Affected actors in global governance

In this context, in recent years there seems to be an increasing trend to directly involve affected populations in the transnational arena.⁸ A key event in this regard was the Rio Conference 1992; Agenda 21, which was adopted as its program of action, recognizes nine societal groups with special relevance to achieve sustainable development, the so-called major groups, namely Women, Children and Youth, Indigenous Peoples, NGOs, Local Authorities, Workers and Trade Unions, Business and Industry, Scientific and Technological Community, and Farmers. Thus, the Agenda 21 explicitly recognizes that significant sectors of society form constituencies of their own, independent of the existence of NGOs which claim to represent their interests (Hasl 2019).

Since then, an ever increasing number of grassroots movements has emerged capable to represent themselves and to engage in global policy-making, and who attempt to shape policy-making on issues directly affecting them and their communities (Batliwala 2002:

408; Dupuits & Pflieger 2017: §18). As organizations and movements with direct and strong ties to local communities, they empower disenfranchised local populations and bring their voices into global policy-making. A growing involvement of these organizations of affected populations can be observed in an increasing number of policy fields. APOs include membership-based organizations and local grassroots NGOs as well as the networks and movements they form, many of whom come from the Global South.

Thus, marginalized and otherwise disempowered people have organized around a growing number of issues and identities. Women in the Informal Economy Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) is a network of grassroots organizations, scholars and professionals seeking to give voice and visibility to the female working poor.⁹ The movement has become very effective in putting the issue of informal employment on

8 However, the idea of involving affected segments of society in global policy-making is not a recent invention; the International Labour Organization (ILO), which was created in 1919, already featured a tripartite composition which brought together representatives from governments, employers, and trade unions (Hasl 2019).

9 http://www.wiego.org/wiego/what-we-do, accessed 24.01.2019.

global agendas, and also engages in monitoring and implementation of policies (Batliwala 2002: 401–402). Similarly, Slum/Shack Dwellers International (SDI) has formed as a network of community-based organizations of the urban poor in 32 countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America.¹⁰ While it includes some NGO partners, these are restricted to a secondary, supporting role. SDI has been successful in lobbying for an increased role of slum dwellers in urban infrastructure and resettlement projects and has become a partner for international organizations such as the UN Human Settlements Program (UN HABITAT) (ibid.: 403–404). In the area of water governance, the Confederation of Community Organizations for Water Services and Sanitation (CLOCSAS) has emerged as a regional network of Latin American grassroots organizations which is involved in the development of multi-stakeholder partnerships (Dupuits & Pflieger 2017). Similarly, sweatshop workers have organized to improve their working conditions, grassroots organizations of working children have emerged to claim rights and recognition, and sex workers have formed the Network of Sex Work Projects (Hahn & Holzscheiter 2013). Indigenous peoples, in turn, have built a strong movement and are now engaging in a variety of policy fields, including i. a. the governance of climate change at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), participation in global agriculture governance at IFAD and the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), as well as involvement in negotiations about intellectual property rights regarding traditional knowledge at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

These diverse actors have several features in common which allow us to describe them as affected persons’ organizations. First, they are characterized by a high degree of vulnerability to the issue at stake (Batliwala 2002: 396; Sändig et al. 2019), and they organize with the intent to express and defend their concerns and shape policies to their favor. Most importantly, APOs are created by and composed of individuals from the affected communities in a process of self-empowerment (Batliwala 2002: 405).

Therefore, the personnel of APOs possess local knowledge, cultural understandings and lived experience with regard to the problem at hand (Sändig et al. 2019). While they often are volunteer-based, comparatively small organizations with limited budgets (Uvin 1995: 496), they have also formed broader, powerful networks (Dupuits &

10 http://knowyourcity.info/who-is-sdi/about-us/, accessed 24.01.2019.

Pflieger 2017). Ideally, other members of the affected communities consider APO leaders as legitimate spokespersons, and can hold them accountable for their actions (Banks et al. 2015).

