We all know that global policy making is pretty weak.  Governments sign lots of agreements.  But then, more often than not, nothing happens.  Networks have a crucial role to play in correcting the situation.

Networks embody two approaches to policy and advocacy.  The more traditional is advocating that others change, and urging others to adopt particular policies.  Here the network power comes from combining organizations for size and power of voice.

The second approach is to gather diverse stakeholders together as peers who recognize that new approaches are needed, and collectively develop them.  Here networks act as laboratories where diversity produces innovative, whole-system approaches that can be quickly disseminated through the participating organizations.

Networks for Global Policy Change

Global Action Networks, being multi-stakeholder, emphasize the second approach.  Wolfgang Reinicke who introduced me to global multi-stakeholder networks, looks at them through a political science lens. He calls a similar group of networks Global Public Policy Networks (GPPNs) and emphasizes their contribution to resolving issues by producing global public policy and goods.  I made a modest contribution to a 2000 report on this strategy to Kofi Annan, where Wolfgang was lead author.

Working with Tariq Banuri of the Tellus Institute, we built upon this work to produce the Figure below.  This was first published in an article in Accountability Quarterly.  It describes the traditional global public policy making process that produces international agreements and conventions such as the one establishing the UN and the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development.

GANs’ work can be framed as addressing weaknesses in this process.  For example, The Access Initiative (TAI) categorically focuses upon giving life to Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration about participation in environmental decion-making;  it was an empty commitment for most governments.  The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is doing the work that many thought should be done by international conventions.

In the national policy-making cycle there are basically four activities. Citizens (1) express their opinions to their elected representatives, who (2) get together in legislatures to debate what should be done. Legislatures pass laws and regulations that the bureaucracy (3) then translates into programs carried out by multiple organizations to (4) educate, enforce and take other supportive actions. If there is some controversy with this process, citizens are then able to go back to their elected representatives for changes.

Four Gaps

At the global level the underlying institutions such as effective legislatures, political parties, courts and regulatory structures are not present. Citizens have almost no options for connecting meaningfully with global decision-making processes, and this is referred to in the Figure as the participation gap.  Participants must perceive that the actions of national governments in global policy making is legitimate and incorporates their views. When this does not occur, an ethical or values gap arises. The difficulty of identifying and organizing an effective response to implement international agreements gives rise to the operational gap.  The fourth gap, the communications gap, arises as the need to communicate to citizens the global public policy goals and the value of abiding by their norms and rules.  This should include incorporation of the global convention decisions into national laws and regulations.

Traditional advocacy NGOs emphasize filling the participation and ethical/values gaps and some communications gap work.  They connect and mobilize people to pressure national governments to take specific actions.

The role of GANs is more nuanced.  In general, they go about the difficult work of addressing the operations and communications gaps.  The MSC is a strategy to address over-fishing, which is the topic of numerous conventions.  It does not implement the Conventions, but works to achieve similar goals through certification and labeling of sustainably harvested fish products. Today over 12% of global capture production for direct human consumption has the MSC logo.

The MSC does not have formal government participation.  However, another GAN called the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) began as a joint government, industry and civil society initiative to stem the flow of conflict diamonds. Today the trade in conflict diamonds is essentially stopped by the Kimberly Process, without offices or staff.  It is an unusual approach because governments are not acting within a global inter-governmental convention, but they are acting with the support of the UN.

TAI’s approach is to create learning partnerships with governments, that use an assessment tool to analyze how governments are performing and can improve fulfillment of the Principle 10 commitments.

When John Ruggie was describing his work with the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to reduce corporate-related human rights abuses, I couldn’t help thinking “do we really need another global network on this issue?  Would it be better to think about possibilities of them working together more closely?  Is this simply another case of ‘government’ wanting to “be in charge’, and resistant to joining others?  Or are the current networks too tied to their own identities to look at the bigger change opportunity?”

The UNHRC takes its definition of Human Rights from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948.  It presents a broad definition, including rights to education, to work, and to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being.

Competitors?

Is this definition sufficiently relevant to the numerous existing global, multi-stakeholder networks that are working on human rights issues with a particular focus upon corporations? Also in the broad arena are:

• The UN Global Compact, distinguished by its UN leadership, and its focus upon development of a “learning space” for corporations to integrate 10 principles into their operations including human rights and labor standards principles.
• The Global Reporting Initiative, distinguished by the formal absence of government and GRI’s work to create a framework integrating all others, for corporations to report their social, environmental and economic impacts.

In the labor rights arena, there are:

• The International Labour Organization, distinguished by its formal government participation in addition to NGOs, labour and business that make up others;
• Social Accountability International, distinguished by a workplace/plant-level certification strategy;
• The Fair Labor Association, distinguished by a buyer-driven strategy of American universities that want the goods they sell to meet certain standards;
• The Ethical Trading Initiative, distinguished by a strategy focusing upon supply chains of major corporations.

