A second instalment on the recent conversation with DFID’s Social Development Advisers (see here for first instalment). John Gaventa summarized the emerging lessons from the DFID-funded Action for Empowerment and Accountability research programme, which he coordinates. A4EA is trying to work out whether the stuff we know about E&A in more stable places is different from what happens in fragile or violent places, focussing in particular on Myanmar, Pakistan, Nigeria, Mozambique and Egypt.
Synthesizing dozens, of papers, articles etc (academics sure do pile up the wordcount), John identified 5 lessons from the research, with implications for DFID and other donors – boom! A listicle! So here you go:
Emerging Lesson 1: closed, violent and authoritarian contexts pose fundamental challenges to possibilities or form of ‘voice, choice, and control’
Our findings point to the importance of:
- Fear – drawn from legacies of authoritarianism and violence – affects the possibilities of ‘agency’, not just for the marginalised, but also the middle classes
- Fear is re-enforced by constantly closing spaces, which takes not only visible forms around laws and institutions, but more invisible forms of threats, rhetoric, and coercion
- Fear is often linked to norms of trust – and the absence of trust impedes taking the risk of
speaking truth to power
Implications for E and A support
- Programming can’t just be about institutional channels, but must help overcome legacies of fear and internalised sense of lack of agency, as a precondition for E and A
- Opening, protecting, and maintaining spaces are fundamental to allow E and A to emerge effectively
- Small interventions may be necessary to build or rebuild trust in the possibilities or efficacy of action
Emerging Lesson #2: Despite the difficult contexts, agency and action do emerge but not always in ways we see or recognize in the more formal ‘E and A’ field
Our findings point to the importance of:
- ‘exit’ rather than ‘voice’ as a strategy of action, as well as other strategies of working beneath the radar
- Popular culture as a medium for political voice, not just institutional channels for social accountability
- Spontaneous protests such as fuel protests (in all countries) are demands for accountability but not often in our frame of ‘social development’
Implications for E and A support
- Importance of finding the ‘islands’ of agency and action, in local settings
- Need to broaden our understanding of ‘voice’
- Understand the ways in which large scale, unruly and episodic protests contribute to empowerment and accountability
Emerging Lesson #3: Accountability is about holding institutions – usually government – to account, but in FCVAS, we need to re-understand the nature of authority
Our findings point to the importance of:
- ‘Governance diaries’ with marginalised groups give us a different view of authority from below
- Authority is highly fragmented – involving non-state actors such as armed groups, faith leaders or traditional authorities
- Voice is about ‘response’ but authorities may not have the capacity to act
- Space is not static – spaces are opening and closing constantly, affecting entry points and alliance formation.
Implications for E and A support
- Need to understand ‘institutions’ and ‘authorities’ as perceived from the bottom up – we need political economy analysis from below
- Search for accountability alliances, going beyond the ‘citizen’ – ‘state’ dichotomy, and
- Search for the entry points which can create new models and cultures of accountability. Sub-national points of entry may be just as important as national or ‘going to scale’ too quickly
Emerging Lesson #4: Women’s leadership can be particularly important for E and A
Our findings point to the importance of:
- Challenging gender norms. Both men and women can contribute greatly to women’s political participation – e.g. helping to close the gender gap in electoral turn out in Pakistan
- Movements such as the #BringBackOur Girls Movement in Nigeria can be an important form of demanding accountability around the security of women and girls
- Spaces away from government, e.g. universities, can be important spaces for collective action and challenging norms of sexual harassment
- Gender norms are linked to religious and other norms, but labelling women as secular/feminist/Westernised ignores the complex ways identities are experienced.
Implications for E and A support
- Support for gender equality offers an important entry point for E and A, even in difficult
settings
Emerging Lesson #5: The role of donors working in these spaces is a tricky one
Our findings point to the importance of:
- In each country, there are large scale E and A programmes, but despite donor efforts to link across levels of government, centralised, informal, and unpredictable decision-making processes make this challenging
- E and A programmes are plentiful, but often segmented across governance, sectoral (health, education) and economic (e.g. EITI) departments. There has been little effort to join up the lessons and opportunities across them
- Some policy mandates for leveraging citizen engagement are available, e.g. the World Bank Citizen Engagement Policy, but these have rarely been used
Implications for E and A support
- Re-think scale, focusing on those which can spread horizontally, not only which can be scaled vertically.
- Seek more joined up approaches, combining social, political and economic work in the same areas and programmes
- Strengthen civil society and governance actors to use policy levers to open new spaces
Really great synthesis of the kinds of ideas that are emerging as we head into the next phase of the research.