Advocacy As Political Strategy: the Emergence of an “Education for All”

Advocacy as Political Strategy: The emergence of an “Education for All” campaign at ActionAid International and the Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education

Bronwen Alexandra Magrath

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education University of Toronto

Advocacy as Political Strategy: The Emergence of an Education for All Campaign at ActionAid International and the Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education

Bronwen Alexandra Magrath

Doctor of Philosophy

Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education University of Toronto

2013 Abstract

This dissertation explores why and how political advocacy emerged as a dominant organizational strategy for NGOs in the international development education field. In order to answer this central question, I adopt a comparative case-study approach, examining the evolution of policy advocacy positions at two leading NGOs in the field: ActionAid International and the Asia South

Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education (ASPBAE). Although these organizations differ in significant ways, both place political advocacy at the centre of their mandates, and both have secured prominent positions in global educational governance. Through comparative analysis, I shed light on why these organizations have assumed leadership roles in a global advocacy movement.

I focus on how the shift to policy advocacy reflects the internal environment of each organization as well as broader trends in the international development field. Ideas of structure and agency are thus central to my analysis. I test the applicability of two structural theories of social change: world polity theory and political opportunity theory; as well as two constructivist approaches: strategic issue framing and international norm dynamics. I offer some thoughts on establishing a

ii more dynamic relationship between structure and agency, drawing on Fligstein and McAdam’s concept of strategic action fields.

In order to test the utility of these theoretical frameworks, the study begins with a historical account of how ActionAid and ASPBAE have shifted from service- and practice- oriented organizations into political advocates. These histories are woven into a broader story of normative change in the international development field. I then examine the development of a number of key advocacy strategies at each organization, tracing how decisions are made and implemented as well as how they are influenced by the broader environment. I find that while it is essential to understand how global trends and norms enable and constrain organizational strategy, the internal decision-making processes of each organization largely shape how strategies are crafted and implemented. These findings offer insight into the pursuit of advocacy as a political strategy and the role of NGOs in global social change.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all of the people who have helped me through my PhD journey. My supervisor, Dr. Karen Mundy, has offered ideas, information and encouragement over the past four years. This dissertation could not have taken shape without her continued support. Thanks also to my committee members, Dr. Steven Bernstein and Dr. Judith Taylor, and external examiners, Dr. Yusuf Sayed and Dr. Ruth Hayhoe, for their insightful comments and feedback. A special thank you to all the people at ActionAid and ASPBAE who have given me their time and energy, and answered many emails, as I conducted research for this project.

I was lucky to have a wonderful network of friends and family in Toronto to support me during this process. Above all, I want to thank my husband Jon for his love and encouragement and for being a fantastic sounding board for ideas, and my daughter Lily May for keeping me grounded and for giving me excuses to go to the park for a swing.

This project was made possible through the generous financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto.

List of Acronyms

ASPBAE Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education

CEF Commonwealth Education Fund

CSEF Civil Society Education Fund

CSO Civil Society Organization

DfID Department for International Development (UK)

DVV German Adult Education Organization

EFA Education for All

GMR Global Monitoring Report

ICAE International Council of Adult Education

IET International Education Team (ActionAid)

IMF International Monetary Fund

INGO International Non-Governmental Organisation

GCE Global Campaign for Education

MDG Millennium Development Goals

NGO Non-Governmental Organisation

OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

RBA Rights-Based Approach

RWS Real World Strategies Program

SAF Strategic Action Fields

UIL Unesco Institute for Lifelong Learning

UNESCO United Nations Education, Social and Cultural Organization

USAID US Agency for International Development

Table of Contents

1 Introduction ...... 1 1.1 Overview ...... 1 1.2 Background ...... 3 1.3 Case study selection and project design ...... 5 1.4 Organization of the study ...... 8

2 The Non-Governmental Sector and Global Social Change: a literature review ...... 9 2.1 Introduction ...... 9 2.2 Civil society and global governance ...... 9 2.3 Social change processes: structural or constructed? ...... 12 2.3.1 World Polity Theory ...... 12 2.3.2 Political Opportunity Structure ...... 15 2.3.3 Strategic Issue Framing and International Norm Dynamics ...... 18 2.3.4 Conclusion: Melding the two approaches? ...... 24

3 Research Design ...... 28 3.1 Introduction ...... 28 3.2 Case study methods and case selection ...... 28 3.3 Data collection ...... 30 3.4 Data analysis ...... 33 3.5 Limitations of the study ...... 35 3.6 Conclusion ...... 36

4 A History of ActionAid: from British charity to transnational advocate ...... 38 4.1 Introduction ...... 38 4.2 The origins of ActionAid and the post-war development regime ...... 39 4.3 1980s: the challenge of neoliberalism and ActionAid’s community education centres ... 44 4.4 1990s: “Empowerment”, “Participation” and the emergence of advocacy ...... 48 4.5 1997- 2004: Fighting Poverty Together and the Rights Based Approach to Development ...... 53 4.6 The rights-based approach as an emerging global norm ...... 55 4.7 Rights-based advocacy and organizational change at ActionAid ...... 62 4.8 ActionAid since 2004 ...... 67 4.9 Conclusions ...... 69

5 A History of ASPBAE: from a network of educators to a transnational advocate...... 71 5.1 Introduction ...... 71 5.2 ASPBAE origins: UNESCO and education for development ...... 72 5.3 Network growth and the radicalization of adult education discourse ...... 75 5.4 Organizational Renewal, 1987-1991: Decentralization, Regionalization and Participatory Development ...... 79 5.5 Structural change ...... 83 5.6 1990-1999: A gradual shift to advocacy ...... 88 5.7 2000-2004: Regional to global networking and the advent of an advocacy strategy ...... 92 5.8 Conclusions ...... 96 vi

6 Political Opportunity Structures in the Education for All Movement...... 99 6.1 Introduction ...... 99 6.2 NGO advocacy and political opportunities at the UN ...... 100 6.3 Political Opportunities in Education for All Governance ...... 103 6.4 Expanding resource opportunities post-Dakar ...... 110 6.5 The Commonwealth Education Fund ...... 113 6.6 The Civil Society Education Fund ...... 116 6.7 Conclusions ...... 117

7 Strategic Frame Alignment: “selling” global norms in advocacy organizations ...... 120 7.1 Introduction ...... 120 7.2 Case Study #1: Framing the Right to Education at ActionAid ...... 121 7.2.1 Introduction ...... 121 7.2.2 Global Education Review 2002 ...... 122 7.2.3 The Education Strategic Plan 2005-2010 ...... 128 7.2.4 Education Rights: A Handbook for Practitioners and Activists ...... 131 7.2.5 Education Review 2005-2009 ...... 134 7.2.6 Conclusions ...... 139 7.3 Case study 2: ASPBAE’s frame extension – from adult education to the full EFA agenda ...... 140 7.3.1 Introduction ...... 140 7.3.2 Adult Education in the broader EFA movement: some background ...... 141 7.3.3 ASPBAE Executive Council Strategic Review and Planning 2006 ...... 144 7.3.4 Proposed constitutional amendments 2008 ...... 147 7.3.5 Strategic Directions 2009-2012 ...... 151 7.4 Conclusions ...... 155

8 Information Politics and the Legitimacy of Advocacy NGOs ...... 160 8.1 Introduction ...... 160 8.2 Literature Review: Information Politics and Transnational Advocacy ...... 161 8.3 Case study 1: ActionAid and the International Benchmarks for Adult Literacy ...... 164 8.3.1 The Context: The EFA Global Monitoring Report ...... 166 8.3.2 Project design and implementation ...... 169 8.3.3 The follow-up process ...... 173 8.4 Case study 2: ASPBAE and the Asia- South Pacific Education Watch ...... 176 8.4.1 The Context: Real World Strategies and the Midterm Review of Education for All ...... 178 8.4.2 Project design and implementation ...... 179 8.4.3 The follow-up process ...... 183 8.4.4 Conclusions ...... 187

9 Conclusions and Findings ...... 193 9.1 Future Research Directions ...... 199

10 References ...... 202

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Chapter 1 1 Introduction 1.1 Overview

This dissertation examines the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the field of international development education. In the last twenty years, many NGOs have shifted away from their historic role as service-providers in international development projects. They have begun to advocate for policy changes in specific issue areas, for example, campaigning for access to safe drinking water or for free, universal primary education. The proliferation of non- state actors advocating for social change has inspired a considerable amount of literature in a number of academic fields, particularly political science and sociology. Borrowing conceptually from these two disciplines, my dissertation seeks to understand why a global advocacy movement has emerged in the education development field, centred on the Education for All agenda, and why specific organizations have assumed leadership roles in this movement.

I adopt a comparative case-study approach in my dissertation, comparing the evolution of policy advocacy positions and the development of advocacy strategies at two organizations: ActionAid, an international anti-poverty agency formed in 1972, and the Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education (ASPBAE), a regional network of over 200 member organizations established in 1964. Both organizations have managed to secure large-scale funding for education advocacy work and both have gained access to policy governance bodies, so both can be seen as successful advocacy organizations. This study will explore the emergence of policy advocacy positions within each organization by answering three related questions:

Why have NGOs in the education development field pursued networked forms of political advocacy as a preferred organizational strategy?

How have such organizations emerged as leaders in the global Education for All Movement and what factors can account for their success?1

What can the evolution of ActionAid and ASPBAE tell us about the pursuit of advocacy as an organizational strategy and the broader role of NGOs in global social change processes?

Most studies of transnational advocacy and global governance see the NGO sector as monolithic, as a political force that exists outside of formal state structures but seeks to influence these structures through various strategies. This study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the nongovernmental sector through an in-depth examination of how two NGOs have evolved over time, examining shifts in each organization’s mandate, discourse and strategic repertoire to see what this can tell us about transnational advocacy and educational governance. The majority of work on contentious politics tends to see external factors as decisive in understanding advocacy strategy: the availability of resources, for example, or the presence of political allies, determines the sort of strategies an advocacy NGO undertakes. In this study, I look in depth at my case study NGOs in order to shed light on the multiplicity of factors that impact the way organizations respond to their environment, and particularly the development of new organizational strategies that put political advocacy at the centre of their enterprise. I focus on how the shift to policy advocacy, and the strategic decision-making that leads to this new organizational strategy, reflects not only the external environment, but also the internal environment of each organization. Ideas of structure and agency are thus central to this study, as will be discussed at length in the following chapter.

This study finds that the role of organizational structure is important in understanding advocacy strategy and outcomes. Through careful process-tracing, I found that both case-study organizations have quite centralized decision-making procedures but highly decentralized

1 Defining “success” in the study of advocacy organizations and movements is somewhat contentious. Here I define ASPBAE and ActionAid as successful because they have existed and grown over the course of many years, are widely recognized for their contribution to the education development field, and because they were able to transition from practice and service-based work to political advocacy without assuming a “loss” in terms of adherents or funding.

3 implementation procedures. This finding coincides with recent work by Wendy Wong (2012) on the organizational structure of human rights NGOs. An emphasis on organizational structure is not explicit in my research questions, however, as this was a “surprise” finding that came to light only during the data analysis phase of the research. Thus I do not systematically address theories of organizational structure in this dissertation, but I will make some tentative comments on how the centralized-decentralized dynamic impacted advocacy strategies in my case-study organizations. This will be illustrated in chapters seven and eight and discussed at greater length in the concluding chapter.

1.2 Background

This study examines the role of advocacy NGOs within the international development education regime. This regime can be understood as a subset of the broader international development regime, and includes various intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), including the World Bank, the OECD, UNESCO and Unicef; bilateral organizations such as the US Agency for International development (USAID) and UK Department for International Development (DfID); national heads of state and ministers of education; and representatives from non-governmental and civil society organizations who work in education development. The education development regime emerged in the post- World War Two era, part of a wider trend in multilateralism typified by the creation of the United Nations and Bretton Woods systems. Idealism dominated the climate of the young United Nations, and education was given centrality in its mission for global cooperation and development of the formerly-colonized states. Peace and prosperity were firmly believed to be conditions that could be taught or at least encouraged, as reflected in UNESCO’s constitution: “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed” (UNESCO, 1945). The right to education was thus enshrined in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, which urged governments to provide free elementary education “directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms” (UNESCO, 1948: Article 26).

At the same time as education was heralded as a driver of peace and human rights, a new discourse was emerging - human capital theory - that linked education with national economic growth. Championed by the World Bank, the OECD and many western aid organizations, the

4 belief in education as a principle driver of economic growth became widespread, leading to a huge expansion of education systems in both developing and developed countries beginning in the 1960s (Resnik, 2006). Cold war politics served to encourage bilateral rather than multilateral education aid, allowing donor governments to use education to further their geopolitical goals and to promote the neo-liberalising of education in developing countries (Robertson & Dale, 2006; Dale & Robertson, 2002; Dale 2000). No single bilateral donor took the lead in financing or developing education aid programs, not even the United States, and so the regime remained fragmented throughout this era, typified by “small to medium-sized, short-term, bilateral transactions, often working at cross-purposes” (Mundy, 2006: p. 27). There was no consensus about “what worked” in development education, leading to an ever-revolving laundry list of “solutions” for economic development, including adult literacy programs, vocational training, the expansion of higher education, and non-formal, community-based education projects (ibid).

During the 1990s, however, a new global consensus on development education began to emerge, beginning with the 1990 World Conference on Education for All. This conference, which was convened jointly by the World Bank and a host of UN agencies, marked the advent of the Education for All movement, where international organizations, donors, national governments, and nongovernmental organizations came together to champion universal basic education as a fundamental human right and as a key part of economic and social development (UNESCO, 1990a). This somewhat surprising consensus within the education development regime was part of a wider trend that saw increasing rapprochement between the neoliberal economic-growth model of development championed by the World Bank and IMF, and the more humanistic, somewhat anti-globalization stance of UN development agencies. Thus the fractured nature of development discourse faded by the end of the twentieth century, replaced by a growing and unprecedented multilateral compromise (Thérien, 2004; Ruggie, 2003).

This convergence between the major international organizations was typified by the creation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which included the achievement of universal primary education. The priority given to education within the MDGs reflects “global-level consensus about the role of basic education in development that is unprecedented in terms of scope, density, consistence and persistence” (Mundy, 2006: p. 33). In 2000, a second Education

5 for All conference, the World Education Forum, further solidified the consensus on education development. This conference established a set of six Education for All goals, covering the full gamut of educational issues including early childhood education, universal primary education, adult literacy and gender equity. These goals are measurable and time-bound, requiring coordination between international organizations, national governments and civil society networks.

The new coordinated multilateralism placed significant importance on the role of non-state actors as partners in poverty reduction (Mundy, 2006; Ruggie, 2003). Civil society organizations were generally seen by governments and international organizations as crucial for delivering the social services stipulated in the MDGs, and inviting civil society representatives into policy discussions was also seen as an important legitimizing factor in global governance (Murphy, 2005). But the rapidly-increasing number of advocacy networks did not see themselves as secondary actors, responding to the political principles emanating from global conferences - they were increasingly trying to shape these principles, making the demands for human rights more salient and more influential as their numbers increased (Thomas & Boli, 1999; Keck & Sikkink, 1998).

In the field of development education, local and national civil society organizations emerged as crucial monitors of progress on the six EFA goals, spreading vital information and research through their global networks, and using this information to lobby states and international organizations operating at the global level. By the late 1990s, a number of prominent nongovernmental organizations had assumed a leadership position in placing Education for All goals on the global agenda. That a global consensus on the role of education in development could emerge, and that non-state actors could play a key role in this emergence, seems surprising given the history of the international development regime. This study examines this important shift in global educational governance, asking why the nongovernmental sector began to define its work in terms of political advocacy rather than service delivery. What factors - both internal to the organizations and in the broader environment – can account for this change?

1.3 Case study selection and project design

In order to answer the above question, I chose to focus my research on two case studies of prominent advocacy NGOs in the development education field. The first of these is ActionAid International (generally referred to simply as ActionAid), a large international development NGO with a broad mandate to alleviate poverty. ActionAid was founded in 1972 as a British charity predominantly focussed on child sponsorship, but has since evolved into an advocate for the political rights of marginalized populations in developing countries. An important part of its image as a “pro-poor” organization came in 2004, when it moved its headquarters from London to Johannesburg, and in so doing became the first development INGO to be based in the global south. ActionAid campaigns for more equitable economic and development policies in a wide range of issue-areas, including access to food, women’s rights, democratic governance, and education. My research focuses on this last theme, education, which is coordinated by the International Education Team based in London, UK. Education has been a major focus for the organization since its inception, and is often regarded as ActionAid’s most prominent area of work (Sayed & Newman, 2009).

The second case-study organization is the Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education (ASPBAE). ASPBAE was founded in 1964 after a UNESCO adult education conference called for the establishment of more southern-based regional networks of adult educators. In its early years, ASPBAE’s membership was practitioner-based, drawn predominantly from universities in the Asia-Pacific region. Its mandate was to improve adult education practice in order to combat poverty and exclusion across the region, and its activities focussed on information dissemination and participation in UNESCO-led events. It has since evolved to become a regional advocacy network campaigning for education as a political and social right, and for the reforming of education development policies at national and global levels. ASPBAE’s network now includes over 200 NGOs and social movement organizations operating across the region.

I selected these two organizations as “most different” case studies. These organizations differ significantly in terms of their size, geographical location, historical origins and levels of funding. Yet they share a broadly similar education mandate: both campaign for education as a fundamental human right, a duty for governments to provide and for international donors to fund; and both have as a central goal increasing the access of civil society organizations into

7 national and international policy-making in order to democratize global education governance. Both organizations have emerged as leaders within the Education for All advocacy movement, as both have obtained significant funding for their advocacy work and have gained access to global governance decision-making bodies. Comparing two different organizations with these key similarities allows me to examine how and why political advocacy emerged as a key strategy among seemingly different types of NGO, and to account for differences in how each organization crafts their advocacy strategies.

There is, however, a limitation to choosing case studies based on the dependent variable. In this case, both ASPBAE and ActionAid have managed to successfully transition from practice- and service- oriented organizations into prominent political advocates for Education for All. It is hard to make generalizable statements about this process in the absence of an “unsuccessful” case – an organization that tried and failed to make a similar transition. This is a common methodological problem in the study of NGOs and social movements, as unsuccessful organizations and campaigns are more difficult to track and study (Wong, 2012; Risse, 2002). I will discuss this methodological limitation at greater length in chapter three. Despite this caveat, the present study uncovers important points of comparison and contrast between the two cases, and accounts for the emergence of political advocacy positions at each by tracing shifts in strategy over time.

In order to do so, I examine the evolution and key advocacy strategies of each NGO through an analysis of documents and through personal interviews with individuals inside and outside each organization. The narrative I am able to construct through this source material is woven into a wider story of change in the international development regime. This allows me to assess the extent to which my case study NGOs are influenced by global norms and trends, and the extent to which they diffuse and shape these norms through their own advocacy and practice. To understand these processes, I draw on a number of theoretical frameworks that deal with the role of non-state actors in social change. These include structuralist theories, such as sociological institutionalism and political opportunity theory; as well as constructivist approaches, including work on international norm dynamics and strategic issue framing. A full discussion of both my research design and conceptual framework follows in chapters two and three.

1.4 Organization of the study

This dissertation is organized into nine chapters, including this introduction. Chapter two and three are short chapters that provide background to the rest of the dissertation. Chapter two discusses key literature and theory on the role of NGOs as social change agents, from which I derive my conceptual framework. Chapter three discusses my research design and methods. Chapter four traces the history of ActionAid from its origin as a child-sponsorship charity to its current role as an advocacy NGO. Chapter five does the same for ASPBAE, providing a historical account of how this organization evolved from being a small network of adult education practitioners to a policy advocate. In both these chapters, the history of each organization is woven into a broader narrative of change in the global international development regime. Chapter six provides a more in-depth analysis of the emergence of the Education for All movement, and the role NGOs – particularly ActionAid and ASPBAE - played in this emergence. In these chapters, I will draw particularly on structuralist theories to test their applicability to my specific cases.

I will then switch focus to the organizational level, and examine the construction of advocacy strategies at ActionAid and ASPBAE. In chapter seven, I will look at how ActionAid and ASPBAE constructed strategic issue frames. In chapter eight, I will look at the way each organization has carried out advocacy research as part of their strategic repertoire. In both chapters, my focus will be on the decision-making process, as I try to assess the applicability of constructivist theories to each case of strategic decision-making. I will also seek to explain how these strategies were crafted to respond to the broader political environment, and particularly how they were designed to establish ASPBAE and ActionAid as legitimate and authoritative policy advocates. In the final chapter, I will offer some conclusions about the role of advocacy NGOs in the global Education for All movement, and some broader thoughts on the dynamic relationship between structure and agency in social change processes.

Chapter 2 2 The non-governmental sector and global social change: a literature review

2.1 Introduction

This chapter provides an overview of literature on the role of NGOs in global social change. Drawing on a number of fields of study, I pull out important theoretical threads from which I derive a conceptual framework to guide my study. I begin with a brief overview of work on the role of civil society organizations in global governance, looking particularly at whether or not non-state actors can make global decision-making more democratic. This body of literature is further analysed in chapters six to eight, in which I examine the specific advocacy efforts of my case-study organizations.

The bulk of this chapter is taken up with a discussion of theoretical work pertaining to the role of both actor agency and external environment in social change processes. I begin by looking at two structural accounts of social change: world polity theory, based on sociological intuitionalism, and political opportunity theory, a dominant perspective in the wider theoretical field of social movement theory. I then move on to examine constructivist theories, which place greater importance on individual actors as the agents of social change. Here I will be specifically looking at social movement theory on strategic issue framing, and the related theory of international norm dynamics, which comes out of the field of international relations. I will conclude with some thoughts on establishing a more dynamic relationship between structure and agency, drawing on Fligstein and McAdam’s concept of strategic action fields.

2.2 Civil society and global governance

By focussing on how advocacy NGOs shape the development education regime, this study is part of a much wider academic interest in the role of non-state actors in global governance. Recognizing that an increasing array of decisions are made at the global level, a number of

10 scholars have pointed to the inclusion of civil society in international policy-making as a way to democratize global governance (Bexell, Tallberg and Uhlin, 2010; Glasius, 2008; Scholte, 2007; Held & Koenig-Archibugi, 2005.) This perspective rests on the idea that NGOs and other civil society organizations could serve to reinvigorate international political and economic structures by holding state and non-state actors to account, by bringing the voices of the citizenry into the international policy process, and by placing social and moral issues on the international agenda (Collingwood & Logister, 2005) a process that has been described as “globalization from below” (Appadurai, 2000). Among the leading advocates of this process is Held (1995, 2004), who has suggested a reforming of the United Nations system to incorporate new actors, including INGOs, whose links to local and grassroots governance would help create a “global cosmopolitan democracy”.

Indeed, United Nations agencies have become increasingly open to NGO influence since the 1990s. A large body of academic work examines the expanding opportunities for civil society organizations seeking access to UN decision-making fora. Some agencies are particularly open in this regard, for example UNESCO and the UN Economic and Social Council, while others remain virtually closed to NGO participation, for example the Security Council and WTO (Sikkink, 2005). The former organizations tend to seek out partnerships with appropriate NGOs because their broad mandates - to resolve conflict, promote peace and security and foster international cooperation - are greatly facilitated by having a large cadre of non-state actors to “serve the global constituency” by implementing and monitoring policies and programs (Smith, Pagnucco & Chatfield, 1997: p 69). For NGOs, achieving UN accreditation and being invited participants at UN conferences present valuable political opportunities.

In chapter six, I examine how ASPBAE and ActionAid have sought to influence EFA policy by taking advantage of political opportunities at various UN fora. This chapter begins with a more in-depth review of literature on the role of the nongovernmental sector in the UN system. In particular, I focus on how this role has changed in the past decades as NGOs have moved from a focus on service delivery to political advocacy. This literature provides a base for the empirical work of the chapter, which examines how NGOs, and especially ASPBAE and ActionAid, have redefined their role as actors within the UN system.

Of course, the entry of NGOs into global decision-making processes does not automatically mean that global governance will become fairer or more just. Many scholars have warned against the perspective that NGOs are “doing good” by virtue of their non-profit, non-state status (Anderson, 2011; Martens, 2008; Lipshutz, 2008). These organizations have no direct legal ties to the citizenry on whose behalf they claim to speak (Gordenker and Weiss, 1995), and those that are able to have their voices heard in global policy fora are often northern-based, well-funded NGOs with direct ties to international organizations, leaving smaller civil society groups underrepresented (Bexell, Tallberg and Uhlin, 2010). Furthermore, many scholars have warned that upward accountability to donors often takes precedence over downward accountability to the populations on whose behalf an NGO works. In chapter eight, I examine this issue more closely through a review of literature on information politics and the nongovernmental sector. This review highlights that the information gathered by NGOs often reflects the priorities of donors and the international community at the expense of the grassroots communities from which evidence is drawn (Bob, 2010; Ron, Ramos and Rodgers, 2005). In this view, advocacy research is a product that is sold to donors and policy makers in exchange for funds and prestige - a perspective that calls into question the democratizing potential of NGO advocacy.

Despite these caveats about the role of advocacy NGOs, both ActionAid and ASPBAE have as a central goal the democratization of educational governance. Both organizations devote a large proportion of their time and resources to strengthening national education campaigns and both relay information from these national campaigns into global fora in order to make education policy more responsive to the needs of the global citizenry. Although this dissertation does not explicitly examine whether NGOs are a force for democratizing global politics, it does offer a contribution to this field by shedding light on why advocacy NGOs emerged when they did, and how these actors are reshaping the terrain of international development education. It is thus concerned with global-level change and the role of both actor agency and institutional environment in creating social change. The main conceptual frameworks used in this study speak to the agent-structure dynamic. I draw on various theories to determine the extent to which the emergence of a particular kind of political advocate-NGO is the result of strategic efforts by specific non-state actors, or the result of broader trends and global norms. The remainder of this chapter will focus on these structuralist and constructivist theories of global -level social change.

2.3 Social change processes: structural or constructed?

This study seeks to understand why a global advocacy movement has emerged, centered on the Education for All agenda, and why specific organizations have assumed leadership roles in this movement. I attempt to account for the role of both structure and agency in the emergence of the EFA movement. There are a number of theoretical fields that deal with global level social change, each of which places emphasis on either the role of external structure or the role of actor agency in change processes. This section will offer a brief discussion of the theoretical frameworks that I draw on as I try to make sense of the emergence of the education advocacy NGO.

2.3.1 World Polity Theory

The world polity perspective first developed among sociologists at Stanford in the late 1970s and 1980s, and is particularly associated with the work of John Meyer and colleagues. Based in sociological institutionalism, these scholars have sought to explain global change, particularly the spread of Western institutions and bureaucratic forms, as a consequence of the development of a pervading world culture. They argue that this culture shapes social actors - states, intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, corporations and individuals – defining identities, goals and behaviour in terms of what is socially appropriate in a given context (Meyer & Rowan, 1977; DiMaggio & Powell , 1983). World polity theory can be understood as a theory of modernity, as scholars of this tradition “have sought to unpack the institutionalized culture of modern society, and to characterize social actors as products of that culture” (Schofer et al, 2012: p. 3).

World polity theory developed as a reaction against more established approaches to global change analysis that view worldwide systems as constituted by actors who create these systems to serve their own interests. This actor-centrism is common to a variety of approaches, referred to collectively by Boli and Thomas (1999) and Schofer et al (2012) as global neorealist perspectives, which have in common an emphasis on states as the primary actors in global politics. In these models, “the relation of actor and action is causal, with society and its structure

13 as a product”, whereas world polity theory argues that the “the actor on the social stage is a scripted identity and enacts scripted action” (Meyer, 2010: p. 4). Here individuals do not act so much as they enact (Jepperson, 1991), and in so doing “elaborate transform and modify the cultural framework as well” (Boli & Thomas, 1999: p. 18). Interestingly, world polity theorists trace the very idea of the rational agentic actor as a prime example of a world cultural norm, actorhood as “the culturally-preferred and demanded identity” (Meyer, 2010: p 12).

One of the first empirical contributions of world polity theory was examining and explaining the spread of western bureaucratic institutions worldwide, particularly post-1945. Traditional Weberian analysis, as well as realist and neoliberal models, saw this expansion as a rational response on the part of states to cope with expanding markets and technological change (Finnemore, 1996). The problem with this perspective, as pointed out by world polity scholars, was that bureaucratic forms often diffused before the economic and technological changes that supposedly created the need for them. In fact, much of the developing world was adopting western institutions – government ministries, legal systems, social policies - in the absence of economic or technological development (Meyer and Hannan, 1979). This led to the conclusion that western institutions spread, not because they are efficient or effective, but because they are supported and legitimized by the wider global environment (Meyer & Rowan, 1977).

Global culture is understood as having arisen out of western Christianity, crystallized in the late nineteenth century through the expansion of capitalist imperialism, and achieved full force in the post World War Two era. World polity scholars highlight a number of key aspects of this global culture, with ideas of progress and social justice taking centre-stage (Boli & Thomas, 1999; Meyer et al, 1997). Progress is understood as the expansion of material wealth, measured by GDP is national contexts. Justice is defined in terms of the (equal) rights of the self-determined individual. Markets and bureaucracies are the main vehicles diffusing these cultural norms. To focus on how this culture diffused globally is to “denaturalize features of social life that appear natural and inevitable” (Finnemore, 1996), to reveal that what we assume is rational or natural - the proliferation of national public education systems, for example - is actually a cultural value.

World polity theory can go a long way in explaining why the Education for All movement emerged in the 1990s and why a particular type of advocacy NGO has gained prominence and legitimacy within this movement. World polity scholars have devoted considerable attention to

14 the diffusion of western education systems and education norms around the globe (Meyer & Ramirez, 2009; 2000; Ramirez, Suarez & Meyer, 2006). Post 1945, educational expansion was closely linked with economic development and thus promoted by the new intergovernmental organizations, particularly UNESCO, OECD and the World Bank, who facilitated the development of national education systems modelled on western public schools. The 1980s saw the emergence of a new global norm in development education, based on the neoliberal belief that states were inefficient deliverers of public goods, and that non-governmental organizations could provide education (and other social services) more effectively and cheaply. At this point development NGOs began to play a more important role in diffusing western education globally.

Again, world polity theory offers a useful lens to understand the role of NGOs in diffusing and propagating world culture. Theorists argue that world culture is a stateless force, exogenous to state actors who enact world cultural scripts. It is global organizations – namely IGOs, NGOs, epistemic communities and social movements – who are largely responsible for diffusing norms (Meyer et al, 1997). This has been best developed by Thomas and Boli (1999), whose seminal work on the role of INGOs in promoting world cultural principles has shown how these organizations have shaped global norms in a wide array of fields, including development education (Chabbott, 1999). Subsequent studies have confirmed the important role of NGOs as the “organizational dimensions of world society, conveying global models to domestic receptor sites” (Schofer et al, 2012). But world polity theorists are careful not to overstate the role of NGOs in cultural diffusion or to treat these organizations as causal agents. Although key enactors of global norms, NGOs are acting within the global culture they diffuse, and thus diffusion happens along specific lines and promotes specific norms (ibid). In chapters four and five, I will explore in more detail the evolving role of NGOs in the development education regime, arguing that these actors do indeed spread norms on education and development, but do so in ways that reflect the broader environment in which they are embedded.

Chapters four and five will also discuss the extent to which world polity theory can explain the emergence of the advocacy NGO as a key player in global politics. This theory does help to explain how the idea of advocacy emerged and diffused among NGOs and social movement organizations in a wide range of fields, including development education. I will argue that, beginning in the 1990s, NGOs began to be legitimated as political players, due to a host of environmental factors emerging after the cold war, including the ascendancy of universal rights

15 discourse, the proliferation of global conferences and agreements on wide ranging social issues, and the growth of network forms of organization. World polity theory is particularly useful for its ability to explain why “loose coupling” – the gap between endorsed world cultural principles and actual policy - exists (Meyer, 2010). In chapter six, I will argue that loose coupling between EFA commitments and education policies opened up a vital space for NGO advocacy and activism (Bromley & Powell, 2012).

However, I argue that world polity theory does not go far enough in explaining the emergence of the advocacy NGO in the development education regime, and in particular cannot explain why certain organizations emerged as leaders within the EFA movement. This is because world polity theory does not address the mechanisms of social change; it is essentially a theory of “how conformity occurs in already existing fields. It lacks an underlying theory of how fields emerge or are transformed” (Fligstein & McAdam, 2011: p. 40). The crux of the issue is that world polity theory ignores any concept of agency, and therefore ignores the fact that new ideas come from individuals, they do not magically emerge in an already constituted global culture.

This removal of active agency has prompted considerable criticism of world polity theory (Carney et al, 2012; Fligstein & McAdam, 2011; Towns, 2004), which, as these scholars point out, ignores issues of conflict that arise when new ideas emerge and take hold. Who has the power to propose new ideas in an organization? Who has the power to enforce or resist these new ideas? As Ramirez (2003) explains: “World culture theory focuses not on the power of actors but on the power of the culture itself” and thus “underemphasizes both coercion and imitation in favor of enactment” (251). As my own research indicates, the emergence of new ideas and new political actors is a highly contentious process, and world polity theory’s usefulness is called in to question when we attempt to make sense of this process. To understand how the Education for All movement emerged and took shape, and how specific contextual factors impacted this shape, I turn the political opportunity approach developed by social movement scholars.

2.3.2 Political Opportunity Structure

Social movement theory offers important insights into the role of agency in social change, concerned as the field is with how relatively powerless and under-resourced actors engage in collective action. Among the most dominant perspectives in social movement theory is the political opportunity approach, or political process approach, which recognizes that the ability of activists to effect social change is highly context-dependent. The political environment in which advocacy NGOs operate place various opportunities and constraints on their social change efforts; thus political opportunity theory argues that the success of a movement is largely determined by structures within a given political system.

Although there is no single definition of political opportunity structures, that provided by Tarrow has gained widespread acceptance: “consistent—but not necessarily formal or permanent— dimensions of the political struggle that encourage people to engage in contentious politics" (1994: p. 85). Like world polity theory, this perspective can be understood as broadly structural, as it sees the external environment as the main factor in shaping social action. However, the political opportunity approach is not as sweeping in scope, focusing on specific political contexts rather than universal scripts, and therefore does not try to account for isomorphism among social actors. Instead, it focuses on contestation between power-holders and challengers, and is therefore useful when trying to understand how actors craft their strategies in response to a given political environment.

The political opportunity approach was first used by Eisinger (1973) to account for the presence or absence of race riots in American cities in the late 1960s. Focusing on the degree of to which municipal governments were open to citizen participation, Eisinger found that cities with a combination of open and closed structures were most likely to experience riots. Following on this, Tilly (1978) sought to build a more comprehensive theory of political opportunity structures through national and historical comparison. This allowed him to construct an argument about when and where movements emerge, and how political opportunities determine which strategies movements utilize within their wider “repertoire of contention”. He found, for example, that the strategy of political protest has a curvilinear relationship to state openness: protest was unlikely in both very open or very repressive political systems, and was most likely in situations where challengers are neither so privileged that they do not feel a need to protest, nor so repressed that they are unable to engage in collective action.

A large amount of scholarship has followed up on this early work, focussing on specific structural factors within political systems that encourage or constrain non-state actors engaging in collective action (McCarthy, 1997; Smith, Pagnucco & Chatfield, 1997; McAdam, McCarthy & Zald, 1996; Risse-Kappen, 1995; Tarrow, 1994; McAdam, 1982). These include formal and informal mechanisms for accessing policy-making fora, the presence or absence of elite allies within these fora, the stability of the political system, and splits within the governing body. The great contribution of this perspective is that it can explain why movements emerge or increase their activity at certain times and in certain places, as it is extremely difficult for a movement to succeed in the absence of any political opportunity structure. At the same time, many scholars using this approach avoid attempting to test political opportunity theories against other frameworks, and thus are not interested in constructing a grand conceptual statement about political opportunity. Rather, this work is generally focussed on explaining specific case studies (Meyer, 2004). It is in this spirit that the present study uses political opportunity theory: to identify and examine some of the contextual factors that shaped the emergence of the Education for All movement, and to help explain the influence and strategies of leading INGOs within this movement.

Social movement scholars have focussed primarily on political opportunities at the national level, owing to the fact that national governments are the traditional source of public policies and most social movements - even transnational ones – therefore focus their efforts at the domestic level. However, as more and more decisions impacting national policy are made at the global level, increasing attention has been paid to “multilayered” opportunity structures (Della Porta & Tarrow, 2005; Smith & Wiest, 2005; Khagram, Riker & Sikkink, 2002; Smith, Pagnucco & Chatfield, 1997; Risse-Kappen, 1995). Intergovernmental arenas have their own political opportunity structures that enable or constrain transnational activism, but they also impact domestic opportunity structures through multinational agreements and the cultivation of international norms (Smith, Pagnucco & Chatfield, 1997: p 67). Sikkink (2005) has argued that transnational advocacy organizations develop their strategies based on both domestic and international opportunity structures. For example, activists may take their claims to the international level if domestic governments are unresponsive (the boomerang model); activists who enjoy relatively open access to both domestic and global policy-making will most likely form insider-outsider coalitions to operate at multiple governance levels.

Political opportunity theory leaves more room for the agency of strategic actors than does the world polity approach. It highlights that “the wisdom, creativity, and outcomes of activists’ choices—their agency—can only be understood and evaluated by looking at the political context and the rules of the games in which those choices are made—that is, structure (Meyer, 2004: p. 128). This approach has the potential to highlight not just how activists respond to context but how they shape it as well. Tarrow (1994) has argued that political opportunities are not necessarily permanent, and can in fact be altered through the advocacy efforts of non-state actors. However, very few scholars have focussed on this aspect of political opportunities, favouring an examination of how external structures shape movements rather than the other way around (Meyer, 2004; Goodwin & Jasper, 1999; 2003). This structuralist bias limits the utility of political opportunity theory for the present study: attributing collective action to political opportunities does not help us understand how activists work within and alter these opportunities. In other words, this theory lacks a sense of how decision-making by key individuals, albeit individuals working within broader contexts and environment, shapes collective action.

My own research indicates that decisions made by key individuals have had a profound impact on the way the EFA movement emerged and the shape of its discourse. These decisions have not proceeded on their own volition; neither have they been shaped entirely by the political environment of international development education. If I were to rely solely on structural theories such as the world polity and political opportunity theories, I would be unable to account for how certain individuals and organisations have transformed the discourse of development education and transformed their own roles as agentic actors. In the following section, I will discuss key theoretical contributions that help to make sense of the role of actor agency in the emergence and transformation of world cultural principles. Here I will be drawing on two bodies of theory: work by social movement theorists on strategic issue framing, and international relations scholarship relating to international norm dynamics.

2.3.3 Strategic Issue Framing and International Norm Dynamics

A recurring argument in social movement literature is that activists and movements derive much of their power and influence from their ability to name and define moral and political issues (Oleson, 2011; Joachim, 2003; Benford & Snow, 2000; Finnemore & Sikkink, 1998; Keck & Sikkink, 1998; McAdam et al, 1996; Snow et al, 1986.). Social movement theorists call this process issue-framing, and the resulting products are collective action frames. Framing and frames are a central part of a movement or organization’s political strategy, designed to persuade key targets about the moral necessity of a certain political/social change and their role in fostering that change. Scholarly attention to framing arose in the 1980s as part of a general wave of interest in interpretive, constructed aspects of social movements, as well as a growing critique of the then-dominant structuralist paradigm (Benford, 1997). Taking a cue from Goffman’s Frame Analysis (1974), a number of works emerged that utilized a framing perspective to analyse social movement construction.

The seminal work in this vein was Snow et al (1986) Frame Alignment Processes, Micromobilization, and Movement Participation, followed by a number of further works by Snow and Benford. These authors discerned three dimensions of collective action frames: a diagnostic element, which identifies a problem and assigns blame; and a prognostic element, which advances possible solutions; and a motivational element, which encourages action (Benford & Snow, 2000). For a frame to be successful, its diagnostic, prognostic and motivational claims must resonate with the target audience: they must be credible, in the sense that they are evidence-based and draw on recognized expertise; and they must be salient and have narrative fidelity, in that they fit with the extant culture of the audience, the “everyday experience” made up of shared norms and values, ideologies and practices (Verger & Novelli, 2012; Benford & Snow, 2000; Goodwin & Jasper, 1999). Thus for social movement theorists, attention to framing serves to highlight the role of strategic actors who actively pursue certain goals through the deliberate construction of discourse. Rather than conceptualizing frames as something emanating from a global culture, as the world polity approach would have it, this perspective sees frames as fluid, constructed by individuals as a key part of social change strategy.

At the same time, frames are products of broader cultural and political environment in which a movement is embedded. Although a multiplicity of contextual factors can influence the shape of a particular frame, the literature highlights three particularly important dynamics: the political

20 opportunity structures, for example the degree of openness of a given political system (McAdam et al, 1996; Tarrow, 1989); the cultural opportunity structures, such as pre-existing values on which collective action frames can draw (Goodwin & Jasper, 1999); and the mobilizing structures of the movements themselves, including organizational entrepreneurs and international constituency (Joachim, 2003). Attention to strategic framing helps move past the structural bias in theories that look at political opportunity structures alone. The importance of these contextual factors does not at all indicate that collective action frames arise automatically as a result of specific structural or material conditions. Rather, the importance of these factors highlights that framing is highly interpretive and that the work of creating and managing collective action frames is a constant strategic activity for social movement leaders and participants (Snow, 2012). It is also a highly contested activity, as framing is essentially defining a social problem and how to deal with it. It is therefore not surprising that conflict arises within and between movements and organizations as they work to construct their collective action frames, as will be illustrated through the case-studies examined in chapter seven.

A focus on strategic issue framing helps us to make sense of how new ideas and new social actors emerge. Skilled social actors recognize a newly-opened opportunity to advance their social change agenda, for example the emergence of a multilateral consensus on development education in the 1990s. These challenger-actors mobilize available resources – money, social connections, expertise – to produce new issue frames for their field. This is a cognitive process, requiring actors to read people and events, to understand and interpret other actors’ identities (Jasper, 2004). But these actors are rarely able to dominate the field with a newly developed frame. Instead, they craft a frame that can itself build consensus by “using available identities to build coalitions of either other dominant groups or actors, or else build broad coalitions of challenger groups, to push forward a compromise version of the nature of the field” (Fligstein & McAdam, 2011: p. 24). The following chapters will explore how leading NGOs in the education development field forged a broad-based civil society coalition by framing education as a right, and framing themselves as advocates defending this right. Social movement theory on strategic issue framing is thus critical to understanding the constructed nature of EFA advocacy.

In international relations, constructivist theories about norms and norm emergence parallel discussions of strategic issue framing articulated by the social movement theorists discussed above. Here, norms are understood as “inter-subjective beliefs about proper behavior”

(Khagram, Riker and Sikkink, 2002: p. 10). Norms emerge from principled ideas – beliefs held by individuals that are based on a sense of what is right, but not necessarily based on rationality or causal evidence. When these principled ideas gain widespread acceptance, they become international norms (Khagram, Riker and Sikkink, 2002). In many ways, then, the idea of international norms resonates with the idea of global culture described by world polity theory. Literature on norms, however, places far more importance on the role of individuals in norm emergence and development.

How new norms emerge has been examined in depth by constructivist international relations scholars, most notably in the work of Finnemore and Sikkink (1998). Key to their analysis is the presence of “norm entrepreneurs” – individuals who create norms and then work tirelessly to promote them to the public, for example Henry Dunant, who founded the International Committee of the Red Cross, or Susan B. Anthony, who campaigned for women’s rights in the US. Norm entrepreneurs are critical to social change in this approach, as they serve to create norms “by using language that names, interprets and dramatizes them” (ibid: p. 897); that is, by engaging in strategic issue framing. Work on norm emergence highlights that this is a contentious process: new ideas enter a pre-existing normative arena and may clash with previously accepted ideas. Norm entrepreneurs must respond to the broader environment and frame their norm in a way that fits with, or at least responds to, the “logic of appropriateness” in their given context (March & Olsen, 1989). This logic of appropriateness is more than the political opportunities of a given context; it encapsulates the identity, ethos and practices of a given actor embedded in a social collectivity, and the desire of actors to fulfill the social obligations defined by their role in this collectivity (ibid).

In constructivist literature, most of the attention paid to norms focuses on states and intergovernmental organizations, and the standards of acceptable behaviour that are shared among the majority of these institutions. Norm entrepreneurs are generally individuals and organizations working at the domestic level, pushing for state acceptance of a new norm. In the initial emergence phase, pressure from these actors is the main impetus behind normative change at state level. But once a number of governments have adopted a new norm, it reaches a tipping point, after which countries begin to “sign on” even in the absence of domestic pressure. Finnemore and Sikkink refer to this stage as the “norm cascade”, during which “international and transnational norm influences become more important than domestic politics for effecting norm

22 change” (p. 902). Motivated by a need for acceptance and recognition within the international community, states become socialized to be norm-followers. Finnemore and Sikkink point to the movement to ban land mines, which was supported by 60 states by May 1997. This broad acceptance prompted the creation of the Ottawa Land Mine Treaty in December of that year, which 124 states then ratified (ibid). The cascading and eventual internalization or norms is reminiscent of world polity theory’s focus on isomorphism among states due to the diffusion of cultural norms. However, in international relations scholarship, activists must persuade states and other key actors to conform to a new norm. Here, social change is a highly active process requiring norm entrepreneurs to coax and convince – an image at odds with the more passive diffusion process of world polity theory.

So far I have characterized advocacy organizations as principally involved in constructing and framing emerging norms. But a significant amount of their activity takes places after a norm has emerged and cascaded, and focuses on the institutionalization and monitoring of these norms (Khagram, Riker and Sikkink, 2002). This is the case with both ActionAid and ASPBAE, whose education advocacy focuses on monitoring state commitments to, and publicizing non- compliance of, the Education for All agreement. In these situations, advocates draw on existing or emerging international norms to construct their collective action frames (ibid). The case studies detailed in chapter seven indicate that it can be strategically important to align an organization’s frame with a pre-existing and widely-accepted norm. It can give an organization more legitimacy as a monitor of state commitments, helping it make its claims resonate more with its targets, or helping it leverage more resources. In some cases, early alignment allows an organization to impact wider understandings of the norm, changing the way it scales up within governance regimes.

Both social movement theory and the constructivist approach can help make sense of the process of norm alignment evidenced in my case studies. Scholars in both fields have pointed out that new norms are more likely to resonate with states and other powerful actors if they are framed in terms of an already authoritative liberal moral principle, such as social justice or human rights (Towns, 2004; Benford & Snow, 2000; Keck & Sikkink, 1998; Florini, 1996; Snow et al, 1986). Snow et al (1986) have used the term “frame alignment” to describe this process. In a way, this serves to support world polity scholars’ assertion that globalized western cultural norms are central to social changes processes. The difference, however, is that frame alignment requires the

23 agency of activists who deliberately link their frames with those of prospective members, allies or resource providers in order to strengthen their movement. As Snow et al (1986) point out, once frame alignment has been achieved, it cannot be assumed that it will always be so: social movement organizations must work to maintain alignment and to deal with internal and external conflicts that arise in response to it, particularly at critical moments, such as when advocacy organization seek to enter or create coalitions (ibid). Thus again we see framing as a highly contested and fluid process, as will be illustrated in the case-study examinations in chapter seven.

