Understanding dynamics of civil society building

Author(s): Julie Ferguson
Publication date: Tuesday 27 September 2005

Civil society building is as much about action as it is a process of learning and strengthening of initiatives: why does civil society building work when it works? How can we reproduce inclusive values? And how can we set the conditions that foster successful initiatives?

‘Boxes’ of ideas and values – as linear rather than dynamic structures – are problematic especially when they lack the possibility for interaction. An ‘action learning cycle’ might be far more suited to the process of civil society building, whereby the learner changes his or her own repertoire of knowledge and skills, based on reflection and interaction with ‘new’ ideas in a new context. This learning process depends heavily on the quality of the learning interaction, and support for experimentation.

Appropriate research can improve the range and quality of people’s understanding, helping to move knowledge forward and enhancing their understanding of the processes they are trying to influence. To those trying to interpret or change their world, research offers a repeated cycle of conceptualising and communicating, with constant additions to stories and evidence from spheres of activity.

• Evaluating civil society participation
• The CSP landscape: preliminary findings
• Linking research and practice: matching interests

Evaluating civil society participation
The Dutch co-financing agencies (CFAs) Cordaid, Hivos, Novib and Plan Nederland recently commissioned a civil society participation evaluation to develop their understanding of a broad range of aspects influencing civil society efforts. The evaluation involved more than 100 partner organisations, in Colombia, Guatemala, Guinea, Sri Lanka and Uganda. Whilst the final outcomes are still being developed, the study addresses such issues as the influence and effect of external support on citizenship strengthening. To what degree is citizen participation successful in advocacy, does it achieve structural changes? What are the effects of social capital, culture, and identity on civil society participation?

These questions should help generate more understanding of the challenges encountered by civil society organisations, and how co-financing agencies can optimise their support.

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The CSP landscape: preliminary findings
The study showed that there are, broadly, three spheres of influence on civil society participation under adverse political conditions.

First, the sphere of power. Whilst most organisations harness conscious strategies for dealing with ‘invisible’ power, these are not always made explicit. This is particularly the case amongst organisations working on gender issues and combating violence. To understand the conditions under which civil society organisations work, acknowledging these power spheres, both visible and invisible, is critical.

Second, layers or levels within civil society. When little connection exists between civil society actors – both vertically as well as horizontally – an inclusive and structural approach to achieving change is severely challenged. This is clearly related to the issue of addressing power relations and establishing a learning dynamic. However, case studies showed all levels within civil society are disconnected, and civil society work suffers as a result. More solidarity, learning and peer support is likely to provide significant advantages for civil society building efforts.

The third sphere of influence is space: studies show that very little decision-making is taking place in civil society space, whilst this is the core of the process. Further, ‘staying power’ is important, in other words, a civil society organisation needs to create a space of its own, and needs to be given the time to develop this, in order to enhance its influence and long-term effect in the change process.

In order to support civil society organisations in addressing these issues in a constructive manner, co-financing agencies should be aware of a number of points and develop responses to these:

- The relationship between a donor and a local partner is inherently characterised by dependence. CFAs need to recognise their overwhelming role in the power structure in which local partners operate.

- Partners need ‘staying power’ in civil society space to have impact. This requires flexible funding and long-term commitment from donors.

- More time should be invested in identifying partners, based on a clear development strategy and selection policy. After that: trust them.

- Monitoring and evaluation contain the potential to learn, to understand and assess social change. This process cannot be a ‘cut and paste’-exercise of evaluation methodology but needs to be adapted to the context. In other words, stimulate, learn and track, but without boxing and limiting social change work which may have a long term endeavour and lack the straight impact of a ‘project’.

- Local partners have voiced a desire for CFAs to be ‘more political’, to foster better mutual understanding of the issues they are advocating. ‘Our agenda is political so the CFAs’ must be too’.

Many of the points brought forward involve strengthening relationships and fostering linkages – all in all, more mutual involvement and participation in the issues stakeholders in civil society building are advocating. Strong alliances, both horizontally and vertically, will help both funding agency and civil society organisations reach their goals more effectively, whilst establishing a learning dynamic and reflective practice.