And then there’re other networks that could easily move into this arena, like Transparency International with its concerns about corporate corruption.

Time to Reassess Development Stage?

The question about current powerful options for reducing corporate-related human rights abuses is related to how the “issue domain” is analyzed in terms of its “development stage”.  In this case, its development stage of the “issue domain” (human rights and corporations) rather than the individual networks.  The networks began by focusing on distinct “pieces” of the emerging global puzzle…they’ve been experimenting with and developing particular strategies for over a decade (with the exception of the ILO, founded in 1919).

Maybe now is the moment for the networks to reassess their learnings and strategies, and to think how to really scale up for impact.  That doesn’t necessarily mean a merger which in many ways is contrary to “network thinking”…it might be best to have relatively distinct strategies and networks, but with a collective understanding of how they relate and their “piece” of the puzzle.  This is already happening to some extent with the GRI-Compact relationship.

In an organization world, the interests of organizations as institutions are dominant.  In a world of multi-stakeholder global networks, the vision for a field is dominant and the question of “role” is central.  What roles do we need played for the human rights-and-corporations domain to be healthy?  Undoubtedly the lessons from networks to date would reveal these, and provide the basis for developing a more effective collective strategy.  One way to get at this role question is through Value Network Analysis.

As the networks push for membership expansion, the NGOs and corporations in them are going to increasingly raise the questions about why there are so many and why they would want to participate in several networks.  That question was the original drive behind the founding of the GRI with respect to triple bottom line reporting.

This suggests that perhaps the key intervention of the UNHRC is to create greater “coherence” and “alignment” of these numerous initiatives.  It could convene them around the shared elements of their visions…and be a joiner and part of a greater movement, rather than the old-fashioned “lead and control” thinking that often makes government such a difficult partner.

Core Competencies for Networks: Webinar March 31 9am EST, 3pm CET

Global Networks in China: Webinar April 7

If you were given 10 million euros and three to five years, how would you go about “changing the role of the financial system to better serve economic, social and environmental objectives”?  The EU is asking that question.  And that’s something that I’ve been answering with a consortium of more that 20 European universities. Our proposal went in last week.

For me, all this builds on the work of the Global Finance Initiative that I led.  Scaling Impact’s Sanjeev Khagram and I were convinced of the need for a multi-stakeholder Global Action Network (GAN) in the global finance arena that would take on the very issue the EU is asking with an EU focus.  Starting in January 2008 – just before the financial crisis and with $185,000 from Ford Foundation – we analyzed the global financial arena by further developing mapping methodologies and putting together a stewardship team that came up with a clear action strategy.

But we couldn’t get money for the next phase…because the financial crisis shrank foundations’ budgets and visions!

One exciting aspect about the EU Call is that they clearly want what I’d call a societal learning and change strategy…where financial system stakeholders will work together to (1) gain important new knowledge and perspectives that will change the way they think about the financial system, and (2) develop new social ties that provide for on-going development of new ideas, strategies, structures, and processes with regards to the financial system.

In other words, the goal of the Call is not simply to produce new reports, books and ideas…it’s about making sure the new knowledge is “held” by stakeholders and that they have the vision and relationships to further it.

The Proposal

The proposal to the EU was put together with leadership of the European Academy for Business in Society and Maurizio Zollo, Director of the Center for Research on Organization and Management at Bocconi University in Milan.  It proposes conventional research by an inter-university faculty to investigate from a multi-disciplinary perspective the historic financial system dynamics with comprehensive analysis of the reasons for the financial crisis.

But the project also proposes an action research strategy that includes:

1. Mapping social structures and developing a holistic computer model that simulates cross-system (finance-environment-social-economic-political) and cross-level (local-to-global) interdependences. This contrasts with the narrow product- and firm-level simulations used by finance that contributed to the financial crisis.
2. Engaging stakeholders. A stakeholder council will include financiers, policy makers, regulators and social-, labor-, consumer-, and environmental-activists working on finance issues.  With the researchers, the councillors will co-lead the project and engage their respective constituencies. This will be supported by an innovative social media strategy.
3. Scenario-building. Through stakeholder engagement with small focus groups around the world and larger European ones, plausible alternative futures will be developed.
4. Experimenting. Working with financial firms and other stakeholders, new approaches to such things as decision-making and product development will be tested.

Each of these four actions will further develop methodologies that will be very helpful to other network change strategies.

