Poverty, Voice and Advocacy: A Haitian Study

"[H]ow do successful innovations get taken up by policy processes? And how to give voice to those with direct experience or connection to the issues at hand in the process?"

The product of a 12-month action research project by the Haitian non-profit organisation Fonkoze with support from the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), this Making All Voices Count paper examines Fonkoze's work to give voice and promote downwards accountability to people, especially women, who have experienced ultra-poverty by enabling them to articulate their views within the policy process. The paper examines voice at two levels: national voice in an international policy agenda, and citizen voice in the national policy process.

In Haiti, 59% of the population live in poverty and 24% in extreme poverty (World Bank 2017). Given these high levels of need, beginning in 2007, Fonkoze's approach through the Chemen Lavi Miyò (CLM), or Pathway to a Better Life, programme was to distinguish a sub-group, the "ultra-poor", and to focus on one geographical area (the Central Plateau). The CLM seeks to reach the economically poorest women in rural Haiti with an 18-month support package including assets, a cash stipend, weekly mentoring visits, skills training, and savings facilities. Over the past ten years, Fonkoze has "graduated" more than 5,000 women and their families into sustainable livelihoods, with a 96% success rate.

However, despite international recognition for this graduation approach, Fonkoze's work is little known within Haitian policy circles on social protection and poverty. The decision to instigate an advocacy strategy came from the recognition that to maximise the value of its experience and expertise, Fonkoze would have to influence other development actors in Haiti. Thus, the strategy workshop held by IDS and Fonkoze sought to define needs, challenges, and opportunities by bringing together a number of actors from government, local non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and civil society. This included discussion on experience of Haitian policy processes and successful advocacy efforts. For example, there was active participation from a former secretary of state who was living with a disability and had led a very successful campaign to increase recognition and rights for disabled people in Haiti. Using a rapid outcome mapping approach (ROMA) approach, the workshop developed desired outcomes for key stakeholders and a plan of activities related to development of Haiti's social protection policy. (The sectoral table on social protection was initially announced in 2014, and following a number of workshops, it was formally launched in April 2016, coordinated by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour.)

For example, as part of the process to make the ultra-poor visible, the need to give voice to ultra-poor people themselves in this process was highlighted - borrowing from a popular campaign slogan used in campaigns for disabled people, "nothing about us without us". The hope was that CLM members would convey their own experiences and priorities and potentially influence the attitudes and practices of people devising the national social protection strategy. (The report traces the emergence of the social protection agenda in Haiti.) Recognising the importance of both state and international actors in forming the strategy, Fonkoze sought to engage with both.

An important part of the framing of ROMA is an analysis of "real-world" policy processes and the implications of this for how advocacy is designed and understood. Key points highlighted include that:

• Policy processes are complex and rarely linear or logical; therefore, advocacy needs to be reflective and adaptive.
• Policy processes are only weakly informed by research-based evidence, and policymakers have different concepts of "good evidence".
• There is a range of other political and resource factors that affect decisions, including the need to make a "reasonable" decision (quickly).
• There is a need for a holistic understanding of context, including external influences such as donor policies, political context (people, processes, institutions) and type, quality, contestability of research and how this is communicated, and linkages with other actors.
• Communication and networking are essential parts of influencing policy, implying the need to engage with key players based on an understanding of politics and interests through different channels and media.
• There needs to be a deliberate focus and commitment to influencing.

ROMA consists of three main activities, each of which is broken down into a series of steps (see Figure 3 on page 17). Actions were defined in three dimensions:

1. Engaging with graduated CLM members to understand and define their own priorities in terms of raising the voice of "ultra-poverty" in the Haitian policy and development context, and then to engage with stakeholders that they identify.
2. Working with allies to leverage their existing relationships, networks, and channels to the "ultra-poor agenda".
3. Facilitating engagement activities involving a range of stakeholders to discuss technical, programmatic, and policy issues, in which the perspectives of CLM members can be included.

Fonkoze's experiences with the CLM programme and evidence generated by the complementary research activities were designed to form the basis for this engagement. The two key parts of the process by which CLM seeks to influence policy and practice are empowering voice for ultra-poor citizens and building and strengthening relationships with identified stakeholders. Together, these shaped actions, discussions, and messaging. The technical and donor meetings (described in the report), in particular, made Fonkoze and the CLM programme more visible within policy circles. It opened the door and gave credibility for ongoing engagement. In addition, in an effort to build new alliances (such as with Kore Lavi, a multi-organisation partnership that falls under the auspices of the Ministry), Fonkoze aimed to better understand the perspectives of different stakeholders and to engage in a way that was supportive (rather than pushing a "graduation agenda").

The report examines specific efforts undertaken to get the voice of CLM members heard. Two activities were articulated as part of this process. The first step was to help women who were former CLM members to articulate their own messages through an "open space" event, exploring issues around the "invisibility" of the ultra-poor and their capacity to move out of poverty. The 27 CLM graduates at the meeting defined messages they wished to communicate, and identified who to direct these messages to. "For most women, immersed in survival in a risky environment where solidarity comes primarily through family or community, advocacy was an alien concept." Next, Fonkoze set up an advocacy meeting with the identified organisations and work with four selected former CLM members to prepare the event. The advocacy meeting was attended by women's organisations, plus staff and students from the University of Quisqueya (a local private university). Following the opening of the meeting, the four CLM members each spoke in turn highlighting their experiences of ultra-poverty. However, although CLM members talked about their lived experience and about becoming empowered, this was not convincing for some of the women's organisations present, who criticised both the paternalism of CLM and the lack of solidarity of former CLM members with other women (saying that they were not doing enough to empower other extremely economically poor women). "While the aim of enabling ultra-poor women to communicate their experiences directly is certainly valid, the process of supporting those women to engage more effectively would need to be a much longer and more considered one."

The report concludes by sharing some lessons learned from this experience. For example: "The former CLM women, enmeshed in the structures that impoverish and marginalise them, cannot easily step outside of those structures and engage in a way that gives voice to their needs, other than in terms of those structures. It cannot be their job to better articulate their needs; rather, it is the job of those who seek to catalyse change to listen and seek to understand their views." Furthermore, "Aid effectiveness - informed by the idea that aid is only effective if good policies are in place - presumes an effective voice of government in policy processes, but in Haiti, this domestic ownership is sorely lacking."