Theories of strategic issue framing and norm emergence help address some of the faults of more structural approaches discussed above: they place actor agency at the centre of social change dynamics, and they highlight the power and contestation inherent in collective action. Using these perspectives in my work helps construct a narrative of how advocacy NGOs working in the field of development education have framed emerging norms about “Education for All” and about the role of non-state actors in global educational governance. This norm emergence often comes down to strategic decisions made by a few key individuals in prominent organizations. Among social movement scholars, James Jasper (2010; 2004) has gone further than most in theorizing about strategic decision making by individual activists. He argues that we need to pay attention to what happens at the micro-level of decision-making in order to improve our understating of macro-level social change processes. This involves careful specification of who is actually making strategic choices: sometimes it is large groups of people trying to arrive at consensus; sometimes it is a single individual who is ultimately decisive. In any case, the process involves negotiation, persuasion and conflict, so “we need to document the process by which various options are whittled down to one. The “unit of analysis” in this research must comprise both individuals and organizations (Jasper, 2004: p. 7). Taking a cue from this, chapters seven and eight use case studies of specific strategies employed by ActionAid and ASPBAE to trace the decision making process and to understand the role of agentic actors in collective action.

Yet a focus on decision-making and agency can cloud the ways in which collective action is shaped by prevalent political ideas and social norms, an important insight from the world polity perspective. Constructivist work on international norm dynamics has therefore tended to focus on specific issue-areas “and therefore argues that particular norms matter in particular issue- areas” rather than making broader arguments about how “various norms in different areas fit together” (Finnemore, 1996: p, 327). Similarly, social movement theory, as the name implies,

24 has tended to be movement-focussed and has had “very little to tell us about the processes that make for stability and order” (Fligstein & McAdam, 2011: p. 42), ignoring the impact of broad cultural norms in favour of a focus on specific episodes of contention. Thus both approaches shy away from the construction of general theory, preferring to examine specific cases and specific issues.

The narrowness of these perspectives becomes especially apparent when we try to account for similar behavior by dissimilar actors with dissimilar interests. For example, ASPBAE and ActionAid are two highly dissimilar organizations with different histories and different institutional origins, yet both somehow ended up as similarly-structured advocacy NGOs with a prominent position in the Education for All movement. This convergence appears to be an anomaly in constructivist theory. But intuitionalist theory, with its emphasis on dominant cultural scripts, can make sense of the clustering of NGOs around a given issue and discourse (Boli & Thomas, 1999). To fully grasp the emergence of the EFA movement, and the ascendancy of the advocacy INGO within this movement, we need to see how the movement is both structural and constructed.

2.3.4 Conclusion: Melding the two approaches?

It appears as if structuralist and constructivist accounts of social change are irreconcilable: on the one hand are perspectives that see macro-level social structure creating and defining actors and action. On the other we have a given set of actors whose actions and interactions shape macro- level social structure. Benford (1997) argues that “scholars walk a tightrope between reification and reductionism” (p. 420) in that it is easy to collapse collective action into either the activities of key individuals or the products of a cultural/political super-structure. But of course it isn’t an either/or situation: the collective action strategies of social movement organizations and leaders reflect both the cultural and political situation in which they are located at a given point in time, as well as their particular personalities, emotions and ideologies and their relationships to each other. Even Jasper, associated with a highly constructivist approach, recognizes that “structured arenas shape players, players’ decisions, and the outcomes of interactions, but we cannot assume effects without looking at the choices made, the interactions, and the results. All strategic action

25 is filtered through cultural understandings, but at the same time cultural meanings are used strategically to persuade audiences” (Jasper, 2004: p. 4).

It is difficult, however, to construct a theory of social change that encompasses both agency and structure. One recent effort in this direction has been offered by Fligstein and McAdam’s theory of strategic action fields (2011). Combining insights from organizational theory with the study of social movements, they have argued for an approach recognizing that scholars in both fields are fundamentally interested in the same thing: “the efforts of collective actors to vie for strategic advantage in and through interaction with other groups in what can be seen as meso-level social orders. We call these orders “strategic action fields” (p. 4). Although inspired by Bourdieu`s concepts of field, habitus and capital, this perspective is distinguished by the emphasis placed on fields as sites of collective action rather than as spaces in habited by autonomous actors. Fligstein and McAdam characterize strategic action fields as the fundamental units of collective action in society, where actors “interact with knowledge of one another under a set of common understandings about the purposes of the field, the relationships in the field (including who has power and why), the rules of the field, and a situation where actors have frames that produce an understanding of what other actors’ moves in the field mean” (p.7). The idea of meso-level social orders clearly draws inspiration from institutionalism, and particularly the world polity theory discussed previously; while the focus on rules, strategy and frames draws on the repertoire of social movement theory. Thus strategic action fields are cultural constructs in which actors vie for advantage.

Fligstein and McAdam differ from most social movement scholars in that they highlight how strategic action fields are embedded in a broader environment with myriad ties to other fields, both proximate and distant, that offer constraints and opportunities for collective action. However, while a given social order defines the possibilities for strategic action, the idea of strategic action fields does not assume there is consensus within the field. They argue that strategic action is, in essence, “about control in a given context” (p. 15). Different actors will attempt to jockey for more influence given their position and the actions of others in the field. While world polity theory focuses on the diffusion, and therefore the endurance, of global cultural orders, the strategic action fields perspective sees these orders as in a constant state of flux, shifting to accommodate different situations, issues and actors. This perspective therefore offers a theory of both stability and transformation in social orders (p. 42).

I argue that such a perspective is particularly valuable when studying organizations and strategic action fields across time. In this study, I will trace the emergence of a particular strategic action field – the Education for All advocacy movement - which took shape in the 1990s, but had its origins in the post-World War Two international development and development education fields. An historical analysis highlights how the EFA movement evolved within its broader field environment. This narrative encompasses both stability and change, as the field and its actors grew and evolved. I pay particular attention to how ActionAid and ASPBAE, as actors within the EFA field, sought to exert control over this field by organizing campaigns, framing and defining issues and providing evidence.

The SAF perspective highlights that a given field – for example the EFA field - does not exist in isolation. SAF’s are “like Russian dolls: open up an SAF and it contains a number of other SAFs... an office in a firm can be an SAF. It is itself located in a larger structure within a firm, say a division. That division vies for resources in a firm structure. The firm interacts in a larger field with its competitors and challengers. They are embedded in an international division of labor” (p. 7). Strategies are crafted to respond to these various SAFs, and are thus fluid across time and space. I find this perspective particularly useful in examining differences between my case study organizations, as they inhabit different SAFs whilst at the same time sharing membership in the broader EFA field. For example, ASPBAE’s location as a southern-based network has prompted it to adapt some global norms to suit its regional context, an experience not paralleled at ActionAid. This adaptation process, which Acharya (2004) has labelled “norm localization”, fits well with the concept of multiple, overlapping strategic action fields, as will be discussed in subsequent chapters.

This dissertation, while exploring the utility of the strategic action fields perspective, will also draw on the other theoretical frameworks discussed in this chapter. Borrowing from the world polity perspective, I will highlight how global cultural norms shaped the actions of my case study NGOs, as well as how these NGOs have themselves shaped emerging norms in the field. Understanding political opportunity structures helps account for how the external environment shaped NGO agency, and in particular how NGOs were able to assert themselves as political advocates within the field. But to understand how some NGOs gained positions of authority

27 within this advocacy movement requires a closer look at the decision-making process within my case-study organizations. Through detailed process-tracing, I will explore how strategic decisions were made and implemented, how frames and norms were constructed and advocacy research conducted, by key individuals within both organizations. This will highlight both the role of activist agency and of the broader global environment in the construction of the Education for All movement, and thus open up a more dialectical understanding of actor and structure in social change processes.

Chapter 3 3 Research design

3.1 Introduction

As discussed above, there is a considerable amount of literature on the role of non-governmental organizations in global governance. Much of this work looks at the NGO sector as monolithic; examining the impact civil society has on, for example, the creation of new international norms, or the democratization of global policy-making. Much of this work looks at NGOs in specific issue areas, particularly in the fields of human rights and environmental protection; the field of development education has been comparatively under-studied. Additionally, very few works offer an in-depth examination of individual NGOs and the strategic decision making processes within them. This study focuses in on micro-level change processes, looking at how the case- study organizations evolved and crafted new strategies, in order to understand the role of both global development norms and the agency of leaders within each organization. To do so, I relied primarily on qualitative analysis of key documents produced by each organization, and supplemented this with semi-structured interviews with individuals within and outside each organization. This design allows me to assess the applicability of the structural and constructivist accounts of social change discussed in the previous chapter.

3.2 Case study methods and case selection

This study is an example of case-study analysis using paired comparison. The term case study can describe quite divergent research designs. I use the term to refer to “the intensive analysis of a single unit or small number of units, where the researcher’s goal is to understand a larger class of similar units” (Seawright & Gerring, 2008). The paired-comparison method avoids the generalization of single-case analysis while allowing more in-depth examination than is possible with large-N studies, offering a “balanced combination of descriptive depth and analytical challenge” (Tarrow, 2010). In any comparative case-study project, case selection has a major impact on the research agenda, the questions that can be asked and the way data will be analysed.

With paired comparison this impact is particularly acute, as selection and analysis are intertwined to a much greater extent than in large-N studies. (Seawright & Gerring, 2008). In this particular study, the cases are used to test causal theories about global social change, so each of my case study organizations is standing in for something much larger than itself. Thus I had to choose cases that were broadly representative of transnational advocacy NGOs within the development education regime.

I chose to focus my research on ActionAid and the Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education (ASPBAE). This is an example of “most different” case study analysis: these organizations differ in size, geographical location, historical origins and levels of funding. To put it simply, ActionAid is a large, well-funded northern INGO with roots in the British charitable aid sector, where ASPBAE is a smaller, relatively underfunded, southern-based regional NGO with roots as a professional network of adult educators. Yet they have a few key things in common that can act as control variables in this study: both organizations campaign for education as a fundamental human right, a duty for governments to provide and for international donors to fund; and both have as a central goal increasing the access of civil society organizations into national and international policy-making in order to democratize global education governance. Both organizations have emerged as leaders within the Education for All advocacy movement, as both have obtained significant funding for their advocacy work and have gained access to global governance decision-making bodies.

The goals and current “outcomes” of each organization bear striking similarity, even though the contexts in which they have evolved and operate are highly divergent. This allows me to examine how these most-different cases ended up looking and acting so similar. Comparative analysis will also allow me to identify what differences do exist in terms of strategic decision making, and what these differences tell us about the role of advocacy NGOs in global education governance. Comparing northern and southern NGOs also allows me to counter the assumption that well-funded northern organizations invariably dominate governance regimes. Instead I will explore how global development norms and activist agency impact the evolution and the strategies of both big and small non-state actors. Finally, because both organizations are prominent within the EFA movement, and both have leading roles in the Global Campaign for Education – the largest civil society coalition in the development education regime – I think that they provide strong representative examples of transnational advocacy organizations in the field.

In addition to the methodological reasons for my case study selection, there were also a number of pragmatic and logistical reasons for picking these two cases. Both ActionAid and ASPBAE have existed for over 40 years, and so both have accrued a large amount of archival documents tracing their history and evolution. Additionally, each organization has a well-maintained online presence where recent reports and studies are made publically available. This provided me with a largely untapped wealth of data on which to base my study. ASPBAE and ActionAid have both carried out major advocacy research projects (detailed in chapter eight) that have garnered the attention of people outside the organizations and have been reviewed through external reports. This has meant that it is easier for me to triangulate data on these strategies through both analysis of external reports and through interviews with “outsiders” familiar with these advocacy projects.

3.3 Data collection

The data I collected and the way I analysed this data was shaped by my larger research questions. It is useful to revisit these questions in order to guide the following discussion:

Why have NGOs in the education development field pursued networked forms of political advocacy as a preferred organizational strategy?

How have such organizations emerged as leaders in the global Education for All Movement and what factors can account for their success?

What can the evolution of ActionAid and ASPBAE tell us about the pursuit of advocacy as an organizational strategy and the broader role of NGOs in global social change processes?

In essence, I was looking for data that could explain the emergence of policy advocacy as a central organizational strategy at ActionAid and ASPBAE, and could help shed light on why and how each organization successfully made the transition to policy advocate. Much of my analysis, then, required the construction of a historical narrative that could trace the evolution of each organization over the past several decades. I also needed to find evidence about key advocacy

31 strategies developed by each organization, and to determine the extent to which both internal and external factors could account for the shape of these strategies.

This study relies primarily on data obtained through the analysis of key documents. As mentioned, both ActionAid and ASPBAE have a wealth of archived documents that tell the story of how each organization has evolved since their founding: how goals and mandates have shifted, how organizational structures have been constructed and reconstructed, and how strategies have been formulated in response to these changes. I was granted access to this wealth of untapped data, allowing me important insight into the ongoing development of these organizations. Such a volume of data can be a major obstacle to analysis: researchers need to approach data collection with a clear focus based on preliminary hypotheses and relevant scholarly literature to avoid getting bogged down by the quantity of source material. (Eisenhardt, 1989).

For this study, I chose to focus on strategic decision-making, and began data collection by identifying crucial junctures where each organization had crafted new strategies. Here I was aided by literature on transnational advocacy networks, particularly the work of Keck and Sikkink (1998), which helped me identify the sorts of strategies I should be looking for – for example informational strategies, accountability strategies and issue-framing. I could then begin to place these strategies in the broader history of each organization and of the education development field more widely. I used Keck and Sikkink’s categorization to make preliminary assessments about how advocacy strategies reflected wider trends in the field as well as the internal dynamics of each organization. I was thus able to begin testing the theoretical frameworks discussed in the previous chapter.

The documents I used for my research can be divided into two broad categories. The first are the “official” documents that are publically available, and in many cases published online. These include annual activity reports, strategic plans, budgets and financial reports, newsletters, newspaper and journal articles written by staff members, and published research projects. These sources provide a huge amount of information on the goings-on of each organization and have been crucial to my analysis. But as they were designed for public consumption, they can also be understood as promotional material, and thus analysed for message as well as content.

Understanding who the intended audience for each document was, and what messages were being conveyed, was key to my analysis of these documents. I was also given access to a rich collection of unpublished internal documents. These include internal reports, meeting minutes, memos, emails, project and funding proposals. These sources tell a different story for each shift in mandate or strategy, offering an in-depth picture of how changes came about, how decisions were made and by whom. In addition, as previously mentioned, there are some external reports and secondary source material on some of the activities carried out by ActionAid and, to a lesser extent, ASPBAE.

In addition to these documentary sources, I carried out a number of semi-structured interviews, informal conversations and email exchanges with key informants: current staff of each organization (N=7), former staff of each organization (N=2), and individuals involved in the Education for All movement, familiar with, but not affiliated to, either organization (N= 5). These interviews and discussions were designed to give me additional insight into how each organization crafts their advocacy strategies and how decision-making is carried out. The combination of public and internal documents, external reports, and personal conversations allowed me to triangulate my data through verification from multiple sources, and thus helped me avoid the motivated and informational biases inherent in any source (Jasper, 2004; Heck, 2004; Merriam, 1988).

I carried out only a small number of interviews and thus this set of data receives less attention throughout the dissertation than does evidence obtained from the documentary sources discussed above. There are several reasons for this research design. To begin with, I found that strategic decision-making in both ASPBAE and ActionAid is generally carried out by a small group of individuals. Outside of this leadership core, few staff members had much to say about how or why internal policies and strategies were crafted. This was a surprise finding, and I discuss this organizational decision-making structure in more detail in my concluding chapter. The important point is that the amount of useful data that could be obtained through personal interviews with those involved in strategic decision-making was rather smaller than one might anticipate.

Furthermore, those individuals who were able to speak to the process of internal strategic decision-making and the motivations that guided certain policies and strategies have significant skin in the game. Although they spoke openly about how their organizations’ have engaged in

33 policy advocacy, it can be expected that their accounts are deeply shaped by the fact that they were personally involved in the development of advocacy strategies and have played leading roles in their organizations for many years. Interviews with other current or former staff members as well as external informants were very helpful for analysing the wider impact of various advocacy strategies, but could tell me little about how and why these decisions were made.

By contrast, I found that documentary evidence, particularly internal reports, memos, project proposals and email correspondence, was able to provide a more complex image of how and why certain policy advocacy strategies were pursued. These documents were created for internal consumption: they provide details about and motivations behind specific courses of action. Many make explicit references to aspects of the external environment, for example new political and financial opportunities, or the need to cultivate a certain competitive identity. These documents offer a good image of how strategies were crafted and implemented and the tensions and power- issues implicit in this process. They also have the advantage of being written during the decision making and implementation process, and thus represent the climate of the moment rather than hindsight reflections. I believe they may therefore give a more accurate portrayal of the motivations guiding certain strategies than can be obtained by discussing these events some years later. My interviews were often shaped and guided by the textual evidence I had found. Thus my interview data has been most useful as a supplement to documentary analysis, a way to obtain further detail or to triangulate data derived from these texts.

3.4 Data analysis

The key documents I identified spanned several decades of history, so were first analysed sequentially (Abbott, 1988) to craft a narrative history for each organization before attempting cross-comparison. In creating this narrative, I paid particular attention to critical moments when each organization went through key periods of change, and how goals and strategies were revaluated in the wake of organizational changes. I then carried out secondary research on the history and development of the international development regime since 1945, focussing particularly on how education was conceptualized in development discourse, and how norms

34 about education and development shifted through time. Narrative histories of each organization were placed alongside this more general history. This allowed me to contextualize the evolution of each organization in terms of global trends; in essence identifying possible external factors that impacted this evolution. This allowed me to test the applicability of world polity theory to my case studies, to see how global development norms diffused over the course of several decades, and to explore the impact this had on both ASPBAE and ActionAid.

As my interest was in analysing the applicability of constructivist as well as structural accounts of social change, I also needed to examine internal factors that prompted these changes. To do so, I analyzed data for each organization using process tracing methods. In brief, this method examines the steps that lead to a particular decision being made. Process tracing is particularly useful in studying strategic choice, as it focuses on the information accessed, judgements made, and relevant timing of events leading up to decision-making, relating variables to one another as causal processes (Bennett, 2008; Ford et al, 1989). To conduct process-tracing, I first identified a few key moments of strategic change for each organization, focusing particularly on issue- framing and informational strategies. I then identified a number of key documents relating to each of these moments, and carried out in-depth analysis of each of these. Document analysis was supplemented with interviews with key informants, in order to construct a thick description of each strategic moment.

Armed with these in-case analyses, I began comparative work by listing similarities and differences in terms of how strategic decisions were made within ASPBAE and ActionAid. I focussed in particular on what sort of inputs led to key decisions, which individuals or bodies were making these decisions and crafting strategies, and how these were ultimately implemented across each organization. This was what could be termed an iterative process (Eisenhardt, 1989), as I constantly moved between theory and data in order to construct a thorough narrative of events. Through this comparative work, some patterns and relationships began to emerge. These helped break down differences between each organization - large vs. small, northern vs. southern, well funded vs. under-funded – revealing that these distinctions, which seem to important in much of the literature of NGOs and global governance, are not as critical as one may assume.

It is important to note that historical and process tracing analyses were not designed to highlight loose coupling between stated purpose and actual activity. The focus of the examination was on the discourse itself: on how ASPBAE and ActionAid have been shaped by, and in some cases have contributed to, dominant discourse and norms in development education. Also central is how the use of particular discourse - language around rights, for example, or grassroots participation - lends legitimacy to these organizations. Thus documents were not just analysed for the information they convey about strategic decision making: they were also analysed for what say about the power and pervasiveness of development norms. In this way my data analysis seeks to satisfy my conceptual dilemma: negotiating theoretically between the dynamics of structure and agency in social change processes.

3.5 Limitations of the study

There are a number of important caveats that deserve discussion before moving on to the chapters of this dissertation. The most significant issue is one of representation. Case-study analysis is always fraught with concerns about representation, as cases are asked to stand in or speak for broader populations. Here, ActionAid and ASPBAE are taken as representative of successful transnational advocacy organizations in the development education field. But they are certainly not the only ones. I have traced their history and analysed their strategic decision- making processes, and placed these narratives within the broader story of change in international development politics. Might the story be different if I had examined other organizations? I suspect that it would not have been very different at all, based on my reading of literature in the field. But of course the Education for All movement is manifested differently in different contexts, and like all social movements is characterized by contestation and change. I have thus tried to avoid making any general statements about the whole EFA movement, focussing instead on the external and internal factors that shaped two prominent organizations within this movement.

But of course, even making statements about a single organization is difficult. NGOs are complex entities, made up of many, many individuals in the core and the periphery of the organization, assuming different roles and carrying diverging opinions. Neither ASPBAE nor

ActionAid can be treated as a singular, personified actor. This is well illustrated in chapters 5 and 6, where I examine decision-making processes in depth. Particularly in chapter 5, my research revealed significant internal conflict in terms of issue-framing and discourse-crafting. As Cornwall and Brock (2005) argue, development discourse and “buzzwords” are used to craft successful discourse, “but may neither represent nor even resonate with the perspectives of those charged with their implementation” (p. 1045). Although I do draw conclusions about how internal and external factors shaped the strategies of ActionAid and ASPBAE as organizations, it is important to bear in mind that these strategies do not necessarily represent consensus across each organization.

Finally, this dissertation focuses on two NGOs who have been in the education development field for a long time, who are widely-recognized for their contribution to the field and who have succeeded in shifting from practice and service-based work to political advocacy. But it is hard to say what makes for successful advocacy politics if we cannot compare these cases with unsuccessful attempts. This is a common bias in the literature on advocacy organizations: short- lived organizations and campaigns that have had little impact do not generally attract the attention of researchers (Wong, 2012). It is difficult to isolate the variables that have led to ActionAid and ASPBAE gaining leadership positions within EFA without examining cases of organizations that have tried and failed to gain the same status. In order to address this, I have chosen case study organizations that have a long history and well-established roles within the development education regimes prior to their adoption of policy advocacy positions. This has allowed me to compare how each has changed in terms of organizational structure, mandate, activities, and discourse, as it shifted from a service-oriented organization to a transnational advocacy organization. This before-and-after approach allows me to identify salient factors within each organization that can help account for the success of their advocacy strategies.

3.6 Conclusion

My research design and methods have allowed me to obtain and analyse evidence relevant to the questions set out at the beginning of this dissertation. Through the strategy of paired-comparison of most different cases, I am able to isolate my dependent variable: the adoption of a political

37 advocacy position common to both ASPBAE and ActionAid. I am able to assess how different organizational histories, structures and mandates have led to similar organizational strategies, and therefore to test the applicability of the conceptual frameworks discussed in chapter two. Using the evidence and methods outlined above, the following chapters tell the story of how policy advocacy emerged as a dominant institutional form in the 1990s, and how ASPBAE and ActionAid shaped - and were shaped by - this new norm regarding the role of non-state actors in global educational governance.

Chapter 4 4 A history of ActionAid: from British charity to transnational advocate

4.1 Introduction

This chapter tells the story of how one development NGO, ActionAid, evolved from being a small British child-sponsorship charity to a global anti-poverty advocacy organization. It is also a story of the global environment that made the growth of transnational advocacy organizations like ActionAid possible. In this chapter, I seek to test the applicability of the various theoretical frameworks discussed in the introduction to the evolution of ActionAid. Like scholars of the world polity tradition, I see shifts in ActionAid’s mandate, discourse and organizational structure as responses to, or products of, wider changes in the international development field over the past several decades. Since 1945, the field has undergone a number of key discursive shifts, from an emphasis on universalizing human rights to furthering neoliberal models of economic growth. In the education field, this has meant a shift from celebrating education for “the full development of the human personality and the sense of its dignity” (Article 13, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1966), to a focus on the role of education in furthering capitalist development typified by the Structural Adjustment Polices of the 1980s, through to a rapprochement between these approaches as articulated in the 2000 Education for All agenda. Although there are clear shifts in global development norms throughout this era, I also see some points of continuity - for example a sustained interest in individualism. This theme will be picked up throughout the chapter.

Since its founding, ActionAid has also undergone a number of significant changes in mandate and discourse that reflect these broader trends. But was ActionAid’s evolution “scripted” by world cultural norms? If so, we should see the diffusion of widely-held social norms such as universalism, individualism and citizenship incorporated into ActionAid’s discourse, and indeed carried and promulgated by ActionAid as it grows in size and influence (Meyer, 2010; Chabbott, 2003; Boli & Thomas, 1999). Or can we attribute ActionAid’s shift from charitable organization

39 to political advocate as the result of efforts within ActionAid’s leadership to construct a new image for the organization? If social movement and constructivist theory is correct, we should be able to discern key individuals and key decision-making moments where new strategies and issue-frames were crafted in response or opposition to dominant norms in the development education field (Benford & Snow, 2000; Goodwin & Jasper, 1999; Finnemore & Sikkink, 1998).

This chapter is organized as a historical narrative, tracing shifts in global development norms in several key periods: the post-war period, with its focus on universal human rights and Keynesian redistributive economics; the late 1970s and 1980s, where human capital theory triumphed; and the 1990s and 2000s, where a tentative compromise between humanistic and economistic development has been forged. Alongside this history, I explore changes in ActionAid’s discourse and mandate since its founding, based on an analysis of key documents produced by the organization. I draw primarily on strategic directives, annual reports, newsletters, and various internal documents in order to tease out how the organization’s discourse and mandate - its theory of social change – has developed over the past four decades. These documents are supplemented by secondary source material written by individuals internal and external to ActionAid. Significant attention is paid to the advent of a policy-advocacy position at ActionAid, which emerged in the early 1990s but really took hold in 1999. This narrative is woven within a broader story of change in the international development regime, in order to contextualize the organization’s history and discursive development. I then conclude with some thoughts on the dynamic between this broader structure and the active agency of ActionAid’s leadership.

4.2 The origins of ActionAid and the post-war development regime

ActionAid was founded in London in 1972 by businessman Cecil Jackson-Cole. Jackson-Cole had established himself as a philanthropist through the founding of a number of post-war issue- specific charitable organizations: he was a founding member of Oxford Committee for Famine Relief (Oxfam) and had established Help the Aged in 1961. ActionAid was conceived as a charity that would focus on children and youth in developing countries, and its original name,

Christian Youth Appeal, reflects this issue focus as well as the charity’s ties to Christian mission work, both in philosophy and in sponsorship (Burnett, 2009). Christian Youth Appeal soon changed its name to Action in Distress. This change allowed the organization to go by the acronym AID, and signalled a move away from religious sponsorship to public outreach. The organization became ActionAid in 1980.

Like a number of charities, ActionAid raised most of its money through child sponsorship. This type of “direct-marketing charity” had begun during the 1930s and grown in popularity post- World War Two. ActionAid collected short profiles and photographs of children living in India and Kenya, countries whose colonial legacies made them well-known to the British public. Individuals in the UK sponsored these children, giving money to ActionAid to pay for (predominantly) schooling costs. The children served to put a human face on poverty and to make charitable giving based on a direct, individual relationship between sponsor and child. This strategy was summed up by the organization’s motto in the 1970s: “It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness” (Burnett, 2009). This quote from Gandhi was designed to emphasize the role of the individual in global economic and social development: it is individuals, rather than communities, states, or governments, that are the primary agents of social change. That something needed to be done to address the “cursed darkness” was a given: what ActionAid was doing with this slogan was convincing the British public that by donating a share of their income, they, as comparatively wealthy individuals, could help marginalized individuals transform their own lives.

Thus ActionAid’s original theory of social change can be seen as consisting of two related ideas: that individuals are the agents of economic and social development, and that the provision of basic services is key to addressing global poverty and could be financed through wealth redistribution from the North to the South. Each of these strands of thought were products of post-war development discourse and require some historical and political contextualization. The notion of individualism was central to international development discourse at this time, not just within ActionAid, but among other charitable organizations as well as governments in both the North and the South. As world polity scholars Chabbott (2003) and Ramirez, Suarez & Meyer (2006) have argued, the rapid pace of globalization after the Second World War had a profound impact on the notion of state and citizenship, assigning centrality to the individual as a member of an imagined global community and as a bearer of certain rights and entitlements regardless of

41 his or her citizenship in a specific state. In 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights had declared that all people were entitled to a standard of living that included access to food, housing, healthcare and education (United Nations, 1948).

There was also a rising interest in economic redistribution, based on (or offered as a bulwark against) communist economic models, operating at both domestic and international levels. The post-World War Two era was unique in that it combined multilateralism and domestic interventionism – what Ruggie (1982) has termed “embedded liberalism” - as a reaction against both interwar nationalism and the unfettered liberalism of the previous century. The increasing acceptance of Keynesian social welfare models complemented liberal notions of universalism and individualism, blending Western liberal norms with social and economic rights. Post-war development models were thus based on redistributive multilateralism, “distinct in the way they tied the goals of security and peace to both the expansion of a stable, liberal world economy and the development of national society security and welfare institutions” (Mundy, 1998: p. 454). Stokke (1989) has described this era as one of “humane internationalism”, typified by an acknowledgment among many western powers that alleviating global poverty was both socially responsible and economically desirable.

This emphasis on economic redistribution as humanitarianism was apparent, for example, in the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which stated that everyone had a right to “continuous improvement of living conditions” and affirmed the “essential importance of international co-operation” to achieve this end. This document affirmed the right to free, universal primary education, stating that governments are responsible for ensuring the access of disadvantaged populations (United Nations, 1966: Article 13). In this way, the development of universal education systems was an attempt to promote equality at national and global levels. Documents like the ICESCR and the UDHR catalyzed an emerging discourse that linked liberal notions of individualism to communitarian economic models requiring the transfer of resources from wealthy to poor countries.

ActionAid was very much operating in a world polity that emphasized the rights and duties of individuals as well as the need for equitable economic distribution. ActionAid’s discourse reflected these ideas: the British public was supposed to care about the well-being of children in developing countries because of their common humanity and their shared membership in the

42 global community. ActionAid marketed this notion through its newspaper ads in the 1970s and early 1980s, which featured an image of a sponsor-able child under the line “Help Children Help Themselves”. This was an extremely successful marketing strategy that led to the rapid growth of ActionAid. Throughout this period, ActionAid obtained the vast majority of its funding through child sponsorship (Burnett, 2009).

The post-war focus on redistributive multilateralism led to the emergence of new development paradigms. Among these was the “basic needs approach”, focussed on poverty alleviation and arguing for short-term economic redistribution projects that targeted basic needs (employment, education, healthcare). These projects were generally designed to be carried out by the poor themselves, with new emphasis placed on “grassroots” or “community-based” development. This was an extension of the idea of individuals as agents in their own development: "an international welfare program to be carried out as far as possible by the poor themselves." (Cox, 1979: p 271). Crucial to the success of this approach was its adoption by the World Bank, largely due to the leadership of Robert McNamara (Chabbott, 2003), as well as the service-oriented UN agencies such as Unicef, and the growing NGO sector based in OECD countries (Mundy, 1998).

By the late 1970s, ActionAid was increasingly influenced by the language of grassroots, community-based development. This was not a reversal of previous policy, but rather a widening of it: instead of focusing on direct help to specific children, ActionAid began engage in projects that could benefit communities of individuals rather than individuals in isolation. There was recognition among ActionAid staff working in developing countries that assistance to individual children was not cost-effective, and greater good could be served by using sponsorship funds to improve schools so that all children in the community could benefit. By using local materials and labour, the benefit of school construction could be felt across the community, not just among children and their parents (Archer, 2010). The transition from direct help to community-wide projects was not difficult to sell to ActionAid funders. UK sponsors were still giving money to sponsor individual children, but were also shown pictures of the community school their money helped to build so that the results of their small-scale wealth redistribution efforts could remain tangible (ibid). The move towards community-based development was therefore not a major discursive shift for ActionAid’s: individual sponsors were now linked with both individual children and wider communities in an effort to remove financial barriers to social and economic development.

In its first decades, ActionAid’s main focus of work was on enabling children to attend school, both by removing financial barriers to education and by building better schools. This involved using sponsorship money to offset the costs of school fees, classroom materials and school construction (Archer, 2010). Thus education was central to ActionAid’s mandate and its vision of social change from its earliest days: through education, individuals would be able to become agents in their own social and economic development. ActionAid’s focus on education reflected wider trends in international development discourse in the early 1970s. There was growing interest education in the decades after World War Two, as education was associated with fostering both political stability and economic growth. As mentioned in the introductory chapter, education was given centrality in the newly-formed United Nations and its mission for global cooperation and development of the formerly-colonized states (Jones, 2007; 2005). UNESCO was the UN body whose mandate focused most heavily on education, and its vision of education rested on the values of universalism and membership in a global community.

There was also a profound connection between education and the sort of individualism discussed above: the idea that every individual is a member of the global community with certain rights and duties implies that every individual not only has a right to receive education, but that education is required in order for individuals to learn they have rights in the first place. This was a powerful discourse within the human rights movement of the 1970s and 1980s (Meyer, Bromley and Ramirez, 2010), and it drew inspiration from the 1949 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 26 of which asserts:

Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory.

Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms (United Nations, 1948).

By the late 1970s, an important normative shift was underway in the education development field. As discussed above, post-war development discourse championed education for its ability to foster peace and human rights as well as for its role in economic development. As the decade drew to a close, however, focus was increasingly on the role education could play in furthering industrial capitalist development. Education was seen as necessary to produce scientifically- minded individuals capable of contributing to the modern economy. “Human capital theory”,

44 first articulated by Theodore Shultz in 1960, argues that education is a productive investment for both the individual and the state. According to Shultz, “education does not only improve the individual choices available…an educated population provides the type of labour force necessary for industrial development and economic growth” (Fägerlind and Saha, 1989: 18). This is a theory designed to bring developing countries into the fold of industrial capitalism, so it is no surprise that human capital theory found a powerful advocate in the World Bank. In fact, the Bank`s increasing role in financing development education helped secure the ascendancy of human capital theory in the field.

It is important to understand how shifts in global aid contributed to a more economistic understanding of development education. By the late 1970s there was a widespread retreat from Keynesian economics in western countries, and the redistributive multilateralism discussed above was under significant strain. After 1980, bilateral aid to education from OECD countries began to drop – from a high of nearly six billion US dollars in 1980 to $4.5 billion in 1985 and $4 billion by 1990. At the same time, World Bank loans grew as a major source of education development funds, from $772 million in 1980 to over $1.7 billion in 1985 (all figures adjusted to 1994 US dollar rate, based on OECD Development Assistance Committee and World Bank annual reports; from Mundy, 1998: p. 459). Thus, by 1980, the Bank was the single largest financer of development education. This meant that human capital theory became ever more prominent in this decade – Shultz won the Nobel Prize in economics in 1979 – and more funding was channeled towards employment-based education at the secondary and tertiary levels and away from the achievement of universal primary education. The following section will explore how this major shift in financing impacted the education development field and the organizations working within it.

4.3 1980s: the challenge of neoliberalism and ActionAid’s community education centres

The ascendancy of the World Bank in development education led to a radical change of discourse for the field. While the United Nations, and UNESCO in particular, had been

45 advocating free primary education since the 1950s, in the 1980s the World Bank promoted the application of neoliberal economic principles to limit public spending on school systems. These included the imposition of user-fees, caps on teachers’ salaries, and the introduction of private schooling to improve choice and efficiency. The Bank and other IFIs made loans to developing countries conditional on the implementation of these neoliberal policies, as enshrined in Structural Adjustment Agreements (SAAs). Although UNESCO remained committed to promoting the humanistic and universal values of education, its authority in the field had been drastically curtailed due to ongoing organizational crises, not the least of which was the departure of the US, the UK and Singapore from the agency in 1984 and 1985. The exodus of these key financial players, which significantly reduced UNESCO’s budget, was due to their perception that UNESCO was dominated by a radical third-world alliance that was hostile to western capitalism (Jones, 2007). With UNESCO severely weakened, the Bank’s role as the International Organization most involved in development education was unchallenged. Thus, despite the UDHR claim that primary education should be free, by 2000, 77 of 79 countries surveyed in a World Bank report (Kattan and Burnett, 2004) had some type of user-fee for primary schooling.

Throughout the 1980s, the number, size and scope of non-governmental organizations expanded considerably. This expansion was due in part to the growth of neoliberal discourse in international development, which sought to limit government spending on social services and to promote the private sector as a more efficient and cost-effective deliverer of public goods. Service-oriented NGOs worked to fill the gaps left by declining government provision, and this role was championed by many bilateral aid organizations and IFIs for its efficiency and efficacy (Chabbott, 1999).

ActionAid’s own expansion in the 1980s can be seen as part of this historical shift towards a greater role for NGOs in development delivery. By the mid-1980s, ActionAid had grown from sponsoring a small number of children in India and Kenya to sponsoring over 40, 000 children in countries across Asia, Africa and Latin America. The organization expanded to include affiliates in Ireland, Italy, France and Spain, which substantially increased its fundraising potential (ActionAid, 2010c). ActionAid also expanded its focus from children’s education to encompass other areas of social service provision, such as healthcare, sanitation and agricultural projects, designed to “improve the living conditions of children and their families”.

(www.actionaid.org/ourhistory). The focus on children remained at the forefront of ActionAid’s mission despite the expanded areas of work. This reflects the fact that, during this period of expansion, ActionAid still obtained the majority of its funds from child sponsorship donations (Burnett, 2009).

In the early 1980s, ActionAid’s work in development education was focused on improving government-run schooling: projects included constructing and improving school buildings, obtaining learning materials, and off-setting the cost of school fees to improve access for poor children (Archer, 2010). ActionAid was still working under the assumption that free and universal education was a matter of national interest and was to be provided by governments. This began to shift throughout the decade, as structural adjustment policies led to a sharp decline in the effectiveness of state schools. Evaluations by ActionAid field staff revealed a number of critical problems with government schools: increasing fees were keeping the poorest children away from school, and schools were often located in village centers, away from rural children most at risk of extreme poverty. Most crucially for ActionAid’s work, evaluations found that school management committees were more likely to raise school fees at a school with an improved building infrastructure, so ActionAid-built schools were more likely to be inaccessible to the very poor. Finally, ActionAid research indicated that improved infrastructure did not lead to improved school performance, nor did it have any impact on attendance or achievement (Sathyabalan, 1996). Many ActionAid field workers argued that state-run schools were too bureaucratic and operated on a “one size fits all” model that paid no attention to local contexts. They pointed to examples of community-run schools in other locales that were able to improve access through low-cost innovations (Archer, 2010). This was the very line of argument used by the World Bank and other IFIs to support the reduction of state spending in education and to promote non-governmental schools as an alternative to state schooling.

By mid-decade, ActionAid had moved away from support of government schools towards establishing their own free, non-formal, community-based education centres. This represents a significant shift in programming, as ActionAid was now providing education rather than just supporting it. This was also a shift away from the belief that education was a state responsibility: ActionAid had moved from improving government schools to abandoning the idea that government schools were worth improving. But this was not a radical departure from ActionAid’s mandate. ActionAid was still motivated by the belief that the efficient delivery of

47 basic services such as education was the key to poverty alleviation for children and communities (Scott-Villiers, 2002). Emphasis remained on the role of the individual and the community in social and economic development at the grassroots level – in fact the idea of locally-based development led by individuals had become more deeply entrenched in ActionAid’s overall mission.

By the late 1980s, the term “community participation” had become central to much of ActionAid’s work in and outside the field of education, and Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) methods had been adopted across the organization (ActionAid, 1995). PRA assumes that communities hold expertise and information that is essential for the success of any development project, so local groups are used to map, observe and analyse development issues through semi- structured interviewing by NGO “outsiders”. One early ActionAid PRA project was carried out in West Bengal in 1990, and was designed to improve agricultural production and ecosystem management. The connection between participatory methods and development was made clear by the lead investigators: “PRA is not only research. It is our strongest weapon for sustainable poverty alleviation” (Thomas and Thomas, 1991).

Participatory approaches were central to the establishment of ActionAid’s community education centres. Parents were given significant authority over these non-formal education schools, deciding everything from location, to curriculum, to language of instruction to school calendar. Parents and other community members built and maintained the schools and even acted as teachers. Teacher training was not done through government schools, but was completely run and managed by ActionAid, who would take only a few weeks to train local people to become school teachers (Archer, 2010). Communities, under the leadership of ActionAid, were assumed to be able to provide a better education than could the national government: an education that was contextualized, flexible, small in scale and, most crucially, affordable. This combination of community participation and NGO leadership fit well with the demands of bilateral and multilateral donors (Chabbott, 2003). Despite ActionAid’s acknowledgment that it was SAPs that were leading to a decline in the effectiveness of government-run schools (Archer, 2010), ActionAid was carrying out educational work that furthered neoliberal goals by offering an alternative to state-funded schools.

The above discussion reveals that, throughout the 1980s, ActionAid was heavily influenced by dominant development paradigms that stressed the value of community-based social service projects carried out by NGOs rather than by bureaucratic national governments. Although not intentionally serving the interests of international financial organizations, ActionAid’s development work, particularly in education, was very much in line with the neoliberal models espoused by the World Bank. But is this a case of the diffusion of global norms? It does appear that ActionAid was unconsciously enacting western capitalist values that stressed, for example, the privatization of social services. At the same time, ActionAid was making decisions based on the observation of its field staff, for example, the decision to move to running non-formal schools rather than improving the infrastructure of state schools. This suggests a more complex interplay between structure and agency than can be accounted for using either world polity theory or social movement and constructivist theories.

4.4 1990s: “Empowerment”, “Participation” and the emergence of advocacy

ActionAid’s community education centers sought to provide an alternative schooling system to the one offered by governments in developing countries. Rather than having a set curriculum based on western models of education, a rigid school calendar and a cadre of urban-trained teachers, ActionAid opted to create a flexible learning system managed and often taught by parents and other community members. But a decade into the non-formal school project, ActionAid began to recognize that existing outside of the state system was untenable. The main problem was sustainability: as an NGO relying on donor funding, ActionAid could not run a school forever. The original models had been based on a ten-year project cycle, at which point the schools would be given over to the local community to run. But with no source of funding, the school would close: only by receiving government support could the community school remain in operation.

Since the non-formal schools had been designed specifically to not be like their government-run counterparts, it is not surprising that the state would not recognize these schools, their curricula or the credentials they offered. The success of these schools was uneven: some were very good, with high levels of competency among teachers and students; others were of fairly poor quality.

Furthermore, in areas where ActionAid ran community-based schools, government spending on education had declined, making it even more unlikely that the non-formal centers would receive government support once ActionAid left. Perhaps most crucial was that community members in these areas had experienced no connection between government and education and had no sense that governments were responsible for providing schooling for children. No relationship existed between citizens and political power structures, so there was little knowledge about how to demand access to education. This led ActionAid to conclude that more work had to be done to help individuals voice their needs to local and district governments (Archer, 2010).

In 1992, under the leadership of a new director, ActionAid began to move towards an explicitly political approach to development. The organization began to identify lack of power and voice as chief obstacles in fighting poverty at both local and global levels (ActionAid, 1995). Its new mission statement sought to shift ActionAid into being a policy-oriented and globally-focused NGO that could exert influence on national governments and international organizations (Griffiths, 1992).

ActionAid was certainly not alone in expressing a new interest in the politics of development. Beginning in the early 1990s, an increasing number of NGOs began to assert themselves into global policy discussions, generally by attending, and seeking to influence, the ever-growing number of UN global conferences (Clark et al, 1998). New development discourse emerged out of these conferences: Sustainable Human Development (SHD) and People Centred Development (PCD) gained prominence as new ways to approach the development enterprise. Development was conceptualized as a matter of strengthening people’s ability to determine their own values and priorities in order to fight poverty and exclusion (Eade, 1997). The emergence of this new discourse was due in large part to the effort of NGOs, who began to see their role as one of “capacity builder”, enabling local communities to be able to initiate, design, lead and evaluate development projects with minimal outside guidance.

ActionAid, like many development NGOs, was a frequent attendee at the various global conferences in the 1990s. It also began to align itself with major currents of thought coming out of these conferences about international development and the role of NGOs, describing its work in terms of sustainable and people-centred development (Nichols, 1999). The impact of the discursive shift on ActionAid`s work was profound: empowerment became central to both the

50 organization`s discourse and its programming. This changed the nature of participation in ActionAid`s work: participation was no longer just about involving the poor in development projects: it was about enabling them to identify what sort of development their community needed and to take action to make this happen.

ActionAid`s education programming was deeply affected by the organization’s growing adherence to empowering, politically-oriented development discourse. Education leads at ActionAid proposed that many literacy and learning programs failed because they did not empower learners, treating them as passive recipients of education rather than active participants in the learning process (Archer and Cottingham, 1996). In 1993, the organization piloted a new approach to literacy that combined its experience in running non-formal education centres and carrying out Participatory Action Research with the critical pedagogy tradition of Paulo Freire. The result was the REFLECT approach (Regenerated Frierean Literacy through Empowering Community Techniques). This method, which became the centrepiece of ActionAid`s education theme, aims to promote active dialogue and empowerment: “As participants construct their own materials they take ownership of the issues that come up and are more likely to be moved to take local action, change their behaviour or their attitudes.” (Archer and Cottingham, 1996). Thus, with Reflect, we see a shift in the way education is linked to development. Education is valued less for its role in economic and social development, and more for its role in creating politically- aware and empowered individuals: The REFLECT approach involves two parallel and interweaving processes: a literacy process and an empowering process. The literacy gives people practical skills which will help in the empowerment process (eg as they assume positions of responsibility in community organisations) and the empowerment process in turn creates uses for literacy in people's everyday lives. This mutual consolidation and reinforcement is the essence of why it makes sense to fuse the two processes. To successfully interweave the two processes requires a well structured participatory methodology. (Archer and Cottingham, 1996: p. 15).

In these first years of Reflect, focus was on enabling individuals to participate in local-level development activities and to challenge inequality and marginalization within local communities. In particular, inequitable power relations between genders were to be openly critiqued in Reflect circles. However, there was little if any connection between this grassroots work and broader policy goals, and little effort to scale-up participation beyond the village to the state or national level. The review of the Reflect pilot in El Salvador details the actions undertaken as a result of

ActionAid’s literacy circles: “The actions actually undertaken included: repairing local roads, constructing grain stores, tree and medicinal plant nurseries, organic fertilisers, terracing and other soil conservation methods, planting of fruit trees etc. Most of the actions did not require external help” (Archer and Cottingham, 1996: p p111). At this point in ActionAid’s history, the discourse around empowerment and participation did not include a notion of individuals as activist-citizens. The “ideal” individual was an active member of his or her community, participating and even initiating efforts to improve the living conditions of the village, but not necessarily making demands about these conditions to government authorities.

