Working better with INGOs on research

1. Working better with INGOs on research Duncan Green, Oxfam June 2011

2. First, understand your INGO • Why are we interested in research? • What do we mean by the word ‘research’ • What does good research look like?

3. Why are we interested in research? • Impact, impact and, er impact • Advocacy and campaigns • Improved programme design and delivery • Otherwise, curiosity in short supply? • Often bad at keeping/conserving/valuing knowledge

4. What do we mean by the word ‘research’? • Follows from requirement for impact • Narrative > data – telling a story • Witnessing • Catching the eye of press and decision makers • Clear messages in terms of • Problems • Solutions • Which can mean dismissive of nuance, complexity or ‘two handed’ experts

5. What does good research look like? • Relevant to public agendas • Good review of literature • Strongly rooted in poor people’s experience • Tackles issues of power and inequality • Clear message on problem and solution • Killer facts, stats etc for impact • Answers deadly ‘What’s new?’ question

6. Are INGOs any good at research? Strengths Weaknesses Better at qual than quant Methodology can be weak Short attention span Relations to DC researchers £ and capacity • Rooted in communities and partners • Commitment to participation and action research • Advocate with policy makers • Excellent comms • Spot opportunities

7. How can UKCDS members engage better with INGOs? • Encourage co-design from inception • That means understanding evolving INGO thinking (luckily herding should make that relatively easy......) • Immediate (0-3 year) herding on......

8. A retro theme – hunger and resource constraints Source: WFP

9. Global ecological boundaries (cannot be shifted) Reality in 2010 Environmental impact of global consumption 7 billion Consumption share of those living in poverty

10. Global ecological boundaries (cannot be shifted) Vision for 2050 Environmental impact of global consumption 9 billion Consumption share of those living in poverty

11. How well do we understand change? • How Change Happens: steady state • What are our theories of change? How well do we understand, apply or even acknowledge them? • E.g. 1: is social/political change mainly urban or rural? • E.g. 2 Discontinuity and shocks • Emergence and complexity • How do we plan for/respond to the Arab Spring?

12. What do we measure and why? • Pressure to prove impact and value for money poses threats and opportunities • Threats: we measure what is easy, not what is important, e.g. • Rights and power • Volatility and Resilience > stocks and average flows • Poverty v wellbeing – fear and shame • The unpaid and unvalued world

13. A new global system is being born • Networks & variable geometry (CSOs as well as nations) • We won’t like aspects of G8 -> G20 • growth v aid; space for CSOs and Africa • Piecemeal global (and regional) government • International Finance (Robin Hood, tax havens etc) • Environment (> Climate Change) • Trade and investment • Migration • Knowledge • International Humanitarian Law + ICC • Norms (eg via UN conventions)

14. Technology • Practices v Products • Normally Nice Technologies • Renewables • Low Carbon Transition • ICT • Water conservation • Normally Nasty ones • Geoengineering • Nano • GM (+ nice biotech, eg markers) • Bad medium tech, eg foetal scanners

15. Gender and almost anything • Almost total lack of disaggregated data e.g. Women in agriculture • Caring economy and its links to the formal economy still largely ignored

16. Longer term herding likely on • The end of North-South distinctions in • Aging • Urbanization • Domestic Taxation • Social Protection/welfare state • Mental Health • Disability • Obesity/non communicable disease

17. How well do we understand poverty? • Voices of the poor: ill-being v poverty • Multidimensionality beyond health and education: what about shame and fear? • Multidimensional inequality • The importance of volatility • Prevention: smoothing mechanisms • Cure: social protection, countercyclicality

18. Suggestions for UKCDS members: getting to the grassroots • Access to communities works best if • The research is relevant to the people and partners (e.g. Testing new approaches through action research) • The research is properly discussed at draft stage and dissemination locally on publication • Time and direct costs are properly funded • You need buy in at country level, where staff may see things very differently from INGO HQ

19. Suggestions for UKCDS members:Involve NGOs from the outset • Do consult NGOs at the outset and discuss overlap between priorities • Do think about building NGO and partner research capacity • Don’t decide the agenda and then try and persuade/buy INGOs • Don’t say ‘you can do the voices of the poor bit’ • Don’t just see INGOs as a channel to disseminate research

20. The Prize • Constant and productive interchange between funders, HEIs and NGOs • Create incentives for better linking between the 3 groups • Focus on impact and relevance • Build space for collective reflection on research priorities among NGOs • Built NGOs capacity to understand, commission and use research (as well as do some)

21. Thank you! For more random thoughts From Poverty to Power blog on oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/