Grassroots organizations of affected people are often characterized in relationship and contrast to those (mostly international) NGOs who advocate on behalf of marginalized groups and disadvantaged others,¹¹ and APO involvement in global policy-making is often presented as an alternative and supplement to the participation of international NGOs (INGOs). One important reason for this is that the respective INGOs are mostly based in the Global North (Brühl 2010: 192). However, even when southern-based NGOs get to participate in global policy-making, they often represent southern elites rather than marginalized populations within their own countries (ibid.: 193). Moreover, third-party advocacy NGOs are mainly accountable to donors, in contrast to APOs that are accountable to local populations (Banks et al. 2015). Additionally, self-empowerment is a constitutive element of APOs, whereas INGOs acting on behalf of others tend to portray these groups as disempowered victims (Batliwala 2002: 405).

Links between both types of organizations have varied in the past. It has been highlighted that INGO in some cases can be important lobbying partners for APOs (Uvin 1995: 503). The boomerang model (Keck & Sikkink 1998) describes how local actors network with INGOs in order to take local concerns to the global level. INGOs can also function as important supporters of organizations of affected people by providing resources and other forms of support (Banks et al. 2015: 713–715). For example, in the area of agricultural governance Annette Schramm and Jan Sändig (2019) have observed the existence of “affectedness alliances” in which INGOs chiefly act as supporters of APOs. However, others have outlined that INGOs in terms of preferences, goals and strategies time and again have been unrepresentative of the grassroots populations in whose name they proclaim to speak (Batliwala 2002: 396-398; Hahn & Holzscheiter 2013). Others have aired concerns about co-optation or a risk to lose tight connections

11 However, in reality the distinction between NGOs and APOs may not always be clear-cut: Some

grassroots organizations are formally constituted as NGOs. Thus, it is important to understand that NGO in this context does not refer to all those organizations formally constituted as NGOs, but in a more limited way to intermediary organizations that engage in advocacy or delivering service to the (supposed) benefit of marginalized third actors. Thus, the main distinction between NGOs and APOs here is that the former act on behalf of disenfranchised others, whereas the latter are constituted of marginalized actors and raise their own voices. More precisely, we should therefore talk about “third-party advocacy NGOs” in this context.

to grassroots when APOs engage too closely with INGOs (Uvin 1995: 505). At the same time, INGOs and APOs differ with regard to resources and thus also with regard to power and opportunities to impact on global policy-making (Batliwala 2002: 397–398;

Hasenclever & Narr 2019).

Thus, in some issue areas traditionally dominated by northern NGOs, APOs now bring in alternative voices, new perspectives and local experiences (Sändig et al. 2019). For example, in global agriculture governance, La Vía Campesina as a global movement of peasant and small farmers presented itself as an alternative to the (now dissolved) International Federation of Agricultural Producers which was more oriented towards farmers from the Global North and had for decades represented the farmers’ voice within international organizations (Borras Jr 2008: 260).¹² In global environmental governance “Southern-based movements and organizations like Via Campesina, Third World Network, and Focus on the Global South and their grassroots Northern allies […]

now compete with professionalized NGO advocates to demand that the communities most affected speak for themselves” (Reitan & Gibson 2012: 399). Generally, it has been argued that APOs are actively “challenging the rights of nongrassroots organizations to lead and represent them” (Batliwala 2002: 400).

The growth of strong grassroots movements has been met by a shift of international organizations towards the direct inclusion of APOs.¹³ Thus, it has been suggested that decision-makers at the global level increasingly act according to the principle that those affected by a particular global challenge should be directly – without the mediation of NGOs - involved in developing solutions to it (Sändig et al. 2019). In fact, there are a growing number of cases in which APOs have been provided with official roles in global policy-making. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) describes itself as a partnership between UN agencies, governments, civil society, the private sector and affected communities, and its Board includes representatives of the latter as members with voting rights.¹⁴ Organizations of persons with disabilities were strongly involved in the negotiations of the UN's Convention on the Rights of Persons

12 The International Federation of Agricultural Producers was subsequently re-founded as World Farmers Organization. Thanks to Annette Schramm for this point.

13 The shift towards the growing inclusion of APO voices also is reflected in a changing terminology in the UN context. Whereas until the mid-1990s, UN documents and reports predominantly referred to NGOs, since then the broader term civil society is generally preferred which encompasses peoples’ movements and other actors (McKeon 2009: 13).

