Last week’s blog began answering the question that many in multi-stakeholder change networks hear :  “So what is it you actually do?”  I wrote about the first two activities of such Global Action Networks (GANs) listed in the Table, and now I’ll explain more about the other four activities.

Networks, Learning and Research

Learning is a core part of most GANs’ work, since how to realize their goals is not always obvious and participants’ capacity to contribute to reaching them must be developed. However, GANs often have a remarkably underdeveloped sense of this work. At a meeting of GAN staff who had roles in developing knowledge and learning, they all said that they had very few resources and learning outcomes and strategies were poorly defined. Nevertheless, GANs put an enormous part of their resources into learning, when all the meetings and time in conversation to develop knowledge and capacity are taken into account.

Learning is a key activity of the Global Compact, as it develops lessons to share amongst companies on how the UN principles it promotes can be implemented. It is also a key activity of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC), which similarly organizes participants into regional learning groups and shares lessons across them.

For the GANs in health care, research is a particularly important activity. Often this is a traditional type of research:  half of the Stop TB’s 10-year work plan concerns R&D for new vaccines. The GANs support collaborative development of this research, bringing together government, civil society, and commercial organizations with their distinctive expertise and capabilities.

Networks, Measuring and Certifying

Certification is a popular organizing strategy to realize change. Production of goods and services is assessed in terms of social, environmental, and economic standards, and GANs certify whether those standards have been met. The International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labelling Alliance (ISEAL) is an association of GANs, including the Marine Stewardship Council, Social Accountability International, and the fair trade groups associated with the Fair Labelling Organization.

Several GANs make development of impact measurement frameworks and infrastructure a core part of their work. Although the Global Reporting Initiative does not actually get involved in measurement or certification, it develops the frameworks for companies to assess their impact in terms of social, economic, and environmental outcomes. And in fact, most ISEAL members do not actually do the certification, although they certify the certifiers. Transparency International also has an important measurement program, with its Corruption Perceptions Index that rates countries. And The Access Initiative’s (TAI’s) core strategy has to do with the broader measurement concept of “assessing” countries’ fulfillment of their commitments in the Rio Declaration to access to information, participation, and justice in environmental decision-making.

Networks and Financing

The Global Water Partnership (GWP) exemplifies a GAN formed by donors who want to give scale to their efforts by pooling financial resources. The network has been supported financially by many developed countries. For these funders, the GWP is an economical way to achieve the overall goals of promoting social equity, economic efficiency, and environmental sustainability, by improving the way water is managed and developed.

This pooling of financial resources is at the heart of most of the health GANs, like the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. The latter is financially by far the largest of any GAN: in the 8 years following its 2002 founding it had approved funding of US$ 19.3 billion for more than 572 programs in 144 countries.

As well the GAN structure often facilitates approaching funders.  For example, GANs can put together proposals that cover a much larger geographic area and be of a much large scale than their individual participants or regional components.  This can make them more attractive to the funders.

Networks and Advocating

GANs’ advocating strategy usually resembles a co-learning approach across traditional divides, rather than a traditional lobbying and pressuring strategy. This is demonstrated by TAI. TAI takes a learning approach when conducting “assessments” of governments’ performance vis-à-vis their commitments to provide access to information, participation, and justice in environmental decision-making.

Although NGOs are in control of TAI, “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 advocacy strategies with the goal of governments co-participating in the actual process of assessing. TAI country coalitions find that it usually helps to conduct the assessments in close relationship with a supportive government agency, such as the national Ministry of Environment that is usually weak on finance, political power, and science. 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 actually asked to advocate to other governments and speak on his government’s behalf at a UNEP Governing Council meeting on access to information, participation, and justice in environmental decision-making.

Of course GANs integrate these six strategies. For example, The Climate Group focuses in particular on bringing together local and state/provincial governments and business. One project demonstrates the effectiveness of outdoor LED lighting with city government. This requires bringing together LED experts, financial institutions to finance the city’s investments, and local government. Bjorn Roberts, Corporate Partnership Manager for The Climate Group comments: “We make (climate change) a compelling topic for all, and put it on their agenda. The conversations don’t happen unless people are put together.” Through The Climate Group, a local city project becomes a global pilot. It combines the strategies of shared visioning of green cities, system organizing by bringing together the diverse partners, learning with the pilot, financing through developing new financial instruments, and advocating with other cities to follow the pilot.

