & E)
• Communications/ Advocacy
• Organisational learning.

Research

Storytelling works wonderfully well in research studies and investigations, and can be an effective prompt, when asking people about personal moments in their lives. It also enables the storyteller, as well as the listener, to be reflexive  about the topic in consideration. For a researcher, it can help unpack their positionality in the research process and allow them to confront and work on their biases upfront. As a research tool, stories are accessible, account for cultural diversity and require no reading or writing skills. As useful as this may seem, there are some ethical considerations, viz, ownership, use of data, confidentiality, placing the story in its respective cultural context. These can be navigated by acquiring informed consent, and constantly reflection on use and interpretation of other’s stories by the researcher.

Monitoring and Evaluation

As a tool used in M & E, storytelling can challenge our linear thought processes, giving space for non-linear relationships in interventions. They enable a more holistic understanding of people’s lives, dismissing the categories that funding and donor agencies tend to box beneficiaries into. The politics of using storytelling in monitoring and evaluation of development projects is that the evaluator may not always hear the things he/ she wants to hear. It is therefore necessary to constantly negotiate expectations of community reviews with the donor.

Advocacy and Communications

In advocacy and communications, stories can make up the oft-missing emotional link. It can also inform funders of realities on the ground and be used in promoting inter-cultural communication and understanding. While, a proportion of non-profits do use stories in their marketing and advocacy collaterals, it is apparent that this is often plagued with issues of manipulation, representation and dissemination. Stories could be tweaked and exaggerated to suit the needs of the organisation, and these issues can be overcome by strengthening consent processes and quality checks.

Organisational learning

Organisational change and learning can involve a healthy dose of stories and storytelling. From organising sharing sessions to using stories in induction programmes to integrating divisions within an organisation, there are a multitude of possibilities. For instance, each division of the organisation could narrate the intricacies of their project through a story to the marketing division to foster better understand.

While tapping into the collective processes of sharing and telling, storytelling can make the development sector as a whole more reflective in its approach and policies. It can bridge geographical and hierarchical divides and highlight the more humane elements of our work and personalities. Can we take this as a personal challenge to incorporate more stories in our work as development professionals?

Hamsini Ravi is an MA Development Studies student at IDS.

The MA Participation, Power and Social Change (MAP) at IDS is a unique 12-month course providing experienced development workers and social activists with the opportunity to critically reflect on their practice and develop their knowledge and skills through a work-based action research project.

From making us cry to making us act: five ways of communicating ‘development’ in Europe

By Maria Cascant

A few weeks ago I watched the ‘Red Nose Day‘, an annual TV show in the UK that collects funds for development projects. IDS fellow Spencer Henson wrote a blog on the apparent disconnect between the high levels of donation for such events and UK citizens’ scepticism on keeping the target of spending 0.7% of national income on aid. As for me, I got caught by the images used, namely helpless children. I went to sleep that night wondering how much development communication had really evolved in the last decades.

example of ‘shock effect’ type image

example of ‘positive image’ type

Some days ago, a colleague passed me the article ‘Post-humanitarianism: humanitarian communication beyond a politics of pity‘ (2010). I was fascinated by the read. The author, LSE fellow Lilie Chouliaraki, suggested three types of appeal used in humanitarian and development communication. Type number 1, the ‘shock effect’, may be familiar. An early example is the Red Cross/Life magazine photos on the 1951 Bihar (Indian) famine showing starving children, old women calling out ‘Sir, we are dying’ and a begging mother with a child in her arms. With increased criticism and ethical controls on these images, a more ‘positive image’ type of appeal emerged in the late 80s. These are images of children smiling or farmers with newly acquired farming tools. They can be easily found in most of current sponsorship ads.

 One would think that starving children and smiling children are pretty opposed ways of communicating. Yet Chouliaraki sustains they are not. They are in fact the two sides of the same coin. Both use photorealism in their format and are emotion-oriented (guilt or gratitude) in their content.

It is here that Chouliaraki’s article suggests the emergence of a third ‘post-emotional’ type of appeal, which breaks with previous ones in both format and content. The format defies photorealism and experiments with a range of artistic methods. The content moves from using emotions to using branding (i.e. of a renowned NGO) to attract the spectator. A paradigmatic case is Amnesty’s ad ‘Bullet. The Execution’, which won the ad production prize at Cannes Festival in 2006. The use of popular TV stars in development communication and campaigning could also be seen to follow this post-emotional trend. In short, it is the message’s format and spokesperson what validates the message itself, more than its content.

Pretty different this time from the other two, one would think. Yet Chouliaraki objects again. All three types still transmit a disgraceful context ‘there’ while the sole action expected from the European spectator ‘here’ is to feel attracted (by pity or by brand) and to donate to solve the matter. The sufferers are depicted as perpetually awaiting the spectator’s generosity, portraying development as a gift from Europe to elsewhere. None of the three types opts to explain at least one of the many reasons that create the unequal situation in the first place. None addresses, in this sense, the limitations of development interventions.

Chouliaraki’s article concludes here, with the description of these three types of appeal. With current initiatives like the Red Nose Day show or Kony 2012, one would think, yes that must be it – development communication has not really advanced much further. But perhaps you may have in your inbox, as I do, one of those emails asking to ‘sign the petition’. Most of these do not seek (only) our money, but our ‘click’ – a click to show ideological support to a cause; to lobby a decision-maker, MP, bank or firm. Other petitions even take a step further: they ask you to sign but also to change something in your lifestyle.

