“Participants” are a basic component of any network, whether they be organizations or individuals.  But that is a pretty broad term, and most networks really require a much more elaborate definition of roles.  For example, is a “participant” the same thing as a “member”?

A couple of years ago I had conversations with several global, multi-stakeholder networks to better understand these issues.  The same word is used in very different ways, and confusion between distinct concepts was creating confusion among network participants.  The Table below is a product of the conversations, and suggests that networks should distinguish between four roles.   For both the network and its stakeholders, decisions to fit into one category versus the other is wrapped up with important strategic decisions.

The networks generally have a broad approach to who can become a participant:  anyone who is a stakeholder in their issue or wants to become one.  This is equivalent to the concept of “citizen” as someone who has rights, but does not necessarily exercise them.

Co-owners have some specified decision-making rights, typically around voting in Board or other elections, standing for election, or voting on policy issues.  Being a co-owner is usually associated with signing on to a set of principles at a minimum.

Occasionally certain categories of organizations are not citizens, although they are stakeholders.  For the Tobacco Free Initiative, a decision was made to prohibit tobacco companies from participating since the Initiative’s goals and those of the companies were perceived as antithetical.

Some stakeholders are happy to simply be a citizen, take advantage of the work of the networks, but not become active – referred to economically as a “free-rider”.  This is particularly true for networks that produce new learning or policy change, such as The Climate Group when it brings together cities and other stakeholders to develop innovations around LED lighting…of course the networks are usually pleased to have their learning adopted, but free-riders make networks’ business model problematic.

A stakeholder might be a “citizen”, but make a strategic decision to actively oppose a network.  One example is with forest companies that have formed the Sustainable Forestry Initiative in opposition to the Forest Stewardship Council’s multi-stakeholder certification.

Other stakeholders might strategically chose to be participants, but not be a co-owner.  Greenpeace is a strong campaigner on fishery issues and participates in the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) assessments to determine whether a fishery is sustainable.  However, it does does not sit on MSC’s Stakeholder Council, because it prefers the added independence of action that can come with the role of “participant” versus “co-owner”.

For many networks, certain categories are allowed to participate, but not be co-owners.  IUCN allows some businesses as participants, but they are pointedly not allowed to be co-owners.  Governments cannot become members of the Global Reporting Initiative (although it has developed a Governmental Advisory Group), out of fear that its voluntary nature would be seen as an avenue to mandatory rules that would diminish GRI’s ability to attract corporate members.

In contrast, in terms of the Table, governments are co-owners in the Kimberley Process that stems the flow of conflict diamonds.  However, the Process refers to them as “Participants”;  active business and NGO stakeholders are referred to as “observers” but are participants in terms of the Table. Participants and Observers meet in Plenary annually.

Not uncommonly, organizations are referred to as “members” officially, but have no formal decision-making power.  In fact, they are simply participants.  The Microcredit Summit Campaign refers to “members” as those who have done a variety of things, the most notable reporting for three years on their activity to support the Campaign’s goals.   However, the Campaign is legally a program of an NGO called Results Education Fund whose Board has legal authority (is the owner).  The Campaign Executive Committee consists of people who have agreed to be such at the request of staff, but its meetings are sporadic and advisory.

The fourth concept that often gets mixed with “membership” is really a financing strategy.  Some networks require that members pay dues.  However, often this obligation is restricted to, or  higher for, for-profit companies.  The Fair Labor Association, for example, has a sliding scale based upon the size of the company and with a minimum payment of $5,000.  The rationale for selecting only companies to pay is that they actually derive financial benefit for participation whereas for the NGOs participation is a net cost.

How does your network think of “partnership” and”membership”, and does it create any confusion?

Networks often become “stuck” far short of their aspirations and potential. What processes can support a network itself to change, renew and revitalize?

The question is critical for networks that want to grow to their full potential.  The question was addressed last Wednesday in a webinar with The Access Initiative and last October in another webinar discussing the Global Knowledge Partnership.  And the question was the focus of a meeting that I led at Harvard Business School last February with a particular focus upon IUCN and the Forest Stewardship Council.

