Research for Action

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:13 -0500

by Chubashini Suntharalingam, Southeast Asian Council for Food Security and Fair Trade (SEACON)

Download full notebook below.[*note]

Responding to the rise of free trade in the global economy, the Southeast Asian Council for Food Security (SEACON) set out in 2003 to conduct a unique, participatory research project to investigate the impacts of these macroeconomic changes on small scale food producers in Southeast Asia. Research manager Chubashini Suntharalingam’s notebook entitled "Research for Action" outlines the process. The notebook serves as a useful guide for organizations in creating participatory research projects that effectively involve and empower the people impacted by the issues they are studying.

In it, the author first outlines the research methods that characterize a participatory research process. These include the challenges of conducting interviews and organizing focused discussion groups. The author also confronts the difficulties of working with researchers that are untrained in writing documents and reports, as well as the potential issues that must be considered working with participants at the grassroots level. For example, in SEACON’s study, the very people that were struggling economically as a result of the issues that the organization sought to study were also limited in their capacity to participate in the project as a result of these hardships. Taking the time to conduct an interview would mean loosing hours that needed to be spent working. The issue serves to exemplify how, by involving local communities, researches must also be considerate of their unique needs.

Looking beyond the research process, the notebook also details the potential impacts of participatory research that creates thorough, credible documentation at the grassroots level. Not only can the information be utilized in advocacy and lobbying efforts, the research process itself can serve to create a network of activists, informing organizations working on issues that impact study participants, and directly benefiting the people themselves. Participatory research "empowers local communities," the author concludes, "connecting victims of human rights violations to the information they need to become active defenders of their right and to develop creative solutions to human rights challenges."

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from http://www.adobe.com

Leveraging the Money

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:06 -0500

Leveraging the Money

by Ulrich Mueller

Download full notebook below. [*note]

In this notebook Ulrich Mueller describes a strategy of the FoodFirst Information and Action Network to influence large mining operations that were causing various human rights abuses, by putting pressure on banks and other financial institutions that invest in those mines. The notebook provides a thorough analysis of the kinds of research and pressure tactics that can provide an important new source of leverage for communities that are trying to counter the damage that can be caused by huge corporate projects on or near their land. This tactic can be extended to cover a broad range of issues in which there is a need to pressure corporations, as it takes into account their crucial dependence on the globalized financial community to invest in their operations, and the growing sensitivity of that financial community to sociopolitical pressure.

This notebook explains how the FoodFirst Information and Action Network influenced financial institutions to promote better protections for human rights or to prevent projects that would lead to human rights violations. FIAN Germany used this tactic mainly in a campaign against violations of the right-to-food caused by large surface gold mines. The campaign cooperates closely with affected communities and local organizations. Together with these partners, FIAN investigates the human rights problems of specific mines. We then use a number of instruments to bring the findings to the attention of investors and the public: fact-finding mission reports, calls for urgent action among members, involving human rights bodies at the national and international level, media work, speaker tours, conferences and lobbying. This combination provides new leverage to influence financial institutions and mining companies. And this in turn helps affected communities to claim their rights under difficult circumstances.

We started to support mining-affected communities in 1995. The first contacts we had were with communities in Peru and Turkey. In some of these cases, German investors were involved in financing the mines. This gave us an opportunity to link human rights violations in other countries to actors in Germany. And it also proved to be an effective tool to put pressure on the mining companies. From that starting point, FIAN began using investor pressure as a primary tactic in its gold mining campaign. The tactic of directing campaigns toward financial institutions is not limited to mining.

As financial institutions are, more and more, a powerful economic force worldwide, this tactic could be used in a variety of ways in other cases of corporate abuse: Industry-wide campaigns are pressing financial institutions like banks or pension funds to withdraw support from specific industrial sectors or to pressure companies in that sector to adopt new standards or practices. Campaigns might also focus on an individual company or a specifically harmful project (like large infrastructure projects, dams, mines, etc.). In these cases, investors might be urged to withdraw their support from a specific project or to pressure the company to change their behavior. Additionally, campaigns might focus on financial market practices themselves and demand new investment rules and practices like ethical investment.

This notebook focuses on project-level campaigning, using the example of a gold-mining project in Ghana. It will start with background information on the human rights impacts of surface gold mining. The elements of the tactic will be explained and illustrated through the example. The second part will discuss what questions are important when using the tactic and how the tactic could be transferred.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

water

Research for Action

Leveraging the Money

Leveraging the Money