Civic Driven Change – Emerging narrative, new practice?
Civic Driven Change – Emerging narrative, new practice?
by Remko Berkhout
Tags: Knowledge programme
Hivos has been part of the core group of Dutch private aid agencies that drive the emerging narrative of civic driven change. In October 2008, a first seminar explored the theoretical framework of CDC. Last week, ISS hosted a follow up seminar to explore the practice of CDC by examining a number of civic driven change case studies. In the words of Alan Fowler: ‘cdc needs to be bashed and questioned, in order to gain more robustness’ A lively series of debates followed. Civic Driven Change touches the key questions of the Civil Society Building Knowledge Programme and injects new perspectives and questions.
The seminar brought together a diverse group of 150 participants – scholars, practitioners, activists and students of development. The sheer interest for the seminar illustrated the relevance of the CDC-debate as an impetus for change and renewal of the development sector in general and the MFOs in particular. The case studies presented a wide range of examples of development in practice, including cases in the Netherlands, (party) political interventions, new types of programmes from the ‘south’ and transnational initiatives, such as the World Social Forum. Applying a cdc-lens, the discussions around the cases reflected on the emerging framework and explored innovative elements and new questions.
The ISS-HIVOS civil society building programme had invited Simon Kabanda from the Citizen’s forum in Zambia to present a case of non-aided citizen action on constitutional reform. How does the cdc-debate relate to the three main questions of the civil society building knowledge programme? The first research question seeks to improve our understanding of civil society formation and the role of local actors in this process? Civil society, as a concept and as a sector is highly complex. Here the cdc-debates offers fresh perspectives and new angles by challenging the develop ment sector to look beyond ‘the usual suspects’ i.e. Southern (intermediary) NGOs and across sectors. This then relates directly to the second research question. Given the complexity of civil society structure and the variety of actors and institutions that shape it, how do/can external actors influence its development. Here the emerging cdc-narrative calls for a more humble modest role of outsiders, with potentially significant consequences for current (I)NGO practice. But the best of cdc is saved for the last research question of the knowledge programme: How does civil society building contribute to changes in unequal power balances? This touches the very origins of cdc: the desire to add a civic narrative to a market/state dominated development debate. While anticipating the final report, it seems safe to conclude that the cdc-narrative was strengthened by the discussions, while a number of issues in the sphere of civil society building remain up for debate. How can we apply a cdc-lens in fragile states, where basic citizenship rights are often not safeguarded? What of vulnerable/excluded groups non regarded as citizens by their own societies? How does the political economy of citizen action play itself out in practice? What does the emerging framework imply for our own practice and how do we deal with the tensions it provokes with the current development paradigms that we find ourselves in? How to balance the quest for a new civic discourse with progressive change in the substance of our practice? How to bring more non-aided civic actors into the debate? In short, questions abound for practitioners, academics and policy makers.
The Civil Society Building Knowledge Programme will continue to contribute to the cdc-debate, both from academic and practitioners perspectives. In the next few months, we expect a case study from Zambia on aided and non-aided citizen-action for constitutional reform. Our research partners in South Africa will present case studies in migrant rights and citizen action for basic public services. And in November, Marjoke Oosterom will facilitate a PSO workshop on citizenship and fragile states.