Here we see the emergence of ActionAid’s policy advocacy role as a product of broader trends and global norms. New development buzzwords like “participation” and empowerment”, promoted by NGOs like ActionAid, were becoming globally-accepted principles. This supports the world polity thesis that INGOs are “the primary organizational field in which world culture takes structural form” and that these INGOs “help shape and define world culture” (Boli & Thomas, 1999: p. 6). This emerging development discourse can also be seen as an extension of fundamental global cultural principles, particularly the value of individualism. The idea of the empowered, participatory individual is perhaps not so different than the “basic needs” approach of the 1970s, which similarly promoted development projects that were locally-rooted and carried out by the poor themselves. Under “people-centred development”, however, the (poor) individual is to play a larger role in defining and leading the development project, and the NGO is to play a more supporting and enabling role. This marks the beginning of a retreat from NGOs as passive service-providers: by conceptualizing these organizations as capacity-builders, the new development discourse was opening the door to a new role for NGOs as defenders of the marginalized and advocates for pro-poor policy.

The emergence of the advocacy NGO was still quite tentative in the early 1990s. ActionAid was beginning to shift in this direction, alongside other NGOs, but was not yet articulating a strong advocacy position. That advocacy was featuring in ActionAid’s mandate at all was a product of the global environment discussed above. But also key was having a new director who wanted the organization to be more influential in development policy (Griffiths, 1992). As discussed in the chapter two, world polity theory sees the spread of global norms as a passive diffusion process, with new ideas taken up gradually because they are externally legitimated. This perspective leaves out the agency of the actors involved, who often struggle to implement new ideas in the

52 face of opposition; it also ignores the power-politics at play when new principles are introduced to an organization. When one looks internally at ActionAid to examine the emergence of a policy advocacy position, it is clear that the process was not one of passive diffusion, but was at times contradictory and divisive.

An external review of ActionAid’s work in Uganda in the 1990s (Nichols, 1999) sheds light on the process of introducing policy advocacy to ActionAid’s broad mandate. This review argues that throughout most of the decade, ActionAid was struggling to articulate a cohesive policy voice for a variety of reasons. Chief among these was the fact that the organization was primarily working in rural areas, carrying out grassroots service delivery far away from the avenues of political power. There was little government presence of any kind in many of these locations, so ActionAid lacked both the experience and the networks required to carry out policy advocacy work. These localized projects also had little horizontal communication, so there were not well- established mechanisms for sharing information or creating policy platforms. Furthermore, country level staff lacked the time, skills, experience and contacts necessary to translate local development projects into broader political action. Many were trained in service-delivery as teachers, nurses and agronomists, and drawing wider policy implications from their micro-level work was not necessarily feasible or desirable.

ActionAid’s organizational structure also discouraged wide-scale advocacy work. The Board of Trustees, located in the head office in London, was required to oversee all activities and projects quite closely through the direct supervision of international managers and country directors. Progress in each program area was measured by only three indicators: child mortality, child nutrition levels, and community literacy. Information flowed upwards to the head office where it was summarized and disseminated to child-sponsors via annual reports (Scott-Villiers, 2002). This system of evaluation reflected ActionAid’s ongoing focus on basic service provision as the key to poverty alleviation, an approach that conflicted with the discourse of people-centred, empowering development.

The centralization inherent in ActionAid’s upward chains of accountability and control made local participation, innovation and adaptation of programming difficult to achieve. Even more so as ActionAid grew through the 1990s: Between 1990 and 1998 ActionAid's budget more than doubled, from 20 million to nearly 50 million GBP; it expanded to a number of new countries

53 and underwent a massive increase in hiring local-level staff. It became progressively more difficult for the head office to absorb, evaluate and disseminate information and to make decisions affecting the growing number of country offices and projects. In 1995, under the leadership of John Batten, ActionAid began to decentralize some of its evaluation and decision- making authority through the establishment of regional directors in Latin America, Africa, and Asia (Scott-Villiers, 2002).

Despite the obvious obstacles in moving from grassroots service delivery to policy advocacy, ActionAid headquarters began establishing policy advocacy offices in many country programme offices in the mid 1990s. This organizational change was seen by many staff as an imposition by ActionAid leadership based in the North, with little input or ownership from field staff working in country programme offices. According to then-Head of Programme Development, the organization “was implementing development interventions which lacked a theoretical context and were not sufficiently anchored in a shared conceptual framework. Staff were unable to engage in higher levels of abstraction, and to draw out cross-sectoral or cross-regional connections and wide policy lessons from their work” (Nigel Twose, Interviewed in Nichols, 1999). There was also significant resistance to advocacy work among the ActionAid marketing and fundraising departments, who feared that moving away from the traditional service delivery and child sponsorship approach would alienate their funding base. (Nichols, 1999).

The lack of internal coherence and an inability to define set policy goals meant ActionAid’s advocacy role was slow to develop. However, this era did see some crucial steps toward a greater position for policy work at ActionAid, predominantly due to its commitment to people-centred development. This approach led to an increase in hiring local staff, more effort toward networking with local NGOs, and a reduction in ActionAid’s own operational activities in order to allow communities a more empowered, participatory role in programme formulation, implementation, and assessment (Twose, 1994).

4.5 1997- 2004: Fighting Poverty Together and the Rights Based Approach to Development

1997 was a pivotal year for the evolution of ActionAid as an advocacy organization. A meeting of education leads and staff in Ethiopia articulated a growing concern that governments were not going to be able to meet the targets outlined at the 1990 World Conference on Education for All, and that this was due in part to ongoing funding policies that favoured privatized social services over state-run schools. More crucially, ActionAid identified its own work in non-formal, community education and school infrastructure projects as an example of problematic “downloading” of educational services from states to civil society actors (Interview with David Archer, then-Head of IET. London, November 2010). The Ethiopia meeting culminated in a report entitled From Providing to Enabling (ActionAid 1997), which was extremely critical of ActionAid’s own role in privatizing education and in increasing the gap between citizens and government in educational provision. The report called for ActionAid to re-align its education strategies and goals to focus more on helping the poor advocate for free, quality education provided by the government.

From Providing to Enabling was among the first policy directives at ActionAid to use the phrase “rights-based approach” (RBA) to development (Archer, 2010). Two years later, ActionAid formally adopted this approach – which characterizes development as a right, and poverty as a rights-violation - across all sectors and country programs. The rights-based approach was the centerpiece of ActionAid’s new five-year strategy called Fighting Poverty Together, which sought to address the root causes of poverty rather than just the symptoms (ActionAid, 1999a). This strategy identified four poverty eradication goals: creating spaces for the poor and marginalized to organize and take collective action; strengthening anti poverty organizations and forming alliances with Southern civil society groups; advocating for reform to international institutions and Northern governments; and enhancing gender equity (ActionAid, 1999a).

With this new strategy, ActionAid’s role as an advocacy organization had become more deeply entrenched. Advocacy was envisioned as encompassing two broad strategies: networking with and strengthening southern groups operating at local and national levels; and advocating for reform of northern governments and international institutions. This dynamic will be discussed in depth in chapter seven. Important at this point is to note that Fighting Poverty Together represented a significant shift in discourse and mandate, based on the mainstreaming of human rights into all aspects of ActionAid’s work:

Having evolved as an agency focused on the effects of poverty and the delivery of basic services to poor communities, the new strategy emphasises a rights-based approach and the importance of confronting the causes of poverty...The spirit of the strategy involves ActionAid becoming a ‘movement’ rather than just an ‘aid agency’. (ActionAid, 1999b: p. 20)

To a large extent, the focus on individuals as the agents of social change remained key to ActionAid’s philosophy. But this “ideal individual” had evolved from someone needing a financial leg-up, to an empowered agent participating in, and later defining and leading, development projects in her own community, to an active citizen advocating for her right to economic and social development. ActionAid’s own role had changed significantly, as it now viewed itself as a defender of human rights, supporting and strengthening movements of marginalized populations rather than providing them with social services. This radical shift in mandate and discourse did not happen in isolation: the rights-based approach was quickly gaining ground in the late 1990s among intergovernmental and nongovernmental development organizations. Although ActionAid was an early-adopter of RBA, and is widely credited with helping this approach scale up among other NGOs (Mayo, 2005; Watkins, 2000), it was operating in a world polity that increasingly legitimatized the application of human rights principles to a broad spectrum of social issues. The rights-based approach was absolutely crucial to the growth of advocacy NGOs, and it is thus worthwhile to explore the emergence and cascading of this new global discourse

4.6 The rights-based approach as an emerging global norm

Arguably the dominant discourse in international development, the rights-based approach emerged in the mid 1990s and was quickly scaled up across UN agencies and adopted by NGOs, multilateral and bilateral aid organizations. This approach sees development as a fundamental human right, rather than simply a matter of economic growth. Although a human rights regime had grown alongside the international development regime in the post-war era, the two had remained separate for half a century. As Cornwall & Nyamu-Musembi (2004) and Manji (1998) have pointed out, the international development regime was originally a depoliticized field in that poverty and inequality were framed simply as issues of “development” that could be solved through charitable aid and western economic models. On the other hand, the human rights regime paid little attention to issues of economics and development, focussing instead on a

56 narrow interpretation of human rights as encompassing just civil and political dimensions. This was in large part a reflection of Cold War mentality, in which human rights were depicted as a struggle between authoritarian government and individual liberty – i.e between a Communist East and Democratic West (Offenheiser & Holcombe, 2003).

The 1986 UN Declaration on the Right to Development was the first attempt by the UN to explicitly tie development to human rights. In this document, economic equality was linked directly to political and civil liberty at national and global levels. This was a powerful call for an expanded notion of human rights that could impact economic development, but it remained non- binding due to resistance from industrial countries who saw development assistance as a “voluntary field” rather than a legal and political obligation (Cornwall & Nyamu-Musembi, 2004). It is thus quite surprising that, a little over a decade later, human rights were mainstreamed into all UN programming, and the rights-based approach is now official policy in all UN agencies that work in the development field. How can we account for such a major shift in global development norms?

The ascendancy of the rights-based approach to development can be understood as part of what Oleson (2011) has called a “universalistic meta-package” typified by increased economic globalization, international cooperation and transnational activism, emerging at the end of the Cold War. Like world polity theorists, Oleson sees this universalism as based on the values of western enlightenment and capitalist democracy, fueled by (and fueling) rampant economic globalization, and typified by UN mega-conferences that sought coordinated solutions to what were increasingly seen as global issues based on individualistic human rights (Clark et al, 1998; Eade, 1998). These conferences produced declarations that framed each specific issue within the discourse of rights, using the UDHR as a framework and a legal justification (Chabbott, 2003; Clark et al, 1998). It should be noted, however, that the application of human rights discourse was not accepted by all UN member states participating in these conferences, and the United States in particular has resisted framing certain issues as rights-based (Fletcher, 2010; Cornwall & Nyamu-Musembi, 2004; Henkin, 1995).

This period also saw an increase in the number and the density of transnational networks of NGOs and social movements involved in advocating, monitoring and reporting on the state of human rights around the world (Boli & Thomas, 1999; Keck & Sikkink, 1998). These

57 organizations used the UN conferences as venues to lobby governments and international organizations and to network with like-minded organizations (Clark et al, 1998) and thus had a significant impact on the expansion of the human rights movement, including the right to development, and the right to education (Kim and Boyle, 2011; Suarez and Ramirez, 2004).Particularly key for the growth of RBA was the 1993 Vienna Conference on Human Rights, which emphasised the integration of economic, cultural and social rights, and brought together a diversity of NGOs, including some involved in international development work. This was followed by the 1995 World Social Development Summit, which saw some of these NGOs form a “development caucus” that spearheaded a rights-based approach to development (Cornwall & Nyamu-Musembi, 2004). It was partly in response to pressure from the NGO sector that United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced in 1997 that human rights were to be mainstreamed into all UN programming (Hamm, 2001).

So world polity theory seems to offer and explanation of how the rights-based approach emerged as a global norm. The principle of universal human rights had been externally legitimated in the global order since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the UN general assembly in 1948. The increasingly globalized environment of the post-cold war era helped diffuse a more widespread usage of human rights, especially through intergovernmental organizations, NGOs, and the global conferences at which they networked. In RBA we can see the continued dominance of world cultural principles: universalism, individualism, global citizenship, promoted and carried by NGOs acting as the vehicle for world culture (Boli & Thomas, 1999). But this approach does not tell us how NGOs constructed their own versions of RBA to suit their specific organizational contexts: how rights-based approaches were used strategically by organizations vying for influence in global development politics; how RBA itself opened up space for NGOs to legitimate themselves as policy advocates and rights- defenders. We need to know more about the dynamics of how this norm has emerged and cascaded, and what this can tell us about the agency of advocacy NGOs in crafting global development discourse. Constructivist social theory, particularly social movement scholarship on strategic issue framing, can help us answer these questions.

We can examine the rights-based approach as an example of strategic issue framing: actors in the development regime, particularly development NGOs like ActionAid, sought to align their work with the human rights master frame, what McCarthy has termed “the mother of all successful

58 transnational framing efforts” (McCarthy, 1997: p. 246). We can see why this strategy was pursued, and why it was so successful, by returning to the theory of collective action frames as discussed in the chapter two. For a frame to be successful, it must have three components: a diagnostics element, a prognostic element and a motivational element. In addition, a frame must resonate with its target audience by being both credible and salient (Benford & Snow, 2000; Snow et al, 1986). An examination of the RBA frame illustrates that it satisfies these components by offering a credible, evidence-based assessment for under-development and offering what appears to be a straightforward and measureable solution that requires the cooperation of a range of state and non-state actors.

The rights-based approach to development offers a clear diagnosis of the problem of underdevelopment: individuals and communities are poor because they are unable to exercise their legal, political, economic and social rights. The solution is to re-frame development as an entitlement: thus we see RBA across a wide variety of organizations using the same language of “right bearers” and “duty bearers”, “participation”, “accountability” and “empowerment” (Gready, 2008). Because development interventions are based on international human rights mechanisms, they have the appearance of being straightforward and measureable, which lends credibility and efficacy to RBA. The “measurability” of RBA also opens up important political opportunities for development organizations operating under a rights-frame to engage in policy advocacy. Keck and Sikkink have argued that NGOs using a human rights methodology are essentially “promoting change by reporting facts” (Keck & Sikkink, p 183). By framing development as a right, organizations working on the ground give themselves clear and specific tasks to convince the international community to take action on a particular development issue: they must document the lack of a certain right, demonstrate that governments are responsible for safeguarding this right under international law, and expose the situation nationally or internationally (ibid). These activities are in essence the informational strategies that will be discussed in chapter eight. But it is important to point out that informational strategies and framing strategies are mutually reinforcing: a frame is more convincing if it is borne out by empirical research, and the research is more convincing if it is framed in a way that resonates with the target population.

For many NGOs, framing underdevelopment and poverty as human rights abuses has been an extremely powerful discursive strategy because it highlights to the public that poverty is neither

59 natural nor inevitable, but is the result of specific injustices – unequal power relations operating at local, national and global levels originally critiqued in the 1986 Right to Development declaration (Cornwall & Nyamu-Musembi, 2004; Offenheiser & Holcombe, 2003). RBA has been used by many NGOs, particularly ActionAid, to invigorate the discourse of “participation” and “empowerment” co-opted by the World Bank to justify whittling away state authority through structural adjustment policies (Chapman, 2009; Nelson & Dorsey, 2008; Cornwall & Nyamu-Musembi, 2004). This strategic issue framing is also very powerful as a strategy of political leverage: it allows advocacy NGOs to invoke international legislation and agreements to convince states, bilateral donors and aid organizations that they have a duty to safeguard the well-being of marginalized populations. Conceptualizing the rights-based approach as a strategic issue frame helps us to see how this discourse has created space for NGOs to engage in policy advocacy.

Using the concept of strategic issue frames helps us to illuminate the role of activist agency in the growth and success of the rights based approach, rather than seeing it as a process of (passive) global norm diffusion. If human agency is indeed central to the spread of the rights- based approach, we should significant difference in the way RBA is understood and implemented across different organizations. For example, Cornwall and Nyamu-Musembi (2004) argue that recent rights discourse is far less politically radical than the language of the 1986 UN Right to Development. RBA, as currently understood by most UN agencies and bilateral donors, is about the duties of states towards their own citizens, rather than about global dynamics of inequality that impact individual human rights or the ability of governments to safeguard these rights. Thus the role of donor countries in RBA remains focussed on financial aid rather than on any concrete responsibilities to contribute to the realization of rights. On the other hand, a number of advocacy NGOs, including ActionAid, have adopted a more radical version of RBA that openly challenges the social inequality implicit in macroeconomic policies. This results in a version of RBA discourse and programming that is often at odds with the version of RBA promoted by multilateral and bilateral organizations.

A number of scholars have compared the way RBA is practiced among leading advocacy NGOs (Newman, 2012; Chapman, 2009; Nelson & Dorsey, 2008; Harris-Curtis et al, 2005; Pilpat, 2005; Cornwall & Nyamu-Musembi, 2004). These works highlight the diversity of rights-based approaches, which are shaped and adapted to fit the image and strategy of each organization.

There is considerable diversity in terms of the normative content RBA entails in different organizations: “what ideals it invokes, what vision it represents, and how this vision is contrasted with existing practice and turned into a basis for reorienting development practice and practitioners” (Cornwall & Nyamu-Musembi, 2004: p. 1430). ActionAid was among the first development NGOs to adopt the rights-based approach, making this shift alongside several other prominent organizations, and so ActionAid features prominently in the literature as a case-study of how RBA is practiced. Different dimensions of RBA are commonly distinguished in this literature: a universal/legal concept of human rights versus locally-based notions of rights; how deeply RBA is entrenched across an organization; and the extent to which RBA is politicized and offers an analysis of power.

A key tension among development NGOs using rights-based approaches surrounds whether rights should be understood as universal and based on international legal frameworks, or whether they should be rooted in local contexts and focus on empowering individuals and communities. The difference between empowering and legalistic rights-based approaches has been examined in depth by Newman (2012) in her dissertation on the rights-based approach at ActionAid. She argues that a legal approach favours a focus on governments as duty-bearers, where as an empowering approach “focuses more attention on the use of rights principles – participation, non-discrimination, equality and accountability - to guide an approach to development” (p 144). Legalistic approaches to RBA tend to use technical tools and expertise of lawyers, while empowering approaches focus on enabling individuals to make rights-claims (Gready &Ensor, 2005).

Newman found the distinction between empowering and legalistic models of RBA repeatedly brought up in her interviews with staff from leading UK NGOs. She found most organizations favour the empowering approach, viewing rights as something that they can help to deliver, rather than as something that must be demanded from the state. Some NGOs went the other way, however, using international human-rights standards as a way to define and assess development interventions (Cornwall & Nyamu-Musembi, 2004). Save the Children, for example, centres its RBA on the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child, using this document as a tool for monitoring, evaluating and leveraging governments and aid agencies (Nelson & Dorsey, 2008; Harris-Curtis et al, 2005). ActionAid, by contrast, attempts to bridge these two approaches by focussing simultaneously on empowering local populations and on advocating for policy change

61 at national and global levels through international legal frameworks. (ActionAid, 1999a, 2005; Newman, 2012).

The second dimension of RBA which receives considerable academic attention is the extent to which it is entrenched across an organization, and ActionAid is widely recognized as leader in this area (Nelson & Dorsey, 2008; Cornwall & Nyamu-Musembi, 2004). Newman (2012) found that for many large development NGOs “rights language was integrated into their wider development discourse, rather than providing the basis from which to define their approach” (p153). A number of staff she interviewed from these NGOs indicated that RBA had little impact on strategy, decision-making or program development (ibid). When RBA does inform development programming or practice, it is often in one area only. For example, Oxfam uses RBA predominantly in their large global advocacy campaigns, whereas ActionAid has placed human rights at the centre of all programs operating from grassroots through to national and global levels (Nelson & Dorsey, 2008; Harris-Curtis et al, 2005) and, since 1999, has used the language of rights to frame strategic goals across all sectors.

Finally, different versions of RBA can be distinguished by the extent to which they offer a critical analysis of power. NGOs based in the UK, particularly ActionAid and Oxfam, have tended to offer a more critical version of the rights-based approach and are generally more vocal about the unequal power relations that impact global poverty. US-based organizations that adopt RBA, such as CARE, need to be more cautious in their criticism and to avoid overt references to human rights in their mission and strategic plans (Nelson & Dorsey, 2008; Harris-Curtis et al, 2005). This noticeable difference between US and UK NGOs reflects the very different political climate of the two countries. DFID has itself adopted a version of RBA and makes it a requirement for its funding of NGOs. Although this version of RBA is more conservative than that of ActionAid, it still contrasts sharply with USAID’s skepticism towards rights-based development and its reluctance to fund NGOs who discuss human rights in their proposals (ibid). Even among UK-based development NGOs, ActionAid is singled out for its explicitly political approach to RBA and its very public challenging of unequal power relations within international governmental and financial organizations. This has been a key part of its identity and has distinguished ActionAid from the many other NGOs working with a rights-based approach to poverty eradication (Nelson & Dorsey, 2008; Cornwall & Nyamu-Musembi, 2004).

The tagline of ActionAid’s new strategy, “Fighting Poverty Together”, encapsulates the changed focus of the organization in the late 1990s: Anti-poverty work was to be more confrontational, more political, and required expanding and strengthening ActionAid’ networks around the world. “From being a slightly cautious British charity, we were now to link with others (community organisations, networks, trade unions and social movements) to reinforce global anti-poverty movements.... Far greater emphasis was to be given to policy and advocacy work across the world” (David & Mancini, 2004). The move away from charity-work to rights-based advocacy was not an easy transition, requiring a new way of framing ActionAid’s work to its staff, partners and funders. This was particularly true in the field of education, since providing education had long been a central part of the organization’s work and a significant draw for funding. The story of how the “right to education” has been framed and “sold” within ActionAid and its network of stakeholders, and the evolving relationship between RBA and grassroots education development, is a central part of the history of the organization in the past decade and will be explored in depth in chapter seven. At this point it will suffice to point out that the transition to a new advocacy-focussed strategy was neither straightforward nor cohesive.

4.7 Rights-based advocacy and organizational change at ActionAid

A particularly valuable insight form world polity theory concerns the idea of decoupling: when we look at organizations, particularly nation-states but also corporations, intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, we can often observe a gap between policy and practice. Values that are officially espoused do not always translate into activities undertaken. It can be a struggle for actor-centric perspectives like the constructivist theories I have discussed to theorize about these gaps, which are seen as examples of error, dysfunction or corruption. World polity theory, on the other hand, expects these inconsistencies. They are the product of cultural norms diffusing because they are seen as legitimate, and not because they are actually applicable or relevant to a particular context (Meyer, 2010). Recent work in this perspective has also shown a gap between “means and ends”: in this type of decoupling, policies are implemented to match discourse, but have a weak relationship to the actual activities and goals of the organization. This expanded conception of decoupling “is both a key to understanding the increasingly elaborate internal

63 structures of organizations and it is a main source of heterogeneity in institutional processes” (Bromley & Powell, 2012).

The idea of decoupling may explain gaps between the use of rights-based discourse and actual efforts to address rights in programming. For example, as Cornwall and Nyamu-Musembi (2004) point out, a number of multilateral and bilateral organizations have adopted the language of RBA, but continue to focus their development programs on financial aid rather than on addressing rights. Means-ends decoupling may be applicable to how RBA is adopted by some NGOs. Research has found that many organizations espouse rights-language in their mission statements but implement RBA unevenly (Newman, 2012; Nelson & Dorsey, 2008), perhaps indicating a disjuncture between rights-based policies and program goals. We have already discussed how ActionAid incorporated rights-based approaches into its discourse, and this will be explored in greater depth in chapter seven. But to what extent did this discursive change impact the wider activities of the organization? If we see evidence of decoupling between RBA policy and practice, or between means and ends, it may indicate that the adoption of rights-based approaches represents the diffusion of a widely-legitimated norm rather than the active crafting of new strategy.

In 1999, ActionAid commissioned an external review of the new strategy Fighting Poverty Together. The report, entitled Taking Stock was highly critical of the gap between the ideals espoused in the new strategy and the organizational climate of ActionAid. Although the new discourse of ActionAid placed central importance on working with the poor to secure rights to development, there were few accountability mechanisms linking communities to decision- making at ActionAid. Monitoring and evaluation systems were seen as bureaucratic and ineffectual by country level staff. Criticism was levelled against the centralization of power and decision-making in the London office, and in particular within the marketing department. Taking Stock called for a radical overhaul of ActionAid, including the decentralization and outsourcing of jobs in the UK offices and the creation of a new accountability and evaluation system based on principles promoted in the five-year strategic plan (ActionAid 1999c; David & Mancini, 2004). These two recommendations, decentralization and downward accountability, became cornerstones of ActionAid’s organizational ethos and helped to further refine and entrench its approach to social change.

In 1999, ActionAid formed an umbrella organization with its sister charities based in other European countries: Greece, Italy, Ireland, Spain and France. This new organization was known as ActionAid Alliance, and its establishment was part of the ongoing efforts to decentralize authority from the London headquarters (ActionAid , 2010c). In the next few years, ActionAid concentrated considerable attention on building national assemblies, boards and councils in each country where the organization worked, with the intention that these would eventually become affiliate members of ActionAid. This process was described as both “internationalization” and “nationalization”: from the perspective of European affiliates, it was about expanding ActionAid’s influence around the globe; for country programmes, it was about strengthening their national governance structures. The first country programme to transition to an affiliate was Ghana, and by 2003 it “became an independent, self-governing organisation within a closely-knit federation, equal in governance power to European Affiliates that had been the main original source of funds” (ActionAid, 2010c: p. 8).

From 2002 to 2003, ActionAid engaged in intensive consultations and negotiations as it sought to move from being a NGO based in the UK to an INGO comprised of national affiliates around the globe. This activity culminated in December 2003 with the establishment of ActionAid International as a foundation registered in Holland. ActionAid UK was formed as a national affiliate with a separate board. The preamble of the 2003 constitution of ActionAid International began by stating: “The Foundation’s vision is a world without poverty in which every person can exercise her or his right to a dignified life” (ActionAid, 2003a: p. 3). This sentence served to highlight that human rights, and active rights-claiming, was now indisputably the central focus of ActionAid’s anti-poverty work. The constitution was also clear on the decision to move away from traditional charitable aid work based on service provision, explicitly stating that the organization’s theory of change was now based on global advocacy: NGO development projects, whilst producing positive outcomes at local levels, are certainly not sufficient to eradicate poverty and often are not sustainable. They have not been able to change the overall pattern of massive and increasing poverty and inequity. The solution lies in a global movement, led by poor and marginalised people, for action against poverty that cuts across national and south-north boundaries. The founding of the Foundation is a participation in, and contribution to, such a movement. (ActionAid, 2003a: p. 3)

The constitution was also explicit that the internationalization of ActionAid was an effort to further increase its public image and voice at the global level: The Foundation aims to create a new and enhanced international profile and platform that will attract greater attention not only from those the Foundation wishes to influence but also other organisations which would like to join with the poor and marginalised people in the fight against poverty (ActionAid, 2003a: p. 3).

This new international profile centred on ActionAid becoming a decentralized “global movement led by the poor” (ActionAid, 2003a). Every ActionAid country programme became an affiliate with its own board and its own assembly. The Board of ActionAid International was to be made up of one trustee from each national affiliate, thus giving each country programme equal authority regardless of whether it was based in a donor or recipient nation (ActionAid, 2003a). The new federal structure of ActionAid can also be seen as part of the movement to increase accountability and legitimacy within the organization, as the forging of ActionAid International was happening simultaneously with the full-scale adoption a comprehensive accountability system (See Gujit, 2004 for discussion of this system). Not only were national affiliates made equal in governance authority, but the establishment of the affiliates meant that there was now a shorter chain of accountability from these offices to the communities they served.

The streamlining of ActionAid discourse and its organizational structure reached a pinnacle in 2004, when the headquarters and Board of ActionAid International relocated to Johannesburg, South Africa. This geographical shift was meant to exemplify ActionAid’s commitment to decentralized, participatory rights-work that challenged the power imbalance between North and South:

On the international stage, our new structure will give us a much stronger and more authoritative voice. We will be able to speak for poor and marginalised people, not just because we work with them, but because we will be an organisation which has the poor and marginalised as full and equal members (Ramesh Singh, chief executive of ActionAid International. Quoted in ActionAid, 2004a).

ActionAid’s image as an accountable INGO that “takes sides with the poor” (ActionAid, 2003b) was well-served by this change in location, as it became the first major aid agency to be headquartered in the global south. Being located in the south may have brought some advantages

66 for network growth by shrinking the distance between ActionAid leadership and its partners and programmes operating in Africa. But the change of venue was largely a symbolic one that represented ActionAid’s genuine commitment to breaking down barriers between north and south and placing southern partners and northern NGOs on equal footing. It also allowed ActionAid to have a more authoritative voice when claiming to speak on behalf of citizens of developing countries (ActionAid, 2004a).

In some ways, the decentralization of ActionAid in this period mirrored wider trends in the NGO sector. A number of scholarly works on social movements and transnational advocacy networks have noted the adoption of more decentralized organizational forms since the late 1990s. In the past decade, particularly, the issue-specific NGO has given way to NGOs that appear more as social movement organizations embedded in wider networks. (Bennett, 2005; Della Porta & Tarrow, 2005). Jenkins (2006) has argued that the shift to more decentralized forms is normatively-driven: many advocacy NGOs and their supporters believe these organizations should have minimal formal structure, relying on participatory decision-making in order to “embody democratic values and maximize the impact on civic involvement” (p. 316). This is not unlike the world cultural values that Boli and Thomas see embodied in the structure of NGOs, which “originate and persist via voluntary action by individual members…operate under strong norms of open membership and democratic decision-making” (1999: p. 34). Social movement scholars, however, do not see the decentralization of advocacy NGOs as simply the enactment of western democratic values. These structural changes mark a shift from earlier organizational forms, and are designed to expand the reach of advocacy networks, encourage more direct involvement by individual activists, nurture a more permanent movement-style campaign, and underscore an organization’s normative project (Bennett, 2006).

The adoption of the rights-based approach at ActionAid, which signalled the organization’s full transition into an advocacy NGO, does not provide an example of decoupling. Between 1999 and 2004, ActionAid underwent massive organizational change, bringing the idea of rights advocacy to bear on all aspects of their discourse, mandate, programming and institutional structure. Although other advocacy NGOs have also moved towards a more diffuse and decentralized social movement-like structure, many aspects of ActionAid`s organizational restructuring - particularly the relocation of its headquarters to the global south - cannot be attributed to wider trends. Instead, we must see ActionAid’s restructuring as consciously-constructed, a very

67 deliberate strategy on the part of ActionAid leadership to create organizational cohesion by streamlining discourse, strategy and structure and to use the normative project of the rights-based approach to shape intra-organizational relationships.

4.8 ActionAid since 2004

The story of rights-based advocacy at ActionAid does not stop in 2004. In the following chapters, I will focus on the advocacy strategies developed by the organization in the past decade, focussing on the work of the International Education Team – one of six key thematic teams at ActionAid. It is important to note, however, that the rights-based approach to development, and ActionAid’s role as a vocal advocate for pro-poor policy, continues to evolve organization-wide. In 2005, ActionAid launched a new strategy, Rights to End Poverty (R2EP), which remained in place until 2012. Rather than offering a new direction for the organization, this strategy was seeking to further entrench ActionAid’s previous work, to “build on the success of its predecessor, Fighting Poverty Together” (ActionAid, 2005a: p. 3), to “broaden our commitment to excluded groups” (ActionAid, 2005b: p. 2) and to “deepen and strengthen our focus” (ActionAid, 2005c: p. 3).

Taking Stock II, and external report commissioned in 2004, argued that ActionAid lacked strong political discourse and internal political education, leading the organization to “limp in its efforts instead of thinking through how to challenge power strategically” (Cohen, 2004). ActionAid sought to ameliorate this with its new strategic plan, which recast its goals as “strategic priorities” explicitly framed in terms of human rights, and focused on unequal power relations as the root cause of poverty: Unequal power relations are evident at all levels, from the household to the community to national government and relations between states. Our ability to help build a global movement to challenge unjust and inequitable actions by power holders, both state and non-state, will be the determining factor for the successful achievement of our strategy. (ActionAid, 2005: p. 4)

The new strategy differed from its predecessor in that it clearly identified adversaries on which its advocacy work could focus. Throughout the Rights to End Poverty strategy and its supporting documents, bilateral and multinational aid organizations are constantly criticized for their failure to address global poverty, for the insignificance of their initiatives, for dictating policies that favour wealthy northern nations at the expense of the poor, and for implementing policies that “directly impact on poor peoples’ ability to realise their rights.” (ActionAid, 2005c: p. 4). In its education theme, for example, ActionAid focussed its strategies on advocating for change in IMF macroeconomic policies, which it argued had diminished the capacity of the state to educate citizens (ActionAid 2005b: p. 2). Perhaps not surprisingly, the US government received special attention in ActionAid’s new strategy, harshly criticized for its stance towards contraceptives, domestic agriculture subsidies and its support of damaging macro-economic policies: It is therefore critically important to challenge US policies by supporting domestic alternative groupings where they share our agenda, to work alongside such groupings to mobilise people in the US to engage their government on positions and policies it adopts that impact negatively on poor and excluded people. We must at the same time, build our own capacity to influence US policies directly (ActionAid, 2005c: p. 5).

This was an important development in ActionAid’s global image and brand identity, as it was seeking to “position ActionAid International as a credible and alternative voice to the Washington Consensus model for poverty eradication…to be associated with alternative solutions in the minds of our partners and specialist policy makers”(ActionAid, 2005c: p. 13-14).

It is perhaps not surprising that ActionAid would adopt an openly-hostile stance towards international financial institutions, multilateral organizations and bilateral donors working in the development field. The optimism of the 1990s, when human rights norms were being mainstreamed into all UN programming and groups as divergent as the IMF and UNESCO were coming together to agree on Millennium Development Goals, had been replaced with a growing cynicism toward the efficacy of these declared goals. Vague aims to “eradicate extreme poverty and hunger” or “promote gender equality and empower women” (UN Millennium Development Goals, 2000) were far from realized in 2005. Documents such as the World Bank’s 2004 World Development Report Making Services Work for the Poor offered decentralized governance and public-private partnerships as a solution to the lack of social service provision in developing

69 countries (Mundy, 2009), a familiar mantra that contradicted sharply with ActionAid’s rights- based approach to development and failed to address the lack of progress on the MDGs. And despite the fact that civil society and NGOs had been heralded as partners in global governance since the 1990s, most multi-lateral institutions, particularly in the education field, continued to envision this role as one of local-level service delivery and accountability (Mundy, 2009). The unilateralism of the United States, ushered in by the presidency of George W Bush and events of September 11 2001, was another major blow to progressive multilateral development and inspired significant hostility from ActionAid and like-minded organizations.

The first decade of the 21st century saw a massive wave of global alliance-building in opposition to the growing disparities of economic globalization and the security-focused unilateralism of the United States. These included the World Social Forum and the Global Call to Action Against Poverty, both of which have mobilized huge numbers of people and organizations, including ActionAid affiliates. ActionAid specifically identifies these global movements as “the brightest prospect for challenging unequal power relations” and “building sustained pressure on governments to act in support of a poverty eradication agenda” (ActionAid, 2005c). By allying with these globally-recognized movements, ActionAid was helping to strengthen its own network as well as its identity as a player in the global anti-poverty movement.

4.9 Conclusions

The growth of the advocacy NGO, which emerged in the 1990s and, within a decade, grew to be a powerful force in international politics, must be contextualized within broader global trends. Using ActionAid as a case study, this chapter has shown that world cultural principles, particularly western values of universalism, individualism and citizenship, have profoundly shaped the development enterprise and the role of NGOs within it. In many ways, we can characterize ActionAid as an enactor of global norms: ideas of community-based development, participatory people-centred development, and rights-based approaches to development gained widespread legitimacy at various periods, and ActionAid was one of many organizations espousing these discourses.

But to see these shifts in discourse and mandate as nothing more than the passive diffusion of global norms ignores the real process of organisation change. This chapter has highlighted the constructed nature of change: how new policies and strategies were crafted and framed to resonate with various stake-holders; how ActionAid struggled to implement these new policies and strategies; and how organizational leadership at times had to enforce change despite significant resistance at among local staff and partners. This chapter has also shown that change in strategy was driven by normative reasoning – for example, indignation over structural adjustment policies – as well as instrumental reasons – such as asserting ActionAid as a legitimate policy advocate, or promoting a certain brand identity for ActionAid.

Thus neither world polity theory, with its overemphasis on diffused global norms, nor social movement and constructivist theories, with their focus on the activist actor, are able to account for the complex dynamic between structure and agency in the above narrative. The theory of strategic action fields appears to be the most applicable conceptual framework. With this perspective, we can see the development education field as a strategic action field made up of various players who, while constrained and enabled by their environment, jockey for influence and legitimacy, devising strategies to respond to an ever-changing political landscape. The above case study illustrates that strategic action fields are not autonomous, but are embedded in other fields – both proximate and distant – that constrain and enable strategic action. We saw, for example, how shifts in the global economy, in the multilateral development regime, in the human rights field and in education theory impacted the development education field and ultimately led to the emergence of an Education for All strategic action field.

In the following chapter, I will explore the history of the second case study organization in order to ascertain the applicability of these theoretical frameworks to a “most-different” case. Of particular interest will be whether a smaller, resource-constrained southern NGO is more or less influenced by global cultural norms, and more or less able to vie for strategic advantage within the international development regime.

Chapter 5 5 A history of ASPBAE: from a network of educators to a transnational advocate

5.1 Introduction

Like the preceding chapter, this chapter tells the story of one organization, in this case the Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education (ASPBAE), and the regional and global environment in which it has evolved. My intention with this chapter is to further assess the validity of conceptual frameworks discussed in chapter two. With ASPBAE, we have an organization whose origins as a regional network of adult education practitioners is very different than that of ActionAid. Yet both ended up in the same “place”: they became transnational advocacy NGOs highly involved in the Education for All movement. How can we account for this similarity in outcome? Is it the result of both organizations enacting broader cultural norms about the role of non-state actors in international development? Or is it a case of independently-crafted strategies that happen to have resulted in a similar end product?

This chapter, like the previous one, is organized as a narrative history. This narrative is woven within a broader story of the international adult education movement and the education development regime of which it is a part. I offer a descriptive history of how ASPBAE has changed in its fifty year history based on an analysis of key documents produced by the organization and its members, including activity reports, reports from annual meetings and conferences, strategic papers, and documents produced for and during General Assemblies. This documentary evidence is supplemented with interviews of ASPBAE staff members. My focus is on how the broad mandate and discourse of the organization has changed, how discursive shifts have impacted structure, programming and strategy at ASPBAE, and what this tells us both about the internal dynamics of the organization and the wider development education field of which it is a part.

5.2 ASPBAE origins: UNESCO and education for development

In early 1964, UNESCO organized a seminar on Adult Education in the Asia-Pacific region. This was part of a follow-up to UNESCO’s 2nd International Conference on Adult Education (Confintea II), held in Montreal in 1960, during which UNESCO had pledged its support for the development of “international associations, meetings or working parties organized for the development of a sociology of Adult Education...consisting of specialists in sociological, economic, psychological, educational research and Adult Education” (UNESCO, 1960: p. 4). It was at the 1964 seminar that ASPBAE (the acronym then stood for Asia South Pacific Bureau for Adult Education) was first conceived as an association of adult education practitioners and experts working across Asia. The purpose of this loosely-knit organization was to link adult education specialists and institutions across the region with each other and with UNESCO, and to promote adult education practice, principally through the publication of a quarterly newsletter and through organizing conferences and seminars (Wijetunga, 1997). In essence, ASPBAE was designed to facilitate the exchange of ideas about adult education practice across the Asia-Pacific region.

In its first decades, the majority of those involved in ASPBAE were university lecturers who worked to establish Continuing Education and Extension programs at their schools and to establish “best practices” in adult education. This was carried out through three main activities: disseminating information through regular newsletters, hosting seminars and workshops, and organizing travel exchanges of adult educators. A major area of focus was on literacy, with the idea put forth at a 1966 conference to have a mass movement to eradicate illiteracy, led by university teachers and students across the region (Wijetunga, 1997). Others saw the university as sites of training for adult educators as well as for adult learners in need of further technical or vocational education (ibid). What was shared across the organization was a belief that adult education was inextricably linked to national economic and social development: “We felt that adult educators, as change agents for integrated development, have an important part to play in relating national plans for development to the needs of particular communities” (ASPBAE, 1978: p10). This reveals that, for ASPBAE, adult education and educators were seen as vehicles for social change, as an essential part of economic and social development. ASPBAE saw its own

73 role as establishing best practices in adult education in order to promote development across the Asia-Pacific region.

Until 1974, ASPBAE’s activities and network reach were relatively modest, restricted to co- organizing conferences and events sponsored primarily by UNESCO or by universities (Shrivastava, 1991). In 1974, ASPBAE’s budget was able to grow considerably with the establishment of core funding from the German Adult Education Organization (DVV). At this time, DVV was seeking to expand its influence outside of Germany and was looking for partner organizations in the South; ASPBAE was similarly looking to expand its influence beyond simply participating in and responding to UNESCO events (Interview with ASPBAE staff member. Mumbai, February 2012). DVV funding allowed ASPBAE to establish a small executive council led by Secretary-General Chris Duke and based in Sydney. The strategy at this point was to strengthen ASPBAE by building up national-level associations, each of which would be a “country member” of the organization, linked together through a centralized, federal network structure (ASPBAE, 1991c). These national-level associations were drawn predominantly from universities but some nationally-based NGOs were also represented (Wijetunga, 1994). The establishment of a region-wide adult education network was guided by the requirements of DVV, which aimed to establish an information network in Asia that would facilitate South-South exchange among adult educators in the region (Duke, 1992) and strengthen the NGO sector through trickle-down funding (Wijetunga, 1997).

As hinted at above, ASPBAE’s early work in adult education was very much tied to the dominant post-war development discourse, which valued adult learning primarily for its role in economic development. However there was another powerful strand in development discourse in this era, which promoted education’s role in nurturing peace and justice. This was exemplified by the UN Declaration of Human Rights, which stated: “Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms” (United Nations, 1948). At this point, the “economic” and “humanistic” education discourses were not in conflict, but rather were two aspects of the same theory of social change: that economic growth required political stability and vise-versa, and that education was a vehicle to both ends. This was a view that framed ASPBAE’s own work in its first decades, as indicated by former secretary-general: “fighting against the poverty and for

74 establishment of a lasting peace - both objectives being intimately associated – were the main purposes sought out. (Wijetunga, 1997: p. 2).

This was in many ways the heyday for international adult education: It was in 1972 that UNESCO released the Faure Report, which advocated lifelong education – linking formal and non-formal education in a “dual track” system - as the cornerstone of national education policies (UNESCO, 1972). The report advocated for adult education that was sensitive to local context and geared towards poverty alleviation. The enthusiasm for locally-based adult education initiatives was felt even at the World Bank, which released education policy statements throughout the 1970s praising non-formal education for its role in economic development (Jones, 1997; 2007). Adult education was particularly championed in this era for its ability to address rural poverty in the developing world: McNamara’s tenure as president of the World Bank, which lasted from 1968-80, was marked by a significant focus on adult and non-formal education geared to improving agricultural livelihoods and carrying out vocational training. Under McNamara, the Bank pursued a “basic needs approach” to poverty alleviation, which focused on short-term economic development projects based at the community level and carried out as much as possible by community members (Mundy, 1998). Adult literacy was an important component of rural development projects, but was regarded as instrumental rather than an end objective, worth pursuing only if it led to measurable increases in worker productivity (Jones, 2007).

An ASPBAE regional conference carried out in 1978 reflected this emphasis on adult education for rural economic development, identifying that “the most urgent objective is to train young people in rural areas for an assured livelihood” and that “education is a tool...that should never be provided for its own sake” (ASPBAE, 1978: p. 9, 12). ASPBAE promoted small-scale community-based projects as favoured by the Bank and most of the international development regime in this era, referring to community-based training as “the most effective method... best when related to productive activities in which participants are already involved” (ASPBAE, 1978: p. 13). In its early years, ASPBAE carried out adult education work that was very much in line with what was being advocated by international organizations like UNESCO and the World Bank. Its close ties with UNESCO likely encouraged ASPBAE’s enactment of dominant development norms; thus we see ASPBAE’s discourse on adult education stressing its role in economic growth and rural development. As ASPBAE grew, however, it became exposed to a

75 more critical adult education discourse emanating from social movements and NGOs operating across the region.

5.3 Network growth and the radicalization of adult education discourse

As discussed in the previous chapter, the 1970s saw rapid growth of the NGO sector across all areas of development. The field of adult education was no exception. At UNESCO’s third International Adult Education Conference (Confineta III), held in Tokyo in 1972, a number of NGOs working in the field came together to form a global network, the International Council of Adult Education (ICAE). ASPBAE was involved in ICAE from the onset, and through this association it began to be influenced by organizations within ICAE that had a more politically- progressive agenda (Interview with ASPBAE staff member. Mumbai, February 2012). This was particularly true after ICAE’s first world assembly in Dar es Salam in 1976, which called for major structural changes to the international development regime after the failure of programs in the 1960s and early 1970s, and questioned the self-interest of aid-regimes and their exploitation of the third world (ICAE, 1976). Following the ICAE world assembly, ASPBAE grew more connected to the international adult education movement and the politicized discourse it embodied. But ASPBAE leadership was not yet sure how use this political discourse to invigorate its own regional-level work. At this point, two members of ICAE – Rajesh Tandon and Carol Medel-Anonuevo – joined ASPBAE and contributed significantly to fostering a stronger relationship between the two organizations and bring ASPBAE’s adult education discourse more in line with ICAE’s progressive agenda (Interview with ASPBAE staff member. Mumbai, February 2012).

Through the influence of ICAE, ASPBAE began to develop a more radical adult education discourse that connected global inequality to western economic policy. This was part of a broader southern-based critique of western aid regimes. Earlier in the decade, a number of southern countries had proposed the New International Economic Order (NIEO), which sought to alter the terms of international trade and development assistance in order to ameliorate the economic gap between north and south. In essence, NIEO was designed to replace the Bretton Woods system devised after World War Two – a system that was seen as inherently favouring the states that had created it, particularly the US (Cox, 1979). This view had its roots in

76 dependency theory, first advocated by Andre Gunder-Frank in the mid-1960s. Dependency theory argued that the new institutions of multilateralism were not engaged in wealth redistribution, but were rather instruments in the ongoing dominance of western nations, a dominance which required developing countries to be politically stable but economically, technologically and culturally dependent on the west (Gunder-Frank, 1967).

The politically-progressive adult education celebrated by ICAE, and increasingly by ASPBAE, was heavily influenced by the popular education tradition associated with Paulo Freire. In 1970 Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed was translated into English, helping disseminate the Latin American tradition of popular education beyond the Portuguese- and Spanish-speaking world. This was a more radical version of what adult education could be, based on Marxist class analysis and depicting the learner as an active participant in, and co-creator of, the learning process. Frierean pedagogy stands in direct opposition to a hierarchical “banking method” associated with formal schooling, which Freire describes using the metaphor of colonization, seeing classrooms as sites of socio-economic and cultural oppression (Freire, 1970). Interestingly, aspects of Freirean pedagogy were echoed in UNESCO’s Faure Report, which argued that lifelong learning opportunities were limited due to educational structures that favoured the elite: “social structures must be changed and the privileges built into our cultural heritage must be reduced. Educational structures must be remodelled, to extend widely the field of choice and enable people to follow lifelong education patterns” (UNESCO/Faure, p 79). Similarly, a 1978 regional report from ASPBAE was scathing in its critique of formal education systems: on the whole expensive, socially divisive, not very good at helping people to learn the things they want and need to know. It is however horrifyingly efficient at separating societies into a powerful elite which runs government and serves the economic sector of society, and a majority for whom it does little except mark them as failures in their own eyes and those of their parents. (ASPBAE, 1978: p. 9).