This approach, like the strategy proposed by the GFI, builds on the experience of GANs and the World Commission on Dams in particular.  The WCD was a 1997-2000 multi-stakeholder process to create comprehensive guidelines for the building of large dams in response to environmental and social disasters associated with large dams funded by the World Bank.  Although the diverse Commissioners reached consensus in a final report, it did not translate into agreement among the broader stakeholders‘ community, and responsibility for next steps was delegated to the UNEP that proved incapable administratively or authoritatively to effect pursuit of the Commission‘s work.

The response to the EU Call aims to overcome the WCD short-coming with its more comprehensive activities and explicitly creating stakeholder connections that can carry on the work.

How would you address the financial crisis as a large-system change challenge?

…GWP, TI, GRI, TAI, Global Compact, IUCN

In a new new study of four Global Action Networks (GANs – multi-stakeholder change networks), Pieter Glasbergen concludes that involving government is key to success. “First, mainstreaming of concepts can only be realized by governments or by their recognition of the private governance mechanism as an alternative tool to solve a collective action problem. Second, governments are also important because most GANs operate in an issue field with many competing private and public initiatives.”

However, governments are usually more difficult than businesses or NGOs to involve in networks as peers.  That’s for two reasons:  because they usually think of themselves as “being in charge”…after all, their key role is making laws and regulations with the power to enforce them.  And then there’s that thing called bureaucratic process…often part and parcel of “due process” to protect rights, transparency and accountability.

Networks have diverse strategies to involve government.  Some like the Global Water Partnership they have active control through their Board;  in others like the IUCN they are partners in governance.  But some networks simply try to avoid government in governance…look at The Access Initiative (TAI) and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).  They purposely don’t have any place for government in their global governance. But look a bit closer, and you see important government connections.

TAI is giving life to Principle 10 (P10) of the Earth Charter which promotes participatory processes in environmental decision-making.  Think “access to information” and “public reviews of environmental disasters”. Most countries in the world have signed onto the Earth Charter, and that’s TAI’s hook:  working with governments to realize their Principle 10 commitments. But globally TAI is governed globally by NGOs, out of concern that they must protect the integrity of their work, which includes holding governments accountable to their Earth Charter commitment.

TAI takes a “learning” approach when conducting “assessments” of governments’ performance and aims to engage governments as participants.  “TAI members recognize that governments are not monolithic; they are filled with allies and opponents,” comments Joe Foti, TAI Associate.

This leads to a diversity of TAI strategies.  One is that TAI gains government legitimacy and help because it receives funding from the government agencies such as the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office.  TAI country coalitions find that it usually helps the national Ministry of Environment to have civil society on its side because the MoE is usually weak on finance, political power, and science.  Judges in Argentina and the Ministry of Information in Mexico also have helpful roles.

In Thailand the TAI coalition includes an institute sponsored by the King of Thailand, which gives it legitimacy in government eyes. And in Africa, the TAI-Cameroon representative was asked to speak on the government’s behalf at a UNEP Governing Council meeting when the discussion was about adopting the draft guidelines on implementation of P10.

The GRI has developed a different strategy as it promotes environmental-social-economic reporting, by business in particular. Governments aren’t members because of a concern that they will turn the learning spaces of a voluntary initiative into a regulatory space that would reduce openness to experiment.  However, the GRI has obtained “legitimacy” with government by forming an alliance with the UN’s Global Compact to encourage companies and corporate responsibility organizations to support the synergistic platforms of the Compact and the GRI.

The UN Global Compact is playing this role with other networks as well, such as Transparency International.  The Compact is an initiative with businesses to align their activities with UN principles.  The UN imprimatur of the Compact opens government doors for the networks, without taking on other baggage.

The Global Compact – a multi-stakeholder network “of” the UN – has one of the most interesting government strategies of any global network.  “We knew it was important to leverage the good parts of the UN – the ideas of peace, development and human rights – and yet avoid falling into the trap of the machinery,” says Compact Executive Head Georg Kell.  “But how to do it, we didn’t know.  It evolved over the years.”

Today the Compact has public advocacy and executive branch support through the role of the Secretary General as Chair of its Board;  it has the legislative support of the General Assembly and protection from undue individual country influence through a resolution of support the GA passes every two years;  and it has access to the vast UN system at the national and global levels through an Inter-Agency Working Group that includes the UNEP, the UNDP and other UN agencies.

What are your experiences and strategies networking with government?

Announcement: TAI recently undertook a network-wide process to review and redefine its approach, strategy, and governance.  The process will be the topic of a webinar with TAI’s Director and the change process leaders.  Join us on Feb. 17, 6:00am US/Canada Westcoast;  9:00am Eastcoast; 14:00 UK, 15:00 Europe, 21:00 Philippines/Malaysia.  Go to https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=831&password=M.D319BCA09CFB90E9673E7225D80F0E