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Linking research and practice: matching interests
How can academic and practitioner knowledge be more effectively shared? How can academics enhance the capacity of practitioners to research their own practice in development? And on the other side, how can researchers feed more effectively into development practice with their results?

There is often a gap between the academic community and that of development practitioners. They have different aims and objectives, jargon and working methods. Nonetheless, they share a common area of interest, and as such it makes sense for more collaboration between the two.

Hivos staff, 9 of its counterparts from across the globe, ISS researchers and students put their heads together in an attempt to match interests, make linkages and identify ways in which they can work together on the following topics.

Money & markets: what business for NGOs and social movements?
Whilst issues of sustainable economic development and civil society building are often addressed as separate topics, they are inextricably linked. Self-sufficiency and access to resources are critical, in terms of having the means to express one’s voice, not to mention the role of power relations involved in uneven income distribution.

Making ourselves heard: new perspectives for the women’s movement
The gap between practitioners and academics has been relatively successfully bridged in the field of Gender, Women & Development. Even so, one may ascertain a failure of both the theory and implementation of gender mainstreaming. A joint evaluation by Hivos and Cordaid on the role of women’s organisations in civil society building recently revealed that women’s organisations were covering ‘women’s issues’ like domestic violence, sexuality, reproductive health, whilst other civil society organisations were paying little attention to gender at all. Perhaps a strategy of gender transformation instead of gender integration will help organisations move beyond this. The idea of best principles (rather than best practice) could provide a foothold into ways of achieving this.

Towards fair governance: decentralisation and anti-corruption
Rural people are often excluded from policymaking, whether decentralised or not. Many officials prefer to skip consulting lower-class marginalised groups altogether because they may be illiterate or perceived as ignorant. This approach perpetuates unequal distribution of resources and inhibits participation by marginalised groups. Support to monitoring groups, bolstering budgeting efforts of district councils and working with marginalised people excluded from decentralisation policies are different strategies to achieve a more equitable way of making people’s voices heard and combating corruption by enforcing increased accountability.

PRSPs and CSOs
Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) were first introduced by multi-lateral institutions as stringent social conditionality structures for development aid in 2000. Whilst the strategy was designed to involve civil society organisations from the outset, practice has restricted their participation in the process of devising the strategy papers, and as a result their involvement has lagged. Many countries now see the process as a series of painful ‘hoops’ which must be jumped through in order to access international credit and assistance of any sort.

The role of social movements in bringing about change
Whilst co-financing agencies recognise the immense potential for change that social movements hold, they have largely paid attention to more limited sections of civil society, in particular to NGOs. Yet social change and transformation are unlikely in countries where NGOs and social movements – whose grass roots political and social agendas are fuelled by a desire for action – do not work together. Interested in measurement, learning and processes that can be captured, NGOs are simply easier to work with and support than social movements, which are generally more fluid and less formally organised.

The issue of, ‘engaging the state’ vs. ‘confronting the state’ is at the heart of the issue, the former associated with NGOs, the latter with social movements. In terms of donor support, the best strategies on how best to harness the potential of social movements without smothering their energy have yet to be discovered.

Linking academic and practitioners’ knowledge: a learning partnership
Collaboration between NGOs and research institutes can be challenging, primarily due to different dynamics and incentives, but a clear need has been identified to intensify collaboration. While Hivos and ISS have already established a formal relationship, with numerous linkages in place, institutionalised cooperation is lacking. Centralising and sharing information to facilitate collaboration is a key success factor. An integral part of the partnership is making research relevant to practitioners, and practice relevant to researchers.

Thinking about measurement differently: tracking social change
As monitoring methodology is still dominated by quantitatively oriented tools, there is a need for further development of alternative tools looking rather at qualitative information. Social change, for instance, cannot be quantified. Further, monitoring is often a donor-driven exercise, involving pre-designed methods and tools; as such, NGOs fail to articulate their own needs adequately in designing the monitoring systems of their projects.

Who is monitoring, and for whom? Whose agenda is being carried out in the name of monitoring? What are the linkages between the intervention and social change? Effective monitoring, both in terms of determining results based on donor support, but also in terms of providing a valuable learning experience for the owners of the project, is a balancing act between result and process orientation, between quantitative and qualitative methods.

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