To mark yesterday's International Human Rights Day, Joe Humphreys asks six lobbyists about their work - and why research and policy-making can do more for the third world than fund-raising alone.
The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Mr Conor Lenihan, recently accused aid agencies of spending “enormous amounts of money on advocacy as opposed to sending money to the Third World”. Non-governmental organisations denied the allegations, and leading agencies such as Concern and Trócaire were shown to have spent less than 0.5 per cent of their respective budgets on advocacy. But what’s wrong with NGOs investing in advocacy?
“If someone is dying of hunger the last thing they need is a lecture on social justice,” says Joe Murray, co-ordinator of the campaign group Afri. “But if all this aid is being given and things are getting worse, it forces other questions to be raised.” Murray speaks from a unique vantage point in the development sector, having helped to transform Afri over the past 20 years from an aid agency, handing out emergency relief, to an advocacy group, lobbying on behalf of the world’s poor.
His arrival in Afri in 1980, with campaigning journalist Don Mullan, signalled the change in direction. Liberation theology was in vogue at the time, and the pair travelled to Brazil where they met leading figures in the movement, such as Archbishop Helder Camara who famously remarked, “When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor don’t have food, they call me a communist.”
Says Murray: “The philosophy at the time was to critique the simplistic answers that were being given to problems like poverty. That continues to be our philosophy, although it’s less popular now to raise these sort of questions.”
CAOIMHE DE BARRA, TRÓCAIRE
As policy and advocacy co-ordinator with Trócaire, Caoimhe de Barra admits, "there are days when you find it difficult to identify an impact from your work. You can't put a flag on something and say 'we did this', and nor would you necessarily want to. But when we do look back, there is progress over time." Take "policy coherence", for example. For years, Trócaire - along with other NGOs - has been highlighting how one government department can undermine the development efforts of another, say, by promoting sectoral interests at global trade talks. Last February, the Government decided policy coherence would be "a key component, not only of development policy but overall government policy," she says.
A UCD development studies graduate, de Barra (34), from Monkstown, Dublin, joined Trócaire in 1997, after cutting her teeth in fair trade and environmental campaigning at school and college. The job is all about "lobbying, meeting with key decision-makers; it's very much about dialogue; it's very much about relationships."
Her contacts extend to the International Monetary Fund in Washington, which she visits twice a year. The Government decision to renege on its UN funding commitment "is definitely sending waves throughout the international community", she notes.
Five other countries, including France and the UK, were successfully lobbied on foot of Ireland's commitment, and "the fact that Ireland has reneged without giving an alternative date for meeting the target means larger countries can do the same," she says. "Ireland is perceived as a country with moral authority. We value that, and it's unfortunate to see it squandered."
Illusive as its impact is, "advocacy is an integral part of development work," de Barra adds. "You have to dedicate time and resources to research, analysis and advocacy if you want to achieve lasting change."
SEAN LOVE, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Sean Love has been in the wars recently, going up against no less an opponent that the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell. “It’s the first time we encountered active hostility from a home government,” he says of Amnesty International’s recent anti-racism campaign, which personally targeted a number of Cabinet members, including McDowell.
The backlash from Government came as something of a surprise, says Love, given the “very positive relationship” Amnesty has had with several Government Departments. “The Department of Foreign Affairs [for example] always takes the Amnesty reports on board ... generally speaking the Amnesty position is mirrored in the Foreign Affairs position. We very rarely find conflict.” However, he adds, “we would have concerns that there is a sensitivity in this Government. They don’t like dissent.”
A former information technology manager, with a background in economics, Love joined Amnesty as an ordinary member in 1990. Three years later he attended an Amnesty rally in Dublin against ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia, at which the then head of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, Olive Braiden, spoke tearfully about her meeting with Bosnian rape victims. “I found that very powerful and very moving and got sucked in as an activist at that point.”
From Clontarf, Dublin, Love has been head of Amnesty’s Irish section since 2001, and credits the organisation with shaping major human rights treaties, such as the UN Convention on Torture, as well as influencing domestic policy on issues such as mental health, capital punishment and the arms trade.
As an organisation which receives no funding from government and devotes all its time to campaigning, Amnesty “would not fit the mould of development agencies”. Yet Love believes, “there is an obligation on all agencies to advocate”.
