VIII. Recommendations

The following list of recommendations parallel the structure of this report and is organized around the following areas: NGO Organizing, Annual Report, Secretariat and Novib.

 NGO Organizing

 National

Strengthen data collection, report-writing, mobilization and advocacy skills.

Produce a range of popular tools and mechanisms to raise awareness among NGOs and the public at large of the Social Summit and Women’s Conference commitments and their policy implications.

Document and share best practices with a broad range of civil society actors, particularly on building and sustaining advocacy capacity, advocating for alternative development policies including the results of such efforts, and developing mechanisms to broaden participation in Social Watch.

Develop media strategies and press releases to disseminate information on a regular basis.

Work with educators to incorporate social development materials into school curricula.

 Regional

Develop a clear scope of work for the coordinating committee, decide if its focus is substantive or organizational, and rotate coordinating committee members on a regular basis.

Create regional partnerships and opportunities for strengthening coordination and sharing of experiences on monitoring and advocacy strategies and report generation

Promote the inclusion of underrepresented countries and regions including French-speaking, Central and South Africa and parts of the Pacific.

 International

Advise the UN Secretariat on how to increase the effectiveness of the UN follow-up process by developing innovative ways of addressing social development issues within the Commission for Social Development (CSD)

Decide if the CSD’s annual meeting is the most strategic and visible place for the launching of the Annual Report. 

Identify a team of Social Watcher to publicize the Annual Report at an event that attracts more media coverage than the CSD, as well as attention from governments and other key actors, such as the World Bank/IMF annual meetings and WTO ministerial meetings.

Link with other inter-governmental processes on cross-cutting issues such as financing for development, new financial architecture, and economic, social and cultural rights.

Develop a well-defined political advocacy agenda based on the research findings and cutting edge policy recommendations in the Annual Reports.

Create a division of labor among Social Watchers to better coordinate international advocacy and media outreach at UN and other international meetings. 

Assess the causes and consequences of regional Social Watch activities largely organized in the South compared to international lobbying activities involving more northern NGOs.

 Annual Report

The Annual Report could use major revisions.  While it has undoubtedly served a beneficial purpose to date, several questions need to be addressed regarding its purpose, audience, usability, form, content, time involved and production costs.

 Content

Orient the introductory “think piece” around the regressive or progressive trends, by region and theme, that emerge from the national reports.  This would help identify core messages from the report and define areas for further advocacy at the national and international levels.

Select fewer, more cutting edge, policy oriented thematic articles to support advocacy goals and advance the debate on key economic and social development issues.  For example the year 2001 report could include select country reports focused on financing for development issues in order to link it to the upcoming inter-governmental discussions on the issue.

Convene a meeting of activists and academics to develop a systematic approach to integrating a gender analysis in the Annual Report, particularly with regard to: the compilation and presentation of indicators, preparation of guidelines for national reports, encouraging Social Watchers to develop a framework for analyzing the gender disparities in measuring progress and writing the overarching ‘think piece.’

Develop standards for publishing country reports based on quality, content and process involved. 

Provide clear explanations in the methodological chapters with accompanying charts and graphs.

Ensure that the Annual Report is maintained as a professional and statistically viable document while promoting related formats that could be used in different contexts.  One way of doing this would be to include sections that could be pulled out, used and translated to reach a broader audience.

Organize training workshops to increase NGO capacity in the areas of data collection, use of alternative indicators and indices, and report-writing.

 Indicators

Organize a methodological workshop involving a broad range of social scientists and economists, to revisit and refine existing indicators, ensure their relevance and develop new indices. 

Document and develop clear explanations – in both scientific and lay-person terms – of the development of methodologies, indicators and indices.

Identify clearly the assumptions made in developing indicators, indices and explanations of sets of non-numeric icons.

Develop methodologies that allow for combining policy indicators with indicators analyzing results.

Increase work on relevance and usability of indicators on a local level

Strengthen and update Social Watch’s online database by incorporating data from national statistical bureaus and databases (in lieu of depending on the incomplete data supplied by international organizations).

Strengthen national level data collection methods.

Develop methodologies to question larger framework of macro economic policies in lieu of focusing solely on the measurement and evaluation of social development commitments.

Work to advance more sensitive and appropriate social development indicators by engaging the UN and other bodies in technical discussions.

 Format

Render the annual report more user-friendly by maintaining a readable font, ensuring editorial quality, and limiting its length.

Improve the editorial quality of the report to avoid numerous typographical and editorial inconsistencies and errors.

Promote the translation of the Annual report into other languages including Arabic and French. 

Develop a shorter, popular form of the Annual Report, highlighting key issues and indicators, for dissemination and use beyond the current readership of intellectuals, researchers, opinion and policy makers. 

Produce the report in a CD format.

 Dissemination

Enhance the profile of the report by commissioning feature articles in every region and incorporating one table that visually represents the core messages of progression or regression. 

Develop a coherent and targeted media strategy using widely disseminated press releases around the core messages and trends of progression and regression.

Develop commercial strategies that would lessen expenses incurred and ultimately ensure cost recovery of the Annual Report.

Elaborate broader links with public libraries, universities, international organizations, local networks.

Sell five-year subscriptions of the annual report on a sliding scale.

Develop a variety of strategies by national organizations to diffuse and popularize the report.

Identify mechanisms to share information and ensure transparency around production, dissemination and use of the report.

 Secretariat

Revisit the organizational structure of the secretariat, its roles and responsibilities.

Develop - together with Social Watchers - a mutual definition of purpose, and mission, principles of partnership, division of labor and clear scopes of work within Social Watch. 

Address issues of accountability – to whom, for what purpose and on whose terms.

Create mechanisms to ensure linguistic and regional diversity.

Promote dialogue and exchange (electronically or otherwise) between national and regional focal points and international experts on international policy initiatives such as: fair trade, debt cancellation and alternative development.

Produce additional dissemination materials such as campaign literature on Social Watch and practical monitoring manuals.

Engender more interaction with groups that prepare national reports; develop a set of tools – such as country specific indicators, and methodological guidelines for gathering and processing of data – to build their capacity. 

Diversify and internationalize the Social Watch secretariat by encouraging visiting activists and academics from different parts of the world to spend six months to one year in Montevideo. 

Develop an advocacy agenda and strategy with Watchers prior to international meetings to provide focus and cohesion. 

Engage fundraising and media consultants.

 Novib

Develop concrete measures to integrate “lessons learned” from Novib’s internal evaluation into its future advocacy, policy and programming work.

Address power imbalances that arise out of the donor/partner relationship.

Promote measures to ensure that Social Watch work emanates from the needs of groups on the ground and are not the result of a top-down initiative.

Create coherent policies and improve internal information flow and communication across and within the three departments - programming, advocacy and policy and campaigns - with regard to Social Watch support. 

Improve communication and consultation with the Social Watch secretariat.

Provide seed funds or full support for in-depth, long-term research and development of alternative methodologies, indicators and indices. 

Strengthen NGO organizational, technical and scientific capacity.

Develop mechanisms to ensure that organizations in the South do not suffer from the financial depreciation of the Euro.

Rotate role of regional coordination to an active national NGO within Europe.