The connection between education and oppression, and the need for a politically and culturally liberating pedagogy, resonated strongly with social movements operating in the global South. Across Southeast Asia, post-colonial experiments with liberal democracy had given way to a wave of authoritarian, military-dominated governments as exemplified by the regimes of Suharto in Indonesia and Marcos in the Philippines. Social movements organized against these

77 authoritarian governments and for the rights of the oppressed masses – particularly women, workers, the rural poor and ethnic minorities – began using Freirean popular education methods as part of their conscientization process. ASPBAE began to look beyond its traditional academic membership to forge links with these social movements and with NGOs, in order to encourage a broader encompassing of what adult education was and what it could do for the Asia-Pacific region (Interview with ASPBAE staff member. Mumbai, February 2012).

It is important to contextualize this period in ASPBAE’s history within the wider geopolitical reality of the Cold War. The Asia-Pacific was a region of particular concern to the United States as it sought to prevent Communism from spreading beyond the borders of Vietnam and China. Those countries seen as friendly to US interests were bolstered through political and economic support, including foreign aid, development projects and investment, and thus enjoyed a period of rapid national economic growth from the late 1960s into the 1980s (Acharya, 2003). Perhaps not surprisingly, many of these US allies were operating the authoritarian, military governments described above, justified by the need to contain the communist threat. The social movements and NGOs that opposed these regimes were increasingly critical of western-led development projects, which were widely seen as promoting the economic interests of industrialized capitalist countries (Jones, 2007) and perpetuating the neo-colonial dependence of developing nations (Gunder-Frank, 1967).

As ASPBAE widened its network to embrace social movements and NGOs in the region, as well as further its ties to ICAE, the organization began to shift to reflect a more politically critical stance and to shed its image as “too cloistered in academe” (Interview with ASPBAE staff member. Mumbai, February 2012). Rather than upholding the dominant development paradigms that linked adult education with (rural) economic development, ASPBAE grew more openly critical of western development regimes (ASPBAE, 1994). Many within ASPBAE wanted to re- evaluate the way the organization was structured to reflect its new focus on social movements and its more politically-radical platform. By the late 1980s, with human rights movements sweeping across the region, ASPBAE leadership realized that the organization needed to fundamentally change its constitution because “we couldn’t talk about these issues and conduct programs without our organizational structure and focus reflecting these same values” (Shrivastava, 1994: p.7).

The 1970s and 1980s saw ASPBAE develop a critique of political and economic inequality at national, regional and global levels. This critique grew alongside, but did not entirely integrate with, ASPBAE’s expanding work in adult education practice. ASPBAE’s new politicized discourse can be understood as an enactment of more widely-held norms. But, unlike the sort of global norms we saw enacted by ActionAid in the previous chapter, ASPBAE was not taking its cue from intergovernmental organizations and western NGOs. It was embedded in a southern- based global culture - typified by social movements and the popular education tradition - that was highly critical of the economic paradigms emanating from the north. At the same time, the values espoused by ASPBAE (and the broader movements from which it drew inspiration) are the same ones world polity theory identifies as rooted in western capitalist culture: universalism in the form of equality between north and south; individualism in the form of learner-centred pedagogy.

Can we then say that ASPBAE was enacting scripted cultural norms, which had diffused to the organization beginning in the mid 1970s? The fact that there appears to be some decoupling between ASPBAE’s politicized discourse and its adult education practice indicates that this may indeed be an example of cultural enactment rather than strategic change. At the same time, the above discussion shows that the process was a more active one than world polity theory would have it. ASPBAE leadership was drawing on externally-legitimated beliefs, but was doing so selectively and strategically, choosing which norms best fit its wider mandate. This is an example of what Acharya (2004) has termed norm localization - the process by which an outside norm is made “congruent with a pre-existing local normative order” (p. 244). Such a perspective highlights the role of the actor in reconstituting global norms, in actively selecting and applying these norms to suit the local context. Thus we see ASPBAE take up the norm of universal social equality, but wholly reject the models of economic growth that were so powerful in international development discourse at this time. ASPBAE’s strategic use of international norms was a deliberate attempt to widen and strengthen its network and to form a new image for the organization as a southern-based movement. But the organization was not yet able to articulate these norms within its day-to-day activities.

5.4 Organizational Renewal, 1987-1991: Decentralization, Regionalization and Participatory Development

ASPBAE created its first constitution in 1987, moving the organization from its more centralized, federal structure to a decentralized network that could connect to social movements and community groups operating across the region. With this constitution, ASPBAE created four sub-regions, each with its own executive, in order to nurture a decentralized and streamlined network structure (ASPBAE, 1987). This was the first step in a major organizational renewal that culminated in ASPBAE’s first general assembly in 1991. In 1990, the organization embarked on its first-ever review process that reached out to adult educators and institutions inside and outside the ASPBAE network to evaluate its programming, structure and impact. This review, which led to a detailed report by Shrivastava, was designed to strengthen ASPBAE, bolster its reputation and widen its reach. But it was also an effort at strengthening adult education practice and nurturing a sense of regionalism among community groups, movements and NGOs operating across the Asia-Pacific (Shrivastava. 1991).

Over 100 organizations were consulted as part of this review process, at the end of which ASPBAE held its first general assembly to assess what was learned and to solidify its program and strategy for the following five years. Shrivastava’s report on the review process and findings, as well as documents produced before, during and as follow-up to the first general assembly, illustrate that ASPBAE underwent significant change in this period. As the organization continued to align itself with social movements in the region and adopted a looser, more decentralized structure, the way it framed its work – and the value of adult education in general – also changed considerably.

On the eve of the first general assembly, ASPBAE put forth a new Mission Statement that served to set the tone for a new era in the organization’s history. This new statement - “to advance and defend the rights of adults throughout the Asia-Pacific region to learn, and to be able to go on learning throughout their lives in order to gain control of their own destiny” (ASPBAE, 1991a), highlights ASPBAE’s new interest in adult education as a tool for social emancipation. This new focus was a reflection of the feedback ASPBAE obtained through its review process. When asked if ASPBAE should have some sort of guiding theme or mission, the majority of

80 respondents pushed for ASPBAE to commit to working for the most marginalized and to frame its mission in terms of the anti-poverty and pro-rights movements going on across the region (Shrivastva, 1991).

A number of important points can be discerned from the 1991 Mission Statement. Most obvious is that ASPBAE is, for the first time, articulating adult education as a right, and defining its mandate in terms of promoting this right. In this document, adult education is defended as a right because it allows people to take control of their lives, to gain financial security, to participate in their community, and to assert their value (ASPBAE, 1991a). Although it was over a decade since ASPBAE had begun to adopt a more politicized view of adult education inspired by the popular education tradition of Freire, the role of education in social emancipation had never been a central aspect of the organization’s mission. The sort of change that ASPBAE had previously worked towards was based overwhelmingly on promoting adult education and improving its practice, with little concrete analysis of why this should be. Thus as late as 1987, ASPBAE’s constitution made no mention whatsoever of rights, participation, marginalized populations or liberation movements. Its preamble ambiguously stated “(members of) the Bureau share common humanitarian and development concerns, however the Bureau does not represent and political system or ideology” (ASPBAE, 1987: p. i) The constiution’s twelve “objects and activities” contain no mention of anti-poverty or social justice work, reflecting instead ASPBAE’s traditional focus on shared learning, information dissemination and forging partnerships and networks (ASPBAE, 1987: p. 2-3).

The appearance of rights discourse in ASPBAE’s 1991 mandate is perhaps not surprising, given the global context. As discussed in the previous chapter, there was a rapid growth in interest in human rights immediately following the end of the Cold War. This was part of a wide trend that advocated universalism as a response to the polarity of the previous era. The 1990s witnessed massive growth in economic globalization, international cooperation and transnational activism (Oleson, 2011). In this spirit, the United Nations hosted a series of global conferences on various issues that were seen to have universal applicability: education, the environment, women’s rights. Increasingly, all these issues were framed in terms of human rights (Clark et al, 1998; Eade, 1998). In 1990, the World Conference of Education for All was held in Jomtien, Thailand. The declaration that came out of the event asserted that basic education was a right for all children, youth, and adults (UNESCO, 1990a). ASPBAE was present at this conference, as well

81 as many other UN conferences in this period, and was no doubt influenced by the rights language advanced at these fora.

At the same time, ASPBAE’s leadership was not simply grafting global discourse on to their organizational platform. They were transmitting “outside” ideas about education as a universal right and fitting these into regional traditions and practices (Acharya, 2004). The idea of adult education as a universal right was applied to the specific political context of the Asia South Pacific region and of ASPBAE itself, and was thus connected to the regional social movements with which ASPBAE was increasingly associating itself. The 1991 Mission Statement, as well the ASPBAE Mandate and Basic Values and Ideals, indicate that ASPBAE was increasingly framing its work in terms of a contribution to social activism, rather than a focus on adult education practice. Five thematic focus areas were created at the 1991 general assembly (Literacy and Post Literacy; Education for Women’s Empowerment; Environmental Education for Sustainable Development; Peace and Human Rights Education and Workers Education for Social Development) which were designed to cover the gamut of social movement activism in the region and thus to connect social movement discourse with adult education practice. In this way, ASPBAE localized emerging norms around education rights in order to attract new membership from outside the adult education movement, and was a way to assert the relevance of adult education to wider social issues.

This was not, however, a seamless shift: at the 1991 general assembly, there was concern from at least one thematic working group that too much focus on social issues outside adult education would weaken ASPBAE’s commitment to adult learning (ASPBAE, 1991c). As late as 1993, notes from an ASPBAE leadership meeting indicate tension between older and newer ASPBAE members over this change in activity and discourse: “It was also discussed that support for many ASPBAE programs and activities of late came from its “progressive end” of new members. Old members on the other hand find it difficult to identify with these programs” (ASPBAE, 1993: p. 19). Despite “rough patches” in transitioning to a more politically-progressive discourse, even at the above meeting it was acknowledged that ASPBAE’s strength and competitive advantage stemmed from its ability to unite social movement activism with sound adult education practice, a sentiment that echoed in the organization’s literature in this era (ASPBAE, 1993; 1994; 1996a).

It is also clear from the 1991 assembly documentation that the creation of an over-arching platform was meant to bring a sense of cohesion to an organization that was growing more diverse with the entry of new members. The 1991 Assembly was in fact titled “Unity in Diversity”, highlighting how crucial it was to ASPBAE leadership to give the network a common platform. It was felt by ASPBAE leadership that a focus on working with the most marginalized would help to unite geographically and thematically diverse groups within ASPBAE (Shrivastava, 1991). The first general assembly revealed considerable discord between ASPBAE members, countries and sub-regions. Unpublished notes from a business meeting at the 1991 general assembly include a statement condemning aggressive behaviour on the part of some members: This conference is for increasing solidarity of people in the whole world. We are shocked to be witness to communal statements directed towards some members of other communities and countries which are intended to be an insult and to undermine the validity of the presence of several communities here. We again reiterate our protest towards gender insults and condemn the behaviour of these people. (ASPBAE, 1991b).

This statement suggests that open hostility based on geography, gender and ethnicity was not uncommon among ASPBAE members and that nurturing a sense of shared identity, equal participation and democratic access was essential if the network was to expand and thicken. This had in fact arisen through the review process prior to the 1991 assembly, and much of the business of the assembly was to address concerns that ASPBAE’s structure was not representative or democratic (Shrivastava, 1991).

There was a general sense among those consulted in the 1990-91 review that ASPBAE was an organization struggling to lose its patriarchal and elitist structure. Asked about ASPBAE’s structure, respondents offered comments such as “ASPBAE is a male-dominated organization with decision making in the hands of a few” ; “An exclusive club”; “People got into the executive and stayed there for decades”; “ASPBAE exists only for a few who have been selected” (Anonymous comments, quoted in Shrivastava, 1991: p.20). Looking back at this period, ASPBAE executive council saw that the reaction of newer, younger members of the network to the ASPBAE “old guard” stemmed from the experience of pro-democracy movements across the region (ASPBAE, 1994). Social movements working against patriarchal, authoritarian governments were unlikely to tolerate a centralized, male-dominated network such

83 as ASPBAE. Therefore a great deal of the review, evaluation and subsequent general assembly focussed on how to make ASPBAE a more participatory, decentralized, representative and accountable organization in order to attract and maintain the support of civil society organizations operating in the region.

5.5 Structural change

In order to address the above concerns, ASPBAE made some significant structural changes at the 1991 general assembly. Prior to this point, the executive council consulted with a single national adult education organization in each country. There were a number of serious problems with this structure, as some national associations had restrictive membership and focus, others countries had no viable national association at all, and conflict existed in a number of countries over which organization was the legitimate representative of the adult education movement (ASPBAE, 1991c). Most respondents felt that this structure was unrepresentative and perpetuated domination by certain groups and by certain countries within the region (Shrivastava, 1991). A new, looser structure was introduced at the first general assembly, allowing multiple members per country all of whom could vote members onto the executive council for a four-year term. The council was also shuffled in order to have geographic and gender balance as well as to represent specific groups such as Indigenous peoples. The decentralized and broadened network structure was influenced by the “dynamic and vibrant experiences of community-based popular education groups” (ASPBAE, 1996a: p. 1), and with the entry of these groups into the ASPBAE network, its membership swelled from twenty members in 1990 to 122 organizational members and 88 individual members in 1992. (ASBAE, 1996a).

ASPBAE was also criticized for the lack of democratic geographical representation, with some respondents feeling that the organization was dominated by South Asia (Shrivastava, 1991). Decentralizing programming and some decision-making to the sub-regional level was seen as a way to combat geographical power imbalances. Yet at the same time, there was concern that decentralization would weaken the regional cohesion of ASPBAE. This concern had been raised as early as 1987, when the decision to decentralize ASPBAE and create a constitution was first raised. Rajesh Tandon, then member of both ASPBAE and ICAE, had expressed concern that

“this attempt at decentralization may perhaps lead to substantial and systematic separation and segregation of sub-regions from each other and weaken the purposes and identity of ASPBAE as a whole” (Tandon, 1987)

Through to 1991, tension remained between the ideals of decentralized authority and the need for regional cohesion. At the 1991 general assembly, some members argued that sub-regions were artificial geographical boundaries, many of which were created by colonial powers, and ASBPAE should abolish these boundaries in favour of a thematically-organized network (based, for example, on women’s rights, environmental education etc.) that could provide cohesion across the region. Others argued that the Asia-Pacific was too large and diverse an area to expect cohesion; that the issues faced by, for example, Pacific Islanders, were so different than those faced by citizens in communist countries with little or no NGO sector, or in wealthy, industrialized Japan and Australia, that attempts at creating unifying themes would not adequately address the needs of each sub-region (Shrivastava, 1991).

Ultimately, ASPBAE treaded the line between these two opinions. In 1992 a “matrix structure” was introduced, layering the four sub-regions with five thematic areas (women’s education, environmental education, peace and human rights, workers education and literacy/post-literacy). The Executive Council was made up of the President, Secretary General, and Sub-regional Coordinators (one male, one female) from each of the four sub-regions. In addition, volunteer Sub-regional Thematic Facilitators and Regional Thematic Coordinators were appointed to provide topical cohesion across the organization. This structure was designed to decentralize authority and encourage participatory decision-making while at the same time maintaining a sense of shared regional experience and coherence at national, sub-regional and regional levels (ASPBAE, 1993; 1996a). Although this matrix structure was criticized for causing a lot of overlap in responsibilities, then-president Rajesh Tandon emphasized the importance of regional themes:

There are common interests, communication systems, and cultural specificities with sub-regions...this was the reason for sub-regional divisions within ASPBAE. Nonetheless, as a regional organization, ASPBAE promotes regional programs as well, with the support and guidance of Regional Thematic Coordinators (Tandon, quoted in ASPBAE, 1993).

This focus on regionalism must be seen in the context of increasing globalization post-Cold War. By 1990, “new regionalism” was emerging as an important political and economic force due to the move towards a multi-polar rather than bipolar world order (Hettne and Söderbaum, 2000). Although states are generally seen as the main actors in this move towards greater regional integration – for example the EU, NAFTA or ASEAN – “regionalism may also be a response or a challenge to globalization” (Mittelman, 1996) rather than simply a manifestation of it. This is a sort of “regionalism from below” or “reactionary regionalism” (Scholte, 2000; Beeson, 2003) that can be understood as a confirmation of territory and distinctiveness in the face of expanding globalization that is social and cultural as well as economic. It has been widely acknowledged that the 1990s saw tremendous growth in networking between civil society organizations and NGOs working on similar issues in diverse locals. But nurturing a sense of regional civil society – somewhere between a national identity and global citizenship – is about more than addressing the social impacts of neoliberal globalization. It is about resisting the deterritorialization of globalization and affirming that there is something between the state and the globe that is worth nurturing. This requires the emphasizing of a shared culture and history, “the region as an active subject with a distinct identity ...the convergence and compatibility of ideas” (Hettne and Söderbaum, 2000: p 466).

Such was the perspective of then-president Rajesh Tandon, who, at ASPBAE’s 1991 general assembly, argued that the first issue the organization needed to face was “political globalization on the one hand and cultural homogenization on the other” (Tandon, quoted in ASPBAE, 1991d: p. 2), prompting the question “What is our regional perspective, a perspective we can use to both enrich our work in the region and to share with other regions of the world” (Tandon, 1991)? A key method for forging an “imagined regional community” among ASPBAE member organizations has been the cultivation of a politically-critical discourse, a method that became pronounced following the 1991 general assembly. As mentioned earlier, ASPBAE had created a new mission statement for the first general assembly, focussing on adult education in the service of the poor and marginalized. This was a response to member feedback from the 1990 review process, as well as an effort to unite diverse communities with a common “pro-poor” platform. The mandate that came out of the general assembly went further in identifying the reasons behind global poverty, naming a crisis of “excessive greed and the abuse of power – whether in the form of Western colonialism or in the form of the concentration of wealth and power by our

86 own national and local elite or in the form of the modern ethos of consumerism and misguided industrialization” (ASPBAE, 1991e: p. 1). The mandate went on to identify ASPBAE’s vision as “the continuing and life-long liberation from all kinds of bondage” and “adult education as the point of entry” (ibid).

With this strongly anti-globalization stance, ASPBAE can be said to have moved along the spectrum of norm localization to norm subsidiarity: the process whereby local actors reject outside norms in favour of new locally-based normative structures that “preserve their autonomy from dominance, neglect, violation, or abuse by more powerful central actors” (Acharya, 2011: p. 97). No longer just about promoting and improving adult education practice, ASPBAE was shifting its focus to the role of adult education in establishing new political and economic paradigms. In particular, ASPBAE was working to articulate a different development discourse that placed the needs of the poor at the centre of policies. The idea of “people centred development” was a direct criticism of western economic models and an attempt to nurture a regionally-based development discourse in the face of post-cold war unilateralism:

There appears to be only one model of economic organization. There appears to be only one way of progress and development which seems to have been gaining momentum, more so in the last year or so. It is in that global context that we in this region find ourselves struggling to create alternatives for our own people. The phrase “alternatives for our own people” is itself under great scrutiny when a singular model seems to be gaining strength worldwide...it is in this context that we need to re-examine the possibilities of what all adult educators believe in – the possibilities of people-centred, people-controlled development (Tandon, 1991: p. 2).

The importance of people-centred development, and ASPBAE’s role in promoting this alternative discourse, was articulated in numerous documents produced by ASPBAE in the 1990s (ASPBAE, 1991e; 1993; 1994; 1996a, 1997). But ASPBAE was far from unique in framing its work as participatory development. Development NGOs began in the late 1970s to experiment with ways to incorporate the knowledge and experience of local populations into development projects – a technique that eventually became known as Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA). Robert Chambers, widely credited with pioneering this approach through agro- ecosystem analysis in South Asia, explains that it was an application of Freirean conscientization

(Chambers, 1994) thus highlighting the adult-education element intrinsic to participatory approaches.

Although PRA gained ground throughout the 1980s, it was not until 1990 that participatory approaches won mainstream acceptance (Chambers, 1994), with “participation” reaching the status of development buzzwords alongside “empowerment”, “poverty-reduction” and “good governance” (Cornwall & Brock, 2005). The rise of these buzzwords was likely due at least in part to the proliferation of global conferences in the 1990s, which brought together a wide range of development actors to address issues such as women’s rights, the environment, and education. The idea of participation - “politically ambivalent and definitionally vague” (Cornwall & Brock, 2005: p. 1046) – could easily appeal to the diverse bodies at these events and particularly to the increasingly present NGOs. ASPBAE likely found the same advantage to using the discourse of participation: uniting diverse membership under a widely-accepted and legitimated norm.

For ASPBAE, the idea of participatory development also represented a resistance to authoritarian regimes and western-led development paradigms, a connection to broader regional social movements, and an affirmation of regional autonomy. These were the key themes for ASPBAE in this period, and they appear to support Acharya’s concepts of norm localization and norm subsidiarity. As the organisation became more active in global governance events, attending for example the World Conference on Education for All in 1990 and the Beijing Conference on Women in 1995, it began to adopt dominant international norms and tailor these to fit their organizational mandate and regional culture. Its 1991 Mandate and related documents contain explicit reference to rights and to adult education as a right, connected to wider social issues like environmental protection, gender equality and indigenous sovereignty. These documents also illustrate the increasing use of development buzzwords like “participation” and “people-centred development” within the organization (ASPBAE 1991a; 1991e; 1991f). At the same time, ASPBAE was eager to establish its identity as a southern-based organization with strong regional ties, and part of this identity was a rejection of western aid models and an assertion of regional, participatory development as a counterweight to globalization.

In the previous section, we saw that in the 1970s and 1980s, ASPBAE adopted a more politically-radical discourse but did not connect this to their programming work. In this era, we do not see the same evidence of decoupling: ASPBAE’s use of dominant development norms

88 around rights and participation altered their education practice as well as their overall structure. This indicates that ASPBAE’s policy and practice have been deliberately constructed to be cohesive and to serve the organization’s overall mandate: asserting the right of adults to learn throughout their lives. Throughout this period, ASPBAE leadership worked strategically to reinvent the organisation as a pro-poor adult education network with strong ties to social movements and NGOs operating across the region and in a variety of social justice fields. A particularly key aspect of this strategy was forging a common platform that could unite diverse groups under the ASPBAE umbrella. As the above discussion has shown, this process was fraught with tension, exposing power imbalances and deep divisions among ASPBAE members.

5.6 1990-1999: A gradual shift to advocacy

ASPBAE’s earliest experiences with policy advocacy stemmed directly from its participation in UN conferences and particularly from its close relationship to UNESCO. As mentioned, the genesis of ASPBAE was at a UNESCO event, and throughout its history it has participated in regional and international events hosted by UNESCO and other UN agencies. Thus, to a certain extent, ASPBAE has always been somewhat involved in global policy-making circles. As the decade of the UN mega conferences dawned in 1990, ASPBAE attended the Jomtien conference on Education of All, prompting many members to consider adopting a stronger policy advocacy voice and to take advantage of the organization’s consultative status with UNESCO (Shrivastava, 1991). ASPBAE did participate in many of the conferences of the decade - the 1993 Human Rights Conference, the 1995 Women’s Conference and the 1995 World Summit on Social Development – and these events did help the idea of advocacy plant itself in ASPBAE’s thematic programming (ASPBAE 1991f; 1991g; 1993; 1994). However, an examination of ASPBAE strategic papers in this period reveals that shifts in policy were not really the end-goal of conference participation. Rather, conferences were seen as venues to forge alliances with other organizations, to strengthen and deepen the ASPBAE network (ASPBAE, 1996a; 1997) as well as to solidify ASPBAE’s reputation and increase the visibility of its work (ASPBAE, 1993; 1996a; 2000). An interview with an ASPBAE staff member active in the organization during this period confirms this:

If I can compare policy advocacy work then (prior to 1997) with what we do now, then the emphasis was really on building the network, how to bring together in a common platform women, peace, environmental movements. A broad-based constituency for ASPBAE who you could ultimately draw upon for your advocacy work. But we really weren’t so much into policy research at that point. A lot of our activity was around the parallel civil society platforms rather than the main event (Interview with ASPBAE staff member. Mumbai, February 2012).

A significant turning point for ASPBAE’s advocacy work came in 1997 with the organization of UNESCO’s fifth International Conference on Adult Education (Confintea V). At this event NGOs were invited to participate in all stages of the conference and its preparatory work, “not in parallel forums as in the experience of most UN Conferences – but as part of the official processes” (ASPBAE, 1995: p. 4). It should be noted that the report from Confintea V emphasized NGOs and other civil society groups as essential for the “formulation, provision, management and evaluation of adult education programs” (UNESCO Institute for Education, 1997), with no mention of civil society advocacy or its impact on education policy. However, the relatively open access for civil society at Confintea V allowed a degree of networking between NGOs and with official delegates that served to “crystallize potential for advocacy work” (Interview with ASPBAE staff member. Mumbai, February 2012). Perhaps most important for ASPBAE was the access it had to the preparatory process leading up to Confintea V. ASBPAE situated itself as the liaison between UNESCO and civil society organizations in Asia, disseminating surveys and questionnaires and hosting national and regional events to prepare groups for the upcoming conference.

ASPBAE held its second general assembly in Darwin in 1996, timed to directly precede UNESCO Bangkok’s regional preparatory conference for Confintea. This was a move designed to solidify a strong civil society platform that could be brought to UNESCO, and to encourage ASPBAE members to attend the Bangkok event. UNESCO personnel were invited to the general assembly to solidify these linkages (ASPBAE, 1995). Thus, with Confintea, ASPBAE greatly strengthened its role as a leading civil society network in the Asia-Pacific region by situating itself as the “go-between” connecting UNESCO with adult education organizations in the region and drawing on its network of experts to establish a strong voice for lifelong learning.

ASPBAE’s shift to policy advocacy happened at a time when many other NGOs and civil society organisations were similarly involving themselves in policy processes. As previously discussed, this period saw an increase in the number and the density of global TANs and NGOs involved in advocating, monitoring and reporting on the state of social issues around the world (Boli & Thomas, 1999; Keck & Sikkink, 1998). These organizations used UN conferences as venues to lobby governments and international organizations and to network with like-minded actors (Clark et al, 1998), and thus had a significant impact on the expansion of social justice movements, including the emerging education for all and adult education movements (Kim and Boyle, 2011; Suarez and Ramirez, 2004). That so much of this transnational advocacy was happening in and around UN conferences indicates that the growth of the advocacy NGO was more than the diffusion of a new cultural norm: these organizations were capitalizing on available political opportunities in order to assert themselves as political advocate – a process that is far more active and conflictual than what world polity theory predicts. The importance of these political opportunities will be discussed in detail in the following chapter, which uses political opportunity theory to explore the emergence of the education for all movement.

The focus of ASPBAE’s second general assembly was on consolidating the organizational changes introduced at the 1991 general assembly, as well as strengthening the organization’s ability to act as an advocate for adult education policy. At the assembly, ASPBAE’s 1991 Mission Statement “to advance and defend the rights of adults throughout the Asia-Pacific region to learn, and to be able to go on learning throughout their lives in order to gain control of their own destiny” was kept in place, but expanded with an additional item” “to strengthen the capabilities of the Adult Education movement in the ASPBAE region in order to promote the role and contribution of adult education in creating a new global order” (ASPBAE, 1997). This marked the first time ASPBAE articulated an advocacy role as part of their overall mandate.

Also for the first time, ASPBAE produced a detailed strategy paper, which covered the period 1997-2000. A multiple-strategy framework was devised, covering five priority areas: policy research and advocacy; capability-building and leadership; networking-building and exchange; information dissemination on adult education; and resource mobilization. This framework was to be applied at the national, sub-regional and regional levels and across the five core thematic programs (ASPBAE, 1996a). Some of the specific focal points of the strategic framework were fairly conceptually weak, for example “engage multi-lateral and bilateral aid agencies…on their

91 policies related to adult education” (ibid: p 8). Others, particularly those connected with specific events and concrete activities, had the potential to make real impact. Important to note, however, is that these new strategies drew on ASPBAE’s traditional areas of experience and expertise. Information exchange and dissemination, capacity-building, and networking had been central activities for ASPBAE since its founding.

ASPBAE’s new interest in advocacy was seen as an extension of the organization’s ongoing commitment to education in the pursuit of social justice, rather than a change in overall direction. There were very few changes brought to the table concerning ASPBAE’s programming or structure. Although five new thematic foci were introduced, including indigenous education and HIV/AIDS education (ibid), these additions reflected the ongoing growth of ASPBAE and the influence of diverse social movements entering into its network rather than a change of course. The keynote address reiterated the challenges of globalization, particularly its universalizing tendencies and the exacerbation of poverty for the most marginalized, while also celebrating the potential for decentralized, participatory democracy (Tandon, 1996), in effect echoing and consolidating the themes of the 1991 general assembly. Policy advocacy is seen as a way to further the already-established mandate and discourse of the organization. The need to engage directly with policy-makers is framed by ASPBAE not as a radical new activity, but as a tool to ensure that adult education lives up to its promise as a means to promote equity and to fight poverty (ASPBAE, 1996a). This is quite different than the experience of ActionAid described in the previous chapter, where the turn to advocacy involved massive changes to staffing and the adoption of a whole new theory of social change, the rights-based approach. This important point of comparison will be fleshed out more in the conclusion to this chapter.

At an executive council meeting in 1999, ASPBAE decided to engage in a second wide-reaching review of the organization, its strategy and future plans. This strategic review process was carried out through a series of national and sub-regional meetings, email consultations and mailed-out surveys, culminating in a report Learning to Make a Difference, which provided focus for the third general assembly in 2000. The data gathered through the review suggested that “ASPBAE’s current self-image can be viewed in three-dimensions: ASPBAE as a network; ASPBAE as a movement for adult education; ASPBAE as an advocate” (ASPBAE, 2000b). In its first two roles ASPBAE was seen as largely successful: it had built a network of significant width and depth, even reaching regions traditionally “hard to reach” for NGOs, such as

Mongolia, China and small island states in the South Pacific. Members felt that there had been substantial shared learning that had strengthened internal capacities for adult education practice as well as institutional sustainability. The values of transformative education, social justice, gender equity and sustainable human development had been made explicit in the organisation's philosophy and served to unite disparate groups across the region.

But the question that was raised was had this actually made a difference? The conclusion was that, despite increasing work on policy advocacy since 1997, “ASPBAE’s effective influence and impact on local or global policy reform; or in challenging dominant paradigms of education and learning has been limited” (ASPBAE, 2000b: p 13). There was consensus across the executive and membership of ASPBAE that the organization needed to position itself more strategically in order to have greater impact in policy-making circles. Post 2000, ASPBAE has very much been defined by its efforts to strengthen itself as an advocacy organization.

5.7 2000-2004: Regional to global networking and the advent of an advocacy strategy

In Learning to Make a Difference (2000), ASPBAE’s Mission Statement was altered to reflect the organization’s new advocacy orientation. The 1991 mission, “to advance the right of all adults in the Asia-Pacific region to learn...” was changed to “ASPBAE seeks to build and strengthen an Asia-Pacific movement dedicated to advancing equitable access to relevant, quality and empowering education and learning opportunities for all” (ASPBAE, 2000b: p15).With this new statement, ASPBAE’s core values of equitable and empowering education remain central, but its own role has become entirely focussed on network construction. ASPBAE was emphasizing its role as an enabling organization that could foster a region-wide advocacy movement and “promote recognition of the role, contribution and importance of community groups, people’s organisations, NGOs and other civil society organisations in education and development in the region” (ibid: p16). This was further elaborated in a set of three strategies: enhancing transformative adult education theory, policy and practice; supporting education and learning needs of social movements in the region; and providing a platform where different stakeholders could dialogue.

With this set of strategies, each of which were expanded through “core functions”, we see that the emphasis on networking and on enhancing the networking capabilities of ASPBAE member organizations was tied directly to policy advocacy: “The new alliance and coalition building efforts pursued were substantively motivated by campaign and policy advocacy imperatives. New leadership and capacity-building activities were designed to shore up policy advocacy competencies of ASPBAE at various levels” (ASPBAE, 2006a). With Learning to Make a Difference, ASPBAE had formed its first detailed and cohesive advocacy strategy paper. Clear links were made between its mission, strategies and core activities, all oriented towards articulating a strong regional advocacy network for equitable education.

Certainly, the network form of organization was not new for ASPBAE. Its origins as a network of adult education practitioners and its close association with social justice movements in the region make its new emphasis on network-construction seem straight-forward. However, framing their overall mandate in terms of enabling and building an adult education network does place more importance on structure than we have seen up to this point. As mentioned in the previous chapter, the network form of organization has grown considerably since the late 1990s. Partly due to the increase in numbers of NGOs and other civil society organisations since the end of the Cold War, as well as the growth of information and communication technologies, decentralized networks composed of diverse actors linked by broad social justice concerns is now the dominant form of advocacy organization (Bennett, 2005). Thus we see, for example, the Global Campaign for Education, which brings together teachers unions, development NGOs and child’s rights activists under the banner of Education for All. The creation of these broad-based coalitions is entirely strategic: to influence global policy and normative discourse, activists and activist organizations create networks to act as communicative structures where information is gathered, packaged and disseminated, and political spaces where they construct shared identities, issue- frames and strategies (Keck & Sikkink, 1998). ASPBAE’s new mandate to act as a network- builder is therefore reflective of broader trends in transnational advocacy, as well as a product of ASPBAE’s specific organisational history and dynamic.

Another defining feature of ASPBAE’s strategic plan in 2000 was the emphasis placed on research as an advocacy tool. Policy research was identified as one of four “core functions” (ASPBAE 2000a; 2000b) and was explicitly linked to global governance agenda such as the Education for All framework and Millennium Development Goals, as ASPBAE was working to

94 engage with actors that had “great impact on lifelong learning policies: the multilaterals and bilaterals, other economic and regional formations” (ASPBAE, 2000b: p. 18). The policy research/advocacy strategy was broken down into three core activities: alternative policy research and theory development, regional policy monitoring and lobbying, and information dissemination through publications. This reflected what many felt was a traditional strength of the organization: originally built as a network of professional educators, most with connection to universities, ASPBAE had significant institutional capabilities to carry out sophisticated and wide-reaching research and to disseminate this widely through their network (dela Torre & Kannabiran, 2007; ASPBAE, 2006a; Loomis, 2000).

ASPBAE’s work in policy advocacy increasingly pulled it into the global development education regime. This is not to say that the focus on regional identity was diminished, but that ASPBAE directed their efforts at advocating for regional education issues at global fora, and was increasingly forming alliances with global bodies. The World Education Forum held in Dakar in 2000 had witnessed a tremendous growth in global civil society networking in the field of education, and ASPBAE was one of many organisations to ally itself with the Global Campaign for Education, which emerged from this event. The importance of the Dakar forum, and the opportunities it presented for an emerging advocacy movement, is the focus of the next chapter. At this point, however, it is important to point out that the growing global EFA movement has had a tremendous influence on the development of ASPBAE since 2000.

At the 2004 general assembly, the idea was put forth that ASPBAE needed to expand its focus to the whole Education for All agenda – to embrace the movement for access to quality primary education alongside its traditional focus on adult education. This is perhaps surprising, considering that in 2000 the organization had pondered a narrower program focus due to stretched financial resources (ASPBAE, 2000). Nonetheless, ASPBAE mandated this new, broader focus at its 2008 general assembly, in essence substituting forty years of representing the adult education movement in favour of moving the organization closer in line with the wider EFA movement. This was obviously a major programmatic and discursive shift for the organisation, requiring four years of planning and careful issue-framing. In chapter seven we will examine this process in depth.

Another sign that ASPBAE was coming more in line with the global EFA movement was the introduction of the rights-based approach in 2006. This approach, discussed in detail in the previous chapter, was central to the discourse of both ActionAid and Oxfam, two founding members of the Global Campaign or Education, and thus major players in the EFA movement. So it is perhaps not surprising that as ASPBAE became more closely associated with the GCE, the executive council called for an emphasis on RBA as a means to advocate for education. A new Mission and Vision Statement was created by the executive council in 2006 to reflect its new focus on RBA and to link this with a more explicitly “pro-poor” orientation in ASPBAE’s programming and discourse:

ASPBAE asserts that Education is a fundamental human right. Governments therefore have the primary responsibility to provide free, compulsory basic education of good quality to all its citizens. To guarantee the right to learn throughout life, governments should take the lead in providing opportunities for adult learning, especially to address the learning needs of poor, marginal people and communities (ASPBAE, 2006b).

The idea of education as a right in not new for ASPBAE: its 1991 Mission Statement “to advance and defend the rights of adults throughout the Asia-Pacific region to learn, and to be able to go on learning throughout their lives in order to gain control of their own destiny” (ASPBAE, 1991a), indicates that the organization has long connected education rights and social change. The focus on government duties and citizenship rights was new, however, and reflects the discourse of RBA as promoted by leading INGOS like ActionAid. ASPBAE’s adoption of this discourse thus represents its alignment with the broader EFA movement rather than a radical philosophical departure.

Following the 2006 Executive Council meeting, ASPBAE engaged in a third wide-ranging review process, consulting with its members, partners and its main donor, the German Adult Education Organization (DVV). This review was designed to assess and concretize changes to ASPBAE’s discourse and mandate since 2000. As in the past, this review process culminated in a General Assembly during which members could deliberate on the findings of the review process. At the 2008 General Assembly, ASPBAE ratified the Mission and Vision Statement drafted by the executive committee in 2006, and also mandated a name change that would reflect the organization’s new focus. Now known as the Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and

Adult Education, the new name was designed to “encompass ASPBAE’s expanded emphasis on the full EFA agenda whilst retaining a focus on adult education in ASPBAE’s work” (ASPBAE, 2009b: p. 2).

For the first time, ASPBAE created a single overarching goal to frame its diverse program: “ASPBAE’s Over-all Goal is to secure equal access of all citizens to basic and adult education of good quality, contributing to poverty eradication, sustainable development and a lasting peace” (ASPBAE, 2009a: p. 8). Apart from being far more concise than previous Mission Statements, this singular goal served to highlight ASPBAE’s focus on the rights-based approach and its incorporation of basic (i.e. primary-level) education. The four key strategies developed in 2000 - leadership/capacity building, policy advocacy/research, networking, and resource mobilization – remained in place for the 2009-2012 period. (ASPBAE, 2009a) Thus the widening of ASPBAE’s mandate to include children’s education and the adoption of RBA discourse did not fundamentally change the activities or strategies of the organization. These changes were the result of ASPBAE’s growing ties to the global EFA movement. They can perhaps be understood as a strategy to bring ASPBAE in to the fold of this movement, but, surprisingly, were not designed to substantially change ASPBAE’s overall goals or strategies. This will be discussed in more detail in chapter seven.

5.8 Conclusions

This chapter has shown significant evidence that ASPBAE is heavily influenced by the broader context in which it operates. Since the organisation was created in the early 1960s, it has drawn on widely-legitimated global norms to justify its work and its focus. We saw that early in its history, ASPBAE “enacted” norms about the role of education in economic and rural development that reflected dominant western ideas about education and economic growth. As the radical popular adult education movement grew in the 1970s, ASPBAE began to advance, and indeed shape, new development norms based on a strong southern-based critique of western economic paradigms and formal education systems. This was a very different cultural script than that enacted by ActionAid and other western aid organisations in this era. Although drawing on what world polity theorists identify as western values – universalism, individualism, citizenship – the southern movements with which ASPBAE was increasingly working were using these

97 values to highlight the fundamental inequity of the global system. This indicates that global cultural norms are not simply diffused and enacted, but are strategically manipulated to suit the political purposes of the actors performing and shaping them.

We have seen that ASPBAE has continuously evaluated and revaluated its goals, strategies and overall mandate, and that the discourse of the organization has been in a constant state of construction and refinement. Although it has drawn on the scripts of international norms, it has always done so in ways that are highly strategic. Decision-making has been based heavily on the need to attract membership and funds and to assert the importance of its work and its regional identity. Thus neither structure-centric nor actor-centric approaches seem appropriate ways to analyse organizational change at ASPBAE.

This appears to support the theory of strategic action fields discussed in chapters two and four. By adopting this perspective, I have shown that ASPBAE has been highly constrained as well as enabled by its environment. This is not a singular, overarching environment: ASPBAE operates in a number of overlapping environments, a “complex web of strategic action fields” (Fligstein & McAdam, 2011: p. 4) - the international development regime, the southern-based radical adult education movement, the Education for All movement. But they are not a passive member of any of these. As discussed throughout this chapter, ASPBAE has consciously assessed the value of global development and education norms, choosing to graft some of these on to its own work as a regional adult education network, and choosing to reject others in favour of locally-based norms. I see Acharya’s concepts of norm localization and norm subsidiarity as highly relevant to the theory of strategic action fields, in that these perspectives share an appreciation for the multiple and overlapping strategic fields in which actors operate and from which they establish their strategic action frames. This chapter has shown that, to survive as an organization, ASPBAE has constantly devised strategies that respond to various political landscapes, to assert its value and to mobilize resources.

But what about the emergence of ASPBAE’s policy advocacy role in the mid-1990s, a process mirrored at ActionAid and among countless other non-governmental organizations in this period? World polity theory is crucial to understanding this process: it cannot be that so many diverse organizations like ASPBAE and ActionAid just happened to arrive at the same place at approximately the same time. Post-cold war, we see a massive growth in globalization of all

98 kinds, legitimizing ideals of universalism, democracy, and the rights of the citizen. In this climate, NGOs are more easily able to assert themselves into global policy making in the name of these values, arguing for the legitimacy of their presence as representatives of the global public. But world polity theory does not tell us the whole story. Yes, ideas of global citizenship and human rights advocacy were externally legitimated as global cultural scripts. But how did advocacy NGOs use these scripts?

We see, for example, significant differences in the way policy advocacy was introduced at ActionAid and ASPBAE. In the former, the turn to advocacy involved massive changes to staffing and the adoption of a whole new theory of social change, the rights-based approach. In the latter, advocacy was gradually introduced, and framed as a continuation of the organization’s long-standing interest in promoting adult education. This difference may represent a case of one organization being more precarious and wanting to avoid rocking the boat for members and funders: at this time ASPBAE relied on a single main donor – DVV – as well as membership dues to sustain their activities. It may also provide another example of norm localization at ASPBAE, which chose to carefully graft the idea of advocacy on to its pre-existing mandate rather than make a radical break with the past. Or it may simply be a case of different leadership styles and personalities. Either way, it is clear that the turn to advocacy did not represent a popular idea simply diffusing into an array of organizations. This was a shift that had to be framed and sold to internal and external stakeholders. This will be discussed in more detail in chapter seven.

First, however, we must look more closely at how advocacy NGOs became a legitimated political force in the emerging multilateral education consensus known as Education for All. The previous two chapters have shown how global norms around the role of NGOs in international development have shifted over the past decades, with these actors now playing a far more active role in informing global education development policy. But how were these norms translated into political opportunities? The world polity perspective does not tell us enough about the process of contestation that must accompany a change so massive as the arrival of a new political force – the advocacy NGO – into global politics. To understand how advocacy organizations have emerged in the field of development education, and how they have managed to wield significant influence, requires a thorough examination of the political opportunities structures from which these organizations emerged. It is to these opportunities that attention will now turn.

Chapter 6

6 Political Opportunity Structures in the Education for All Movement

6.1 Introduction

As discussed in the introductory chapter, the political opportunity approach is perhaps the most widely-used and widely-debated theories in social movement scholarship. This theory posits that the political environment in which advocacy NGOs operate places various opportunities and constraints on their social change efforts. Thus the relative success of a movement is largely determined by structures within a given political system. Although very much a structural account of social movements, this perspective does leave more room for actor agency than does the world polity theory discussed in previous chapters. Activists craft strategies based on the given political opportunity structures and can, in some circumstances, alter these structures through their advocacy efforts (Tarrow, 1994). In this chapter, I will examine the international political opportunities available for advocacy NGOs within the Education for All movement in order to understand how an EFA strategic action field emerged. In particular, I will focus on how ActionAid and ASPBAE leveraged additional political and resource opportunities in the run-up and follow-up to the Dakar World Education Forum in 2000, and how this contributed to increasing their prominence within EFA governance.

This chapter begins with a brief review of academic work on political opportunity structures for NGOs at the United Nations, discussing in particular the importance of UN certification and of UN conferences as venues for NGO advocacy. It then moves on to examine the political opportunities available for EFA advocacy since the first Education for All conference in 1990, focussing on the access NGOs – particularly ASPBAE and ActionAid - have been able to gain into EFA policy-making at global levels.

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6.2 NGO advocacy and political opportunities at the UN

A growing body of work looks at the degree to which global governance institutions are open to influence from advocacy NGOs. Generally, we see an increase in openness since the 1990s, the decade during which both global governance conferences and transnational advocacy networks proliferated. As Risse-Kappen argues, the “highly regulated and cooperative structures of international governance tend to legitimize transnational activities and to increase their access to the national polities as well as their ability to form ‘winning coalitions’ for policy change” (1995: p. 6). The openness of global governance fora differs widely: some institutions are quite open and have formal procedures for the inclusion of non-state actors, for example UNESCO and the UN Economic and Social Council. Others are virtually closed to NGO participation, for example the WTO and the IMF (Sikkink, 2005). Variations exist within institutions, which may be open to some issue-areas and not to others. Human rights NGOs struggled to gain access to decision-making at the World Bank in the 1990s, where environmental organizations had more success (Keck & Sikkink, 1998). However, environmental NGOs largely failed to gain political opportunities at the EU in the same period, lacking both mechanisms for formal access and elite allies (Rucht, 1997).

UN agencies are widely seen as being the most accessible intergovernmental arenas for NGOs and other civil society organizations. This is because the UN’s broad mandates - to resolve conflict, promote peace and security and foster international cooperation - are greatly facilitated by having a large cadre of non-state actors to “serve the global constituency” (Smith, Pagnucco & Chatfield, 1997: p 69). Since intergovernmental organizations do not typically have the means to enforce international agreements, they rely on NGOs and other civil society groups to monitor government adherence to these agreements and to implement policies and programs. Therefore most UN agencies have formalized procedures to allow civil society groups to impact decision- making, valuing these actors for their expertise and their connection to grassroots work.

NGOs have been somewhat incorporated into the UN since its founding. In 1950, the UN created an accreditation scheme that brought 48 NGOs into the organization’s fold as consultants. By the late 1960s there were 180 officially credited NGOs, and by 1990 this number had grown to 744. In 1996, the UN revised its accreditation requirements to allow national NGOs to achieve official

101 status – previous to this only international NGOs had been accorded this privilege. This was followed by a massive influx in enrolled NGOs, with the result that, by 2003, 2300 organizations had obtained official consultative status (Martens, 2004). This tremendous growth in numbers is the product of a transnational climate discussed in detail in the previous chapters: widespread interest in creating global social justice frameworks and legislation based on the values of universalism and democratic citizenship; increasing growth of, and networking between, transnational advocacy organizations; acknowledgement on the part of governmental and intergovernmental organizations that non-state actors were essential partners in promoting, implementing and monitoring international legislation.