MARY LAWLOR, FRONT LINE
Last month, Mary Lawlor got a call from the former Soviet state of Kyrgyzstan to say a leading human rights defender there had been abducted. Within hours, Front Line – the group Lawlor directs – had contacted not only the militia group believed to be behind the kidnapping but its paymasters in the country’s security forces. Police officials, including “the second in command in the KGB”, suddenly found themselves facing questions from a Caucasian expert at Front Line’s offices in Blackrock, Dublin. (Russian is one of five languages spoken in the office, along with English, Spanish, French and Arabic.) Contacts in the Department of Foreign Affairs were used to trigger an appeal among European governments for the life of Tursunbek Akunov, who disappeared after organising a petition for the resignation of the Kyrgyz president. A few days later, Akunov was freed, and Lawlor relieved. “I was sure we were going to end with a body.”
Such successes confirm to her that she was right to set up Front Line three years ago, with the financial backing of businessman Denis O’Brien. “It’s very fast, very flexible and very focused. We occupy that space before other human rights groups fit in. If you are doing an appeal, it can take a week to kick in; the person could be dead.”
The organisation was a natural home for Lawlor after 27 years in Amnesty International’s Irish section, serving for periods as chairwoman and director. Front Line not only uses its “huge network” of contacts to try to protect human rights defenders, but also offers practical support, wiring money to fund emergency evacuations, training activists in personal security, and providing satellite phones and other equipment to people such as the Franciscan Father Brendan Forde, “a really brave man”, whose life has been repeatedly threatened for his human rights work in Colombia.
Lobbying is also “hugely important” for Front Line, which was commissioned by the Department of Foreign Affairs to produce EU guidelines for human rights defenders. Although “no one in Europe would support them in the beginning”, they were championed – much to Lawlor’s delight – during the Irish presidency. “Ireland is now known internationally as the government that has prioritised human rights defenders. That is very important to me and I want that to continue.”
Married with three children, Lawlor is a former Montessori teacher and personnel manager. Her philosophy, she says, is "to do what you can, even though you may fail. That's what I tell governments. If you stay silent you are complicit." www.frontlinedefenders.com
JEAN SOMERS, DEBT AND DEVELOPMENT COALITION
Jean Somers’s Debt and Development Coalition has been at the heart of a dramatic change in the world’s approach to Third World debt. When the group started in 1993, Ireland had “no real policy” on the issue, says Somers. Today, it is regarded globally as a forerunner, constantly pushing for more radical solutions.
“We feel we have had an impact in an Irish context, together with other groups in the country,” says Somers. “Even though Ireland has a small voice, it can be effective.”
The Irish position has come a long way since Somers took up the campaign, having returned home from the UK where she worked in anti-poverty and civil liberties advocacy. In 1996, Ireland sent shockwaves through the international banking community by refusing to pay money into the IMF’s Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility until the body came up with a plan to deal with crippling Third World debt. Six years later, Ireland became the first IMF member state to call for 100 per cent debt cancellation for the world’s poorest countries.
Some of the success has come through well-targeted research, such as a study of how Irish aid in Tanzania was being undermined by debt repayments. More recently, the coalition got an investment banker to report on how debt cancellation could be achieved by selling IMF gold, and last month the British chancellor Gordon Brown backed this plan. A challenge of the job, says Somers, “is being able to see where you have made an impact without exaggerating it. One day you turn on the radio and hear Gordon Brown, or the US, committing to cutting debt but there’s a lot of hard slog and holding on to hope before you get those moments.”
HANS ZOMER, DÓCHAS
Hans Zomer was taken aback by Conor Lenihan’s remarks in which the Minister of State seemed to question the legitimacy of advocacy work. “The Government has been asking for social partnership and for civil society to be involved in decision-making. So to turn around and say ‘now we don’t want it’ seemed strange.”
He is keen not to overplay the significance of Mr Lenihan’s outburst, however, as it came at a time when the Government was smarting over criticism of its aid budget. The Government’s decision to renege on its promise to meet the UN target of donating 0.7 per cent of GNP to overseas development aid by 2007 has created “huge disappointment” in the sector, says Zomer, director of Dóchas, an umbrella group representing 34 NGOs.
As well as campaigning on this issue, Dóchas is involved in lobbying at national and international level on a range of development topics, such as a recent trend among EU governments to divert aid into “peacekeeping and combating terrorism”.
Dóchas had an input into phrasing Europe’s“progressive” development aid commitments in the new EU Constitution. However, Zomer admits, that is only half the battle. “A lot of beautiful statements are not being transferred into policies.” Zomer (36) studied political science in his native Holland before working in Brussels as a lobbyist and then joining Concern in Dublin. Married to an Irishwoman, with whom he has a daughter, he describes himself as a facilitator rather than a campaigner.
“I don’t need to be an expert in anything but I need to know who are the experts in our member organisations, and how to get them to talk to the right people.”