Reimagining Impact-Driven Advocacy Amidst Shifts in Global Aid

The global aid system is in a state of existential crisis following recent aid cuts, combined with a long overdue reassessment of the system through the lens of colonial power and foreign “saviourism”. In today’s evolving development arena, securing sustainable financing for critical issues demands a fresh approach to advocacy. Today’s development landscape is marked by a weakening commitment to multilateralism, a rise in transactional diplomacy, fierce competition over resources and shrinking official development assistance (ODA). It is critical that civil society and NGO advocacy professionals use this moment to critically assess their theories of change, influencing strategies, and advocacy approaches, if progressive social and economic goals are to be achieved amid declining access to development financing.

Development programmes often utilise strategies such as policy influencing, media, campaigns, strategic policy engagement, citizen mobilisation and advocacy to drive the reform and change that they seek. At times, these strategies do result in meaningful change of policies, narratives, behaviours and norms. However, at times efforts towards influencing often stall at the stage of securing new or revised national policies, strategies or guidelines, and fail to go further to secure the financial commitments for those policies to be implemented. 

This stagnation happens for various reasons. The ‘trusted insider’ relationships that see NGOs and CSOs at the table helping to write or review national policy can become so bureaucratic and restricted that it can be hard to move beyond influencing the policy-making process. Sometimes it's a lack of knowledge of the country’s financial architecture in a country and the pressure points for the financing decision-makers (e.g. Ministries of Finance or sub-national budget authorities). Sometimes, there is an apprehension about framing inherently moral issues, such as access to quality healthcare, education, or gender-equal pay, in financial terms, such as an “investment case” or “cost-benefit ratio.” This reluctance stems from concerns about the ethics of using monetary incentives to drive policy change, regardless of how critical the policy or sector may be – akin to the “carrot and stick” perception attached to donor funding. 

Additionally, the financing priorities within some countries are ultimately still being dictated by Development Partners with their own agendas and criteria for the funding they provide. 

So how can country advocacy teams make the jump from influencing national policies to securing the resources for those policies to be implemented? 

A crucial but hard truth in development programming is that the policy-making process is a political process. Too often, teams engaged in advocacy on development issues assume that an ‘information deficit’ is the barrier to change among policy makers – that if decision-makers simply knew what we know, it would be so undeniable that they would make the right decisions based on morality. If ever there was a political moment across the world to disprove that, it is now. “Evidence alone cannot change the world”, as this report from IPPR and the Runnymede Trust puts it. 

To make tangible progress, robust and iterative political analysis is essential throughout advocacy cycles - identifying the actors, changemakers, conditions and factors that can influence the change one seeks, understanding the power (formal and informal, open and hidden) of different players, and their motivations and constraints. Active risk management is also a key element – accepting that advocacy involves political risks, not shying away from that, but carefully assessing and mitigating this kind of risk to nurture and maintain relationships that can achieve change. 

Civic space is shrinking across the world, with repressive governments cracking down on protesters and cases of ‘foreign NGOs’ being ejected from countries following their criticisms of government policy. Advocates and activists are understandably apprehensive, reticent and self-censoring as they seek to maintain relationships with decision-makers that are vital not just for their influence, but for their organisations’ survival. In this political context, maintaining a ‘support and challenge’ relationship with government is an artform and a minefield. Again, the importance of political analysis and risk management is clear, as is the strategic choice of allies and partnerships. What kind of evidence and data will decision-makers be forced to listen to? What tone allows for ‘critical friend’ relationships to be maintained? Who is the right messenger who can be more challenging and outspoken than perhaps you can yourselves? 

With shrinking ODA, rising national debt burdens and many competing priorities for governments, advocating for increased financing for development issues is certainly not as straightforward as it may once have seemed (did it ever?). Understanding the full financial and economic landscape in a country is essential homework for anyone wishing to have influence. For the Water Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH)  sector, this has historically meant investigating the ‘Three Ts’ (tariffs, taxes and transfers including ODA), though even this is viewed as insufficiently broad given the current dire financing of WASH and other development issues, with a strong push from some member states at the recent Financing For Development conference in Sevilla towards private and blended finance. Certainly, we development advocates must strengthen our skills and knowledge in an increasingly diverse and complex set of financing flows and mechanisms, ranging from debt to tax to the management and use of income from extractive industries.

At a bleak time for global development, with hopes of achieving the SDGs fast fading, we hope these reflections give some rays of light, revealing that the vital work of advocacy can and must evolve if we are to secure the financing necessary to tackle inequality, end poverty and build climate resilience. We would love to learn more from others’ experiences in this area.

Beverly Musili is a Global Inequality Influencing Programme Officer for Oxfam Kenya, using her experience at the intersection of law, policy, and governance to address issues of inequality, economic justice, and public finance.

Dan Rodman Jones is a global advocacy consultant, working with civil society organisations and NGOs across Africa, Asia and the Americas, and globally, to strengthen advocacy strategy, practice and evaluation.