This table aims to provide an analytical tool for networks to ask questions about their own strategies.  What are they doing in each area?  Which ones are they strong in?  Which ones should they develop further.  I hope you find it helpful!

The world’s premier alliance of multi-stakeholder change networks is reviewing standards that operationalize their change strategy. The ISEAL Alliance is the global association for social and environmental standards.  Members include the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), Social Accountability International (SAI), the Fair Labelling Organization (FLO: fair trade) and the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM).

You know ISEAL organizations by their labels:  Fair Trade’s on coffee, MSC’s on seafood,  FSC’s label on paper and wood products. ISEAL’s Impact Code helps define what to measure and how to measure in order to be awarded the labels. Highly relevant is the work of 2009 economics Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom.

The Change Strategy

The change issues are sustainability and economic justice.  A basic Code element of the change strategy is multi-stakeholder engagement.  This produces a “whole systems” perspective about how companies’ actions impact social, environmental and economic outcomes. This is a big change from the traditional exclusive corporate focus on its own financial welfare.

Currently the standard does a good job of defining who stakeholders are.  However, how they must be engaged is defined under the very general concept of “consultation” that raises questions.

For MSC and FSC, certifiers who meet certain standards are hired by a “client” (usually a forestry or fishery company) to determine whether certification standards are being met.    Typically certifiers interview stakeholders individually and there is not necessarily a collective meeting of stakeholders.  Nor is there any requirement that a multi-stakeholder group be developed to manage the fishery/forest or ensure the certification standards are being met between the certification renewals.

This is distinctly different from the strategy of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (the Global Fund) and the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).  The former only accepts funding applications from multi-stakeholder groups;  the latter, a spin-off of Transparency International, requires that applications for “validation” of transparency standards come from multi-stakeholder bodies.

“EITI offers a platform for dialogue to discuss transparency issues,” Tim Bittiger, EITI Regional Director explained to me.

The Nobel Prize

Ostrom won the Nobel Prize for her analysis of economic governance. The media release announced her win this way:

“(Ostrom) has challenged the conventional wisdom that common property is poorly managed and should be either regulated by central authorities, or privatized. … She observes that resource users frequently develop sophisticated mechanisms for decision-making and rule enforcement to handle conflicts of interest, and she characterizes the rules that promote successful outcomes.” (Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 2009)

She spent decades studying successful resource management at the local level by multi-stakeholder groups.  Most of ISEAL’s members are multi-stakeholder networks at the global level, which reflects their theory of change.  This would lead you to expect that they would find this a compelling arrangement locally, as well.

Empowerment

Paddy Doherty who is managing the Impacts Code review process, says that ISEAL members talk about the importance of “empowering” stakeholders.  This suggests the importance of creating new governance arrangements locally where differences can be worked out, and collective planning and heightened standards can be advanced.

As might be expected, there is already experience with cross-stakeholder groups locally.  FLO deals with cooperatives that cross the traditional labor-management divides.  MSC Project Manager Amanda Stern-Pirlot comments that: “If a fishery has certification conditions (i.e. has to make improvements over the course of their certification) often the cooperation of others is needed to fulfill these conditions, particularly when improvements to management systems are needed. In lots of situations, having a good collaborative relationship with stakeholders outside the client group is essential.”

Multi-stakeholder Platform Issues

The idea of forming multi-stakeholder groups for certification raises skills issues. Typically certifiers have traditional auditing expertise (eg.: from Arthur Anderson) and would not be equipped to handle some of the dynamics and associated goals.  Making multi-stakeholder platform development would require a very different set of competencies.

Doherty raises the valid point that the Global Fund and EITI are dealing with different situations:  handing out large amounts of money in the one case, and working with large corporations and governments in the other.  However, maybe this simply suggests a modified strategy to foster formation of a multi-stakeholder group.  It could be made a condition of renewal of certification, for example, so the initial certification ushers is contingent upon a plan and commitment to develop a local platform.

The big product and attraction to multi-stakeholder platforms is their ability to coordinate their very distinct resources and capabilities, and challenge each other’s parochial perspectives, to produce very wonderful innovation…to do what none of them could imagine doing on their own.  This is the type of change that is required to realize the objectives of ISEAL Alliance members.  This has been well-documented, including in my last book Societal Learning and Change:  How governments, business and civil society are creating solutions to complex multi-stakeholder problems.

Until 30 April 2010 you are invited to contribute your ideas for improvement, discuss key issues, and propose changes to the code.