This is not to say that the accreditation of NGOs has been a straightforward process. The NGO committee that oversees accreditation, made up of representatives of UN member states, is widely regarded as one of the more corrupt UN bodies. It is perhaps not surprising that the committee has been accused of promoting the interests of members’ own governments in their selection process, and of blocking access for NGOs that are seen as critical of their governments (Martens, 2004; Otto, 1996; Lagoni, 1995). Nonetheless, UN accreditation offers a very valuable political opportunity for advocacy NGOs. It gives them direct access to policy-makers and to representatives of government that they wish to target. It allows NGOs to access certain documents and to attend meetings and conferences where they may have the chance to formally express their opinion or present their advocacy research. Certain members of these NGOs are given passes to access UN buildings, allowing these individuals to physically meet policy- makers and to lobby them directly. As Martens (2004) has argued this informal access is often seen as more valuable than the formal channels of conferences and meetings. Additionally, having official status opens up networking opportunities between NGOs, who may not otherwise have a chance to physically meet to coordinate advocacy strategies. As we will see in the next section, the physical space opened up by the Education for All conferences was invaluable for the formation of a transnational education advocacy movement.

Fligstein and McAdam (2011) have argued that when a new strategic action field emerges, it typically requires internal and external validation processes that help solidify the rules and identity of the field. The external validation process involves certification by government and intergovernmental agencies, so “as fields coalesce, they tend to establish ties—often formal legal ties—to state actors and certifying state agencies” (p. 28). External and internal validation

102 processes are often mutually-reinforcing, and invariably serve the interests of those who wield the most power within a field, what these authors refer to as the field’s incumbents. So we expect to see incumbent organizations – the recognized leaders of the strategic action field – drawing “great strength from the legitimacy conferred by forms of state (and non-state) certification” (p. 35). Thus we can see the achievement of UN consultative status as being a key part of the political opportunity structure for leading organizations in various strategic action fields – a topic that will be discussed in the context of the EFA movement later in this chapter.

UN conferences are a particularly fruitful arena for NGO advocacy. NGOs who have achieved official consultative status are invited to participate in various parts of the conference, giving these organizations the chance to lobby policy-makers, to present findings of advocacy research and to impact the final draft of conference statements and resolutions. The number of NGOs invited to these conferences has grown precipitously since 1990: 163 NGOs were invited to the 1985 UN Conference on Women; ten years later at the Beijing conference, the number had swelled to 3000 (Clark, Friedman and Hochstetler, 1998). UN conferences almost always include a parallel civil society forum, during which various non-state actors can craft shared strategies and a cohesive policy agenda. Additionally, a great deal of the influential work of these conferences happens before and after the event through preparatory work and monitoring – areas in which NGO networks are particularly active.

The international mandates that come out of global UN conferences open up space for civil society advocacy work targeting governments who fail to live up to the commitments they made in international fora. A number of world polity theorists have argued that decoupling between state policy and state practice –an expected side-effect of global norm-diffusion - provides advocacy opportunities for civil society organizations. Hafner-Burton and Tsutsui (2005), in their study of human rights treaty ratification and violations in 153 countries between 1976– 1999, found that when “nation-states make formal legal commitments to symbolize human rights compliance even while they are in violation, this process of ‘empty’ institutional commitment to a weak regime paradoxically empowers non-state advocates with the tools to pressure governments toward compliance” (p. 1378). Scholarship on transnational advocacy networks has similarly found that when states adopt human rights policies but do not follow through on implementation, activists can use international treaties to pressure unresponsive states and to enlist the support of international NGOs – a process Keck and Sikkink refer to as the boomerang

103 effect. We are therefore not surprised to see that “the growth of international agreements and organizations among governments has been accompanied by a corresponding proliferation of transnational civil society associations of all types” (Smith & Wiest, 2005).

However, Clark, Friedman and Hochstetler (1998) have shown that, although NGOs were increasingly invited to the global conferences that proliferated in the 1990s, their ability to influence global policy-making was often quite limited. Based on an analysis of civil society participation at three different UN conferences, they found that these organizations were rarely permitted to move beyond a consultative role. Although these events facilitated highly strategic collective action on the part of civil society, many member states were unable to accept NGOs as policy advocates, preferring to utilize these organizations as service-providers. Power differentials among civil society organizations were also evident at these conferences, with well- funded northern NGOs taking the lead on overall coordination, and therefore heavily influencing civil society positions. This highlights the fact that some NGOs are better able to maximize political opportunities than are others. In what follows, I will examine some of the political opportunities created by the Education for All movement in order to see how civil society organizations – and particularly ASPBAE and ActionAid - have used these opportunities to gain additional leverage in global education governance.

6.3 Political Opportunities in Education for All Governance

The focus of this section is international political opportunity structures for EFA advocacy. Although both ASPBAE and ActionAid dedicate considerable resources to strengthening national coalitions who engage in domestic EFA advocacy, their own advocacy work focuses overwhelmingly on intergovernmental organizations, including multilateral and bilateral donors. Thus my interest is in the global-level political opportunities available to (or made available by) my case study organizations. I will offer a brief discussion of the two major global education conferences: the World Conference on Education for All, held in Jomtien, Thailand, in 1990 and at the World Education Forum held in Dakar, Senegal, in 2000; as well as the various decision- making bodies that have been set up post-Dakar, and the role ActionAid and ASPBAE play(ed) in each of these.

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The 1990 World Conference on Education for All (WCEFA) was a watershed moment for global education governance. It was here that the discourse of “Education for All” was first developed, built on the idea of basic education as a fundamental human right that should be provided to all children, youth and adults (UNESCO, 1990). The Jomtien declaration emphasized that achieving basic education for all was an global as well as a national responsibility, requiring “international solidarity” and the revitalization of partnerships “between government and non-governmental organizations, the private sector, local communities, religious groups, and families” (UNESCO, 1990a: p. 7). So, in discourse at least, the WCEFA placed significant importance of forging partnerships with civil society in order to fulfil the basic learning needs of all. Prior to the conference, a number of NGOs had been involved in regional preparatory consultations to draft the two key documents produced for the conference – the World Declaration on Education for All and the Framework for Action to Meet Basic Learning Needs. Representatives from 125 NGOs received official invitation to participate in the conference, and the WCEFA steering committee included an NGO representative (Mundy & Murphy, 2001).

Despite the rhetoric about partnerships for achieving EFA, there has been significant criticism of the role given to NGOs during and after the 1990 conference. Jones (2007c) has argued that the participation of civil society groups at the conference was severely limited by the sponsoring agencies. NGOs were virtually shut out of the policy-making process, their influence restricted to a single pre-meeting, which Jones argues contributed significantly to the failure of the WCEFA and its follow-up processes. Chabbott’s (2003) work on the WCEFA indicates that, in an effort to have a broad and diverse NGO constituency, the conference conveners tightly controlled the NGO invite list. This meant that the number of NGOs attending was relatively small, and that many who had previously worked with UNESCO and Unicef Collective Consultations on Literacy from 1984-1989 were not invited. The result was a lack of cohesion among participating NGOs, many of whom had no prior relationship to each other, which drastically curtailed their potential to create a cohesive civil society voice at the conference.

Furthermore, Mundy and Murphy (2001) have pointed out that the role for civil society envisioned by the EFA multilaterals was one of service provider rather than policy advocate. This was made clear in the Framework for Action, which outlined the potential roles of NGOs within EFA: “These autonomous bodies, while advocating independent and critical public views, might play roles in monitoring, research, training and material production for the sake of non-

105 formal and life-long educational processes” (UNESCO, 1990b: p 5). The same document praised NGOs for “their experience, expertise, energy and direct relationships with various constituencies are valuable resources for identifying and meeting basic learning needs. Their active involvement in partnerships for basic education should be promoted through policies and mechanisms that strengthen their capacities and recognize their autonomy” (p. 12).

In the early days of the EFA movement, the international political opportunity structures for NGOs were quite limited. This is perhaps not surprising, as Clark et al (1998) have shown that in most of the large UN conferences in this era, “official” civil society representatives were kept on a short leash. The follow-up to WCEFA continued this tradition, with no clear mechanisms for NGOs to access EFA policy-making. The EFA Inter-agency Steering Commission, for example, did not include an NGO representative until 1997 (Mundy & Murphy, 2001). Most governments and multilateral organizations were unwilling to see NGOs move beyond their roles as service- providers. However, this emphasis on civil society organizations as education providers did indirectly create new political opportunities for NGO advocacy. The increased donor support and funding for NGOs carrying out education service delivery led to a number of NGOs expanding their basic education programs as well as new NGOs entering the field. The growing density of education-related NGOs as service-providers opened the door to legitimizing these NGOs as political advocates based on their experience in the field (Minkoff, 1994).

It is useful to recall Smith et al’s (1997) argument that UN agencies provide particularly good international political opportunity structures for NGOs because their mandates require broad international cooperation. NGOs are very useful for their ability to carry out the expanded social programs that are inevitably required if international agreements are to be met. They can also act as “eyes and ears” on the ground, monitoring government commitments to these agreements (ibid). When governments sign on to international mandates like EFA, it serves to open up space for NGO advocacy, “within the sphere of entitlements by virtue of government sanction” (Tomlinson & Macpherson, 2006: p 12). So while the follow-up to the WCEFA lacked formalized political opportunities for NGOs, it indirectly served to encourage a stronger civil society advocacy voice by expanding NGO development education programs, and by providing an advocacy target in the form of government commitments to EFA.

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By the late 1990s, a number of large nongovernmental organizations had launched education advocacy initiatives. These initiatives focussed on highlighting the decoupling between promises made at Jomtien, and the failure of national governments and the international community to translate these into educational change. I would argue that this marked the beginning of an Education for All strategic action field. As Fligstein and McAdam argue, new strategic action fields generally emerge during periods of crisis in a given issue-area, when challenger groups are able to expose failures and undermine the rules that have previously governed a field. Challengers “sense an opportunity to advance their position in the field through novel means. Wholly new groups are also likely to emerge during the crisis”.

Indeed, three prominent organizations with interest in advocating for EFA came together in 1999 to form the Global Campaign for Education on the eve of the 2000 World Education Forum in Dakar – ActionAid, Oxfam and Education International. As discussed previously, ActionAid had a long history in development education and had recently adopted a stronger policy advocacy position across all its thematic areas, including education. ActionAid had formed its own global coalition for education advocacy, called Elimu, in early 1999. Elimu was phased out in 2002 in favour of a singular focus on the Global Campaign for Education, but at the time of Dakar, ActionAid’s advocacy efforts involved participating in the GCE as well as carrying out its own advocacy work through Elimu.

In the lead-up to the Dakar conference, ActionAid and its GCE partners engaged in a number of strategic activities designed to leverage more political opportunities for NGOs within the EFA movement. ActionAid circulated a series of briefings to its Elimu partners, which provided “background information, position papers and other material needed to lobby and campaign effectively in the run-up to the Dakar meeting” (ActionAid, 2000d: p. 1). It also organized a number of preparatory regional events in Africa in order to facilitate a strong and cohesive African NGO contingent (ActionAid, 2000e). A massive lobbying effort was carried out through the Global Campaign for Education as well. This included a letter to the World Bank president criticizing the failure of the interagency EFA forum and demanding greater participation of civil society groups in EFA policy-making; a Global Week of Action to engage teachers unions as well as NGOs whose work touched in some way on education related issues; and hosting an NGO conference at the Africa regional EFA preconference meetings. By March of 2000, the GCE had grown to over 400 member organizations (Mundy & Murphy, 2001).

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On the eve of the Dakar conference, the Global Campaign for Education created a nine-point platform to be used as the basis of advocacy efforts. This was circulated widely among NGOs and the media as well as members of national delegations. Again, we can see that although formal political opportunity structures were limited, the very nature of the EFA consensus created political opportunities that the GCE and its affiliates were able to exploit. By creating a coherent and widely-owned advocacy platform, the GCE raised its profile in the run-up to the Dakar forum, highlighting that “the more a movement can aggregate popular interests into concrete policy demands, the more effective it should be at coordinating global strategy and utilizing the political opportunities created by intergovernmental organizations” (Smith, Pagnucco & Chatfield, 1997: p. 69). This observation fits well with the theory of strategic action fields, which argues that new fields will emerge due to the manoeuvring of skilled social actors who are able to mobilize adherents and build consensus: “Skilled strategic actors will use available identities to build coalitions of either other dominant groups or actors or else build broad coalitions of challenger groups to push forward a compromise version of the nature of the field” (Fligstein & McAdam, 2011: p 24).

Despite the increasing advocacy activities on the part of civil society organizations, or perhaps because of it, the interagency steering committee sought to limit NGO influence at the Dakar conference. This reaction is anticipated by strategic action field theory, which depicts SAFs as sites of contestation, and expects those who hold power in a given field to resist the efforts of challenger coalitions (Fligstein & McAdam, 2011). Only 55 official invitations were given out to civil society organizations at Dakar, as compared to 125 in 1990. Both ActionAid and ASPBAE were among the NGOs invited to participate. Unlike in 1990, there was an officially sponsored NGO pre-conference, which organizers hoped would contain civil society advocacy outside of the official forum. In fact this event served to strengthen the cohesiveness of civil society groups, predominantly under the leadership of the GCE (Mundy & Murphy, 2001). ActionAid played a leading role in the NGO conference, both in its own Elimu campaign work and through its position as a founding member of the GCE. ASPBAE, although not yet part of the GCE, was also an active participant at the NGO forum (Kahn, 2000).

There were two formal mechanisms for civil society to influence the outcomes of the World Education Forum: through participation in the Drafting Committee for the Dakar Framework for Action; and through participation in the Futures Committee on post-Dakar follow-up. The latter

108 forum included a representative from ASPBAE, raising the organization’s profile and allowing it to influence the “the follow-up and implementing mechanisms of Dakar commitments” (Kahn, 2000). It also included a representative from ActionAid, who developed an EFA Futures Lobby Paper, circulated among Elimu and GCE partners before and during the Dakar conference (ActionAid 2000b), as well as a set of recommendation for the Futures Committee, based on points in the GCE platform (ActionAid, 2000c). Participation in the Futures Committee was therefore a key way for ActionAid and ASPBAE to ensure that more political opportunities were opened up for civil society organisations in the post-Dakar period. They recommended, for example, mechanisms to allow for more southern civil society participation in EFA follow-up, and the establishment of a mid-term review process with defined targets (ibid).

The drafting committee representatives – many of whom were members of the GCE – were able to significantly influence the Dakar Declaration. The final document included a number of points based on the GCE’s platform: it referred to “free” rather than “affordable” education, maintained language around education as a right, and included a statement on civil society actors as partners in policy dialogue, planning and monitoring, rather than just as service providers (Mundy, 2012). The civil society platform also emphasised the need for concrete financing plans to achieve Education for All, and this was a major lobbying point for GCE members. The conference facilitated NGO access to the World Bank, by far the largest donor to development education, and the GCE took this opportunity to push its education financing agenda. In 2002, the World Bank developed the Fast-Track Initiative for education financing, based largely on the recommendations of the GCE, indicating that the campaign had been successful in leveraging the political opportunities made available by the Dakar conference (Mundy, 2012; Kitamura, 2007).

It was widely recognized at the Dakar conference that the failings of Jomtien were directly related to the lack of strong partnerships among governments, intergovernmental, and nongovernmental organizations to achieve Education for All (Jones, 2007c; Kitamura, 2007). Post- Dakar, a number of mechanisms were introduced to facilitate the access of NGOs to the EFA follow-up process, influenced by recommendations made by civil society organizations on the Futures Committee (ActionAid, 2000c). Again, strategic action field theory is able to explain the emergence of these new governance mechanisms, as Fligstein and McAdam argue that “the emergence of a field almost always leads to the creation of a set of internal governance structures designed to monitor and ensure compliance with field rules, membership criteria and the like” (p.

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28). These structures generally incorporate both challenger and incumbent groups and are designed to solidify the new status-quo.

In the case of the Education for All strategic action field, these governance mechanisms include the EFA High Level Group Meeting, convened annually by UNESCO, with representatives from international NGOs and intergovernmental organizations as well as heads of state, education ministers of developing countries, and ministers for international cooperation of developed countries. Both ActionAid and ASPBAE participate in the High Level Group through their affiliation with the Global Campaign for Education. This meeting is overtly political, as evidenced by the attendee list, and the outcomes of discussions are “adopted and released as a communiqué at the end of the meeting. The EFA partners are expected to reflect these results in every one of their policies” (Kitamura, 2007: p. 38). Thus this venue represents an important political opportunity for both case-study organizations.

UNESCO also convenes an annual Working Group Meeting on EFA, which includes staff from education ministries, international development departments, and NGOs from both the north and the south, again including representatives from both ASPBAE and ActionAid. This body does not produce policy decisions, but does attempt to influence these decisions by acting as a “forum for discussion and information exchange for working-level personnel who gather from all over the world (ibid, p. 39).

In addition to these two main fora, there are a large number of other venues that include civil society representatives. Chief among these in the Collective Consultation of NGOs on EFA (CCNGO/EFA), organized by UNESCO as a key mechanism for ensuring “the engagement and participation of civil society in the formulation, implementation and monitoring of strategies for educational development" (UNESCO, 2000: p. 8). About 300 international, regional and national NGOs are registered with CCNGO/EFA, including ActionAid and ASPBAE, creating a wide- reaching network for information-exchange designed to influence national and international EFA policy (UNESCO.org, accessed 12 March 2013). UNESCO also convenes a number of regional and sub-regional EFA meetings that allow for the participation of NGOs, and these were particularly active during the EFA mid-term review process in 2007 -2008. ASPBAE has participated in virtually every regional EFA fora in the Asia-Pacific and has nurtured a strategic relationship with UNESCO`s Bangkok office (Moriarty, 2010). ASPBAE also sits on the

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Advisory Board of EFA Global Monitoring Report, and acts as Co-Chair of the Global Advisory Committee (GAC) of the UN Girls Education Initiative (ASPBAE, 2010). ActionAid’s David Archer is a board member of the Global Partnership on Education (formerly the Fast Track Initiative), providing direct access to key multilateral and bilateral donors.

The various EFA venues have been widely criticized for being donor-driven and for privileging northern INGOs at the expense of southern civil society groups (Newman, 2011; Kitamura, 2007; Torres, 2001). These are important issues to address, particularly for advocacy NGOs campaigning for genuinely democratized global governance procedures. It is not my intention, however, to examine the environment of specific EFA follow-up mechanisms. Instead, I have sought to identify the international political opportunities that exist for advocacy NGOs and specifically what opportunities have been taken up by ASPBAE and ActionAid. Recalling Tarrow’s argument that political opportunities are “consistent, but not necessarily formal or permanent” (1994: p. 85), we can see that EFA opportunity structures shifted considerably post- Dakar due to the collective efforts of a burgeoning education advocacy movement. Despite the limited access civil society organizations had to decision-making at the Dakar conference, this forum offered opportunities for networking, allowing for the creation of a cohesive civil society platform that took full advantage of the political opportunities that did exist. The forum also provided advocacy groups with clear targets in the form of government commitments. In the following section, we will see how this opened up an important role for civil society as monitors of EFA progress, a role particularly prized by international donors, who began to see partnering with NGOs as a key way to track how aid money is spent.

6.4 Expanding resource opportunities post-Dakar

The expanding international political opportunities structures in the Education for All movement have led to an expansion of financial resources available for NGO advocacy work. A significant body of work has focussed on the impact of resource mobilization on social movement activity (McCarthy and Zald, 2002; 1977; McAdam, McCarthy and Zald 1996). Although resource mobilization and political opportunity perspectives are often seen as existing in tension, as if accepting one theory rules out an appreciation of the other, more recent work has shown that the two approaches complement rather than contradict each other (Garcia and Parker, 2011,

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McCarthy and Zald, 2002). Where theorists who favour a political opportunity perspective focus on how the shape of a given political system impacts social movement strategies, those who adhere to a resource mobilization perspective focus on the impact of funding and other key resources. These differences “reflect the personal tastes, intuitions and bets of the scholars associated with each of the approaches, rather than we think a fundamental disagreement about assumptions of concepts” (McCarthy and Zald, 2002: p 557). In this section I will take a slightly different approach, by treating the expanding availability of resources as part of the political opportunity structure of EFA.

The increase in funds for NGO advocacy is related to wider trends and shifts in aid architecture. By the late 1990s, many multinational organizations and donors realized that their aid money was not having a noticeable impact on poverty levels around the world. Many international development agreements, such as the 1990 Education for All declaration, had failed to produce results. At the same time, it was observed that a number of Asian countries had undergone significant economic growth through state-managed development policies (Collinson, 2006). This led to a shift in thinking, away from an assumption that supporting markets was the best vehicle for economic growth toward an emphasis on the role of governments in providing development programs. Increasingly, donors began to engage in direct budget support, where money flows directly into state budgets to support broad poverty-alleviation programmes rather than projects (Warrener, 2004). This emphasis on poverty-reduction and program support also reflected global consensus in the form of the Millennium Development Goals, which required significant increases in investment and coordination on the part of donors.

Civil society was accorded a special “partnership” role in this new aid architecture. For example, the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, a joint World Bank – IMF funding initiative, was designed to be “country-driven” rather than just “government- driven”, “promoting national ownership of strategies through broad-based participation of civil society” (imf.org, accessed 18 March 2013). Bilateral donors, too, were increasingly calling on the participation of civil society actors in national development program planning. Since 1997, UK’s Department for International Development (DfID) has shifted its funding strategies in order to have more direct engagement with NGOs, who they see as key to achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. This belief rests on the idea that civil society groups stand in as representatives of impoverished communities, so their participation in policy-making improves its legitimacy:

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“policies are more likely to succeed if their choice has been influenced by civil society consultation and the voices of the poor” (DfID Briefing Paper, quoted in Collinson, 2006: p. 17).

As noted in the previous section, the shift to advocacy was facilitated by NGOs’ traditional role as service providers. As the role of civil society groups in service provision expanded in the 1980s and 1990s, it became increasingly common for these organizations to advocate for policy changes based on their experience carrying out development programs. To a large extent, donor interest in NGO advocacy can be traced to their perceived expertise in project implementation. However, in the past decade donors have become aware of the role NGOs play as watchdogs who can monitor the implementation of the poverty reduction strategies and use of donor funds at country-level. (Collinson, 2006; Tomlinson & Macpherson, 2007). In this way, funding civil society advocacy can be seen as a donor strategy to counter-balance support to developing country governments, a way to minimize the risk of financial mismanagement or corruption. This twin focus was explained by UK’s DfID: “DfID has, since 1997, increased its focus on supporting developing country governments implementing their own strategies to reduce poverty. But at the same time we have also recognised the need for citizens to be empowered to participate and to hold their governments to account” (DfID, 2006: p. 11). Thus international agreements like Education for All provide political opportunities for NGOs to monitor governments and hold them to account for the commitments they have made. But these agreements also provide resource opportunities for NGOs, who are commissioned by donors to watch how money provided for the attainment of the agreements is used at local and national levels.

Donors generally fund advocacy work through “local funds” – funding that is intended to help civil society organizations monitor government progress on international agreements (Beall, 2005). Once again, this is an effort on the part of the donor community to offset the risks associated with directly funding developing country governments by simultaneously funding the “watchdogs” that will hold these governments to account. These funds are commonly managed and dispersed by large International NGOs, keeping the funding agency at arm’s length (Collinson, 2006). But this mechanism raises some considerable issues of power between local advocacy groups and the INGOs who control their funds (Collinson, 2006; Tomlinson & Macpherson, 2007). In the following sections, I will briefly examine two examples of major funding initiatives for EFA based on the “local funds” model: The Commonwealth Education

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Fund (CEF), which ran from 2002 – 2008, and the Civil Society Education Fund (CSEF), which replaced it in 2009 and is still in operation. These two funds are the largest financing mechanisms specifically targeting civil society advocacy work in education. Both ActionAid and ASPBAE had/have key roles in each fund, highlighting how these organizations have emerged as leaders in the post-Dakar EFA movement.

6.5 The Commonwealth Education Fund

The Commonwealth Education Fund (CEF) was launched in 2002 by then-UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown. With a budget of over £13 million, predominantly from UK’s DfID but with some contributions from private corporations as well, the fund was designed to build the capacity of civil society organizations to carry out the work envisioned for them in the Dakar Framework for Action. As noted above, there was a major emphasis on NGOs and other civil society groups as contributors to EFA policy and as monitors of EFA progress at national levels. The CEF thus sought to strengthen “broad-based and democratically run national education coalitions...to enable local voices and experiences to influence national-level policy and practice” in order to “promote the right to education by ensuring that governments fulfil their commitments through good quality education policies, transparent and accountable financial procedures, and provision of quality education that reaches the most marginalised girls and boys” (Hart, 2009: p. 1). The importance of these two roles was highlighted in a proposal to extend CEF funding to 2010, arguing that “new aid money creates new opportunities for corruption unless there are strong in-country checks and balances” and that CEF-funded coalitions “play a crucial role in ensuring that the advantages of greater donor coordination do not lead to disadvantages of lost sovereignty or diminished domestic accountability” (CEF 2005b: p. 3)

The CEF was carried out using a collaborative management structure, with three British INGOs – ActionAid, Oxfam and Save the Children – acting as the fund’s managing committee and overall strategy coordinators, and ActionAid assuming the role of Lead Agency (Tomlinson & Macpherson, 2007). These organizations provided financial and technical support to national education coalitions in sixteen commonwealth countries, chosen because they were unlikely to meet the education and gender Millennium Development Goals without significant assistance

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(Hart, 2009). In each of the sixteen countries, there was a management committee made up of various civil society representatives, under the leadership of an INGO lead agency as the “physical and legally-responsible host to CEF” (Tomlinson & Macpherson, 2007: p 32). ActionAid was the lead agency in 12 of the 16 countries, with Save the Children assuming this role in 3 countries and Oxfam in just one (ibid).

ActionAid’s dominance within CEF management was the result of several factors. It had a longer history and stronger presence in education programming and advocacy than did the other two agencies. ActionAid had offices set up in most CEF countries already, staffed with people who had experience in education and advocacy work, allowing for easier and cheaper implementation (CEF, 2005a). Through interviews with members of all three INGOs, Tomlinson and Macpherson found widespread agreement that the goals of CEF fit most closely with those of ActionAid: “‘the ActionAid education strategy is essentially the same as CEF’s. In some countries this means that both Oxfam GB and Save the Children are marginalised in CEF” (CEF coordinator, quoted in Tomlinson & Macpherson, 2007: p 32). This congruence is due to the fact that ActionAid had a central role in crafting the CEF strategy, as noted in the 2005-2009 Education Strategy: “The CEF strategy has been defined significantly by ActionAid and is entirely consistent with this strategy, focusing on coalition building, budget tracking and documenting innovation” (ActionAid, 2005b: p. 9). The convergence of ActionAid and CEF strategies led one member of the CEF management committee in The Gambia to claim that “the distinction between CEF and ActionAid here… is so blurred that many people perceive CEF as part of ActionAid” (quoted in Tomlinson & Macpherson, 2007: p 33). ActionAid itself acknowledged the role it played in the realization of CEF, stating that the fund would not have been possible without the groundwork laid by its Elimu campaign (ActionAid, 2002: p56).

Funds obtained through the CEF were mainly dispersed across the various national coalitions, with only £2 million of the £13.5 million taken up at the global level. Of that sum, £32,791 went to the UK managing committee and £126,000 went to ActionAid to pay for overhead costs (CEF was housed at ActionAid for the duration of its tenure) (Hart, 2009). CEF does not therefore represent an example of significant resource mobilization for ActionAid. But acting as lead agency did present a number of political opportunities, including the ability to engage with high- level policy-makers and donors and the opportunity to raise ActionAid’s profile within the wider EFA movement. Most importantly, CEF provided the opportunity for ActionAid to more or less

115 shape what was then the largest funding mechanism specifically targeting civil society EFA advocacy. This is true both in its role as UK lead agency, where it largely defined CEF strategy, as well as in national management committees, where ActionAid exerted considerable influence over country programs due to its presence and leadership in almost every one of these committees. For example, the CEF coalition in the Gambia used ActionAid assessment forms to assess funding applications; in Malawi the CEF budget was reviewed by ActionAid’s finance manager and country director (Tomlinson & Macpherson, 2007). Through CEF, then, we see ActionAid’s authority within EFA governance grow considerably.

ASPBAE also had a role as fund-manager for CEF, albeit at a smaller scale than that of ActionAid. In 2006-2007, ASPBAE received just over £200 000 from the fund, which it used to support national education advocacy coalitions in commonwealth countries in Asia. This was a significant sum of money for ASPBAE, providing one-third of its overall budget for this period (Hart, 2009). This was in addition funds obtained through Real World Strategies (RWS), a Global Campaign for Education project funded by the Dutch government, which was also used to fund national coalition work. These two sources of funding represented nearly half of ASPBAE’s budget when they commenced in 2006 (Moriarty, 2010). However most of this money went to national coalitions, with only a small percentage taken up by administrative and overhead costs within ASPBAE’s Executive Council and Secretariat. The most significant gain for ASPBAE was in terms of its profile within EFA governance and its ability to carry out impactful advocacy work (dela Torre, & Kannabiran, 2007). For example, CEF funds were largely used to support its Education Watch project at national levels (discussed in the chapter eight), and this project helped ASPBAE leverage greater access to policy-making venues and to additional financial resources (Hart, 2009). ASPBAE’s profile among national coalition partners also increased significantly due to its managing of the CEF and RWS funds. This caused a degree of tension, however, as partners began to see ASPBAE as a donor rather than as a partner, despite the fact that it was the dispenser and not the source of the financing (Interview with former ASPBAE staff member. Dhaka, January 2013).

The Commonwealth Education Fund commissioned a number of consultations and reviews to assess the impacts and limitations of the fund, and to recommend ways forward (Woods, 2009; Hart, 2009; Tomlinson & Macpherson, 2007; CEF, 2006a). One common criticism was that power imbalances were implicit in its design, which accorded so much control to the INGOs, and

116 particularly to ActionAid, at the expense of national coalitions. This is not unique to the CEF: as discussed above, a number of scholars have highlighted the uneven representation of larger, well-funded NGOs in EFA governance. At the same time, the CEF has been widely praised for allowing resource-poor civil society groups working at the national level to engage in advocacy work that would have otherwise been impossible (Woods, 2009; Hart, 2009; Gaventa & Mayo, 2009; Tomlinson & Macpherson, 2007). The CEF was phased out in 2008, replaced in 2009 with the Civil Society Education Fund. It is to this newer fund that attention will now turn.

6.6 The Civil Society Education Fund

The Civil Society Education Fund (CSEF) was set up in 2009 with a mandate similar to that of the CEF: to allow national education coalitions to “fully engage with and track the progress of national governments and donor groups in working towards the EFA goals” (campaignforeducation.org, accessed 19 March 2013). The CSEF is managed at the global level by the Global Campaign for Education, with funding from the Global Partnership for Education (formerly the Fast Track Initiative), a group of multilateral and bilateral donors led by the World Bank. From 2009 to 2011 the Global Partnership provided $17.6 million to the CSEF; in 2013 the board approved another $14.5 million (globalpartnership.org, accessed 19 March 2013). The Global Campaign for Education disperses funds through three regional secretariats: African Network Campaign on Education for All (ANCEFA), Campana Latinoamericana por el Derecho a la Educacion (CLADE), and ASPBAE in the Asia-Pacific. These are the same three regional partners that managed the GCE’s Real World Strategies project. In addition to the CSEF secretariats, there are also three regional funding boards: Oxfam in Africa, ActionAid in Latin America, and Education International in the Asia Pacific. This is a significant change in structure from CEF, designed to decentralize implementation and shift decision making power away from global NGOs and closer to the national coalitions, to make CSEF more nationally-owned and to provide long-term sustainable solutions for civil society engagement in national education sector planning (CEF, 2008).

It should also be clear that, although the CSEF was an entirely new financing mechanism with a strong focus on national-level ownership, many of the same global and regional NGOs have

117 assumed leadership positions in managing and implementing the fund. Most importantly in the context of this study, both ActionAid and ASPBAE were accorded important roles in the new fund. ActionAid was instrumental in establishing the CSEF and plays an active role in the global secretariat and each regional funding committee (Sayed & Newman, 2009). The CSEF strategies are broadly similar to those of the CEF which, as noted above, were crafted by ActionAid. The Commonwealth Education Fund Final Report (Hart, 2009) concludes with a discussion of the newly-created Civil Society Education Fund and explains that more information on the CSEF can be obtained by contacting David Archer at ActionAid (p. 93). While overall management of the CSEF has shifted away from the lead INGO, we can see that ActionAid still plays a major role in the fund.

Acting as Regional Secretariat for the Civil Society Education Fund has been a major boost to ASPBAE’s ability to carry out advocacy work and to support national education coalitions (ASPBAE, 2012; Sayed & Newman, 2009). The fund requires ASPBAE to report to, and produce progress reports for, the Global Partnership for Education, thus allowing it to engage directly with international donors (ASPBAE, 2010a). ASPBAE has pursued a strategy of “backseat enabler” to the national coalitions supported through CSEF, offering technical support and training through workshops, peer mentoring and information dissemination, while allowing specific advocacy projects to be demand-driven and defined at the national level. At the same time, APSBAE has pushed the coalitions to take on new types of advocacy work, such as education financing (Castillo, 2012), that have a proven track record of positive policy impacts, helping ASPBAE assert its voice on the regional and global stage. CSEF funds have also allowed ASPBAE to expand its advocacy work into Mongolia, Timor Leste and Vanuatu, where it previously had little presence (ASPBAE, 2010a). ASPBAE’s role as regional secretariat keeps it at arm’s length from the financial apparatus of the fund, which is managed by Education International. This has allowed ASPBAE to avoid the tensions that arose when it acted as fund- disperser in both the Commonwealth Education Fund and Real World Strategies. Undoubtedly this has strengthened its position as a capacity-builder among its national coalition partners.

6.7 Conclusions

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This chapter has characterized the emergence of an Education for All advocacy movement as an example of a strategic action field. This field was born in the context of certain political opportunities: failure to meet the education goals set at Jomtien in 1990; demands on the part of civil society groups for more inclusion in global education policy; and recognition by many states and international organizations that NGOs would make useful partners in achieving the EFA goals. But acknowledging these important political opportunities “does not tell us how the crisis will be resolved” (Fligstein & McAdam, 2011: p. 36): we need to look more closely at how challenger groups constructed a new EFA advocacy movement.

In this chapter, we have seen how ActionAid and ASPBAE emerged as major players and strategic collaborators in the EFA movement, able to leverage influence in global governance fora and to secure resources for their work and the work of their partners. This has served to illustrate that successful advocacy is not the reserve of large, well-funded northern NGOs. ASPBAE, with a relatively modest budget of just over £1 million in 2010 (ASPBAE, 2010a) and only a handful of paid staff, is dwarfed by ActionAid, whose budget in the same year was over £65 million (actionaid.org). Yet by positioning itself strategically to take advantage of available political and resource opportunities, ASPBAE has been able to exert a strong policy advocacy voice within EFA governance. The question remains, how have these organizations managed to assert their role as EFA advocates? How and why have they managed to secure funding and seats at policy-making tables?

The political opportunity structures approach offers a “thorough structural account, but lack(s) a clear conception of agents within that structure” (Wong, 2012: p. 15). Although a number of scholars have replaced the term “political opportunity structures” with “political process” to emphasize the open-ended nature of these opportunities, very few have moved beyond a structural analysis of contentious politics (Jasper, 2004). There is a proliferation of work on the structures that condition strategic repertories (Tilly, 1978), but there is very little work that tells us how and why actors choose from within this repertoire, and how the decision-making structures impact strategic choice and outcomes (Johnson & Prakash, 2006; Jasper, 2004). To understand how ASPBAE and ActionAid have emerged as leaders in the EFA advocacy movement, we need to take a closer look at both organizations to uncover how strategies are crafted and how decisions are made.

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In the following chapters, I will examine how ActionAid’s International Education Team and ASPBAE’s Executive Council have crafted their EFA advocacy strategies. I will focus on two types of strategy central to what advocacy organizations do: strategic issue framing and information politics. This focus reflects a wide consensus in transnational advocacy network literature that the authority of NGOs stems from their ability to provide information that is otherwise difficult to obtain, and to frame political issues in ways that resonate with policy- makers and/or the broader public (Bloodgood, 2011; Joachim, 2003; Keck & Sikkink, 1998). Focusing on examples of ASPBAE and ActionAid engaging in issue-framing and information- politics provides a relevant context to understanding how decision-making happens in these organizations, and how key strategic decisions have increased the authority of these organisations in EFA governance. The focus on strategic decision making will also allow me to draw some more nuanced conclusions about the role of leadership and actor agency in social change organizations, and to provide an alternative narrative to the more structural focus of the preceding three chapters.

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Chapter 7

7 Strategic Frame Alignment: “selling” global norms in advocacy organizations 7.1 Introduction

Sometimes advocacy organizations choose to change their focus, to add new goals or to embrace new norms. When this happens, an organization must re-align its strategic framework to fit with its new mandate. In this chapter, I will examine specific instances of strategic frame re-alignment at ActionAid and ASPBAE that were central to their adoption of policy advocacy positions. For ActionAid, I will explore the adoption of the rights-based approach to development, which was mainstreamed across all areas of the organisation, including its Education Theme, in 1999. For ASPBAE, I will examine its shift away from a singular focus on non-formal adult education to embrace the entire EFA framework, which was officially mandated in 2008. As my case-study on ActionAid involves a much longer time period, I am able to draw out changing currents in how this organization carried out its strategic framing. For ASPBAE this is more difficult, as the frame alignment process is still in its early days.

By focussing on strategic frame alignment, I am able to highlight the role of the actor in social change processes. Jasper (2004) has argued that “without examining the act of selecting and applying tactics, we cannot adequately explain the psychological, organizational, cultural, and structural factors that help explain these choices” (p. 2). My focus on frame-construction allows a clearer understanding of how internal dynamics and leadership influence strategy, and ultimately impact the success of a particular organization. In particular, I focus on who the strategic issue frames target. To what extent do frames “speak” to an external audience versus and internal audience? Existing work on issue-framing and the role of norm entrepreneurs (as discussed in the chapter two) has looked at how frames are constructed to appeal to those outside of the movement: to gain adherents, supporters, funders; to change the way the public thinks about an issue or the way governments legislate about an issue. But I will argue in this chapter that framing is also used to “sell” a new idea internally to members of an organization, and that this process is key to successful frame re-alignment. By focussing both on internal and external

121 audiences, I reveal how advocacy organizations are best understood as inhabiting multiple, overlapping strategic action fields (Fligstein & McAdam, 2011). This actor-centric perspective also sheds lights on how organizational structure impacts advocacy strategy. Through an analysis of key documents, I will show that both organizations chose to centralize decision-making but decentralize implementation (Wong, 2012) of their new strategic frames.

This chapter is organized as two parallel case studies of frame re-alignment. I begin with a discussion of how the shift to rights-based approaches, which involved framing education as right rather than a need or a service, was framed by the International Education Team at ActionAid. This is followed by an examination of how ASPBAE expanded its mandate to cover the whole Education for All agenda, rather than just adult education, and the way this change was framed by the Executive Council. For both case studies, I will conduct an in-depth analysis of key documents produced during the frame alignment processes, supplemented with a small number of interviews with key informants. In the final section of the chapter, I will offer some conclusions about the process of, and motivations behind, strategic frame alignment.

7.2 Case Study #1: Framing the Right to Education at ActionAid

7.2.1 Introduction

In 1999, ActionAid formally adopted the rights-based approach (RBA) across all sectors and country programs with a new five-year strategy, Fighting Poverty Together (ActionAid, 1999a). The Education Theme, led by the International Education Team in London (the composition of which varies, but is generally made up of six people), sought to streamline its programming to fit this new frame. This represented a significant change: where previously the organization had focussed on providing educational services to “needy” underserved populations, it was now shifting to a focus on helping these populations assert their right to publicly-funded education. The adoption of RBA provides an example of what Snow et al (1986) have termed frame transformation, a radical shift involving the replacement of old norms with new ones. Education is widely considered to be ActionAid’s most prominent thematic focus (Newman & Sayed, 2009; ActionAid, 2009) and rights-based approaches to education receive wide international support through EFA. It thus provides a good case-study for how new strategic frames are rolled out

122 across an organization, and highlights how these frames must respond to both global norms and to the domestic culture of the organization.

In this section I will examine how the “right to education” has been framed by ActionAid’s International Education Team through an analysis of four key documents created since the advent of the organization’s Rights-Based Approach. These documents are: the 2002 Global Education Review, which was the first significant document to assess the impact of RBA on education at ActionAid; the 2005 Education Strategic Plan, 2005-2010; the 2007 manual Education Rights: A Guide for Practitioners and Activists; and the 2009 Education Review, including the IET management response to this review. All these documents were written or commissioned by the International Education Team (IET), and primarily disseminated among ActionAid country programmes and local partners (although Education Rights, in particular, was also circulated widely outside ActionAid). These documents therefore give a good indication of how the IET framed the rights-based approach internally to it staff and partners operating at national and local levels.

7.2.2 Global Education Review 2002

The 2002 Global Education Review was the result of an organization-wide survey to assess “ActionAid’s grassroots education work over the past 30 years up to 2002”. Although ostensibly covering three decades of education work, in fact the survey and report were designed to assess the impact of the transition to RBA on education programming and to explore “the extent to which our education work has moved in line with our strategic direction as laid out in Fighting Poverty Together” (p. 12). This was carried out through a survey of 20 countries in which ActionAid operates as well as six in-depth reviews from ActionAid offices in Nepal, Nigeria, Uganda, Ghana, Ethiopia and Guatemala. One of the central concerns of the review was to determine the extent of convergence between rights-based advocacy work at national and global levels and grassroots programming. The International Education Team was entirely committed to engaging communities in rights activism in order to establish universal access to education and to address a root cause of poverty. But, as I will argue in this section, the way the IET framed RBA in this period revealed a struggle between the desire to solidify rights-work across the education theme, and a commitment to decentralized, participatory decision-making.

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As part of the preparatory process for the Global Education Review, the IET convened a workshop bringing together education leaders and consultants from four country programmes (AA Nepal, AA Ethiopia, AA Ghana and AA Nigeria) to plan the review process, generate material for distribution, and provide feedback on a draft of the review survey. Examining the report produced at this workshop (ActionAid, 2001) reveals that managing the transition from needs-based service delivery to rights-based advocacy was a significant challenge for local education programs. There was general agreement that service delivery may still form an aspect of education work at local levels, possibly as an “entry point” to the assertion of rights, but that “the way services may be delivered using a ‘rights based approach will differ from traditional ‘service delivery’” (p.8). If specific details about how service delivery would work within a rights-based approach were discussed or suggested, these were not included in the report. Indeed, much of the report seemed to draw a clear distinction between the two approaches. Participants were tasked with creating a chart to compare rights-based and service-delivery approaches that could be distributed across all country programmes.

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RIGHTS BASED APPROACH TRADITIONAL SERVICE DELIVERY Involves demand-based delivery of Involves supply-driven delivery – where the services in which ActionAid does as little of need to spend money is a factor in decisions the doing / delivery as possible and pushes government to do as much as possible Improving the position of people Improving the condition of people Involves meeting strategic needs of people Involves meeting practical needs of people (c.f. gender) Likely to be Sustainable Tendency to be unsustainable Less tangible Gives tangible benefits / easily photographed Requires linkages/ collaboration/ alliances Can be undertaken in isolation- not with government necessarily linking with partners Has long term impact Has short term benefits Enables people to develop capacity to Provides immediate access with little need access services for themselves for struggle Involves constant seeking to avoid creating Makes communities dependent dependency and working to make ourselves redundant Strengthens people’s capacity to demand Not linked to people’s capacity to demand but rather the agency’s capacity to deliver / spend AA facilitates/supports decisions and Planning tends to be done by the institution priorities expressed by people rather than delivering the services – maybe with planning or deciding for them- this consultation but not real participation requires decentralisation. Involves people-centred advocacy Involves very traditional expert-based advocacy May be hard in emergency context when Likely to be required in conditions of “need” is so immediate emergencies Focuses on correcting power imbalance- Maintaining the Status Quo where ActionAid redistribution of power uses its own power RBA has the potential to use a framework The law or constitution or wider accords are of legal or constitutional rights or largely irrelevant international declarations Works to make the state more responsible May completely ignore the State / be (rather than absolving it of responsibility) planned in parallel requires strengthening government- making it more accountable and transparent

(ActionAid, 2001: p 7-8)

A few interesting points emerge from this chart. To begin with, out of sixteen comparative points, six touch in some way on the idea of participatory empowerment - of rights-advocacy being something demanded at the grassroots that changes the locus of power from ActionAid to the communities in which it works. RBA is associated with decentralization as opposed to service-delivery which is said to require more centralized planning and control. As ActionAid was in the midst of an institutional overhaul, focussed on decentralization and a shift of power

125 from London to Johannesburg (see chapter four), framing the rights-based approach as one based on decentralized power provided a neat convergence of theoretical framework and institutional form. Also, recalling that the Global Education Review was designed to bring greater coherence between local practice and advocacy campaigning, it was important to frame education rights work as something that required the engagement of local communities.

Yet, as surveys carried out in 2002 revealed, many country programs were struggling to implement the rights-based approach in their education work. The most commonly cited obstacle to rights-based work was wide-spread poverty, and the resulting desire for immediate and tangible services. Closely related was a lack of understanding about the right to education. A number of quotes from survey respondents indicate common concerns about how to carry out rights-based education work in communities accustomed to NGOs as service providers: The community’s understanding of rights or about national constitution is very low. People in villages (are) not aware that education is a right, rather feel that it is a favour of the government to provide education (Programme Manager, Malawi. Quoted in ActionAid, 2002: p30).

The rights-based approach is proving difficult to be understood by both implementers, partners and recipients of development initiatives. The service delivery approach has always been preferred by people at all levels as tangible results can be produced through this approach... it is difficult to sustain community motivation for such a time consuming effort like the rights-based approach (Consultant, Nepal. Quoted in ActionAid, 2002: p30).

The conflict situation in which we have been working for 8 years has blocked everything...The context is not suitable to have a rights based approach to education (Programme Coordinator, Burundi. Quoted in ActionAid, 2002: p31).

ActionAid itself acknowledged that “poor communities are often unable to see the broader picture and gains of the rights-based approach as against service delivery” (p30). This calls into question the idea that RBA is about decentralized bottom-up activism. What is emerging is an image of RBA as a something that must be taught to poor people who are sceptical about its applicability to their everyday lives.

Despite the fact that many country-level programs and staff members were struggling to transition to rights-based education work, and a significant number were still carrying out traditional service delivery programs such as running non-formal education centres (pg. 9), the

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Global Education Review made clear these activities were considered a direct contradiction of the rights-based approach. It recommended education programming shift focus to learning for rights empowerment, and that if ActionAid was needed for basic education provision, this should at all times be done with and through the government. If, having mobilised demand for education, we respond by simply delivering the services ourselves, this defeats the purpose, reduces government responsibility and acts to demobilise people. In those cases where we are already engaged in service delivery without a clear rights-based framework and without clear means for achieving wider change or impact, projects may need to be phased out or closed down (p 79).