One useful framework to address this change challenge is “development stages”.  The diagram below describes the stages that my work suggests for global, multi-stakeholder networks…and is likely relevant to other network types as well.

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Stage 1. These networks typically begin as separate initiatives working on a similar problem.  They then decide to combine forces…often around a particular project, but sometimes to address the challenge in general.

Stage 2. As their collective activity grows, they create some common resources and establish a central coordinating function…often called a “Secretariat”.  With continued growth, some sub-parts of the network start to interact relatively independently to address particular issues;  often this takes the form of geographic sub-divisions or ones around a particular industry or specialized set of challenges.

Stage 3. As these sub-divisions become more numerous, dominant network interactions shift from the Secretariat, and the Secretariat itself becomes simply another node in the network with some particular functions such as interacting with global-level organizations and ensuring robust network communications platforms.

Stage 4. At a final stage, these multi-stakeholder networks themselves start to interact more often with other multi-stakeholder networks.

In the webinar, TAI’s Director Lalanath De Silva said TAI is really at Stage 2.5. It still possesses a founding Secretariat that he heads, but the network’s regional groupings are increasingly important.  TAI took a proactive approach to move into Stage 3.  However, this is a classic moment when many networks get “stuck” because people are “comfortable” with the status quo, and shifting to stage 3 involves to the Secretariat and Board “letting go” of their traditional control and the rest of the network “letting go” of traditional dependence upon the Secretariat.

To support TAI’s shift, Minu Hemmati and Bettye Pruitt of the Generative Change Community supported the Core Team in a strategic Re-envisioning process. Philip Thomas and I participated in the project team in an advisory role. The process included interviews and workshops with the Core Team (Board) and others in the network.

TAI’s change process has three Phases. The Re-envisioning was conceived as taking shape over three distinct Phases.  Phase 1 identified key issues through selected interviews and meetings with network partners, CT members and secretariat staff.   Phase 2 developed responses to the issues through interviews and meetings with a wider group of network partners, CT members and Secretariat staff.

The consultants used two “thinking tools” to support the CT in considering TAI’s strategy. One is a framework developed by Philip Thomas for the Generative Change Community.  This framework – Four Dimensions of Sustainable Change – helped structure conversations in the CT about the assumptions guiding TAI’s change strategy, the different kinds of impact TAI is seeking and seeing as the result of its work and the changes that might be necessary to make it more effective.

The other thinking tool was scenarios, described in last week’s blog.  Both tools were part of a report.  Phase 3 is in development.  It will transform the Phase 2 ideas into concrete proposals for network governance reforms while evaluating TAI’s impact.

The Global Knowledge Partnership change processes was very different and crisis-driven.  The GKP was founded in 1997 to promote the application of information and communication technologies in development (ICT4D).  The change process was stimulated by a shift in the priorities of funders who were also on the GKP Board.  They received an evaluation of the GKP in September 2008 that was very favorable, but at the same meeting announced that they were not going to be providing on-going support.

A Task Force of people with knowledge about the GKP and change expertise was established with leadership of Michael Roberts of Groupsia International.  I was engaged by the Task Force to produce a report and participate in meetings to provide knowledge about options based upon other networks’ development processes.  Mike Jensen was engaged to bring in knowledge about the trends in ICT4D and donors interests.

Over four months with GKP members there were interviews, a joint Board-Regional Coordinator-Consultants meeting, and a final Board-Consultants meeting.  Over the following month the Board announced that it would resign, two scenarios were presented for a virtual vote by members (both with a very reduced Secretariat), and new elections were held with robust participation.  The new Board held its own planning process, and although the vision remained unchanged there were significant mission changes.

One common theme through these change processes is to ensure structure reflects strategy.  A network’s successes and setbacks should produce evolving strategies that need incorporation into the structure.

Do these development stages reflect your experience? Have you transition stories?

…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