For instance, the Clean Clothes Campaign (2010) explains how jeans produced with the abrasive technique of sandblasting have toxic effects in the Bangladeshi female workers that make them. Besides appeals for e.g.  lobbying those firms using sandblasting and asking governments to regulate on the practice, the campaign asks us to stop buying that type of trousers. In the same line, the Bank Secrets Campaign (2009) lists those banks investing in human right abuses such as polluting powers, controversial weapons, and repressive regimes. It then asks us to move our money to ethical banks and to organise chats, stalls and video-debates besides more lobby-based appeals like ‘discuss with a banker’ and ‘send an e-card’.

Are petition appeals different from previous ones? Perhaps not on the format. Petitions can be as creative as post-emotional type appeals (i.e. caricatures) but they don’t really suggest anything aesthetically new. Yet in terms of content, they do. They are political. They engage the spectator in an intellectual exercise instead of an emotional or consumerist one. They present a cause-effect message between the ‘here’ of the spectator and the ‘there’ of the sufferer, showing that at least one of the causes of the other side’s distress originates in the spectator’s own context (i.e. a MP decision, a consumption pattern).  

Petitions have their own constraints. Lobby-type ones may become repetitive and bring a certain ‘petition fatigue’. They also miss out on self-reflection and personal change, and may even remind us of the immediacy and superficiality of post-emotional, consumerist modes (‘email this MP and done’). Conversely, lifestyle-type appeals are less efficient on tackling urgent actions than, say, crowd bombardment of a MP’s inbox. Both types seem thus complementary. For instance, one-off, massive, urgent petitions can be matched with longer-term pledges on the same cause by more committed, self-organised groups. What seems important in any case is that appeals use both consumer and citizen power to put pressure not only on those firms and banks operating unjust practices but also on states, the ultimate regulatory and decision-making bodies.

All in all, petitions are just petitions. They rely on large numbers saying ‘no’ all at once and are thus meant to be limited and timely to a particular cause. We can help save workers from sandblasting today, but forget their overall work precariousness tomorrow. Petitions may thus need other protest forms beside to help shake the more difficult political stuff. And yet, even within their limitations, petitions do have some relative power to keep firms, banks and governments thinking twice about their moves, and to keep citizens, including business, bank and government citizens, informed and active.

Promoting these more political types of appeal, rather than lingering on emotional ones or adapting to ad-like ones, would give development communication a more constructive role. Emotional types are still dominant, as seen with the popular Red Nose Day. Yet, some organisations and agencies have already made a move. They may lose in fundraising power and in popularity, but gain a lot in coherence. An opportunity cost worth considering. This would bring deeper levels of participation in development communication and campaigning, and ultimately, a paradigm of development engaged in personal and institutional change not only ‘there’ but also ‘here’.

Maria-Josep Cascant Sempere is a PhD candidate within the IDS Participation, Power and Social Change research team. She is interested in development activism with a focus on the links between popular education and economic (tax) justice campaigning in Nigeria and the UK.

Read other blogs by Maria Cascant

• ‘Global Development’: the new buzzword?

‘Share an idea so that you and I can change tomorrow’

Lisa Van Dijk

This post previously appeared on 7 February 2013 on the Participate blog. Subscribe to their blog for regular updates on the Participate initiative.

لقراءة النسخة العربية من لهذا المقال يرجى الضغط هنا

Young people’s participation in planning and decision-making.

Young people in Egypt have been credited with igniting the fundamental change process demanding a more inclusive government which is responsive to their needs and aspirations. However many youth living in poor and informal areas are facing double marginalization. Apart from their existing level of poverty, they are facing a lack of opportunities, social exclusion and often there is an ingrained lack of trust towards the local administration. The Center for Development Services (CDS)  is working with young people across Egypt to build the capacity of the youth to implement community initiatives and enable them to actively participate in the planning and decision-making processes at the local level.

Youth PARTICIPATE is a research initiative within the Participate initiative which facilitates a process whereby youth groups provide a reflection of the reality under which they and their community live as a basis for their action. This youth-centered participatory action research is aimed to engaging youth and their peers in research to create positive social change. While we will be documenting and sharing the results of the initial assessment phase with the Beyond 2015 Participate Research group, the youth groups will use this inquiry to decide on community interventions in their communities and start a process of reflection and action.

Sharek  (Participate Song)

Share an idea so that you and I can change tomorrow
Come, and give your hand, so that you would not regret
Join us and say it out loud, and let’s change the mindsets
Come and let’s make us towards the road of change and love
It is a call for him, her and me! Let’s all dream for the days to come
Dream to see our country changing, and never surrender to reality or fate
Do you have an idea? Say it! Express it! And quit saying “I can’t”
Share an idea so that you and I can change tomorrow

(Song translated from Arabic, ‘Sharek’  means participate, contribute or share).

An initial workshop took place in Cairo where 35 youth researchers from urban informal slum and rural areas came together to share and discuss their research questions and develop an initial plan for their inquiry.

The youth were supported to use visual art research tools such as graffiti, participatory videoing and photography, and to think through how to make use of these tools in expressing themselves and to draw the research findings from the community. During the workshop young (peer) art facilitators worked with the youth research groups to introduce the art forms. The art facilitators will support the youth groups in the use of the different art research tools while doing their research. In this workshop the youth researchers developed a research slogan and song to motivate themselves and mobilise the communities interest in what they are doing.

‘Share an idea so that you and I can change tomorrow.’

Currently the youth groups are conducting the research in their communities. A reflection workshop has taken place in the first week of March to bring together all the art work developed and reflect on the peer and community discussions around the art work. The reflection is forming the basis for the youth led initiatives to promote social inclusion and civic participation. During the reflection workshop we were working with a youth network called Whats Up Youth. We would like to the share art tools produced through their WUPY social cafe, a social online forum for youth, to get input from youth all over the country and feed this into the reflection.

Lisa Van Dijk is a partner researcher working on the Participate initiative, based at the Participation, Power and Social Change team at IDS