There was some room for educational services, but only if these were directly connected to raising awareness about rights. Reflect, for which ActionAid had been awarded at UN Literacy Prize, and which was at that point operating in 350 programs across 60 countries (p. 35), was highlighted as an example of rights-based education programming. Originally conceived as a fusion of literacy and empowerment, Reflect is now re-framed under RBA as an “operating system”, where participants in Reflect circles develop an analysis that forms the foundation for rights work and for strengthening local activism (p. 35). Interestingly, the Review argues that practitioners have found Reflect to be more pedagogically effective when used as a rights-based approach than simply as a literacy method (p. 9, 35). Thus, in a way, we can see Reflect as an olive branch extended to those still interested in delivering non-formal education as a bridge between needs-based and rights-based approaches. This would be particularly effective as Reflect was ActionAid’s most widely-used non-formal education program at this point (ActionAid, 2006b).

As mentioned in the chapter four, ActionAid has a reputation for its highly politicized approach to rights-based development. This is certainly the case in the education theme, where the shift to RBA was framed as a resistance to a neo-liberal, privatization agenda. The Review made a clear distinction between its current education programming and what had come before: service delivery was furthering the goal of privatization, weakening the government of developing countries and their ties to the citizenry. The RBA framework was meant to “(draw) a line in the sand against the tide of privatisation” (p 28). Many of the countries in which ActionAid works have a common history of western colonization and economic control through structural adjustment policies. By framing service delivery as part of this history, and RBA as a resistance

127 to it, ActionAid was likely able to appeal to the political leanings of much of its country-level staff. Framing rights-based work as anti-neoliberalism was also designed to stir up controversy, a tactic that the IET felt would help get international attention by “capture(ing) our positioning with poor people (rather than for them) and generat(ing) passionate engagement” (p. 10).

A final aspect of the Review worth mentioning is the heavy emphasis on local, empowering understandings of rights. Chapter four described a common tension in RBA between a local/empowering understanding of rights and a legal/universal understanding. In the Review, however, we see a strong emphasis on the former with very little mention of the latter. It acknowledges that what “free education” means will differ by context and that starting from a local definition of rights is crucial (p.11). This emphasis on local understandings and identities is directly related to an idea of rights-work as empowerment and ActionAid’s role as catalyst: “We must...facilitate poor people to become active agents in negotiating for their rights, enabling them to define for themselves what “free quality basic education” means (p.10. Emphasis added).

By contrast, there is almost no mention of legal rights at any point in this document. The survey responses indicate that out of twenty countries, only three (The Gambia, Liberia and Dominican Republic) make any mention of using legal frameworks such as national constitutions, in their rights-work. Virtually every country surveyed mentioned work around “empowerment” or “awareness-raising”. At no point does the Review make any mention of international rights frameworks that impact the right to education, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Surprisingly, even the Dakar Framework for Action, which identifies the Education for All goals, is scarcely mentioned. It appears that the IET shied away from any emphasis on international rights norms in favour of promoting the locally-based, decentralized framing of RBA. At a number of points, the Review emphasizes that rights work must start from the local level and be based on the experience and identities of those whose right to education is denied rather than “an abstract notion of rights”:

It is important to start with a clear sense of the identity of the people who are asserting their rights. This gives us a stronger basis to building a rights-based intervention – much more powerful than starting from an abstract notion of rights. It is this basis on people and their identities, which will provide energy, passion, outrage and effective mobilisation. This may mean focusing on Dalits, indigenous people, disabled children, street children or other categories of people whose right to education is presently violated (p. 29).

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The above discussion of the Global Education Review indicates that this early stage of RBA, the International Education Team faced a significant challenge in framing rights-based education work. The team firmly believed that taking a rights-based approach would result in an expansion of educational access for the poor as well as the empowerment of disadvantaged individuals and communities. The team wanted to encourage all its country programmes to take up the cause of education rights activism, but they wanted this to be “locally-owned” rather than seen as something that happened through national and international campaigns. It was thus essential that the implementation of education rights work was decentralized, rooted in local identities, and based on the experience of local programming.

There was, however, significant resistance from local programs and communities who were not yet convinced about the benefit of rights-work and who expected ActionAid to continue to deliver much-needed educational services. This highlights the challenges of the decentralized organizational model: “there is no central control which pressurizes people to pursue a certain line of work” (p.68). Instead, the IET had to convince “staff and partners to internalize a rights- based perspective in education work” (p. 9). I argue that the way education rights-work was framed was a chief means of doing so. By framing RBA as locally-focussed and avoiding the use of international frameworks, and by associating it with anti-neoliberal struggles as well as with the well-known Reflect method, ActionAid leadership was attempting to persuade its country level staff to take up the rights-based approach. The Global Education Review, which drew on data from across globe and was disseminated to every country programme and partner office, was the vehicle for selling IET’s concept of education rights throughout the organization.

7.2.3 The Education Strategic Plan 2005-2010

The Education Strategic Plan 2005-2010 (ActionAid, 2005b) marked a significant departure in how ActionAid’s International Education Team framed education rights to its staff and partners. In this period, we see a deeper entrenchment of the divide between rights advocacy and service delivery, with the latter virtually pushed out of the strategy all together. We also see a much stronger emphasis on international and legal rights frameworks and less of a focus on local understandings of rights. In order to solidify this new strategy across ActionAid, and out of

129 recognition that some were still struggling with the move to rights-based education work, the IET published Education Rights: A Handbook for Activists and Practitioners in 2007. Together, these two documents offer a clear glimpse into the evolution of the education rights framework at ActionAid.

The Education Strategic Plan incorporated 6 strategic goals: Strategic Goal 1: We will secure constitutional rights to basic education where these are not in place and ensure they are enforceable in practice. Strategic Goal 2: We will work with excluded groups to secure free access to quality education as a basic right Strategic Goal 3: We will secure adequate resources from governments and donors to ensure effective delivery of education for all. Strategic Goal 4: We will secure sustained and meaningful citizen participation at local and national levels, and increase the transparency, accountability and responsiveness of education systems. Strategic Goal 5: We will secure schools that respect all children’s rights and provide education that is empowering, relevant and of good quality. Strategic Goal 6: We will challenge the reduction of the EFA agenda to primary schooling and ensure balanced investment in early childhood education, adult learning and secondary education.

Each of these goals was elaborated with four to six “indicative activities” that provide a clear image of the how the right to education framework was evolving at ActionAid. The most obvious point that can be gleaned is that the activities are directed at the national and international level: out of a total of thirty indicative activities, only eight dealt with local-level interventions. Goals 1 and 3 focus entirely on activities targeting national and international policy. These include, for example, “Working with national parliaments and the media to place the right to education on the national agenda”; “Undertaking targeted legal work to enforce rights”; “building sustained pressure on international donors”; and “challenging IMF/World Bank imposed macroeconomic norms” (p. 3-4).

When local communities or activities are mentioned in the six strategic goals, it is often as a way to bolster national and international campaigning with members and information. Examples

130 include: identifying and documenting who is left out of schooling (p. 3), exposing violations of the right to education (p. 5), and broadening support for national coalitions (p. 5). There is also attention paid to building and strengthening Parent-Teacher Associations and student groups, but this, too, could be seen as a chance to feed into national level campaigns. There is a strong focus on challenging gender-based inequality in education at the local level (this is mentioned in both goals 2 and 5) and education to address and reduce instances of HIV/AIDS (goals 2, 3 and 5). Although these areas of education equality are unquestionably important, it should be pointed out that gender and HIV/AIDS were priorities for ActionAid International, and so there prominence in the Education Strategy Plan may be more a reflection of international focus than grassroots demand. This observation in no way takes away from the very real need for ActionAid and its partners to deal with discriminatory access to education. What is notable is the strategic use of grassroots programming to bolster and lend credibility to national and international advocacy campaigning, rather than to define the agenda for this campaigning.

In the Education Strategic Plan, the IET tried for the first time to define the rights based approach to education. It identified eight components to consider: • We must recognise the primacy, agency and actions of rights holders. • The State has a primary role as a duty bearer. • Conditionalities should not be attached to rights. • Government should respect, fulfil, protect and promote rights. • States should be free to take actions to fulfil the rights of their citizens without constraints from any power outside the state –sovereignty. • States should be accountable to the international community to fulfil the rights of their citizens. • Rights holders have the duty to claim their rights and have their rights fulfilled by duty bearers. • Rights must be protected through constitutional and legislative provisions. (p. 16).

Here we see a movement away from local understanding of rights towards a more concrete, universal definition of the right to education that could be used across ActionAid country programmes. Particularly noteworthy is the emphasis on constitutional and legislative provisions. This echoes Strategic Goal 1 - to establish/enforce education as a constitutional right. This makes sense, as RBA is about affirming the government as the guarantor of the right to education, so it is a clear priority to make sure that right is actually legally supported. But this is a marked difference from the Global Education Review, which favoured a local understanding of rights and linked these more with personal empowerment than with constitutional law. The universality

131 of rights is furthered under Goal 4, which calls for “Integrating broad human rights education into school curricula and practices so that all children who access education learn about their basic rights and the history of struggles to secure rights” (p. 5). Again we see a shift from rights as locally-rooted to rights as universal norms.

7.2.4 Education Rights: A Handbook for Practitioners and Activists

Education Rights: A Handbook for Practitioners and Activists was published in 2007. It was heavily based on the Education Strategic Plan 2005-2010 – each chapter was organised around one of the six Strategic Goals - but with more concrete and defined program for implementing RBA. Education Rights was disseminated not just across every ActionAid country programme, but also among other development NGOs and organizations, and was published through the Global Campaign for Education. Although written/edited by Kate Newman, who was then a member of ActionAid’s IET, it involved the input of civil society actors within and outside the development education field, including ASPBAE and Amnesty International. In this way, Education Rights was a major effort on the part of the IET to promote its idea of what education rights work looked like inside and outside ActionAid.

Education Rights was designed to help ActionAid staff and partners use a legal rights framework. The International Education Team hired a trainee lawyer intern to research legal and constitutional rights to education, and references to these sources are found throughout the handbook. Practitioners and activists are encouraged to frame their work in terms of international conventions and national legislation and to build alliances with human rights organization and lawyers (p.18). Fully ten pages of the handbook are dedicated to preparing a legal case for the right to education, including steps to take a case to the international level if domestic governments are unresponsive (p. 43-53). For the first time, the IET defines the rights-based approach in wholly legal terms, based on universal rather than locally-contextualized norms:

Taking rights, as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), as its basis, a human rights-based approach views poverty as an abuse of human rights. These rights are upheld in international law through the International Bill of Rights and subsequent human rights treaties. Human Rights are the ‘minimum standards’ needed in order to live a life of dignity, they are indivisible, inalienable and universal – by definition they belong to every human. If a national

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government does not respect, protect and fulfil human rights for every woman and man then it is in violation of its obligations. However, while rights may be guaranteed by a particular state or government they are yours because you are human, not because of your particular citizenship (p. 9).

Despite the use of universal/ legal rights discourse, it was still of crucial importance to the IET that education rights was framed as something rooted in local experience. The linking of grassroots activism with national and international campaigning remained absolutely central to the RBA framework, as was made clear in the introduction of Education Rights: “What is now clearer than ever is the importance of strengthening the voices of the poor and marginalised, while at the same time engaging with international and national power holders” (p. 7). On the one hand, grassroots engagement was important because it “is the only way to ensure an active and empowered community, which will demand quality education from their government long after we have moved on” (p. 11). At the same time, “grassroots experience enhances the impact and legitimacy of work at national and international levels” (p.11). It is this last point that receives more elaboration in Education Rights: as was seen with the 2005-2010 strategy, more focus is on local-level activities that feed into national and international campaigns than on activities whose main focus is community empowerment. So, for example, school budget analysis is linked with monitoring national education spending and understanding the impact of IMF policies (chapter 3); local school committees are linked with national coalitions which are linked regionally and globally (chapter 4).

In order to make the legal right to education meaningful to practitioners and activists, the IET chose to use the “4 A” framework developed by Katarina Tomaševski, then the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, as the centrepiece of “strategic goal 1 – understanding and securing the rights to education”. This framework indicates that, for education rights to be fully realized, this education must be available, accessible, adaptable and acceptable (Tomaševski, 2005). Tomaševski worked with ActionAid to adapt this framework as a participatory learning tool that could be used in local-level interventions, for example through the use of Reflect. Participants would assess the extent to which education in their community fit with the 4 A framework: Is there a school in the community? Is it safe? Is it equally accessible to boys and girls? Is the curriculum relevant to the needs of the community? (ActionAid, 2007: p. 24-25). The 4A framework was designed to be adaptable to local contexts and was thus key to framing

133 education rights work as locally-centred. Yet a closer look at suggested implementation activities reveals that international priorities were setting the local agenda, rather than the other way around.

The first and fifth chapters of Education Rights contained significant discussion of the use of non-professional teachers. The use of these teachers was described as a violation of the right to education, linked to poor quality schools, the privatization of education and the undermining of the teaching profession. It was recommended to forge alliance with teachers’ unions at local, district and national levels as a key part of the campaign for the right to education. It was also recommended that ActionAid staff and partners should gather data on non-professional teaching in their area in order to directly challenge NGOs involved in non-formal education: “The local group could look at the impact of NFE provision, exploring the level of provision. Asking how NFE provision has impacted on public education provision. As well as looking at who are the teachers and what training they have received” (p. 36).

This recommendation stands in stark contrast to the reality in many ActionAid country programmes, where the running of non-formal education centres was still being carried out (see Sayed & Newman, 2009). In fact, as Newman shows, many ActionAid country programmes were themselves supporting non-professional teachers (Newman, 2012, p. 185). By contrast, the IET had been forging strong links with teachers’ unions through Education International the GCE. The Parktonian Recommendations, created by ActionAid and a range of national teachers unions, had strongly linked public education and professional teaching with the EFA goals (ActionAid, 2007: p. 56). Through the 4A framework, ActionAid framed the right to education as locally-based and contextualized. And indeed, the suggested activities in Education Rights are all to be implemented at local and national levels. However, these activities were proposed by the IET and thus reflected its priorities rather than the local communities in which rights work was to be carried out.

Education Strategic Plan and Education Rights provide a clear image of the way the rights-based approach to education had evolved by mid-decade. The International Education Team had put considerable work into to disseminating a strong legal rights discourse across the organization, chiefly through the publication of the Education Rights handbook. The IET was in a situation where they had a very strong belief in the need to approach education work from a rights-based

134 perspective and wanted this to catch on among country programmes and local partners. However, ActionAid’s decentralized power structure made it difficult to enforce a standardized model of RBA. The dissemination of key documents like those discussed above was the chief means of persuading staff and partners to implement a cohesive approach to rights-based education. These documents reveal that the IET remained committed to encouraging local-level rights work as the basis of their advocacy, emphasizing that their grassroots programming is “the reason we have the credibility to convene others and to get a seat at national and international policy tables” (ActionAid, 2005b: p. 2). In practice, however, the rights discourse espoused by the IET was increasingly informed by the IET`s own global mandates rather than local experience.

7.2.5 Education Review 2005-2009

The IET commissioned a second review of its education work in 2009, timed to reflect on the 2005-2010 strategy period and to inform the strategy that would take shape in 2011. It was coordinated by an external lead consult (Yusuf Sayed) and an internal lead consultant (Kate Newman). Like the original Global Education Review 2002, the 2009 review included in depth surveys of over twenty ActionAid country programmes and local level partners, designed to “critically examine ActionAid International’s education work to date (and) to draw out lessons, learning and recommendations for the way forward” (Sayed & Newman, 2009: p. 1). A central concern of the 2009 review was the impact of RBA on education work across ActionAid, at local, national and international levels. This review was followed by a management response, generated by the International Education Team, reflecting on the findings and recommendations of the review and offering tentative proposals for a new education strategy. Analysis of both these documents indicates how ActionAid’s framing of education rights was beginning to shift by the end of the decade.

ActionAid country-level staff were surveyed on the extent to which they framed and designed their work around the rights-based approach. 20 of 22 indicated that “all programs are designed using RBA” (p.42), indicating significant improvement in the take-up of RBA since the 2002 review. The survey also revealed a high degree of convergence about the right to education among staff and partners, with almost full agreement that rights are universal and inalienable,

135 and that the state is primarily responsible for safeguarding these rights (p 37-38). Over half of the respondents had never heard of RBA before it was introduced by ActionAid International, and only 25% had previously carried our rights-work (ibid). This indicates that, although the rights- based approach had become almost universally-adopted by development organizations, the version of RBA used by ActionAid education staff was shaped by the IET.

This was further highlighted when ActionAid staff were questioned about their understanding of various international, regional and national human rights instruments. Among country-level staff, knowledge was very good, with 23 out of 27 respondents indicating a high degree of familiarity with the national constitution and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and 22 indicating the same about the UDHR (p. 35). Local level partners indicated similar level of familiarity (p. 36). Respondents also indicated that ActionAid had been instrumental in contextualizing these instruments within their respective education rights campaigns. Interestingly, six respondents indicated that although they were highly familiar with international human rights instruments, they felt that they had limited applicability to national campaigns: “[the instruments are not easy to use in Pakistan] as they are not very familiar with [them in] local education departments” (Education lead from Pakistan, quoted p. 35); “International human rights instruments are weak instruments in terms of their enforceability at national level” (Education lead from Nepal, quoted p. 35).

The above findings indicate a number of important points. To begin with, the way RBA had been framed and disseminated by the IET was clearly successful: there was significant coherence across ActionAid and the vast majority of staff and partners had internalized the idea of education as a universal right and the role of government as duty-bearer. It is significant, however, that some respondents were highly familiar with international frameworks despite the fact that they were not useful for their national campaigning. This suggests that the legalistic interpretation of education rights espoused in Education Rights, which had included in-depth discussion of international rights frameworks, influenced the definition of RBA across ActionAid, if not always the practice.

A key issue that emerged from Education Review was the continued tension between a rights- based approach and service-delivery approach to education work. The survey revealed that 19 country education leads (68%) agreed that ActionAid should only provide education services in

136 emergency situations, which means that nearly one-third disagreed or were neutral. Among local partners there was even more divergence between the two approaches (p. 39). Nearly 25% of local partners indicated that the majority of their funding goes to service delivery rather than advocacy work, and 9 of 22 consider service delivery as “a crucial element of the Rights Based Approach” (p. 42), a statement which contradicted the definition of RBA promoted by ActionAid and the IET. A number of respondents indicated that, although they agree theoretically with RBA, in practice service provision is needed in situations where the government cannot fulfill its duty. This perspective was particularly strong among respondents from Africa: ActionAid Somaliland is a resource poor country programme and mainly implements teachers’ training, capacity building of school management, school construction and provision of teaching and learning materials….Establishing non- formal centres and supporting public schools to increase access to basic education is the most significant innovation of our education work. (AA Somaliland staff, quoted p. 39)

If children need to go to school and a government is not able or unwilling, and if AAI has the means (through resources raised in the name of children), they are morally and duty-bound to give children education from their own money (AA Zambia staff, quoted p. 40)

The transition of ActionAid from a deliverer of services to an organization which empowers individuals and communities to demand their rights presents the most challenge to AAG. All of the individuals and organisations I met were in complete agreement with the change of direction but also strongly believed it should not be an either or choice….. For the continued credibility of AAG and in order to maintain the trust, confidence and commitment of communities the RBA must be delivered alongside an element of service delivery. (ActionAid Ghana Trustee, p40).

The review noted that when respondents were asked what they considered to be ActionAid International’s main education work, the most common response was “IMF work”. The authors indicated surprise on this point, as ActionAid had been well known for Reflect and for its work in promoting participatory literacy methods more generally. They concluded that Reflect had lost ground as a pedagogical method due to ActionAid’s focus on policy advocacy over programming (p. 50-51). This observation was shared across country-level staff, partner organizations, and among academics and other experts in the adult education field, many of whom regretted that the methodological and pedagogical innovations that ActionAid had

137 introduced with Reflect were no longer on the table (interview with external informant. Sussex, April 2013). One staff member at UNESCO’s Institute for Lifelong Learning indicated that ActionAid was seen by that organization as straying from its original focus on innovative adult literacy programs in favour of engaging with policy-makers at national and international levels (Interview with UIL staff member. Hamburg, December 2010).

Based on the experience of staff and partners at all levels, Education Review recommended more integration of service-delivery and rights-based approaches to reflect actual practice: “What is clear is that service delivery work is important in realising rights and simultaneously rights work that is abstracted from real and substantive changes in the material conditions of individuals and communities is not meaningful” (p. 44). A rebuilding of Reflect, it was suggested, would be an ideal way to begin to bridge the programme-policy divide that had emerged in ActionAid’s education work (p. 104-105).

It appears that the IET took seriously the recommendations of the 2009 Education Review. In the management response (ActionAid, 2009), there was open recognition that a divide between policy and practice had emerged and that this was largely due to a framing of the rights-based approach as largely against service-delivery work. The IET acknowledged that the two approaches need not work in opposition and that services could be delivered within a rights- based approach. This would require more of a focus on RBA methods: We need the guidelines to get inside the “black box” of the “how” question: it is not so much what you do but how you do it (you can build a school in a traditional paternalistic way responding to immediate needs or you can use the process of building a school to mobilise people around education rights). We then need to back up the guidelines with a strong capacity development plan for education colleagues across the organisation, focused on helping national colleagues link more systematically to local programmes (p. 4).

Guided by the recommendations from Education Review, the IET outlined a new education strategy that would be rolled out after the organization-wide ActionAid International strategy in 2012. This new strategy came out after my data collection was completed, and thus I can only base my observations on the suggestions contained in the 2009 management response. This document proposed that the new strategy should “provide a simple and practical framework that will help unite work at local, national and international levels – linking programme engagement

138 to policy and campaigning” (p. 10). We can see that the linking of local, national and global level work remains central to how ActionAid frames it approach to education, but now there is a deliberate effort to link programming and policy as well. This was further emphasized through a pared-down and cohesive set of goals: We are proposing that all our work will be framed under a uniting goal of seeking to achieve education for social change (transformation - including of gender relations). There will be 3 core focus areas of work (which fuse between them the previous 6 strategic goals):  promoting quality schools which respect child rights (and contribute to social change)  re-building Reflect for women’s literacy and empowerment (for social change)  securing financing to achieve quality education (for social change) (p. 10)

It is noteworthy that Reflect is given a prominent position in this new framework, indicating that the IET took seriously the criticisms that its flagship literacy program had lost ground. “The separation of Reflect from the education theme back in 2005 was a mistake and led to a loss of continuity. This is why re-vitalising Reflect as a tool both for social change and women’s education in ActionAid is one of our three priorities moving forward” (p.2). ActionAid has followed through on this, including though the republishing of the original Reflect Mother Manual in 2012, as well the creation of an online Reflect base-camp linking practitioners around the world. It appears, then, that Reflect is re-emerging as a central means for ActionAid to link rights-work with educational programming at local levels.

Only tentative conclusions can be made about the framing of education rights at ActionAid since 2009. It is likely that the proposals discussed above were changed to some degree, and only time will tell how new strategies will be manifested and translated at local, national and global levels. What is clear, however, is that by 2009, the IET had come to terms with the need to integrate ongoing service-delivery into the rights-based approach rather than to attempt to shut it out altogether (and thus ignore reality on the ground). This was a tentative move – management remained cautious of “opening the floodgates to the comfort zone of simple infrastructure projects which are wrapped up in rights based rhetoric” (p. 4). But it is still significant as it shows that local RBA practice was beginning to impact how the framework was defined by the IET.

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7.2.6 Conclusions

In its education work, ActionAid has consistently framed its rights-based approach as something based in local, grassroots experience. The discourse of grassroots rights activism is important to ActionAid for a variety of reasons. As discussed in chapter four, ActionAid places central importance on its decentralized, participatory power structure and its image as an organization deeply connected to grassroots activism. ActionAid’s decentralized structure meant that there was no way to “force” country level staff and partners to stop carrying out education services and to adopt a cohesive rights-based approach. The IET could only encourage and facilitate this transition, and this was largely done through the dissemination of the documents discussed here. These documents therefore give us a good glimpse into how the IET framed rights-based work and how this shifted during the period under examination.

Framing education rights as something emanating from the local level was clearly an important part of maintaining ActionAid’s image to staff and partners during the roll-out of RBA. Yet, as the above discussion reveals, the power to propose and define RBA rested entirely within the IET. ActionAid leadership promoted a specific version of education rights that was somewhat at odds with local practice, but they continued to “push” RBA on to country-level staff despite significant resistance. Although RBA was tightly defined by the organizational leadership, the implementation of this new framework happened in a highly decentralized manner, which meant it took a decade for the rights-based approach to scale across the organization. Ultimately, this combination of centralized “proposal power” and decentralized “implementation power” (Wong, 2012) led to the wide-scale adoption of the rights-based approach across the organization.

This section revealed that, not only was RBA something proposed and defined centrally at ActionAid, it was increasingly being influenced by international norms and international policy agendas. For example, we saw a dramatic shift from a focus on locally-understood rights to universal rights based on international legal instruments. We also saw an increasing emphasis on the role of rights-activism in policy advocacy, for example in budget tracking, rather than as a tool for community empowerment. This was particularly exemplified by the declining focus on Reflect between 2005 and 2009, a decline that may have its roots in a wider neglect of adult literacy in the EFA agenda. This period saw a rapid increase in political opportunities within the

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EFA movement, as discussed in chapter six. As ActionAid sought to capitalize on these openings, and was drawn into increasing contact with global policy makers, it is perhaps not surprising that the way it framed the right to education would reflect global priorities.

Strategic issue framing is generally seen as something that a movement does to attract external support. In this chapter, we have seen how framing is done internally and externally; how there is not one, but multiple audiences involved in crafting a given frame. This highlights how movements and organizations inhabit not one, but multiple strategic action fields. As Fligstein and McAdam (2011) argue, “SAFs can look a lot like Russian dolls: open up an SAF and it contains a number of other SAFs” (p. 9). Realigning the issue-frame towards rights-based development was thus a strategy crafted with multiple audiences and fields in mind.

Yet, despite the overwhelming acceptance of rights-based development as a global norm, the adopting of this new frame did not proceed automatically or in a straight-forward manner. As shown in this case study, ActionAid’s frame transformation required constant re-definition and review, and evolved considerably in the period under study. The decentralized implementation of this framework meant that progress was slow and there was significant tension over how to integrate the new approach with pre-existing programs based on service delivery. Yet ultimately it was a successful transformation. As discussed, ActionAid is widely recognized as one of the leading rights-based INGOs. This is evidenced by its frequent appearance in academic literature on RBA and international development more broadly, where it is distinguished for its overtly political and radical approach to rights-based development. This has allowed ActionAid to set the parameters of the RBA debate and to distinguish itself in what has become a crowded field. I would argue that it was precisely because ActionAid was able to define rights-based education work in a way that drew on global norms and reflected global dynamics, while still allowing implementation to proceed (tentatively) and local and national levels, that the organization was able to produce such a successful strategic frame.

7.3 Case study 2: ASPBAE’s frame extension – from adult education to the full EFA agenda

7.3.1 Introduction

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At its 2008 General Assembly, ASPBAE mandated an expansion of the organization’s focus to embrace the whole of the Education for All agenda – the six goals covering the full spectrum of education, from early childhood through to higher education and adult learning. This was a significant change, as for forty-five years ASPBAE had existed as a network of adult education practitioners with a primary focus on encouraging information exchange and innovative practice in adult learning. At the same time, ASPBAE had been working with civil society organizations outside of the adult education movement for a number of years, due to its role in the Global Campaign for Education, UNESCO’s NGO Collective Consultation on EFA, and in particular its Education Watch project (discussed in the following chapter). Beginning in 2006, the executive council began to strategize about how to best incorporate ASPBAE’s new partnerships in EFA with its singular focus on adult education. It decided that the best way forward would be to formalize this shift by amending its constitution and changing its name to reflect its new emphasis on “the intrinsic relationship between adult education and basic education within the framework of ‘Education for All’” (ASPBAE, 2009a: p. 1).

ASPBAE’s shift to incorporate the wider EFA agenda is an example of what Snow et al (1986) have referred to as “frame extension”. They argue that this framing strategy is most commonly employed when a movement or organization seeks to extend its adherent pool by expanding its mandate “to encompass interests or points of view that are incidental to its primary objectives but of considerable salience to potential adherents” (p. 472). In the following case-study analysis, I will explore the different motivations prompting ASPBAE to formally adopt the entire EFA agenda as their own. I will examine how this shift was framed by the executive council to ASPBAE members and partners and what this may tell us about the process of norm localization in strategic action fields.

My investigation centres on an analysis of three key documents produced during the frame alignment process: the unpublished summary of the executive council’s strategic planning discussions (ASPBAE, 2006a); the draft proposed constitutional amendments, produced by the executive council for the 2008 General Assembly (ASPBAE, 2008), and the 2009-2012 Strategic Directions paper, which was the output of this General Assembly (ASPBAE, 2009a).

7.3.2 Adult Education in the broader EFA movement: some background

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It is important to place ASPBAE’s shift to the whole EFA framework within the wider education governance climate. Although two of the six EFA goals deal explicitly with adult learning, in practice adult education is not a priority for most governments, donors or development NGOs. There are a number of reasons for this. Perhaps most importantly, the Millennium Development Goals include just two of the EFA goals: universal primary education and gender parity in education. These are linked to other sector goals, particularly improved health, within a framework of poverty eradication. Based on widely-accepted research that “six years of primary school education and the education of girls have particular societal returns” (Buchert, 2003), the MDGs, in effect, serve to narrow the entire education development agenda into a focus on formal primary schooling. Many bilateral and multilateral donors, for example UK’s DfID and the World Bank, focus their education sector work on the MDGs rather than the six EFA goals, thus furthering the conflation of EFA into universal primary education (ibid).

The narrowing of EFA to focus on primary education has meant that adult education agencies and programs face major funding constraints. When adult education departments exist within national governments, they are generally small, understaffed and underfunded (ASPBAE, 2004). More often than not, adult education in subsumed in one or more related government ministries, such as infrastructure or rural development. When no single agency takes responsibility for managing and funding adult education, it easily slips of the public agenda (Buchert, 2003). Related to this, there is a lack of official data from which to make informed policy decisions, leaving state and non-state actors struggling to make the case for investing in adult education (Ibid). Bilateral donors chiefly fund primary education, and their interest in adult learning is limited to higher education, particularly scholarships for students from the South to study at Northern universities (Lovegrove, 2003). The only multilateral education financing instrument, the Global Partnership for Education Fund, focuses solely on primary education. Thus, despite the fact that two of six EFA goals deal explicitly with adult learning, there are no international financial commitments to achieve these.

A major obstacle to asserting adult education within EFA is difficulty defining and measuring it. Adult education is a broad field that encompasses everything from workplace learning to Freirean popular education. Those who champion it resist narrowly defining adult education, preferring terms like “lifelong learning” that encompass the formal, non-formal and informal modes of learning that take place throughout an individual’s life. Adult education is often

143 associated with literacy, a definitional narrowing criticized by many adult education advocates (Lovegrove, 2003; Torres, 2004). But even literacy is difficult to define, as recent theory has moved away from a narrow definition of reading and writing to encompass “multiple literacies” and the creation of literate environments (Lind, 2008). These holistic understandings make adult education “goals” difficult to establish and measure. A wide gap exists between bilateral and multilateral donors, who are interested in education as an investment in national growth and value its role in promoting economic development (Oxenham, 2004), and adult education advocates and practitioners, who criticize what they see as a “functionalist” or “instrumental” view of education that ignores the humanistic value of lifelong learning. This conceptual chasm makes it very difficult to assert the value of adult education within development education policy.

It is in this broader environment that ASPBAE expanded its mandate to include universal primary education. This is perhaps surprising, as ASPBAE has always been a vocal advocate of promoting lifelong, transformative education as opposed to a functionalist view of education centred on formal and primary-level schooling. To ease this transition, ASPBAE framed its expanded mandate in a way that would resonate both with its traditional membership base of regional adult educators and with its new EFA partners. In this way, the process of adopting the full EFA agenda can be seen as an example of both overlapping strategic action fields and of norm localization, as ASPBAE transmitted norms from one field to another. In the following section, we will examine how ASPBAE carefully aligned and extended its discourse as it transitioned to the wider EFA framework, focusing on two strategic frames: “lifelong learning” and the “rights-based approach”. Before examining key documents, it is worthwhile briefly reviewing these two terms and their relevance to ASPBAE.

Lifelong learning emerged as a key concept in adult education in the mid 1990s. The roots of this can be traced to UNESCO’s 1972 Faure Report, which argued that governments needed to link formal and non-formal education in a dual track system of “lifelong education” (UNESCO, 1972). This was reconceptualised as “lifelong learning” in the Delores Report (UNESCO, 1996), in order to highlight that most learning takes place outside of formal education systems and that governments should thus encourage learning environments from “cradle to grave” (Añonuevo et al, 2001). Reconceptualising adult education within a framework of lifelong learning was adopted as a key recommendation at the Fifth International Conference on Adult Education

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(Confintea V) in 1997, and was subsequently adopted as the dominant discourse on adult education among governmental and non-governmental organizations working in the field (ibid). ASPBAE incorporated the discourse of lifelong learning at its second General Assembly in 1997, stating “we believe that a people-centred process of lifelong learning is an essential means towards creating a civil society (ASPBAE, 1997: p. 1).

The rights-based approach to development has been examined in detail, and will not be re- examined here. It should be noted, however, that ASPBAE`s version of RBA is considerably different to that of ActionAid. In the previous case study, we saw how ActionAid struggled to find space for service-delivery within the rights-based approach. For ASPBAE however, there is no tension between asserting education as a right and engaging in education practice. Rather, the two are seen to strengthen each other and to strengthen ASPBAEs overall work in leadership development and training (ASPBAE, 2009a: p5). For example, Strategic Directions 2009-2012 identified as a core activity for the period “advancing innovative, pro-poor, rights-based and gender sensitive adult education practice in support of ASPBAE members and adult education work in the region” (p. 12).

The continued emphasis on practice within a rights-based framework reflected the fact that the majority of ASPBAE members are grassroots adult education practitioners working within disadvantaged communities, and few of them identify explicitly with policy advocacy campaigns (ASPBAE, 2006a: p. 4). Although ASPBAE recognizes that governments have a the primary responsibility to provide education (ASPBAE, 2008; 2009a), the organization also acknowledges that “with governments and donors increasingly retreating from state support to adult education work, NGOs and CSO work in this area provide the much needed recourse of the region's poor to beat poverty” (ASPBAE, 2009: p 14). In what follows, I will examine how ASPBAE aligned its new strategic frame with RBA discourse while simultaneously emphasizing its continued adherence to the lifelong learning framework.

7.3.3 ASPBAE Executive Council Strategic Review and Planning 2006

In 2006, the Executive Council of ASPBAE underwent a strategic review to assess new directions for the organization in the lead up to the 2008 General Assembly. At this session, the

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Executive Council pondered the expansion of ASPBAE’s activities and partnerships within the broader EFA movement and concluded that the organization needed to make a definitive move to align itself with this movement. The unpublished summary notes from this planning meeting, Summary of Discussions (ASPBAE, 2006a), offer a clear glimpse into the motivations for the change in mandate.

Summary of Discussions made clear that the shift to the wider EFA movement was linked to ASPBAE’s “continuing priority to policy advocacy work” (p. 3). In fact, this document began with a summary of ASPBAE’s previous strategic review, carried out in 2000, which had first institutionalized ASPBAE’s policy advocacy strategy (ASPBAE, 2000b). Summary of Discussions provided an overview and assessment of activities since 2000, concluding that all of ASPBAE’s activities were now impacted by a policy advocacy imperative: “new alliance and coalition building efforts pursued were substantively motivated by campaign and policy advocacy imperatives. New leadership and capacity-building activities were designed to shore up policy advocacy competencies of ASPBAE at various levels” (p. 2).

ASPBAE’s leadership recognized that the Education for All movement presented by far the most effective and cohesive platform from which to advocate for education. This was explained in Summary of Discussions: “EFA commitments were reference points for donors and governments... Internationally, spaces were expanding for CSO participation in EFA processes – even from the South. EFA therefore provided the main platform for policy engagement and advocacy of ASPBAE (p. 2-3). In order to engage with the EFA movement and to strengthen its position as an advocate, ASPBAE sought to align itself more closely with the two main civil society bodies in EFA – the Global Campaign for Education and UNESCO’s Collective Consultation of NGOs (ASPBAE, 2006a; Khan, 2012). But even within these venues, ASPBAE found it hard to impact policy-makers because of their singular focus on adult education: “we needed to use the language that policy makers were interested in listening to and could speak...they only speak about the formal system, so we had to make the connection” (Interview with ASPBAE staff member. Mumbai, February 2012).

There was also a strong financial incentive to broaden ASPBAE’s focus. ASPBAE had long relied on a single main donor as its source of funds, as discussed in chapter five. Its partnership with the GCE had opened up an alternative source of funding through the Real World Strategies

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(RWS) project, financed by the Dutch government. It was through this project that ASPBAE had begun to work with civil society groups outside of adult education – RWS did not have a strong adult education component but was focused on the entire EFA platform. Thus ASPBAE’s new funding arrangement did not match its mandate. This was one of the main points raised in Summary of Discussions: “ASPBAE’s financial resource base remains fragile. The new resources that ASPBAE has been able to raise are largely related to campaign and broader EFA work (not AE-related components of EFA). Donors and international NGOs remain averse/skeptical to funding AE work and of ‘regional’ level work” (p. 4). The Executive Council recognized that leveraging further funds hinged on its ability to frame its work in terms of the wider EFA agenda, arguing for a need to “orient to dominant/current policy process/platform of the day e.g. MDGs” (p. 5)

At the same time, ASPBAE was also motivated by normative concerns over the ability of people of all ages to access quality education. Citing the large number of out of school children in the Asia-Pacific, children who will eventually “join the burgeoning numbers of illiterate youth and adults”, Summary of Discussions argued that “adult education advocates cannot but make the case of universal primary education their main business as well” (p. 4). Through partnerships with EFA coalitions and civil society groups, ASPBAE became aware that the separation of adult learning from other aspects of education was untenable: Universal quality primary and secondary education cannot be achieved in the continued absence of safe, enabling learning environments for girls and boys in their homes and communities that literate, critically-aware parents can provide. Conversely, the potential for meaningful 'learning throughout life' for all citizens rests on a strong basic education foundation (p. 4).

We can see that the instrumental and normative motivations for widening ASPBAE’s mandate are closely linked. In order to advocate for adult learning within the EFA platform, ASPBAE needed a stronger voice within this platform. Extending its focus to embrace all aspects of education significantly increased ASPBAE’s profile as an education advocate, and has allowed it to leverage additional funds (for example the Civil Society Education Fund, described in chapter six). ASPBAE’s Executive Council was clear that the expanded mandate was not a turn away from adult education, but was designed to further “secure gains for adult education within the current policy context” (p. 4).

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The centrality of adult education to ASPBAE’s work was emphasized throughout Summary of Discussions. In order to maintain adult education as the “defining characteristic of the organization” (p. 6), the Executive Council needed to make the case that the organization’s expanded focus was compatible with a lifelong learning framework: “ASPBAE's fundamental commitment to advance the right of all - especially the most marginalized groups - to learn through-out life (lifelong learning) makes ASPBAE a 'natural' participant and critical partner in the 'education for all' processes” (p. 3). Framing EFA within ASPBAE’s lifelong learning framework served to emphasize continuity with the past – an example of norm localization rather than whole-scale adoption. This was further underscored in the Draft 2006 Mission and Vision included at the end of Summary of Discussions: “ASPBAE’s fundamental purpose is to advance and defend the right of all people to learn and have equitable access to relevant and quality education and learning opportunities throughout their lives” (p. 8). This discursive continuity was important as ASPBAE had distinguished itself for several decades as the leading civil society network engaged in adult education and lifelong learning (ASPBAE, 2000), and the majority of ASPBAE members were adult education practitioners (ASPBAE, 2006a: p. 4).

It should be noted as well that Summary of Discussions was one of the first documents produced by ASPBAE to articulate a rights-based approach. The Executive Council recommended that a new Mission and Vision statement should incorporate a “strong rights based approach to education” to bring it in line with “current thinking” (p. 5). The Draft 2006 Mission and Vision at the end of this document included several references to RBA, arguing that “education is a fundamental human right and governments therefore have the primary responsibility to provide free, compulsory basic education of good quality to all its citizens” (p. 8). Although, as previously discussed, ASPBAE had long spoken of the right to education, articulating this as a fundamental human right and the duty of governments was new for the organization. This underscores the growing influence of EFA partners – particularly the Global Campaign for Education and its founders - in shaping ASPBAE’s discourse. In the following two sections, we will see how the RBA discourse became closely associated with ASPBAE’s expansion to the whole EFA agenda.

7.3.4 Proposed constitutional amendments 2008

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In 2008, ASPBAE’s Executive Council proposed a series of constitutional amendments, covering three areas of change for the organization: its overall mission and purpose, including its adoption of the whole EFA agenda and a focus on rights-based approaches; its membership and constituency, including its name-change and new rules about eligibility and voting; and its leadership structure, including changes to the role of President. This unpublished document (ASPBAE, 2008) was circulated for consideration at the General Assembly. It was organized into three columns, the first of which presented items from the 2004 Constitution, the second of which contained the proposed amendments, and the third of which offered explanatory notes. It should be noted that the Executive Council offered only one option for each proposed amendment, with the exception of changes to the role of President, for which two options were provided. This document therefore provides valuable insight into how the Executive Council framed major constitutional changes to the members of the General Assembly.

The Proposed Constitutional Amendments made clear that ASPBAE’s roots in adult education remained strong. It offered “Unequivocal affirmation that the promotion of adult education and lifelong learning that is transformative and liberating remains the core purpose of ASPBAE” (p. 1). However, the lifelong learning framework was also extended to ASPBAE’s new focus on the wider EFA agenda. Citing the large number of out-of-school children in the region, as well as the connection between universal primary education and adult learning, the preamble to the amendments articulated the “intrinsic relationship between adult education and basic education within the framework of ‘Education for All’ and lifelong learning” (p. 1). Here we see, as discussed above, that extending the “lifelong learning” frame to encompass formal, childhood education provided important discursive continuity for ASPBAE.

The Proposed Constitutional Amendments offered a new addition to ASPBAE’s discourse: the term “basic education”. Used throughout this document, “basic education” is defined in proposed amendment 2.2: “Basic education involves the whole range of educational activities, taking place in various settings that aim to fulfill the basic human right of all to education” (p. 5). This definition appears to encompass all of lifelong learning, both for adults and children. Yet throughout this document, and those that follow it, ASPBAE depicts basic education as the “new part” of its mandate, in essence the part that is not adult education. This is illustrated, for example, in its proposed new name: the Asia South -Pacific Partnerships for Basic and Adult Education. Elsewhere in this document, the “intrinsic relationship between adult education and

149 basic education” is stressed (p. 1; p. 6), in effect characterizing “basic education” and “adult education” as the two components of lifelong learning.

There were two strategic reasons for framing ASPBAE’s expanded mandate in terms of basic education. The first was that this was the language used in the Dakar Framework for Action. (UNESCO, 2000). This document predominantly viewed basic education as formal, primary schooling, stating for example that “every government has the responsibility to provide free, quality basic education, so that no child will be denied access because of an inability to pay” (p. 14); but it also argued that “all adults have a right to basic education, beginning with literacy, which allows them to engage actively in, and to transform, the world in which they live” (p. 16). The definition of basic education adopted by ASPBAE’s executive council reflected the discourse of the EFA framework, highlighting the importance of frame alignment to ASPBAE’s leadership.

The basic education frame was also a deliberate attempt to embed the rights-based approach into ASPBAE’s lifelong learning framework. ASPBAE’s executive council explained that its definition of basic education was meant to assert education as a basic human right as enshrined in the UDHR and to highlight the role of education in enabling the fulfillment of other fundamental rights (ASPBAE, 2008: p. 5). The Proposed Constitutional Amendments included a new “Declaration of Principles” for ASPBAE based on RBA: “ASPBAE believes that Education is a fundamental human right and that governments have the primary responsibility to provide free basic education of good quality to all their citizens” (p. 6). The explanatory notes accompanying this declaration explain that the RBA framework was designed to “draw the strong link between adult and basic education with poverty eradication and over-all empowerment” (ibid). Again, we can see the importance for ASPBAE’s leadership of aligning its work with the dominant discourse of the EFA movement.

The “Declaration of Principles” provided an overall rights-based framework for ASPBAE’s Mission, Objectives and Core Strategies, which remained essentially the same as they had been in 2004. Only minor amendments were introduced, such as the addition of the terms “basic education” and “human rights” to align ASPBAE’s mission statement with its rights-based basic education framework. “To advocate for equitable access to relevant and quality learning opportunities” became “To advocate for equitable access to relevant and quality basic education

150 and learning opportunities and for the full realization of education as a fundamental human right for all” (p. 7). The three Core Strategies, policy advocacy, leadership and capacity building, and strategic partnerships, were in fact put in place in 2000 and remain unchanged in ASPBAE’s current constitution. Two important points can be gleaned here: first is that providing continuity in terms of mission and strategy was important to the Executive Council as they underwent a change in how they framed their work. The second is that this change really was essentially a framing one: the activities of ASPBAE, its focus on capacity-building and good practice, were not altered by the expansion of its mandate to “basic education” or the use of the RBA frame.

The Executive Council proposed changes to ASPBAE’s membership structure which are relevant to our discussion. The original preamble to ASPBAE’s constitution described the organization’s membership as consisting of “adult education and learning practitioners in the Asia- Pacific region, including individuals, groups, departments and organizations engaged in adult non-formal and popular education” (ASPBAE, 2004). The proposed amendments added to this “and other civil society organizations, education advocates and campaign coalitions who support the core principles and objectives of ASPBAE” (ASPBAE, 2008: p. 3). The number of voting members was thus able to expand considerably, as civil society organizations outside of adult education were invited to the table provided they shared ASPBAE’s focus on asserting basic, lifelong education as a human right (p. 10-11). This further decentralized the implementation of ASPBAE’s policy advocacy and capacity-building strategies by diversifying and extending its constituency.

At the same time that ASPABEs’ executive council sought to expand and diversify its constituency, it also proposed changes that would “strengthen the capacity of the Executive Council to lead”(p. 2). This was based on a concern that, since members could sit on the Executive Council for just two terms (eight years), the role of President was not staffed by individuals who had a long history of EC experience. Two options were advanced by the Executive Council: introducing the position of “Immediate Past President” in order to “harness the benefits of a past President’s knowledge and experience” and provide continuity; and extending the maximum number of allowable terms in office for EC members from two to three terms if the member serves at least a single term as president (p. 14). In this way, ASPBAE sought to strengthen the authority of its executive council while it expanded and diversified its

151 membership base. This, again, can be seen as a way to foster continuity and cohesion during a period of organizational change

7.3.5 Strategic Directions 2009-2012

Following the 2008 General Assembly, ASPBAE released Strategic Directions 2009-2012 (ASPBAE, 2009). This document, disseminated among members and partners, articulated the organization’s plans and strategies now that it had officially adopted the wider EFA frame into its constitution. It thus offers a good glimpse both of ASPBAE’s continued efforts to frame its new mandate, and the way this new mandate was implemented across the organization.

