THE 'PREHISTORY' OF Social Watch

6 - Novib´s Kick Off

In the context of the UN conferences Novib was active during 1993 in the preparations for the UN World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna. For this conference Novib created a 'reference group' of partner organisations. The idea of a 'reference group' stemmed from a meeting in October 1992 between Novib and the UN Non Governmental Liaison Committee in New York. NGLS recommended that a shared approach between Northern NGOs with Southern NGOs would not only enhance the Southern participation in the Conference but would also strengthen the potential impact of the lobbying. The 'reference group' established by Novib in the lead up to the UN human rights conference consisted of women's organisations only. For Novib the participation in the UN Human Rights conference was seen as a step in a bigger initiative towards the fourth World Conference on Women, to be held in Beijing in 1995.

Novib saw the reference group as a very useful tool from a political point of view. First and foremost, it created an exchange with Southern partner organisations on the substance and strategy of advocacy work. Expertise of the New York and Washington based International Human Rights Law Group (IHRLG) assisted in guiding practical and substantive questions on how the UN process could most effectively be influenced. Within Novib the reference group also helped to broaden the involvement in the advocacy process from the political unit to the programme department, in charge of relations with Southern partners. In the EU Oxfam UKI had gained interest in the process and participated in the meetings as well.

When Novib decided to work around the Social Summit, with an interest in ensuring that NGOs would play an important role, the reference group was chosen as the approach to create Southern involvement. At a meeting during the UN Human Rights Conference in June 1993 in Vienna the 'women's reference group' decided, therefore, to embark on a strategy to participate into the Social Summit process as a preparation to the Beijing conference.25 Novib then decided that the existing reference group - functioning with the Women's Conference in Beijing as its main advocacy objective, would be broadened so as to incorporate the Social Summit process as well. Novib's Director General declared in return that the process would keep a strong commitment to raise the issue of women's rights. In this context Novib's director also established the principle that the preparations for the Social Summit and the Beijing Conference would be two elements of one strategy.

The decision to broaden the 'reference group' and use it in the preparations of the Social Summit fundamentally changed the nature of the original 'reference group'. Whereas the first 'women's reference group' consisted of organisations that were already actively involved in the Women's human rights lobby process - and hence had their own programme on the issues, the new version of the reference group incorporated new organisations invited by Novib to participate in the process. No longer was the group composed only of women's organisations. Novib's project department was asked to propose new candidate organisations for the reference group, on the basis of criteria developed by the policy department. Novib would take responsibility for the financial requirements for participation. This would lead later in the process to some ambiguity in the political and financial processes of co-operation between Novib and its partners. It would also lead to some uncertainties concerning 'ownership' and 'visibility' of the advocacy work that needed to be resolved.²⁶

ITeM and Novib agreed in the following months on how the APC network could be used in the preparatory process. It was agreed that an experienced person be employed in New York to ensure that the necessary information was available to NGOs. Novib financed this 'project' and interpreted the tasks of the information manager as administratively supporting all aspects related to the engagement of the reference group in the process. In Novib's view the information manager was based in New York to help Novib in organising the reference group. In Novib's view the provision of information was one element in a set of broader tasks.

ITeM, who employed the information manager, defined the role as enhancing NGO participation in the Summit. It saw the task as ensuring that not only the reference group, but also NGOs in general, were kept updated about any news relevant to the preparatory process of the Social Summit and the Women's Conference. For ITeM information was a strategic asset that should be used to ensure that the right strategic decisions were taken by the NGOs coalitions. ITeM did not see the information manager as being directly accountable to Novib. Differences between Novib and ITeM in the concrete understanding of the terms of this position would continue to cause tensions that were never fully resolved.

The concept of the 'reference group' established a new approach to lobbying by Novib, not on behalf of the partners but with the partners. While this created important new political opportunities it also produced pressure relating to:

1. The influence of Novib as provider of financial support and as an advocacy actor causing inequality in the lobby co-operation between 'partners';
   
2. The engagement of locally oriented organisations, alongside lobby organisations, ensuing broader participation but also generating differences in the initial ability to define joint strategic processes in the preparatory process.

The 'reference group' was no longer a meeting of equal and independent actors engaged in a common process from different perspectives - according to its original design. The new 'reference group' to the Social Summit had inbuilt pressures that needed to be addressed if co-operation was going to be successful.²⁷

6.1 - Development of a political programme

The establishment of the reference group at the beginning of the process meant that a political programme for the reference group had to be created rather than negotiated. In the beginning Novib took the initiative to do this.28 An initial draft on the possible content of the Summit was prepared by Novib and circulated to 160 Southern partners. Forty-nine organisations responded. The replies were analysed and fed into a second version. TWN provided focus to the content of the meeting during a Brainstorming Meeting organised in Penang.29 The paper was also discussed at regional meetings between Novib and its Southern partners.30 This consultation process eventually led to the publication of the "Novib position paper. The UN Summit on Social Development", presented at the first PrepCom in January 1994. Additionally this paper was widely circulated to Novib's Southern partners.

This Novib position paper drew attention to the structural impediments to social development, and incorporated issues such as debt and structural adjustment. It also sought to address the issue of accountability of the International Financial Institutions and put social development in the context of a human rights perspective. Furthermore, as the work in the reference group was embedded in advocacy for women's rights it drew particular attention to political participation of women. The paper further prioritised the role of civil society on social development as a key issue for the Summit - which obviously also had a strategic importance.

In identifying these issues, the paper pushed the agenda of the Summit to go well beyond the narrow and only national conceptualisation of social development. It brought macro-economic issues on the agenda. It made the connection to the strong and active women's movement, and it brought the role of NGOs themselves on the agenda. In general Southern partners of Novib supported this basic approach, although some initial differences existed as to whether or not human rights instruments would be helpful mechanisms to achieve the other objectives set out in the paper. These differences was resolved by emphasising that human rights were universal ánd indivisible, pointing to the complementarity between civil and political rights on the one hand and social, economic and cultural rights on the other. This merger between a 'rights-based' approach and a macro-economic approach remained an important feature of the substantive common position between NGOs during the Summit preparations. This was important because it enabled the emergence of a coalition between development NGOs with a predominant political-economic analysis with women's rights and human rights organisations.

The 'Novib paper', of which 350 copies were distributed during the first PrepCom, was the most elaborated substantive contribution at the earliest stage of negotiations. It succeeds in influencing the official agenda during the first PrepCom at the end of which the official documents incorporated most elements that had been brought forward in the position paper. Also position papers of other group, such as the Women's Caucus and the International Council of Social Welfare took over proposals from the initial 'Novib paper'.

However, even though the process of putting the lobby-paper together had involved many Southern NGOs, the paper was identified as a 'Novib position paper' and was a barrier to creating a common framework for action for the reference group during the first PrepCom. The reference group, which was initially being referred to as the 'Novib' group, suffered from a lack of space in which to create distinct organisational identities in the process. In time the strategic importance of fluid alliances in which the identity of individual organisations and groups of organisations could be constructed based of efficiency in advocacy was better understood.