14 https://www.theglobalfund.org/en/overview/, accessed 24.012019.

with Disabilities (Lord et al. 2010). The International Fund for Agricultural Development has established a Farmer’s Forum as an ongoing tripartite process of consultation and dialogue involving organizations of peasant farmers, governments and IFAD itself (McKeon 2009: 155); building on this experience, IFAD has more recently also established an Indigenous Peoples’ Forum which met for the first time in 2013.¹⁵ The stipulations of the FAO’s Committee on World Food Security (CFS) are especially far-reaching, as since its reform in 2009 it explicitly prioritizes participation by grassroots movements and community-based organizations (Brem-Wilson 2017). The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, in turn, consists of members nominated by states and by Indigenous peoples, whereas NGOs and other Indigenous organizations might participate as observers (see below).

At the same time, APO participation does not replace NGO involvement at the global level. Instead, transnational institutions involve both types of actors in varying ways and hierarchies. Markus Hasl (2019) distinguishes between three different ways in which NGO and APO participation co-exist in transnational institutions: the subordination, parity, and priority model. He explains that in some institutions such as UNAIDS, affected persons are involved indirectly by encouraging the NGO constituency to include affected persons among their representatives (subordination model). Other institutions, for example the Global Fund or UNITAID, allow for the parallel participation of NGO and APO delegations, thus enabling APOs to participate independently (parity model). In turn, APO participation is strongest in those organizations which prioritize their participation over the involvement of NGOs, such as in the CFS or the Arctic Council¹⁶ (priority model). Thus, we can observe the growing relevance of an “affectedness paradigm” in global policy-making which puts emphasis on the participation of organizations consisting of and led by affected persons and which increasingly complements the more traditional “public interest paradigm” characterized by NGO advocacy (ibid., see Figure 1).

15 https://www.ifad.org/web/guest/indigenous-peoples-forum, accessed 24.01.2019.

16 The Arctic Council is an intergovernmental forum which promotes cooperation between Arctic states and local Indigenous peoples. Six organizations representing Arctic Indigenous peoples have a status of Permanent Participants within the Council. See https://arctic-council.org/en/about-us, accessed 02.02.2020

Figure 1: Participation by APOs in global policy-making. Source: Sändig et al. (2019).

Still, there have also been limitations to the trend towards the inclusion of APOs. In a survey of UN bodies and organizations, McKeon (2009: 130–131) finds that less than half of the respondents report medium or high success in reaching out to social movements and grassroots organizations, and argues that the UN’s capacity to relate with this type of actor remains weak. Hahn and Holzscheiter (2013: 503) suggest that in comparison to NGOs which often count with long lasting and well established relationships with IOs, some APOs still encounter severe obstacles to get access to international venues and policy-making. Moreover, openness to affected actors does not seem to have occurred equally across all policy fields (Sändig et al. 2019).

If the affectedness paradigm has become a driver for the relations between IOs and civil society, what exactly does it mean to be affected, and how does affectedness translate into participation rights? From a scholarly viewpoint, affectedness may be conceptualized in many different ways (Sändig et al. 2019). For example, Carol Gould (2014: 203, see also Hasl 2019) suggests that participation rights emerge when people’s abilities to fulfill their basic human rights are concerned. Patrick Toussaint (2019) has suggested conceptualizing affectedness in the area of climate governance by the degree of risk to suffer from the adverse impacts of climate change. These suggestions distinguish affected populations from general society by the vulnerability of their living

conditions to external influence and impact. However, in this context it remains a challenge to draw a line between those “sufficiently” affected to gain participation rights, and those not (Sändig et al. 2019).

While these are relevant criteria which could serve to evaluate which actors should be participating in a certain institution, many IOs have already opened their doors to groups of local people or communities that they consider to be affected by their action, and therefore act on an operationalized understanding of affectedness. In practice, APOs calling for participation rights in the transnational arena often do so by claiming to be affected by a particular project, policy or organization, suggesting that affectedness is socially constructed in an exchange and dialogue between grassroots organizations and policy-makers (Sändig et al. 2019).

While the engagement of non-state actors generally and affected actors more specifically has risen in global governance, Indigenous peoples as one particularly vulnerable group have increased their voice and visibility especially at the UN level. It has even been claimed that the “participation of indigenous peoples in international law and policy making is especially profound, exceeding that of NSAs generally” (Charters 2010: 219).

In the following section, I will check up on this assumption.