The Proposed Constitutional Amendments were endorsed by the General Assembly, and so much of Strategic Directions echoes Principles, Mission, Objectives and Core Strategies as described above. For example, Strategic Directions articulated a new “overall goal” for ASPBAE for the period 2009 -2012: “to secure equal access of all citizens to basic and adult education of good quality, contributing to poverty eradication, sustainable development and a lasting peace” (p. 8). This echoes the expanded Mission and Objectives proposed by the Executive Council: “To advocate for equitable access to relevant and quality basic education and learning opportunities ...that empowers people, promotes equitable sustainable human development, and upholds and protects the rights of all people to live in dignity and peace” (ASPBAE, 2008: p. 7-8). Thus we can see that the discourse of rights-based, basic education continued to frame ASPBAE’s activities in the 2009-2012 period.

In fact, of the three key documents examined in this section, Strategic Directions made the strongest case for linking adult and basic education within the lifelong education framework. This document cited ASPBAE’s own Education Watch research to argue for expanding lifelong education to encompass basic education as well. Arguing that the factors limiting education access for the disadvantaged remained constant from childhood to adulthood, Strategic Directions emphasized the indivisibility of the EFA goals within the broader lifelong education framework: Huge disparities characterize sustained access to free basic education of good quality which are gender, income, language, location (eg urban vs. rural), social and culture - based. Girls and women, poor and marginal communities, rural

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children and adults, indigenous, minority communities are least likely to participate fully in meaningful, free education. These disparities further characterize access to adult literacy, non-formal and other lifelong learning opportunities for adults (p. 1).

The paper went on to correlate meagre adult education budgets to the general lack of government and ODA financing for education (ibid). Grouping these aspects of education financing together was symbolically important, as budget-carving is usually seen as a competitive issue, where gains for one area mean losses for another. ASPBAE sought to bypass this by condemning the lack of funds for the entire EFA agenda, and by arguing that funding both adult and basic education would provide a powerful way to mitigate the impacts of the economic crisis (p. 2).

Strategic Directions made clear ASPBAE’s commitment to pursuing rights-based approaches to education, stating in its introduction that “Education is a right of all citizens – and a powerful means to secure and defend other political, civil and development rights” (p.1). It then went on to connect its work with the “4 A” framework on education rights developed by Katarina Tomaševski (2005). As discussed earlier in this chapter, this framework had been adopted by many leading education NGOs including ActionAid, and so ASPBAE’s use of it further highlights the extent to which this organization was aligning itself with dominant EFA discourse. At the same time, ASPBAE remained firm that advancing innovative adult education practice remained a core focus for the organization. This was not seen as something apart from its rights- based advocacy work, but rather was wedded to it. For example, ASPBAE identified its leadership and capacity-building strategy as a linkage of two streams: “demand-driven, context- based capacity-building for campaigns and advocacy on the right to adult education and education for all; and advancing innovative, pro-poor, rights-based and gender sensitive adult education practice in support of ASPBAE members and adult education work in the region” (p.12).

Once again we can see how ASPBAE leadership framed its expanding mandate in a way that emphasized continuity with its roots in adult education practice and capacity building. Linking basic and adult education within the framework of rights-based lifelong learning provided cohesion to an organization that was growing significantly more diverse. It was also a way to bring old and new members “on board” by simultaneously emphasizing a commitment to rights- based advocacy and to innovative adult education practice. This was essential, as the

153 implementation of ASPBAE’s new agenda would happen at the local level among organizations scattered across the region. It is one thing for the Executive Council to embrace the wider EFA framework; it is another for this to catch on among members and partners. The new framework had to be taken up among these member organizations if ASPBAE was to avoid becoming a bifurcated organization, carrying out two separate streams of work on EFA advocacy and adult education practice. Strategic Directions indicated some strategies to encourage take-up of the EFA agenda, so can illustrate for us how ASPBAE sought to implement its newly expanded mandate.

The bulk of Strategic Directions was taken up by descriptions of planned activities for the 2009- 2012 period. These activities were grouped under ASPBAE’s three key strategies of leadership and capacity building, policy advocacy and strategic partnerships. To address the first key strategy, ASPBAE has chosen to focus on creating a “second-line of leadership” that can operate at national, sub-regional and regional levels, helping address “the expanded complexity of ASPBAE’s work” (p. 5). To this end, ASPBAE created the Training Institute for Empowerment and Solidarity (ASPBAE TIES), “a programme that brings together highly experienced trainers and facilitators with a strong historical relationship with ASPBAE work, having been drawn from ASPBAE’s membership and partner organizations” (p. 13). These trainers will assist ASPBAE in developing its own capacity-building and training workshops in order to help nurture the second-line of leadership and to promote transformative adult education approaches (ibid).

A core initiative of TIES was a Regional Facilitators Training, which had as its goal the creation of 15-20 second-line facilitators “targeted by ASPBAE as having potential for sustained mentoring as second-line trainers and facilitators who ASPBAE can mobilize for cross-country, regional and global work” (14). Two thematic focus areas for this training program were proposed, Gender Justice and Citizens Participation for Good Governance, which would encompass training in popular education methods, participatory approaches and advocacy strategies. Strategic Directions explained that the focal areas were chosen because they “readily straddle the key constituencies of ASPBAE: community educators and organizers; and campaigners and education advocates” (ibid). The creation of TIES, and particularly the Regional Facilitators Training, can therefore be seen as a key way for ASPBAE’s expanded mandate to be implemented in a way that fits with the organization’s decentralized structure.

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ASPBAE’s second key strategy, “Policy advocacy for equitable access to quality lifelong learning opportunities and education for all” also involved activities targeted specifically to integrating ASPBAE’s old and new streams of work. Advocacy themes were chosen for each sub-region, for example “financing for the unreached, alternative budgeting and ODA” in Southeast Asia (p. 17). These themes were equally applicable to all strands of the EFA agenda and could therefore provide cohesion among diverse organizations and countries in each sub- region. Although defined by ASPBAE’s leadership, these themes are broad enough to allow national and local level definition, illustrating well the centralized-decentralized dynamic of the organization.

ASPBAE also suggested piloting week-long national campaigns that would link adult education practice with advocacy work. Strategic Directions indicated that the primary motivation for these campaign festivals was creating a common platform for national EFA coalitions and adult education practitioners, so that the latter could gain more currency within country-level advocacy work. This was a response to the fact that, even in countries with strong EFA coalitions, advocacy around adult education remained weak (p. 18). In addition to this linking basic and adult education advocacy, the festivals were also meant to generate human and financial resources for national-level advocacy work and to increase ASPBAE’s profile in country (ibid).

ASPBAE planned to convene a workshop in 2009 to strategize for these week-long campaign events, which it envisioned piloting in ten to twelve countries. ASPBAE was clear that its role was strictly as facilitator and enabler; members and partners at the national level were responsible for organization and implementation: ASPBAE will provide the common campaign materials, design the common campaign action, provide the campaign plans and guides for the local organizers, organize the coordinated media work, and provide small seed funds for organizing the national campaign/festival events. Members are expected to run the events in-country and are additionally expected to generate resources and/or contribute their own activities as part of this initiative (p. 18).

It is too early to be able to assess the impact of ASPBAE’s widening mandate on all its member organizations and partners, or to assess the extent to which they have successfully linked their adult education practice and advocacy with the wider EFA agenda. ASPBAE staff members have indicated that this transition was widely accepted across ASPBAE, due to the fact that most adult

155 education “acknowledge the importance of education ‘from cradle to grave’” (Email communication with ASPBAE staff member). It is certainly true that internationally, ASPBAE has successfully reframed itself as an EFA organization with expertise that extends beyond its traditional focal area of adult and lifelong learning. At the time Strategic Directions was published, ASPBAE had gained recognition as the leading NGO concerned with education in the Asia-Pacific Region, acting as regional partner for the Global Campaign for Education regional coordinator for the Civil Society Education Fund. In the above discussion, I have argued that ASPBAE was successful in its frame-alignment for two reasons: because it extended, rather than replaced, its older strategic framework; and because it underwent this shift in a way that paid attention to both dominant currents in global EFA discourse and the internal culture of its organization an membership base.

7.4 Conclusions

There are some important points of comparison between the process of strategic frame alignment at ASPBAE and ActionAid. For ASPBAE’s Executive Council, framing its newly expanded mandate in terms of lifelong education provided important continuity: adding a new focus on basic childhood education was simply widening the age-group without fundamentally changing what ASPBAE had been doing all along. In this way, ASPBAE was engaging in a process of frame extension, adding a new element to a pre-existing and widely-accepted frame rather than attempting to forge an entirely new issue frame. The decision to carry out frame extension fit with the organization’s long-standing image as a regional network that sought cohesion and unity, advocating for a shared identity that could overcome differences in geography and issue-area. ASPBAE’s adoption of the wider EFA agenda provides an example of norm localization, in that global education goals were framed in a way that would resonate with the long-standing southern-based tradition of transformative, lifelong education.

Norm localization is not as apparent at ActionAid, where the adoption of a new strategic action frame - the rights-based approach – was carried out as an organization-wide mandate with little concern for local variation. At the same time, the International Education Team framed RBA as

156 grassroots rights activism, which fit its image as a decentralized, locally-rooted NGO. Like in the ASPBAE case, we see that strategic issue-framing was something done intra-organizationally to bring diverse members and partners on board by using language that was widely legitimated within each organization.

Leadership at both ASPBAE and ActionAid drew on dominant discourse from the global EFA movement in constructing their new frames, a strategy meant to assert their legitimacy as global policy advocates. For the former, this was shown in its adoption of RBA and of the term “basic education”; for the latter in its highly legalistic understanding of RBA and in its emphasis on certain issue-areas, such as working with teachers’ unions. Both cases of frame alignment were thus able to “speak” to two audiences. As Jasper (2004) argues, the frames used by social movement organizations reach different audiences at the same time, audiences that are both internal and external to the movement. The individuals crafting strategic frames must constantly face the dilemma of multiple audiences, and the most successful frames will be those that can simultaneously speak to the culture and identity of these diverse stakeholders. Again, this supports Fligstein and McAdam’s theory of strategic action fields as overlapping and mutually- influencing. We can see how ActionAid and ASPBAE inhabit a number of different fields: their own network of staff and partners, the wider network of education and development NGOs, and the broad Education for All advocacy movement. Strategies are crafted based on their position, and the position of other actors, in each of these fields.

Interestingly, ActionAid, like ASPBAE, drifted away from its work in adult education and adult literacy in this era. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, the 2009 Education Review noted that there had been a sharp decline in support for Reflect since 2006. This was due in part to changing priorities within ActionAid’s International Education Team (IET): the adoption of RBA had led the organization to turn away from educational programming in favour of a focus on policy advocacy work. Although the IET had previously housed a team of staff dedicated to Reflect, this was shut down in February 2006 based on the belief that programming issues should be dealt with at national levels where programs actually happened, rather than within the international secretariat (Interview with former ActionAid staff member. London, April 2013). This meant that country programs no longer received Reflect support from the IET, a change that caused a degree of discord with some country-level staff (Interview with external informant. Sussex, April 2013). For ActionAid, then, the decline in adult literacy practice was part of a general shift away

157 from educational programming. But at a basic level, the story is the same as that of ASPBAE: both organizations were focussed on gaining legitimacy in global policy advocacy, and that led both to downplay their long-standing experience in adult education. In both cases, this was a strategy crafted in response to global priorities. International interest shifted post-Dakar, with greater focus placed on universal primary education and on NGOs as policy “watchdogs”. Not only small NGOs like ASPBAE, but also large and well-funded organizations like ActionAid, were heavily influenced by the changing donor landscape. As one external informant explained, the decline of Reflect was partly due to the fact that, “ActionAid, like many other big international NGOs, began being driven by the funds it could access and raise”.

Although the post-Dakar global environment heavily influenced both ASPBAE and ActionAid, it is also essential to understand the internal organizational dynamics that led to these frame alignment processes. These two case studies have underscored the importance of strong leadership, even within highly decentralized organizations. In both cases, major changes were introduced by relatively small bodies. This centralized proposal power (Wong, 2012) allowed for coherent issue-frames to be constructed and fairly major changes to be implemented. At the same time, the actual implementation of the new frames was highly decentralized, fitting the structure and identity of both organizations. ASPBAE has encouraged and facilitated the creation of strong country-level leadership, deliberately chosen for its ability to bring together the two streams of advocacy and practice work as well as adult and basic education work. ActionAid has struggled with inconsistencies in how RBA is implemented, but has nonetheless managed to have strong recognition of the framework among country-level staff and the international community. The decentralized implementation process may facilitate the sense that new frames are “owned” by staff and partners, rather than imposed from above (ibid).

The key difference in these case studies is that the adoption of rights-based approaches at ActionAid was a far more conflicted process, requiring significant refinement of the RBA frame. This is largely to do with the fact that ActionAid was engaging in frame transformation, radically altering the goals, programming and philosophy of the organisation in order to make a clean- break from its former service-delivery role. ASPBAE, on the other hand, was undergoing a process of frame extension, where new concepts like RBA, advocacy, and basic education were incorporated into pre-existing mandates. One could say that ASPBAE had previously undergone a process of frame transformation when it shifted from a focus on adult education practice to

158 adopt a more politically-radical mandate that saw adult education as part of a wider liberation movement. Like ActionAid’s adoption of RBA, this transformation was accompanied by significant change to its goals, programming and membership. In the current phase of its history, however, ASPBAE’s concern with increasing its clout in global EFA policy while maintaining organizational cohesion has favoured a strategy of alignment with global norms.

There are several possible reasons for this difference in approach: ActionAid’s history as a UK charity is quite different than ASPBAE’s as a southern-based practitioner network, and ActionAid perhaps required a more thorough-going transformation to be recognized as a legitimate policy advocate. ASPBAE has a more precarious financial base, and is likely reluctant to take sharp discursive turns that may alienate dues-paying members and donors. In fact, as noted in this chapter, ASPBAE’s switch to advocacy and to basic education was motivated partly by a need to attract resources. As noted in chapter five, ASPBAE sees the cultivation of a cohesive regional identity as crucial to its success and survival, and this, too, may encourage strategies that offer only gradual change and fit with locally-understood norms. Finally, we cannot overlook the importance of individual personality. The head of ActionAid’s IET during this period was David Archer, who was widely recognized by people I spoke to inside and outside ActionAid as the driving force behind, and a passionate advocate for, ActionAid’s rights- based education work. One external interviewee commented that many country-level staff “found it difficult to differentiate between ActionAid and David Archer”. The way education rights were understood at ActionAid, for example the focus on unionized teachers’ and their pay rates, can be largely attributed to the interests of the IET lead (interview with external informant. Sussex, April 2013).

The way strategic issue frames are constructed is a product of countless factors internal and external to a given organization. In this chapter, we have seen how frames are designed to respond to these various factors: how they reflect the culture and identity of the organization as well as its leadership, how they are used to establish the legitimacy of an advocacy organization through the use of widely-supported normative discourse, how they can help an organization attract funding and members. We see the interplay of global and grassroots identities, and of normative and instrumental motivations. Overall, we see agentic actors cultivating social change through deliberately crafted strategies, and we see how these strategies are a response to the broader environments - the strategic action fields – in which organizations are embedded.

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Chapter 8 8 Information Politics and the Legitimacy of Advocacy NGOs 8.1 Introduction

Successful advocacy requires research. Advocacy organizations need to show the extent of a particular social problem, the lack of official response to the problem, and solutions that could be fostered from the ground up. NGOs advocating for EFA have used a wide-range of data to make the claim that education is a universal right that is being neglected by governments across the globe. The process of gathering information and using it for political advocacy has been termed “information politics” (Keck & Sikkink, 1998). In this section, I explore two specific instances of information politics: ActionAid’s International Benchmarks on Adult Literacy and ASPBAE’s Asia-South Pacific Education Watch. Through detailed process tracing, I examine how these cases of information politics were carried out, and uncover the key decisions and motivations that directed each project. My examination is guided by two main questions: What role have both actor agency and external structures played in defining and guiding these advocacy research strategies? What role have these strategies played in legitimizing ActionAid and ASPBAE as key players in the Education for All movement?

This chapter is organized as follows: I begin with a brief discussion of literature on information politics, applying social movement theory to understand how transnational advocacy organizations gather and disseminate evidence as part of their strategic repertoire. I then move on to my two case studies, exploring the process by which ActionAid and ASPBAE created and implemented advocacy research strategies. My focus is on the impact of both the external environment and the decision-making process internal to each organization. As in the previous chapter, the analysis here will shed some light on how both ActionAid and ASPBAE centralize the process of strategic decision-making but decentralize strategy implementation, and how this has impacted their advocacy work. Throughout this discussion, I explore how information politics can be used to bolster the legitimacy and authority of advocacy NGOs.

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8.2 Literature Review: Information Politics and Transnational Advocacy

Gathering, generating, and disseminating information is the bread-and-butter of advocacy NGOs. These actors gain influence by accessing and reporting on information that is difficult to obtain, using their diverse networks and, often, close connections with grassroots groups. Information politics is thus central to the legitimacy and authority of an advocacy organization. In fact, a number of scholars have argued that NGOs are able to assert themselves as legitimate public representatives in global governance largely because of the evidence they bring to the policy table. This is what Brown (2001) has termed “technical or performance legitimacy”, and it is based on an NGO being acknowledged for its expertise, specialist knowledge and access to information that would otherwise be unavailable (Slim, 2002; Edwards & Hulme, 1995).

Yet despite the centrality of information to political advocacy, there are relatively few in-depth examinations of how advocacy organizations use evidence to influence policy-making. Keck and Sikkink’s seminal work on transnational advocacy networks (1998) was among the first to highlight the importance of research in contentious politics. In this work, transnational activists and their organizations are characterized as highly strategic, gathering, interpreting and framing evidence in order to persuade others to act and to gain influence as sources of reliable alternative information. Human rights groups are particularly prominent in literature of information politics, as they essentially seek to “promote change by reporting facts” (Keck & Sikkink, 1998: p. 19).

But many other issue-areas also rely on data gathering as the basis of their campaigns. The Nestlé boycott movement, for example, gathered testimony and stories of malnourished children, as well as public health studies on improper formula feeding, to launch a massive campaign against Nestlé’s marketing of infant formula in developing countries. Based on this and other case studies, Keck and Sikkink have argued that the most effective advocacy research is that which links technical or statistical evidence with testimonials, as the latter provides a dramatization of the former, making an issue seem more real to the public. Their research also highlights the importance of networked structure, which allows advocacy organizations to gather and share information across wide geographical distances with minimal cost in terms of money or time (Keck & Sikkink, 1998; Yanacopulos, 2002). Groups whose networks include significant

162 grassroots connection are particularly advantaged, as they are able to more easily obtain powerful testimonial evidence. This can help bolster their legitimacy as the providers of hard-to- reach information and as the representatives of disadvantaged populations (Perkin and Court, 2005; Van Rooy, 2004; Slim, 2002; Edwards and Gaventa, 2001; Madon, 2000).

A few recent studies in the international development field have explored how NGO research can better inform global development policy (Court & Maxwell, 2006; Court & Young, 2006; Pollard & Court, 2008; 2005). This work points to two broad factors: the political opportunities available to an NGO, and the perceived quality of the information. For example, Pollard and Court (2008) have drawn on a large pool of data to show how NGOs try to influence various stages of policy-making through the targeted use of high-quality research. They highlight the success of the Jubilee 2000 campaign, which gathered a massive amount of data on the impact of national debt and the benefits of debt relief, and presented this information at the G8 summit. On a smaller scale, the International Budget Project helps NGOs in developing countries gather and analyse information about of government budgets, which can be used for monitoring and evaluation, and to form the basis of lobbying efforts.

In international development policy, particular emphasis is placed on evidence drawn from the perspectives and experience of those impacted by poverty. These individuals and communities are rarely able to make their voices heard at the global (or even national) policy level, so the information is carried upwards by transnational NGOs who can more readily access policy- makers. This can engender significant gaps between the grassroots gathering and the transnational telling: “Local people, in other words, sometimes lose control over their stories in a transnational campaign” (Keck & Sikkink, 1998: p. 19). Vavrus and Seghers (2010) have shown that significant power is wielded through the process of Participatory Poverty Assessments (PPAs). They point out that the partnership model of international development requires “the voices of the poor” to be included in reports, but these are “not written by the children, farmers, petty traders, or teachers who participate in the PPAs” (p. 86), generally not even in their language, and thus significant power is placed in the hands of the organizations who carry out the research and interpret these “voices” for the purpose of policy-making.

Recent critical research on human rights advocacy has shown that NGOs in this field wield considerable power over the “subjects” about which they report. Organizations pick and choose

163 their evidence and issues for reasons beyond the seriousness of the rights violations, and sometimes “the advocacy skills information politics require can marginalize poorly represented regions or causes” (Ron, Ramos and Rodgers, 2005: p. 558). Ron, Ramos and Rodgers (2005), in their analysis of Amnesty International reporting, reveal that, although human rights conditions impact the volume of reporting, other factors are also important, such as the power of a particular state, the presence of US military assistance, and the country`s media profile. They conclude that “Amnesty’s written work suggests that considerations of efficacy and visibility force the group, like other transnational NGOs, to devote more attention to some areas than others” (p. 576). In a similar vein, Carpenter (2007) has argued that issues are unlikely to be adopted by organizations if they pose the potential for conflict within and across the network, regardless of how egregious the violation may be.

The strategic use of information by transnational advocacy organizations has led some scholars to argue that NGOs exhibit firm-like behaviour (Prakash & Gugerty, 2010). Bob (2010) describes rights activism as a “global marketplace where the supply of abuses interacts with the demand for rights issues by donors” (p. 134). In this framework, advocacy organizations play a mediating role, gathering grassroots information and “selling” it to donors, who provide much- needed funds in exchange for the feeling that their money is contributing to addressing human rights abuses. He argues that advocacy groups’ inputs - information gathering, analysis, publication and marketing - are all highly influenced by donor demand. The competitive nature of transnational advocacy funding means that groups must vie for scarce resources, and “the groups that reach the global limelight often do so at a dear cost: by distorting their principles and alienating their constituencies for the sake of appealing to self-interested donors in rich countries” (Bob, 2002: p. 36). This view contrasts sharply with the “moral theory” (Bob, 2010) of Keck and Sikkink, who see transnational advocacy networks as fundamentally different from states or corporations because they are primarily motivated by principled beliefs “that cannot easily be linked to rationalist understanding of their ‘interests’” (Keck & Sikkink, 1998: p. 9).

In an extremely frank self-assessment by members of NGOs based in Latin America (Bazán et al, 2008), the authors highlight the negative implications of donor funding on NGO research. They argue that, although their organizations use counter-hegemonic discourse to frame their work in international development and environmental sustainability, their resource bases severely limit the extent to which they can carry out critical research agendas. They outline a

164 number of reasons why this is the case: donors are more interested in seeing anti-poverty “results” than in engaging in discussion of structural causes of poverty; high-staff-turnover and limited finances rule out long-term and high-quality research projects; and the amount of time research NGOs need to spend “chasing funds” limits the amount of time they have to engage with social movements and grassroots communities from which their research is drawn. The need for funding means that many NGOs, intentionally or unintentionally, shape their institutional philosophy to fit their financial reality, and thus reinforce market-style relations within their organizations and networks.

Advocacy research has the potential to lead to real policy alternatives and a democratization of global governance. NGOs can bring information garnered from domestic monitoring and evaluation into the international forum, pushing for greater regulation of international commitments or for international policy-makers (or the wider public) to take up a specific policy problem (Scholte, 2007). But as the above discussion shows, information politics is far from neutral, and advocacy research can easily stray from the normative goals that supposedly guide it. It is therefore crucial that we know more about how advocacy research strategies are designed and implemented, and what motivations and interests they represent. In the following case studies, I will examine two major advocacy research projects to determine how these projects were designed and implemented, and what this tells us about the role of both external context – structure - and internal organizational dynamics – agency. I will also explore how these projects were promoted and taken-up outside the case-study organizations in order to shed light on the role they played in legitimizing ASPBAE and ActionAid as policy advocates.

8.3 Case study 1: ActionAid and the International Benchmarks for Adult Literacy

Research is a central activity for ActionAid’s International Education Team. A perusal of their website indicates that the focus of this research is on gaps between official commitments for Education for All and the reality in national contexts. Most of these reports target northern donors and international financial organizations for their failure to live up to EFA promises. Reports include Contradicting Commitments: How the achievement of Education for All is being undermined by the IMF; Must Try Harder, a report comparing donor countries aid to the

165 education sector; and Education in Africa: responding to a human rights violation. (All available at actioniad.org.uk/100240/education). The IET also encourages country programmes to carry out research at the national level, for example on girls’ access to education or on national education budgets, as a basis for their advocacy campaigns. The 2009 Education Review noted that the majority of ActionAid country programmes do engage in some type of research, budget- tracking being the most common, and that this is a key part of the advocacy strategy of most offices (Sayed & Newman, 2009).

The important link between research and advocacy was emphasized by ActionAid’s IET as early as 2002: “ActionAid’s engagement in education work locally must be based on a clear understanding of the situation and how it is changing, so we must start with and sustain data collection and research because information really is power” (ActionAid, 2002: p. 10). This was echoed ten years later: “Research and policy analysis (including gender analysis) is necessary in any campaign to build solutions and evidence to convince decision-makers and opinion leaders to make change happen. They are essential to establish the framework through which ActionAid understands the causes of and solutions to poverty, to build our theory of change, and to assess when we need to campaign to create change” (ActionAid, 2012: p 81).

In this section, I examine one major research project carried out by ActionAid’s International Education Team: The International Benchmarks for Adult Literacy. The Benchmarks provide a good case study of ActionAid’s information strategy, as they were one of the most significant research projects undertaken by the IET and involved considerable research within and beyond the wider ActionAid network. The Benchmarks have been taken up and discussed in a range of publications coming out of ActionAid, UNESCO, academic journals and other sources, so there is a rich array of documentary evidence on their impact.

This section begins with a discussion of the external environment that prompted and, to a certain extent, shaped the design of the Benchmarks. It goes on to examine the organizational dynamics and decision-making processes at ActionAid that led to the Benchmarks being designed and implemented in a certain way. Finally, I look at the follow-up process of the benchmarking project to see how they were promoted and taken up outside ActionAid. Throughout these sections, I focus on the motivations that guided the Benchmarks project and the impact it has had on ActionAid’s legitimacy as a policy advocate.

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8.3.1 The Context: The EFA Global Monitoring Report

The Education for All Global Monitoring Report (GMR) has been published annually by UNESCO since 2002. Funded jointly by UNESCO and an array of multilateral and bilateral organizations involved in Education for All, the GMR is “the prime instrument to assess global progress towards achieving the six 'Dakar’ EFA goals. It tracks progress, identifies effective policy reforms and best practice in all areas relating to EFA, draws attention to emerging challenges and seeks to promote international cooperation in favour of education” (UNESCO.org, accessed 8 February 2012). The report is disseminated widely, but is primarily meant to target policy-makers, especially governments (Editorial Board GMR, 2004). Each edition of the GMR draws on expert reports and scholarship from research institutes, aid organizations, UN bodies, governments and NGOs, and each focuses on a different aspect of the EFA agenda. In 2006 the focus was “Literacy for Life” (UNESCO, 2006), and it is in this context that ActionAid developed the Benchmarks for Literacy.

In September of 2004, the editorial board of the GMR met in Paris to discuss the 2006 report on literacy. The draft report of this meeting (Editorial Board GMR, 2004) provides valuable insight into the perceived gaps in the EFA framework concerning literacy. The report indicated that there was a need for a better understanding of the “diversity and complexity of literacy issues” based on “programme experience as much as statistical data” (p.1). It went on to elaborate this point: What is the quality of provision – through governments, NGOs, etc? In many contexts civil society/NGOs are the main providers – the report should debate government responsibility in the light of this. Also what civil society initiatives can be scaled up, what value and scope do they demonstrate? Note that short-term approaches do not work – the report should show what does and does not work, with special attention to civil society experience...Adult literacy is one of the timed EFA targets – the report should look at what kinds and levels of investment are necessary to reach it, national budgets and international aid (p. 6).

In October, ActionAid submitted a proposal for The International Benchmarks for Adult Literacy to UNESCO and the Global Monitoring Report. ActionAid had earlier proposed the idea of the

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Benchmarks to the GCE, who agreed to join in the implementation of the project. The proposal explained that the Benchmarks would be based on a global survey of adult literacy practitioners in over 50 countries in order to determine “what works” in adult literacy programming. The output would be a simple framework that will help governments, policy makers and donors address and achieve the adult literacy goal set in Dakar…. It will produce indicative calculations about average costs of literacy programmes – which can serve as the basis for calculations of the costs of achieving the Dakar goal on literacy at national and international level. (ActionAid, 2004b p. 1).

Through this proposal, ActionAid had to assert its legitimacy as a source of much-needed information on adult literacy. This required indicating there was a gap to fill, a policy problem that had yet to be addressed, and that they were best placed to fill this gap (Pollard & Court, 2005; 2008). The proposal sent to the Global Monitoring Report (ActionAid, 2004b) argued that adult literacy was drastically underfunded by national governments and donors, and all but ignored in the wider EFA agenda with its clear focus on primary education. But most importantly, the proposal argued that there was a clear reason for this, “a lack of basic information about what works and how much it costs” leading to difficulties in measuring and evaluating literacy programs (p. 2-3). What was required was “tightly focused research” led by ActionAid and the GCE, who were “well-placed” to carry out this research due to their long- standing involvement in literacy programming and advocacy “given that civil society organisations have played such a key role in adult literacy as government support for the sector has diminished” (p. 4).

This proposal fed nicely into the issues raised by the GMR editorial board as discussed above. ActionAid firmly placed itself as a link with civil society organizations carrying out literacy programs, and offered a practitioner-based solution to “show what does and does not work… what kinds and levels of investment are necessary” (Editorial Board GMR, 2004: p. 6). It emphasized both its ability to collect data from diverse organizations working across the globe, and to analyze this data based on its expertise in the field (GCE & ActionAid, 2005b: p. 3). The proposal was accepted, followed by four months of research and surveys of 142 individuals and 67 literacy programmes. Writing the Wrongs: International Benchmarks on Adult Literacy was published in 2005 and included in the 2006 EFA Global Monitoring Report (p. 238 -239).

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The Benchmarks were designed to target other EFA policy fora as well, including the EFA Working Group, the High Level Group and the Donor Consortium on EFA. In all these cases, the Benchmarks were pitched as a way to re-invigorate the UN Literacy Decade, which had been declared in 2003 (ActionAid, 2004b). Most crucially, the Benchmarks were designed to target the World Bank during its policy review process on adult literacy. Highlighting the importance of personal contacts and allies to political opportunity, ActionAid indicated in its proposal to GMR that it had already begun initial discussions with an individual at the World Bank to ensure that the Benchmarks would have “significant impact on the World Bank’s policy positions” (ActionAid, 2004b: p. 8).

This was of considerable importance to ActionAid, not just for promoting the Benchmarks but also for its work on education financing. The World Bank was the financial backbone of the Fast-Track Initiative (now the Global Partnership for Education) and reforming this apparatus was – and continues to be - a major focus of ActionAid’s advocacy research and campaigning. The proposal to the Global Monitoring Report argued that the absence of adult literacy on the Fast-Track Initiative agenda was directly responsible for its disappearance from national education plans: “There is little point in planning for things that won’t get funded. Even governments who would like to prioritize adult literacy...end up having their priorities distorted by what donors will finance” (ibid: p. 2).

The lack of attention to adult literacy paid by donors is juxtaposed with ActionAid and the GCE’s own involvement in the field (ibid: p. 4). To push this point, the design of the Benchmarks was based on frameworks used in the Fast-Track Initiative, to “provide both clarity on the costs of adult literacy and a set of clear benchmarks that can be used by governments and donors”. By using this design, it was hoped that the FTI would more easily be able to develop its own adult literacy benchmarks or assessment guidelines, and that the ActionAid Benchmarks would “provide a solid foundation for establishing these” (GCE & ActionAid, 2005b: p. 62). Such a design also served to highlight ActionAid and GCE’s legitimacy as policy-actors, in effect showing that their research outputs could be of equal quality and efficacy to that of the World Bank.

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8.3.2 Project design and implementation

The Benchmarks provide a clear example of a centralized agenda proposal. Recalling Wong’s (2012) schemata of agenda-setting power in NGOs, proposal power refers to “the ability to put things forward for consideration” (p. 18). The benchmarking project was conceived by the head of the IET, David Archer, who played a leading role in the design and implementation of the project (Multiple interviews with former and current ActionAid IET staff). The first step in the project was putting together a research team of nine individuals from ActionAid and the GCE, with Archer as overall coordinator. Writing the Wrongs was compiled and written by Archer and published by the Global Campaign for Education (2005). Archer also published an article on the Benchmarks in the journal Adult Education and Development (Archer, 2008). The extent of his involvement in the Benchmarks is such that, when asked about the reasons behind the project and its early conceptualization, he spoke in the first person (“I was trying to...”; “I wanted to...”) indicating his deep personal attachment to this project. It is not surprising that the education team leader had such a prominent role in establishing the Benchmarks. Archer is well known for his expertise in, and commitment to, adult literacy and particularly for initiating the Reflect method discussed in previous chapters (Sayed & Newman, 2009; dela Torre & Kannabiran, 2007). He has been responsible for much of the education research carried out at ActionAid, and is recognized inside and outside ActionAid for his studies on the influence of the IMF on education financing (Sayed & Newman, 2009).

Of course, it was not only David Archer who brought the Benchmarks project to fruition. A small research coordinating team of nine individuals, drawn from ActionAid and members of the GCE, assisted in the creation of the original survey. This was sent out to hundreds of organizations that were identified as carrying out good adult literacy programs. The survey consisted of 108 questions, dealing with a wide range of issues such as how literacy is defined, enrollment numbers, cost of the program, and the training of the facilitators (GCE & ActionAid, 2005b). A total of 67 organizations responded, almost half of which were based in Africa, perhaps reflecting ActionAid’s strong roots on that continent. The coordinating team analysed the survey responses to draw up a list of twelve benchmarks. This list was re-circulated to the original respondents as well as to other literacy organizations (n = 550) for feedback before the final report was written by Archer and published by the GCE in 2005.

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The question may well be asked, why publish through the Global Campaign for Education? The Benchmarking project was conceived and led by ActionAid, so why decentralize the implementation of the project by carrying it out through the GCE? In an interview with David Archer, he indicated that implementing the Benchmarks through the GCE was a means to increase their legitimacy so that “it wasn’t just one institution and one voice”. The central concern seemed to be that, if the Benchmarks were just done by ActionAid’s IET, it might look like a way to promote Reflect, their “brand” of adult literacy pedagogy. Archer described this as a concern not just during the original Benchmarks process, but also during UNESCO’s International Conference on Adult Education in 2009, where ActionAid was keen to promote the Benchmarks but feared seeming to be self-promoting Reflect. He also spoke at length of the larger concern of balancing ActionAid’s brand identity in the GCE, explaining that much of ActionAid’s education research carries the GCE brand (for example the Education Rights handbook discussed in the previous chapter) – a fact that he acknowledged is not always welcomed by the marketing department: “It is a sacrifice to our brand identity yes, but it is the right thing to do. We have sought to do research that will be taken on board at the global level by the GCE so there is a larger voice behind it, so there is more legitimacy”.

Funding the Benchmarks through UNESCO’s Global Monitoring Report also served to expand the reach and legitimacy of the project. It is important to note that it was not due to resource needs that ActionAid submitted a funding proposal for the Benchmarks to UNESCO in 2004. The project could have been funded by ActionAid alone, but carrying the work out through UNESCO and having it published as part of the annual GMR was a way to broaden ownership and increase impact (Interview with David Archer. London, January 2013). It also allowed the research to be more broadly legitimated: since it was rolled out through both the GCE and UNESCO, it allowed ActionAid to avoid the perception that the work was bias, or represented only the interests of ActionAid. This illustrates that decentralized implementation is important for effective advocacy because it avoids a perception that information is bias or only reflects the opinion of a few. (Wong, 2012: 19). The Benchmarks exemplify a decentralized implementation process as they were rolled out through both the GCE and UNESCO, and involved the input and feedback of hundreds of individuals and organizations.

Perhaps most important for the legitimacy of the Benchmarks, and therefore for ActionAid, was that they were based on input and feedback from hundreds of individuals and organizations. As

171 previously discussed, a common argument in the literature of advocacy organizations is that they derive their legitimacy from having strong connections with the grassroots (Perkin and Court, 2005; Van Rooy, 2004; Slim, 2002; Edwards and Gaventa, 2001; Keck & Sikkink, 1998). It is from these connections that advocacy NGOs can gather data, evidence and testimony to give their claims salience in policy-making. The Benchmarks are a clear example of research that draws legitimacy from its use of widely-drawn evidence. The Benchmarks background paper submitted to the Global Monitoring Report (GCE & ActionAid, 2005b) began by explaining the wide reach of the research: 100 key informants, 67 programs across 35 countries, reaching over 4 million learners, feedback from 142 respondents in 47 countries, mostly from “low or middle income countries” (p. 1). The above numbers are all in bold text, serving to highlight just how important they are for the credentials of the project and the researchers.

Throughout the Benchmarks proposal and background paper, ActionAid and the GCE’s place within a broad civil society movement was made explicit. This was explained as key to the success of the project: “The fact that the research is managed by ActionAid together with the Global Campaign for Education provides a unique opportunity to secure broad-based support for this work” (ActionAid, 2004b: p. 1). ActionAid’s network outside of the GCE is also highlighted: “ActionAid will share the outcomes through the International Reflect Circle (with 350 organizations in 60 countries). Core learning will also be put up on the various web-sites run by these organizations” (p. 7). Strong connections with other networks were also emphasized: “The International Council of Adult Education and its regional bodies will be particularly encouraged to draw on this work and disseminate it through their network” (ibid). And the reach of the Benchmarks was wide: distribution lists internal to ActionAid indicate that they mailed out copies to over 600 organizations and individuals in NGOs, universities, UN agencies, bilateral and multilateral donors.

However, despite the breadth of the data-gathering process, the Benchmarks were essentially an ActionAid project, even a David Archer project, and the influence of ActionAid`s International Education Team on the Benchmarks is quite clear. Although Archer was concerned that the Benchmarks not appear as a promotion of Reflect, Reflect was a successful and well-known literacy program with demonstrably good results, and it was this success that created the idea of the Benchmarks: “I was trying to get an advocacy voice for adult literacy and trying to build it out from Reflect...even though Reflect was winning lots of prizes and everyone was saying it was

172 a successful approach, there was almost no money for Reflect or for adult literacy programs” (Interview with David Archer. London, January 2013). The Benchmarks were born out of a desire to catalogue all these programs to see what common elements they had and to use these to create sharp policy messages.

Although they did a commendable job of opening the floor to diverse voices, the responses to the Benchmarks survey do reflect the philosophical underpinnings of ActionAid. This perhaps shows an inherent bias in carrying out survey work among organizations identified by ActionAid and its associates as “good”. For example, the second and third most common aims of literacy, as indicated by survey respondents, were “a literacy programme must help learners deal with the power issues around the use of literacy in their daily lives”, and “just teaching people to read and write alone does not empower people”. (GCE & ActionAid, 2005b: p. 12). Many respondents “emphasized the importance of a rights framework – that literacy should be conceived explicitly as a right. Often the focus was on education / lifelong learning as both a right in itself and an enabling right – one which enables people to access or secure other fundamental rights” (ibid.: p. 10). This is expanded into Benchmark 3 - a statement on governments as duty-bearers: “Literacy is a basic right and so the lead responsibility to meet that right has to be with the government. It cannot be the responsibility of NGOs to deliver on a right – nor is it feasible for them to do so” (ibid.: p. 19).This language is reminiscent of ActionAid’s own work in education rights as discussed at length in the previous chapter, indicating that, although the Benchmarks were decentralised in implementation, they clearly revealed the hand of their author.

But I would argue that because the creation of the benchmarks was centralized, they were able to be concise and sharp policy points, avoiding the fuzziness that can come from multiple perspectives and definitions. They were also able to be produced on a time-constrained schedule in order to be published as part of the 2006 GMR, even though they involved the input of hundreds of individuals and organizations. This meant that the Benchmarks were simultaneously concise and widely-owned; they could be targeted to specific political opportunity structures, but were also flexible enough to be used in other contexts. Much of the follow-up work on the Benchmarks focussed on promoting their use in diverse contexts and by diverse actors. It is to this process that attention will now turn.

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8.3.3 The follow-up process

The Benchmarks clearly have a strong normative component. They are designed to advance adult literacy within the EFA framework, to secure it a place in national education plans and to increase donor financing. ActionAid has promoted the Benchmarks to policy-makers, particularly national governments but also international donors. These benchmarks are designed to help governments who are committed to developing adult literacy programmes. They do not themselves aim to convert or convince sceptics – although we hope that the case for investing in adult literacy does come through. Rather, they aim to provide a framework for policy debate. They touch concisely on critical issues that need to be considered in designing an adult literacy programme. The benchmarks might also be used as a checklist against which a government or donor might ask questions about an existing or new programme (GCE & ActionAid, 2005b: p. 5).

This focus on governments reflects the belief that literacy is a fundamental right and therefore the duty of governments to provide. But, as highlighted in the Benchmarks report, governments have withdrawn from investment in adult literacy, leaving NGOs – including many members of the GCE – as the main providers of literacy programmes. Benchmark 3 confirmed that only governments can ensure equal access to quality programs for all citizens, while Benchmarks 10, 11 and 12 focus on what governments can do towards this end, including an estimate of spending “between US$50 and US$100 per learner per year for at least three years” (GCE & ActionAid, 2005a: p. 3). This small sum of money is depicted not as an expense, but as an investment with high social and economic returns.

Using peer-reviewed academic research, the report highlights the role of adult literacy in improving gender inequity, infant mortality, GDP and addressing HIV/AIDS. This is supplemented with testimony from participants in literacy programs, extolling the benefits that have come with their new-found skills. As Keck and Sikkink (1998) have argued, linking “hard” evidence and testimony is a powerful and effective combination in information politics. Adding to this a financial incentive – framing adult literacy not as an expense but a sound investment – indicates a high degree of sophistication in how ActionAid uses the Benchmarks as an advocacy tool aimed at national governments and international donors.

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Working with governments to encourage take-up of the Benchmarks was a key part of ActionAid’s strategy – to appear not as an adversary confronting failed promises, but rather offering a solution for improving national literacy rates. To legitimize this, Writing the Wrongs indicated that the Benchmarks had already received backing from a number of national governments in Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America (GCE & ActionAid, 2005a: p. 5). In February of 2007, ActionAid organised a workshop in Abuja as a follow-up to the launching of the Benchmarks. Government representatives, including ministers of education, were a high proportion of the invitees to the workshop, which also included representatives from the UN, donors, and a range of NGOs and CSOs - a total of 60 participants from 24 countries (ActionAid, 2007c). As part of the preparation for this event, ActionAid commissioned studies on national literacy programs in Tanzania and Vietnam in the context of the Benchmarks to show how they could be integrated into national plans (Fransman, 2007). The workshop focussed on how to use the Benchmarks as a tool for evidence-gathering to strengthen national literacy plans, and encouraged all countries seeking Fast Track Initiative endorsement to include adult literacy in their sector plans. Although it is difficult to isolate the impact of the Benchmarks from other currents in education policy, it should be noted that in May of 2007, Benin’s sector plan was the first one endorsed by FTI to include an adult literacy component (Archer, 2008).

The Benchmarks were also designed to be used by civil society organizations as means to hold governments to account for promises made at the Dakar conference. This is an acknowledgment that “there are limits to how far any material, even simple benchmarks, can be internalized by ministries of education without some continued pressure” (Archer, 2008). Civil society representatives at the Abuja workshop participated in activities designed to increase their understanding of how to use the Benchmarks as an advocacy tool for holding national governments accountable. A key focus of the workshop was facilitating the development of national benchmarks derived from the international ones (ActionAid, 2007a). For example, one session focused on how to tailor the Benchmarks to different country contexts through evidence- gathering, and how to use evidence to target specific policy-makers (Aliyu, 2008). This again shows the importance of decentralized and context-specific implementation of the benchmarking project.

Education Rights: A Guide for Practitioners and Activists (ActionAid, 2007a) offered a detailed analysis of how the Benchmarks could be used by civil society organizations advocating for

175 adult literacy. Highlighting that they could be used both to hold governments to account or to steer specific research or advocacy projects, Education Rights went through each of the twelve Benchmarks, explaining its relevance for advocacy and program development, and offering specific questions that should be asked in order to contextualize the benchmarks. These included very clear and specific questions like “What is the length of literacy programme? And the frequency of meetings?” (p. 228), to more complex questions such as “What is the level of the facilitators motivation? What motivates them?” (p.227) and questions requiring a high--degree of political engagement, such as “What proportion of non-governmental (including NGO, CSO, international and bilateral organisations) project support goes to adult literacy?” (p, 230). In addition to over sixty-five suggested questions, the guide also offered broad suggestions for advocating for adult literacy via the Benchmarks, for example: You may wish to publicise the lack of investment in adult education locating this in relation to the right to education. You could develop press briefings, or a workshop or conference, to share the results of the review. These different uses suggest different levels of collaboration with the government to conduct the review and discuss the findings – some will be more confrontational than others (ActionAid, 2007a: p. 225).

ActionAid’s efforts to encourage take-up of the Benchmarks indicates a strong commitment to advancing adult literacy in national and international education policy, and to the facilitating civil society organizations’ advocacy in this area. This is also a good illustration of ActionAid’s ongoing balancing act between centralizing control over the way the benchmarks are defined, and decentralizing the way they are implemented. Of course, ActionAid cannot control whether its country programmes or partners choose to use the Benchmarks at all, much less whether they choose to follow the guided questions offered in Education Rights. By offering clear ideas of how to use the Benchmarks, ActionAid is attempting to simultaneously guide the fruition of this project and encourage local ownership of it. The 2009 Education Review indicated that this was a successful strategy: of 27 country programmes, 17 indicate being “involved” or “highly involved” in promoting the Benchmarks, up significantly from 11 in 2005 (Sayed & Newman, 2009: p. 22). The same review found that the Benchmarks were considered the second most important publication from the IET out of a list 13 (second only to Education Rights) with only 2 of 23 respondents indicating that they were not useful (ibid,: p. 61).

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The Benchmarks have been quite widely taken up, particularly by civil society organizations affiliated with ActionAid and the GCE, such as Pamoja, ANCEFA, ASPBAE, the World Literacy Foundation and the UK Literacy Working Group (see websites of each of the above). The Benchmarks were the focus of a special issue of the journal Adult Education and Development, and were used to shape the core recommendations of the UN Literacy Decade regional conferences (Robinson, 2008). Writing the Wrongs was launched nationally in 22 different countries (ActionAid, 2006c). There is no doubt that wide circulation of the Benchmarks helped to increase the legitimacy and influence of ActionAid as the creator of the project. In interviews with two staff members at UNESCO’s Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL), both named the Benchmarks as a key example of successful civil society advocacy. Interestingly, both credited the Benchmarks to ActionAid and not to the Global Campaign for Education. Among ActionAid country-level staff, the Benchmarks were also named as an example of how “AAI had consistently managed to ensure the education development agenda is not reduced to a narrow UPE focus” (Sayed & Newman, p. 50).

The above discussion illustrates an important aspect of information politics – how research can be used as a strategic tool to achieve normative aims and to increase the legitimacy of an advocacy organization as a policy actor. Here we can see the importance of a tightly centralized proposal process: the Benchmarks were conceived and written by one person, with the input of a small team, so they have a level of cohesion and unity that would be difficult to achieve had the implementation been more decentralized (Wong, 2012). They were also able to be produced quickly to target the GMR and other key EFA venues. Although the voice of ActionAid is clear in the Benchmarks, the implementation of the project was highly decentralized, carried out through the GCE and UNESCO and drawing on a wide range of evidence from organizations across the globe. This has increased the visibility and applicability of the Benchmarks, and thus increased ActionAid’s position within the EFA movement.

8.4 Case study 2: ASPBAE and the Asia- South Pacific Education Watch

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Research has always been a central activity for ASPBAE, owing in part to its original affiliation with university education departments. As discussed in chapter five, ASPBAE’s mandate in its first decades was to act as a centre for information about adult education, loosely defined, and to facilitate information-exchange among adult education practitioners. Research in this period therefore focussed on “best practices” in adult education, and was disseminated chiefly through ASPBAE’s publications, ASPBAE News and The Courier, as well as through shared learning events like workshops (ASPBAE, 1991h). As the organization shifted to a focus on policy advocacy, its research agenda also changed. Now ASPBAE predominantly publishes reports on the status of education in Asian-Pacific countries, for example Gender, Equality & Education – A Report Card on South Asia (2010); as well as tool-kits to facilitate civil society advocacy, for example Follow the Budget Trail – A Guide for Civil Society (2010). These publications “form an integral part of ASPBAE’s information, education and advocacy activities and efforts” (ASPBAE, 2009c).

In this section, I explore one of the most significant advocacy research projects carried out by ASPBAE: The Asia-South Pacific Education Watch. EdWatch is “an independent, citizen-based monitoring mechanism for assessing the status of education at regional, national, and local levels” (ASPBAE, 2009c). Based on the Education Watch project carried out by Bangladesh’s Campaign for Popular Education (CAMPE), Asia-South Pacific EdWatch has two central goals: to assess the progress on EFA goals, with a focus on access for disadvantaged populations; and to strengthen the capacity of civil society organizations to engage with education policy (ASPBAE, 2009c; 2006c). EdWatch provides a good case study for information politics at ASPBAE for a number of reasons. First, because of its scope: EdWatch was the largest advocacy research project undertaken by ASPBAE, involving pilot projects in eleven countries. It was also the first major project undertaken after ASPBAE’s funding portfolio expanded with the launching of Real World Strategies (discussed below), and was considered to be the “flagship initiative” and the “centrepiece” of the Real World Strategies campaign (Moriarty, 2010). Because of this, EdWatch has been examined through a number of reports internal and external to ASPBAE, providing a rich array of documentary evidence to examine.

This section begins with a discussion of the external environment in which Education Watch developed, in order to assess how this context shaped the project’s mandate and design. I then look internally at ASPBAE to see how the project was created and implemented, focussing on

178 the organisational dynamics and decisions that influenced its design. In the final section, I examine how Education Watch has been used as an advocacy tool by ASPBAE and its national partners, and what this can tell us about the policy impact of the project and of ASPBAE more generally.

8.4.1 The Context: Real World Strategies and the Midterm Review of Education for All

In 2006, the Global Campaign for Education launched the Real World Strategies – Towards EFA 2015 project. Real World Strategies (RWS), funded through the Dutch government and the Commonwealth Education Fund, was designed “to support national education coalitions in the global south to develop strategic advocacy agendas and increase their capacity to hold governments to account on progress to EFA” (Moriarty, 2010: p. 8). RWS supported 52 national EFA coalitions across the south. But rather than fund these coalitions directly, the GCE chose three regional partners to manage the project: the Africa Network Campaign on Education for All (ANCEFA), Campaña Latinoamericana por el Derecho a la Educación (CLADE), and, for the Asia-Pacific, ASPBAE. It was through the financial support from RWS that Asia-South Pacific Education Watch was launched.

Education Watch was designed as a way to monitor and assess government progress on Education for All commitments. In order for ASPBAE to establish the need for such a project, it had to argue that official government data was unreliable, and that there was a pressing need for detailed, high quality research that could uncover the actual limits to achieving EFA. Thus the 2006 Education Watch proposal began by outlining the extent of the education crisis in the region, highlighting the “historical legacy of successive governments placing a low priority on their responsibility to provide free education of good quality to all its peoples” (ASPBAE 2006c: p 1). This was echoed in the 2009 Education Watch synthesis report: “centuries of neglect, underinvestment in education, corruption and inefficiency by successive governments in the countries of the region have left a grim toll in poor education performance” (ASPBAE 2009c: p. 1). The solution offered was an independent review of the status of primary and basic education that could fill gaps in official statistics.

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ASPBAE specifically timed Education Watch to target an important political opportunity - the mid-decade review of EFA happening in 2007 and 2008 (ASPBAE, 2009c, 2009d). ASPBAE has nurtured a strategic partnership with the UNESCO office in Bangkok, and took advantage of spaces opened up for civil society input through the EFA review to push for inclusion of the Education Watch data. ASPBAE was invited to participate in, and present EdWatch findings at, a number of EFA mid-term events, for example the 8th EFA Coordinators’ meeting in 2007, the South Asia EFA Mid-term Policy Conference in 2008 and various ASEAN-SEAMEO consultations on EFA (ASPBAE, 2009d; Hart, 2009). The impact this had on ASPBAE and its national coalitions will be discussed in the following section.

The EdWatch project also represented an important resource opportunity for ASPBAE. When Real World Strategies commenced in 2006, the portion going to ASPBAE represented 45% of the organization’s total income (Moriarty, 2010); acting as regional manager for RWS in effect doubled ASPBAE’s financial capacity. This funding was also highly flexible, allowing the organization the freedom to prioritize how money should be spent to bolster EFA advocacy in the region. Acting as “fund disperser” for a major project necessarily entailed a high degree of centralized, strategic decision-making, which had to be balanced with ASPBAE’s very decentralized structure and commitment to national-level ownership of the project, a tension which will be discussed subsequently. At this point it is important to note that, in the early days of RWS, ASPBAE struggled with its identity as a “funder” of national coalitions. Many of these groups saw ASPBAE as the source of funds rather than the channel, and there was a concerted effort to make this distinction clear so that its image remained that of a central node in a regional network rather than a detached donor. With the introduction of a new funding source in 2009, the Civil Society Education Fund, money is managed by Education International in Asia, rather than by ASPBAE, an “intentional strategy to avoid the perception of ASPBAE as a donor” (Interview with former ASPBAE staff member. Dhaka, January 2013).

8.4.2 Project design and implementation

Yet ASPBAE’s Executive Council did exert significant control over the initiation of the EdWatch project, and this was in part due to the nature of its role as fund-disperser. Because

180 funds were limited, the Executive Council had to be very strategic in deciding where to pilot the EdWatch project in order to achieve maximum impact and to avoid spreading resources too thinly. A former ASPBAE staff member recalled that “in our staff meetings we would analyze country by country, organization by organization, to see which are the ones that we should prioritize, where we should put our efforts in, where are there actually possibilities of success, knowing full well that we cannot work with all the countries because we do not have those kind of resources” (Interview with former ASPBAE staff member. Dhaka, January 2013). Out of the thirty countries in its network, the EC chose seven national coalitions to pilot the EdWatch project in 2006, with four later added to these. These were chosen “on the basis of their previous successful experiences in advocating education issues at the national level, and for their aptitude regarding country-specific issues and concerns. They were in the best position to carry out a national study on the scale that ASPBAE envisioned and required” (ASPBAE 2009d: p. 4)

Education Watch provides a good example of how ASPBAE leadership sought to localize EFA norms to fit its organizational culture and regional context. ASPBAE adopted a region-wide theme for EdWatch - Addressing EFA Gaps, Focusing on Disadvantaged Groups – which linked the global EFA framework with local concerns over education equity. Each sub-region had a specific focus: The five national coalitions in South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal) were to focus on education financing and budget tracking; the four national coalitions from Southeast Asia (Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia) were to focus on education access and quality for marginalized and under-served communities; and the two national coalitions from the South Pacific (Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands) were to focus on literacy for out-of-school youth and adults (ASPBAE, 2009d).

It was important to ASPBAE that “Education Watch serves not only as disjointed national initiatives but also a coordinated regional initiative” (ASPBAE, 2006c: p. 2). The construction of a strong and unified regional advocacy voice was a guiding mandate for ASPBAE, as discussed in detail in chapter five. To satisfy this mandate, ASPBAE established a research framework to guide each of the EdWatch projects so that the data generated at country-level could more easily “feed into advocacy campaigns at all levels from the local to the national, regional and global” (ASPBAE, 2006c: p. 2). This framework included a set of common indicators, a common research methodology, and a common process for analyzing data and writing the final reports. For example, the Executive Council proposed that all EdWatch projects should use participatory

181 action research methods and a shared set of survey instruments, based on those developed by CAMPE Bangladesh. These were household survey questionnaires, school survey questionnaire, private cost of schooling survey questionnaire, questionnaire for socio-economic information, community profile questionnaire, assessment of competency-based learning outcome, and literacy test instruments. For the Asia Pacific exercise these questionnaires can be adapted and translated in local languages based on contextual peculiarities and capacities of national coalitions for conducting detailed assessments (ibid).

Each of the selected national coalitions was invited to submit a proposal for EdWatch that fit the above themes and methodology, but “interpreted based on their country contexts and prevailing education issues.” (ASPBAE, 2009d: p. 4). ASPBAE then held a series of planning workshops for each sub-region to firm-up and strengthen the research plan of each coalition: “After drawing up and pre-testing research instruments, as well as conducting national and local training workshops, the coalitions proceeded with data gathering” (ibid). The actual field work was carried out entirely by the research teams of each national coalition. ASPBAE took on the role of “backseat enabler”, and focussed its activities on providing technical expertise and facilitating knowledge-sharing between the pilot projects through in-country workshops and sub- regional events (Castillo, 2012; Hart, 2009; ASPBAE, 2009d). We can see that, although ASPBAE defined the parameters of the EdWatch project and selected the national coalitions to pilot this project, the implementation stage was far more decentralized.

Having implementation control reside at national levels was extremely important as the overall goal of EdWatch, as well as of RWS, was to strengthen these coalitions’ capacity to carry out good policy advocacy work. ASPBAE defined the project as “both a research and a capability- building exercise... an occasion for building the capacity of partners” (ASPBAE, 2009d: p. 6). An external review of RWS concluded that ASPBAE’s approach of building the capacity of national coalitions to carry out their own EdWatch research highly successful, and indicated that ASPBAE had gone further than the other two regional networks in facilitating the creation of strong national coalitions while maintaining a cohesive regional identity (Moriarty, 2010). Members of the coalitions also highlighted this decentralized implementation of EdWatch as a positive aspect of the project, reporting that this gave them a sense of ownership over the project and a feeling that they had become stakeholders in the regional EFA movement (Razon, 2008).

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Decentralized implementation was also essential to the legitimacy of EdWatch data, and of ASPBAE as the lead organization in the project. EdWatch drew on evidence obtained at local and national levels, and thus for the project to be taken seriously by global EFA partners, ASPBAE had to emphasize its legitimacy as a representative of national coalitions and other civil society groups. To this end, both the national Education Watch reports and the Asia-South Pacific Education Watch Synthesis Report begin by establishing ASPBAE’s credentials as a regional network “of over 200 organizations and individuals working towards promoting quality education for all”... “an Asia-Pacific movement dedicated to mobilising and supporting community and people’s organisations, national education coalitions, teachers’ associations, campaign networks, and other civil society groups”. Since at least 1991, ASPBAE has made a priority of working with social movements and civil society groups across the region, and this has been a key part of their strategy to be the leading network focussed on education issues in the Asia-Pacific. (See chapter five).

Although its image as the central node in a diffuse network is crucial to the legitimacy of ASPBAE, balancing between being an enabler and a director is not a straightforward task. It is important to acknowledge that facilitating and guiding the work of national coalitions does imply a power differential between ASPBAE and its partners, all the more when a funding relationship is involved as it was with RWS. Reflections on the RWS experience by one member of ASPBAE’s executive council highlight the tensions implicit in its enabling role: Coalitions’ independence and integrity were always respected. Even if they were coming together as partners, there was a deliberate attempt to balance what, on one hand, the coalitions thought of as their priority areas of work, and on the other hand, the need to bring them into certain thematic policy areas that they would not naturally go into, because they may not yet have the capacity to do so or they have not really attempted to look into them yet (Castillo, 2012).

The EdWatch project was shaped by ASPBAE’s structure. It is a highly decentralized, nationally-focused initiative that has been flexible to the education policy climate in diverse countries. At the same time, it has been carried out under a common platform and methodology, resulting in a set of reports that are cohesive and that have been able to feed into regional and global policy advocacy. Because the design-stage of the project was highly centralized, a successful strategy was put in place whereby a small number of coalitions were selected based on their potential for advocacy work. But because implementation was highly decentralized,

183 national coalitions were able to focus on the issues most applicable to their national contexts, giving EdWatch reports a high degree of relevance and legitimacy, and providing valuable advocacy experience for ASPBAE and its national partners.

8.4.3 The follow-up process

Education Watch was motivated by a normative commitment to improving the access to, and quality of, education across the Asia-Pacific, with a particular focus on addressing the education needs of marginalized populations. To this end, EdWatch has produced a wealth of evidence on the status of education in select Asia-Pacific countries, and national coalitions have used this information to lobby their own governments and to “enrich the information available to education ministries” (ASPBAE, 2009d: p. 8). A number of national coalitions have engaged in high-level consultations with their governments to review the progress made on EFA (ibid). External reviews (Moriarty, 2010; Hart, 2009) have praised the impact that EdWatch made in highlighting accountability gaps in EFA commitments. “Education Watch provided key data and evidence by which coalitions could hold their governments to account. It exposed the failure of both government policy and weakness in official data. It recommended feasible steps for governments to address the problem” (Moriarty, 2010: p. 51).

For example, EdWatch Cambodia found that, despite the abolishment of formal school fees, informal fees were in place that had a negative impact on educational access. The survey gathered a large amount of statistics on informal school fees, from uniforms and supplies to fees charged by low-paid teachers. The data showed that families gave an average of 1,360R ($0.33) per day to each child. The average income of survey respondents was roughly $3.00 per day, and the majority of families had three or four children, so the impact of these informal fees was considerable. As a result, only 58% of school-age children attended school, with the majority of those left out being girls. This evidence stood in sharp contrast to the official statistics of the government. The researchers therefore recommended not only that informal school fees be addressed, but that all stakeholders from in and outside government, including donors and NGOs, be involved in the process (ASPBAE, 2007).

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The national coalition from Cambodia found that, through their research on informal school fees, they became aware of how global dynamics impact national education policy. One of the key recommendations of the report was that “the donor community has to identify a clearer role for itself on how to facilitate aid effectiveness by ensuring good governance” (ibid, p 27). The coalition from the Philippines similarly found that international organizations and donors had a considerable impact on domestic education policy. One member of the coalition reported that through their research, Mapping-out Disadvantaged Groups in Education, they became more aware of education financing issues and “gained the confidence to go into a new field – ODA advocacy” (Cecilia Soriano, E-Net Philippines. Quoted in ASPBAE, 2011: p. 159).

That national collations could link their EdWatch research with wider regional and global trends was important to ASPBAE. The organization uses research and evidence gathered from its diverse network to feed directly into its own global advocacy strategy and allow it to speak authoritatively on the status of education in the region. Data collected by national coalitions is used both in-country and at regional and global EFA meetings. In fact, this was one of the central goals of the Education Watch project – to create a cohesive, regional policy platform that could bolster ASPBAE’s advocacy voice (ASPBAE, 2006c). The eleven national Education Watch Summary Reports are a good physical representation of this cohesive regional platform: edited by a small team of ASPBAE Executive Council members, each report is designed to look the same, with the identical cover page and introduction and a similar framework and outline. Together, these reports provide a concise body of evidence that helps ASPBAE underscore the shared obstacles to EFA across the region.

Keck and Sikkink’s (1998) boomerang theory stipulates that domestic NGOs whose influence on their own state is blocked can sometimes, through their connection with other NGOs and INGOs, use global governance venues as a way to apply pressure to their own governments. The EdWatch project revealed that many Asia-Pacific governments continue to disregard their EFA commitments and are not responsive to pressures from domestic civil society actors. In response, ASPBAE facilitated the access of three national coalitions (Bangladesh, Philippines and Cambodia) into the 8th UNESCO EFA coordinators meeting in 2007 so that these coalitions could share the data and evidence emerging from EdWatch with policy-makers from outside their countries. The objectives were for these coalitions to gain a sense of a common regional platform and to see how national policies are influenced by regional and global decisions

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(ASPBAE, 2011), as well as to “influence the official reports with data and evidence emerging from the Education Watch processes” (Moriarty, 2010: p. 38).

Later in the year, ASPBAE brought representatives from four national coalitions to engage with policy-makers at the Technical Support Groups of UNESCO’s Mid-Decade Assessment Steering Committee, providing these coalitions with “another opportunity for lobbying national governments’ policy positions backed by Education Watch evidence” (ibid). That ASPBAE was able to facilitate the participation of national coalitions in global EFA venues was a huge step for these groups: this marked the first time any of them had taken part in transnational policy venues, and allowed them to influence the direction of EFA planning (Hart, 2009). This was also important for ASPBAE’s reputation in global governance fora and among civil society groups: according to a former ASPBAE staff member, “now when UNESCO convenes a regional forum they always invite national coalitions for representation – this was big step for civil society and it was facilitated by ASPBAE” (Interview with former ASPBAE staff member. Dhaka, January 2013).

EdWatch has scored a number of significant policy “hits” at the national level, thanks in part to ASPBAE’s efforts at promoting both EdWatch research and national coalitions. The Indonesian government used the EdWatch research in its national Millennium Development Goals report. In Papua New Guinea, the government requested that the national coalition expand its survey of education participation to all provinces in the country (ASPBAE, 2011). It also invited the coalition to join PNG’s Education Sector Wide Approach (SWAP) steering committee as CSO representative to the donor community (Moriarty, 2010). The national coalition from India used EdWatch findings to successfully lobby the government for free primary education up to age 14 (ASPBAE, 2009c). The EdWatch project of the Philippines coalition was integrated into official government reports at the Mid-Decade EFA Assessment (Verger & Novelli, 2012).

Internal and external reviews have indicated that the national coalitions benefited significantly from participation in the EdWatch project, beyond the success they may have had in lobbying their own governments. Coalition members indicated considerable internal learning through EdWatch, particularly in terms of research and analytical skills (ASPBAE, 2011). ASPBAE’s role as capacity builder, and specifically the trainings and workshops ASPBAE organized, were seen as hugely beneficial in this regard (Moriarty, 2010; Hart, 2009). Coalitions also developed

186 new knowledge about policy processes within their countries and in global governance institutions. This was felt to have allowed them “to move their advocacy in new directions, creating new ways of working and new knowledge regarding EFA in their national context” (Moriarty, 2010: p. 51).

Based on this success, ASPBAE has produced a series of five Education Watch Toolkits, each covering a specific “module” inspired by EdWatch pilots, for example budget tracking, literacy assessment, and monitoring school fees. These toolkits were designed to “encourage the replication of the EdWatch initiative. It is a concrete contribution in raising knowledge, confidence and overall civil society efforts in EFA monitoring and advocacy” (ASPBAE, 2010b). Each toolkit is a very detailed how-to guide, covering survey methodologies, interview guides, workshop plans, and suggestions of possible sources of information and data. Thus these toolkits can be seen as an illustration of ASPBAE’s dual role as project director and enabler. The parameters of the EdWatch project are tightly defined by APSBAE’s executive, while the implementation of the project, including which module to use and which issue to investigate, is left entirely in the hands of national civil society groups. There are strong normative motivations for this design: it allows civil society organizations to learn from previous experiences and provides a cohesive regional platform for advocacy, while giving these groups the opportunity to build their own capacity as policy advocates. But these toolkits also offer a “bonus” of promoting ASPBAE and encouraging the replication of the Education Watch project as defined by this organization.

ASPBAE acknowledges that EdWatch contributed significantly to strengthening its voice in regional and global policy-making, allowing it to “participate actively in regional and global forums, particularly in the EFA mid-term policy review processes, the ASEAN-SEAMEO consultations on the EFA and the CONFINTEA VI assemblies. The EdWatch study results served as critical inputs to recommendations and advocacies arising from these forums” (ASPBAE, 2009d: p. 64). In 2007, ASPBAE secured additional funding for EdWatch through the Commonwealth Education Fund. In 2009, it was invited to be the host agency for the Asia- Pacific Civil Society Education Fund (CSEF) (Hart, 2009). ASPBAE has taken advantage of new political opportunity structures and has found a seat at the Sub-regional Advisory Group on EFA and the Technical Support Groups (TSGs) of UNESCO’s Mid-Decade Assessment, due in

187 part to their work on EdWatch (Moriarty). The organization has also been asked to provide input into the 2009 UNESCO Monitoring Report based on the EdWatch data (ASPBAE, 2009b).

Education Watch thus provides a good example of successful information politics. ASPBAE has used this project to leverage influence in EFA governance, both for itself and for its national partners. It has shown its ability to use its wide-reaching network to access good grassroots evidence, and to package this evidence in a way that provides a cohesive regional advocacy platform. In so doing, ASPBAE has promoted itself as a strong regional voice in Education for All policy.

8.4.4 Conclusions

The case-studies in this chapter show that information strategies are very much a product of decisions made at an individual level, often by a very small group of people. These strategies are constructed with the broader environment in mind: for example, we can see that political opportunity structures were important for both the Benchmarks and EdWatch. In both cases, the organizations involved timed and tailored the research to fit within the official EFA apparatus, namely the Global Monitoring Report and the Mid-Term Review of EFA. These provided venues to “advertise” the research outputs and targets to lobby with evidence. For EdWatch in particular, governance venues were an opportunity for national coalitions to engage with policy- makers, an example of political “learning by doing” facilitated by ASPBAE.

But the design and implementation of each project was entirely the product of decisions made by key individuals, highlighting once again that transnational advocacy is best characterized as a strategic action field where actors craft strategies in response to, but not controlled by, their broader environment. This chapter has shown how ActionAid and ASPBAE have engaged in information politics in order to exert control over the EFA field by defining issues and providing evidence.

As in the previous chapter, we see a significant difference between ASPBAE and ActionAid in terms of norm localization. The International Benchmarks on Adult Literacy gathered

188 information from local sources in order to design a framework that could be used globally. Although ActionAid stresses that the Benchmarks should be tailored to local contexts, the research itself focussed on establishing universal criteria based on locally-gathered evidence. EdWatch, on the other hand, was framed using global EFA norms around free, universal and equitable education provision. But the research itself was carried out at local levels, tailored to local contexts and used primarily at national and regional policy fora. This suggests that ASPBAE places a great deal of importance on shifting between various strategic action fields, on maintaining its roles as a global advocate as well as a regional network made up of grassroots organizations and national coalitions.

Both Education Watch and the International Benchmarks were designed to raise the profile of their respective organizations within the broader EFA environment. And, as I have argued in this chapter, they were quite successful in this regard. For ASPBAE in particular, successful advocacy research helped the organization earn a more authoritative position in regional and global governance venues. However, despite the fact that both EdWatch and the Benchmarks have received widespread praise from external sources, the actual policy impact of both projects is quite limited. An examination of education policy documents and strategies emanating from major multilateral organizations - the World Bank, the Global Partnership for Education, Unicef, and UNESCO – as well as bilateral organizations such as AusAid, USAID, and DfID, include almost no mention of either project or their findings. This is perhaps surprising, as civil society organizations are widely celebrated by these organizations for their role in monitoring and evaluating education policy outcomes (Global Partnership for Education, 2012; United Nations, 2012). One might expect, then, that the results of NGO monitoring and evaluation would find their way into key global education policy documents.

ActionAid’s Benchmarks have been included in a few UNESCO policy documents. The Final Report from the 2009 International Conference on Adult Education (Confintea) as well as the Belem Framework for Action produced at this event, contains numerous references to the Benchmarks and the need for these to be adapted and scaled-up. UNESCO has indicated a need to develop its own adult education benchmarks that would build on ActionAid’s work, emphasizing in particular the need for governments to allocate a minimum of three per cent of their national education budget to adult education and literacy (UNESCO, 2012: p. 41). UNESCO is the UN agency most associated with adult education, and the fact that the

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Benchmarks were published through UNESCO`s 2006 Global Monitoring Report no doubt contributed to the take-up of the project within this particular agency. At the same time, UNESCO has done very little to encourage the expansion of the Benchmarks and has not yet developed their own set of indicators to assess adult education programming and investment.

Outside of UNESCO, the Benchmarks have received little attention. Although the World Bank`s Education Strategy 2020 (World Bank, 2011) discusses at length the need for developing a set of quality benchmarks to assess education programs and investment at all levels, the ActionAid Benchmarks are not mentioned at any point. This is particularly surprising, as documents from the Bank`s Literacy and Non Formal Education for Adults and Youth Archive (http://web.worldbank.org) contain numerous references to ActionAid and Reflect, but no mention of the Benchmarks at all. USAID’s Assessment of the Effectiveness of Literacy and Numeracy Programs in Timor-Leste references the Benchmarks, recommending that $50-$100 per leaner per year could be spent in additional literacy/numeracy grants (USAID, 2007: p. 27). However none of its other education strategy and policy documents contain any mention of ActionAid or the Benchmarks.

Education Watch has similarly received scant attention in global education policy documents. UNESCO`s regional office in Bangkok has tended to be the most receptive to EdWatch findings, including these in their regional mid-term evaluation of the Literacy Initiative for Empowerment (Chu & Bajracharya, 2011) and in mid-term EFA evaluation reports (Moriarty, 2010). ASPBAE has been a key strategic partner for UNESCO Bangkok, and has produced a number of UNESCO`s policy papers on, for example, gender and education (UNESCO Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for Education, 2012), which draw on EdWatch findings. ASPBAE has a number of other strategic partners, for example AusAid and Unicef, whose education policy documents contain no mention of Education Watch. AusAid has commissioned ASPBAE to carry out education and literacy assessments in Vanuatu and PNG, and, like many bilateral aid organizations, praises the role of civil society organizations in monitoring and evaluating education policy. Yet the data and findings of EdWatch have not had any impact on their Education Strategy (AusAid, 2011). The World Bank, which has published numerous reports on the state of education, progress on EFA, and education financing in the Asia-Pacific region (see http://web.worldbank.org) has similarly failed to incorporate any of the EdWatch data into their reports or policies.

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It is not within the scope of this particular study to assess why these examples of widely-praised civil society advocacy research have failed to significantly impact global education policy. However, future research would benefit from a more thorough examination of this failure. Is this another sign of how global education policy focuses solely on universal primary education to the detriment of other educational issues? Or does this indicate the lack of genuine acceptance of civil society actors as legitimate policy advocates? Note, for example, that the World Bank praises ActionAid’s work on Reflect but ignores how this has been translated into an advocacy product. Perhaps this indicates that for most multilateral and bilateral organizations, NGOs remain crucial partners in service delivery and program monitoring, but are not valued for their potential contribution to policy-making. A more in-depth analysis of how NGO advocacy research has been taken up in various venues would help shed further light on this issue.

Critical literature on TANs has highlighted that the research agenda of these organizations is often shaped by external factors, particularly the need for donor support. However, these two case studies do not support this argument. Both ASPBAE and ActionAid enjoyed secure funding that enabled them to engage in advocacy research. For ActionAid, the Benchmarks represented an inexpensive project that did not actually require external funding. In this case, funding was a way to extend the reach and visibility of the project – a case of political opportunity more than resource mobilization.

For ASPBAE, funding was part of the Real World Strategies initiative and came from the Dutch government via the Global Campaign for Education. The mandate of RWS was directly related to, and helped define, the parameters of EdWatch. In this way, EdWatch represents an example of the “advocacy market” described by Bob (2002, 2010), in that the requirements of the donor shaped how information was gathered and packaged. At the same time, RWS funding was highly flexible (Moriarty, 2010; Castillo, 2012) allowing ASPBAE to define the project and decentralize its implementation. Decentralization was particularly important as ASPBAE did not want to be seen as the funder of EdWatch, but rather as the project’s “enabler”, the central node in a diverse regional network.

For ActionAid, too, it was important to maintain a degree of decentralization in order to not be seen as controlling the Benchmarks project. As discussed, the main concern was that the Benchmarks not be seen as a means to promote ActionAid’s Reflect “brand” of adult literacy

191 programs. Working within and through coalitions is, for ActionAid, a strategy designed to give more legitimacy to its advocacy work by keeping it broadly-based and widely-owned. This is a particular concern for ActionAid for a few reasons: one is that ActionAid is, in effect, a Northern INGO working in the South, and must therefore confront the power implications embedded in this structure. Related to this, David Archer, former head of the IET and now head of Programme Development, is personally committed to fostering alliances with southern coalitions and to addressing power inequalities between north and south. (Interviews with ActionAid IET staff member and external informant. April 2013). So we see that the personality and culture of an organization and its leadership has a significant impact on its advocacy strategies.

Both the Benchmarks and EdWatch were proposed and crafted in a highly centralized manner. It is unlikely that these advocacy projects would have had such a level of cohesion and unity had the proposal process been more decentralized (Wong, 2012). Centralization also meant that both were able to be produced quickly to target key EFA venues. But, as this chapter has argued, leadership at both ASPBAE and ActionAid choose to decentralize implementation in order to boost the legitimacy of each project, to bolster both the accountability of EFA governance, and underscore their own legitimacy as actors within this governance system. The importance of legitimacy deserves particular recognition: legitimacy is the “currency” in this policy market, as gaining it is the only way to exercise authority (Risse, 2010). This highlights the limits of the firm analogy described by Prakash and Gugerty (2010) and others. Policy advocacy may constitute a “market” where information is sold in exchange for funding and prestige. But this market is fundamentally different than the market where goods are sold to generate profit, because the information that is “sold” allows the NGO to claim to speak as the legitimate voice of the public. They may operate on instrumental motivations that mimic those of firms: self- preservation, prestige, funds. But the central importance of legitimacy-claims makes NGOs a very different kind of organization.

This chapter therefore supports the social movement scholarship on information politics discussed at the beginning of this chapter. This literature indicates that transnational advocacy networks do not simply collect and disseminate information, they carefully choose what information to gather and how to package it for maximum impact. They are ideally guided principally by normative motivations – the desire to improve social conditions, to make policy more accountable to citizens and to “bring” the voice of the citizenry into policy-making

192 processes. But accomplishing these goals requires that advocacy NGOs strengthen their own reputation as legitimate policy actors. Information politics is key to the legitimacy of these NGOs, as “their ability to generate information quickly and accurately, and to deploy it effectively, is their most valuable currency; it is also central to their identity” (Keck & Sikkink, 1998: p. 10)

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Chapter 9 9 Conclusions and Findings

I designed this project to assess the advocacy strategies of two leading NGOs in the global Education for All movement – the Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education (ASPBAE), and ActionAid’s International Education Team – in order to increase our understanding of the role non-state actors play in global educational governance. Although these two organizations share a broadly similar goal – campaigning for quality education for marginalized populations - I had expected to find significant differences in the advocacy strategies each pursued. But through my data analysis, I found that these “most different” cases were remarkably similar. Both began to articulate an interest in advocacy around 1991-1992, leading to the full-scale adoption of policy advocacy positions in 1999-2000. They use very similar discourse to describe education as a right, and to connect education to broader social justice issues. They both place advocacy research at the centre of their strategic repertoire. Both argue for the inclusion of national civil society groups as a way to democratize educational governance. Both have adopted a highly decentralized network structure inspired by social movement organizations, and both have a very strong and stable leadership core. These findings led to a new research focus. How can we account for the apparent isomorphism between these two organizations? Should their highly similar versions of policy advocacy be seen as the product of an encompassing global structure, or were they constructed in ways that just happen to be quite similar?

Through an in-depth analysis of two advocacy NGOs, this study offers a critique and refinement of dominant theories of social change. This study has shown that neither structural theories, with their focus on external environments, nor constructivist theories, which see individuals as the driving force in change, can fully account for the emergence of the advocacy NGO in the mid- 1990s. The entry of a new political force in global governance was a far more dynamic process than either sets of theories postulate. The widespread acceptance of western cultural norms, which stressed the universalism of human rights and the value of democratic participation, provided a discursive entry point and legitimization for non-state actors who wished to engage in

194 policy advocacy. This helps explain why advocacy NGOs emerged when they did: the post-Cold War era placed particular emphasis on the values of universalism and globalization, leading to a proliferation of new global governance institutions and venues. Thus the 1990s saw both discursive and political opportunities for NGO advocacy emerge. But these actors then used global cultural norms and political opportunities to their advantage, redefining their own agency as political actors. The advent and evolution of the rights-based approach is a good example of how advocacy NGOs incorporated global cultural norms into their own work, but in so doing transformed the way these norms are understood. This is not a passive diffusion process: it is a highly active process, requiring constant back-and-forth communication between governmental and nongovernmental actors who define and redefine “rights” and “the right to education” in a way that responds to their context and their organizational culture.

Bilateral and multilateral organizations in the development education field were quick to respond to the emergence of the advocacy NGO as a political force. At first, they attempted to stifle these new actors by limiting their access to decision-making fora and by emphasizing the traditional service-delivery role of NGOs. In the post-Dakar, Millennium Development Goal environment, however, intergovernmental organizations, bilateral agencies and donors have seen the utility in incorporating advocacy NGOs as partners in the development enterprise. This partnership model sees NGOs as crucial watchdogs for how donor money is spent and how global agreements are put in place. While organizations like ActionAid and ASPBAE have taken advantage of these new opportunities, they have also used them to campaign for more equitable education policy, and for increasing access to policy-making venues, particularly for nationally-based education coalitions. Here we see a highly dynamic, back-and-forth communication between organization and context.

This highlights that social change is a process, and a very fluid one at that. The dynamism of this process is not captured by a focus on either the diffusion of norms or on the agency of individuals. In fact, there is a lack of theoretical perspectives that can account for the dynamic relationship between actor and structure. One recent effort in this direction has been offered by Fligstein and McAdam’s (2011) theory of strategic action fields, discussed throughout this dissertation. This theory offers a promising way to understand how actors engage with broader structures, and how both structures and agency are altered in the process. These scholars emphasize the importance of a structural “meso level social order” – what they term a strategic

195 action field - but see these fields as sites of contestation and interaction between strategic actors vying for advantage. This theory seems highly applicable to the current study, as it provides a language to describe the field of development education and to understand the role of competing actors in this field.

I have shown how the emergence of an Education for All advocacy movement can be understood as the emergence of a new strategic action field, born out of a crisis in global educational governance in the 1990s. This field was and is constructed by strategic actors who take advantage of political and resource opportunities, who build coalitions with other actors, who frame new issues and gather new evidence in order to exert control over the field. I have also shown how this strategic action field does not exist in isolation, but is in fact better understood as a set of overlapping and mutually-influencing fields. Thus we see, for example, how ASPBAE and ActionAid crafted strategies that responded to trends in global aid architecture, to norms held by other development NGOs, and to the internal culture of their organizations.

I have shown how Acharya’s concept of norm localization fits well with the theory of strategic action fields. ASPBAE provides a good example of a southern-based organization that has consciously adapted global norms to fit with pre-existing local and regional contexts, for example by framing education rights within broader regional liberation struggles or by adapting global norms around universal primary education into locally-based advocacy research projects. These examples of norm localization highlight the fluid and overlapping nature of strategic action fields, as well as the fact that, at its heart, “strategic action is about control in a given context” (Fligstein & McAdam, 2011: p. 15).

By focusing on the way actors vie for advantage within a given field, we can see that various motivations and incentives are involved in transnational advocacy. Throughout this dissertation, we have seen that ActionAid and ASPBAE have been motivated by normative goals: improving the access to and quality of education for disadvantaged populations; democratizing educational governance by bringing civil society perspectives to the policy table. These are not simply goals; they are the mandates that drive the organizations - that motivate them to carry out their work even when faced with considerable obstacles. The literature on transnational advocacy networks therefore distinguishes these organizations from other global actors based on “the centrality of principled ideas or values in motivating their formation” (Keck & Sikkink, 1998: p.1).

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At the same time, these organizations are unquestionably motivated by instrumental needs as well. Throughout this dissertation, we have seen how ASPBAE and ActionAid pursued certain policies for what could be seen as self-interested reasons: to promote the organization’s brand identity, to increase its authority and prestige in educational governance fora, to raise funds or to gain supporters. The centrality of instrumental motivations among advocacy NGOs has led some scholars to argue that these organizations exhibit firm-like behavior (Bob, 2010; Cooley & Ron, 2010; Prakash & Gugerty, 2010). In this perspective, advocacy is a product that is “sold” to members and to the general public, who support a cause but cannot engage with policy-makers themselves. The advocacy market is highly competitive, and so organizations must pursue strategies that promote their particular brand of advocacy over others. Thus interests of brand promotion, financial growth and market expansion – interests generally associated with the for- profit sector – can be applied to NGOs as well.

There is a tendency in this literature to see normative and instrumental motivations as somehow in opposition (Prakash & Gugerty, 2010), as if concerns over money and image diminish the principles for which an organization stands. The present study has shown that this is a false dichotomy. One important contribution of this work is that it illustrates how instrumental needs facilitate rather than diminish normative projects, as carrying out norm-based work requires thinking strategically about how to attract, compete with, or influence other actors. As ASPBAE and ActionAid grew from small organizations to transnational advocates, they needed to establish themselves as legitimate players in the field, to obtain recognition at UN conferences, and to form networks with other NGOs. This required attracting funds to expand their work and promoting the organization to potential members and to other players in the field.

Many of the strategies pursued by ActionAid and ASPBAE reveal both instrumental and normative motivations. From 2000 to 2004, ActionAid underwent a process of internationalization, decentralizing decision-making power to country offices and relocating its headquarters to South Africa. This significant change involved both principled beliefs– democratizing ActionAid’s organizational structure, empowering southern citizens and civil society groups – as well as instrumental concerns – establishing ActionAid as a leading anti- poverty INGO, enhancing its networking potential, increasing its public image and reputation as the only INGO based in the global south. In 2008 ASPBAE made the strategic decision to adopt the whole EFA agenda as its own, shifting its mandate from a singular focus on adult education.

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This was motivated by normative concerns about the quality and reach of basic education in the Asia-Pacific, and the role unequal access to education plays in perpetuating gender inequality and ethnic division, from childhood through to adulthood. But ASPBAE also realized that expanding their mandate to cover basic education would bring it in line with the major players in the EFA movement and help it attract more funding for its work. In both these examples, we can see that normative and instrumental motivations need to be understood as mutually reinforcing rather than opposing.

This perspective shows the limitations of the firm analogy. The advocacy NGO sector is not like the private for-profit sector, because normative beliefs – whether one agrees with them or not – are central to the work these organisations carry out. It is their perceived moral authority that gives these organizations legitimacy to act as representatives of the global citizenry. The important distinction is that financial profit is not part of the equation for NGOs. Although they need funding to survive, if they are seen as profiting in any way from this funding, they will most certainly face scrutiny from their donors, members and supporters. This will lead to a loss of moral authority and therefore a loss of legitimacy to speak as the global public (Risse, 2010).

Legitimacy is absolutely central to the advocacy NGO: it is the currency these organisations use to establish their place in global governance. If legitimacy is compromised, an NGO will quickly lose the public support they require to survive. A significant amount of legitimacy stems from the way an organization is structured: NGOs who claim to speak on behalf of the global public need to be structured in a way that facilitates participatory decision-making and decentralized authority (Jenkins, 2006). Thus it is not surprising that we see both ActionAid and ASPBAE adopt a more decentralized organizational structure as part of their shift to advocacy (see chapters four and five).

Wong (2012) has examined the organizational structure of various human rights NGOs to ascertain how decision-making processes impact human rights advocacy. She looks particularly at proposal power, that is, who has the authority to introduce new strategies or new policies for the organization; and implementation power, that is, who has the authority to decide how new strategies and policies are enacted. Her research indicates that a high degree of centralization allows for a cohesive agenda, but can open an organization up to criticisms of elitism and bias. A highly decentralized agenda setting process makes for more inclusive strategy, but leaves

198 organizations open to struggles over policy content and definition. Wong argues that successful human rights NGOs, such as Amnesty International, have been able to be politically salient because they have achieved a balance between having centralized proposal power and decentralized implementation power.

I believe we can apply this theory to advocacy NGOs in the development sector as well. The case studies detailed in chapters seven and eight showed that, although ActionAid and ASPBAE are both highly decentralized organisations, strategic decisions are in fact made by a very small group of people. Wong would refer to this as centralized proposal power. I argued that this structure allowed strategy to be cohesive, to be crafted quickly, and to target specific political opportunities. As Wong (2012) argues, “the more that proposal power is spread around in an NGO, the harder it is for a coherent advocacy agenda to exist...competing ideas can be difficult to resolve among different parts of the organizations, and politicking between members can result in a lack of coherence, or even a lack of coherent advocacy agenda” (p. 18). In wide and diverse networks like ASPBAE and ActionAid, having centralized proposal power is essential if the organization is to form cohesive and effective advocacy strategies. This suggests that strong and charismatic leadership is essential to the success of an advocacy organization, an argument that echoes Fligstein and McAdam’s (2011) emphasis on “social skill” in contentious politics. They point to the important role played by actors who have the ability to read environments, frame lines of action and mobilize others within a strategic action field.

At the same time, the strategies discussed in chapters seven and eight were carried out in a highly decentralized fashion. Wong would refer to this as decentralized implementation power. The International Benchmarks for Adult Literacy, for example, may have been designed by David Archer, but they were implemented through the input of hundreds of organization, and published through the Global Campaign for Education and UNESCO. Asia South Pacific Education Watch was designed by ASPBAE’s Executive Council, but the project was implemented by eleven national coalitions who defined their research focus and carried out all the field work. In both cases, this decentralized implementation allowed for the strategies to be widely owned, improving the take-up and the end result of each project. Decentralized implementation also increased the legitimacy of each strategy, avoiding the perception that strategies reflected or represented the interests of the organizational elite (Wong, 2012).

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A focus on decision-making processes helps to shed light on the success of both ASPBAE and ActionAid as advocacy organizations. The decentralized structure of both organizations has increased their legitimacy as representatives of the global public, as they are specifically structured to facilitate the active participation of grassroots membership. But both organizations have very strong, committed and stable leadership structures, with individual leaders exemplifying the “social skill” highlighted by Fligstein and McAdam. This has been extremely valuable in providing continuity and direction as the organizations shifted their focus to policy advocacy. It has also meant that both organizations have developed quite sophisticated advocacy strategies, constructing strategic issue frames and carrying out advocacy research that is specifically designed to have maximum impact in global educational governance.

Although these organizations represent “most different” cases, diverging in terms of their size, funding portfolio, and geographical location, both have become leading organizations within the Education for All movement, highlighting that successful advocacy is not the sole reserve of well-funded northern INGOs. This study has shown how advocacy NGOs like ActionAid and ASPBAE have become major political players in global governance. Their success is not simply a case of a favourable global environment. Nor is it just due to the work of strong and committed leadership. These organizations have been successful because they engage with their global environment and with other players who inhabit it. They draw on global normative frameworks as they carefully craft and re-craft their strategies. In so doing, they assert their value and their legitimacy as policy advocates and as representatives of the global public.

9.1 Future Research Directions

The findings of this study raise a number of questions that should be addressed in future research. A particularly interesting discovery was that ActionAid and ASPBAE share a similar organizational structure. Both are highly decentralized organizations that function as loose networks rather than singular entities, yet both have a very strong, centralized leadership core from which strategies are built. This combination of centralized policy-planning and decentralized policy-implementation has been a highly successful strategic design for both organizations. Is this simply a case of two different organizations adopting similar institutional

200 designs? Or is this a case of the diffusion of broader norms about what a “legitimate” advocacy NGO looks like? Is the trend towards decentralized, networked forms of organization changing governance norms? These questions could be explored by examining several more case studies of advocacy NGOs in the education sector, including cases of unsuccessful advocacy campaigns, to assess how strategic decisions are made and implemented, and what impact this is having on wider governance trends. This research would be an interesting contribution to the fields of development education and sociology of education as well as organizational theory.

A second area of research that deserves further exploration is the relationship between advocacy NGOs, governments, and donors in education development. This study pointed to the emergence of a new type of partnership in global educational governance based on the role of advocacy NGOs as “watchdogs” who monitor the implementation of poverty reduction strategies and the use of donor funds at country-level. In the post-Dakar EFA environment, bilateral and multilateral donors are increasingly viewing advocacy NGOs as strategic partners, whose skills in monitoring and evaluation can be used to minimize the risk of donor funds being mismanaged by national governments. This presents important political and resource opportunities for NGOs, but what impact do these new partnerships have on the achievement of EFA goals? Is a certain type of advocacy NGO favoured by international donors? Does this make EFA policy more accountable and equitable, or are certain civil society voices made more or less audible than others? How does this funding arrangement alter the relationship between national civil society groups, international NGOs and developing country governments? These questions could be addressed through an in-depth look at the Civil Society Education Fund, the largest fund specifically targeting civil society advocacy in development education. The CSEF is managed by the World Bank, and therefore could be expected to represent a certain political agenda. Research examining this fund (and the NGOs who are supported by it) could increase our understanding of new partnership models in international development, and the impact these are having on education policy and outcomes.

The above study documented how western norms concerning universality, individualism and the democratizing role of education have been diffused and shaped by NGO advocacy. The emergence of the rights based approach is a salient example of how non-state actors have used widely-held global norms to promote new models of development. But the rise of political rights-based advocacy is very much the product of the post-Cold War settlement, and the

201 multilateral agreements forged in this era reflect the power of western norms and the climate of western capitalist globalization. The Millennium Development Goals and the Education for All declaration set 2015 as a target year, at which point these agreements will need to be re-visited and re-shaped. But the global climate is very different than it was fifteen years ago. The rise of new political and economic players in international development – most notably Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – will have a major impact on policy and practice in the field. Will western notions of human rights still be the defining development discourse? Or will new discourses emerge based on south-south cooperation and a rejection of western economic paradigms and traditional donor-recipient relationships? These questions are particularly timely, as the UN General Assembly will be debating post-2015 development goals in September 2013. The new agendas that emerge will need to be examined to ascertain how changes in the development landscape are altering aid priorities and modalities, and how this will impact the future of global educational governance and practice.

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