In this, the final podcast in the series, we look at the learnings from some recent research that can help your network or movement wherever you are in the world. Find out how you can build consensus for change and what can happen when you don’t; how data can help you shape your advocacy campaign and why framing your messages is key. Host Halima Zaid talks to Suad Ibrahim Abdi, a senior researcher and civil rights activist from Somaliland; Professor Sununguraui Chingarade, a research consultant from Zimbabwe, and Sahra Ahmed Koshin, senior gender research consultant and founder / director of the Somalia Gender Hub.
The three key things you will learn from this podcast are:
Halima: Today's podcast is called ‘From networks to movements: critical learnings from Somaliland, Puntland and Zimbabwe’.
I am your host Halima Zaid. Today we are joined by three researchers who are involved in a recent AmplifyChange knowledge study. The two-year study was funded by the Hewlett Foundation and took place in Somaliland, Puntland and Zimbabwe. The study looked at what works in advocacy to advance policy and legal change to ensure the effective implementation of sexual reproductive health and rights laws and policies.
Halima: Our first guest is Suad Ibrahim Abdi. She's a senior researcher and a programme officer. She has worked for a range of organisations including Progresso, and The Academy of Peace and Development and has over 20 years of working experience in development, institutional building, advocacy and right-based issues, particularly on women rights issues and research. For three years, she was also the secretary of the board of then the newly formed first women network, NAGAAD a women’s umbrella organisation in Somaliland.
Halima: Our second guest is a professor of sociology, Miss Sununguraui D. Chingarade. She has held a number of administrative posts in universities including that of vice chancellor. She's an experienced researcher and has provided consultancy services in Africa to organisations ranging from UN Women and the International Labour Organization to the European Union, USAID and Plan International. She's an external examiner for degree programmes in sociology and development studies for several universities in Zimbabwe and a content reviewer for a number of international journals. Her research interests are gender, equality and women rights issues.
Halima: Our final guest is Sahra Ahmed Koshin. She has over 10 years of experience in institutional strengthening, gender mainstreaming and women's empowerment in Kenya, the Netherlands, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan and Thailand. In Somalia, she has worked with six ministries to strengthen their human and institutional capacity including the Ministry of Women Development and Family Affairs and the Ministry of Education and Higher education.
She's also the deputy executive director and programmes manager at the Somali Institute for Development and Research analysis, also known as SIDRA.
Welcome to all of you. How important is it to build consensus among civil society organisations and coordinate activities when trying to achieve change?
Sahra Ahmed Koshin: It's very important to build consensus among civil society organisations. In the case of Somalia, we are a country that's coming out of 30 plus years of civil war. We lost everything during the war and if we are together, I think we can achieve a lot specifically in the case of advocacy around sexual offences, criminal cases. In order for us to have a louder voice and to pool our resources, we need to have a coordinated response. We need to work together because together we can go very far, and fortunately, that's happening in Somalia. We are seeing that there are more and more organisations coming together because there are many policies than bills in place. Some of the bills have even become laws. But in order to implement these laws, especially the sexual offences law, we need everyone to be on board. Religious leaders, civil society organisations, traditional elders, the media, the government.
Sahra: We need the entire community to come together and hold hands, because I think in doing so, we are showing what is a priority for the community. When everyone is on board and talking about a particular issue, we can feel the weight of that particular issue. And this is one of the best ways to bring about change, I think. We cannot afford to have a fragmented way of doing things. I think the civil society in particular. We have now in Somalia an umbrella organisation that brings together all the civil society organisations and it's called... in the case of Puntland, The Puntland Non-State Actors Association, PUNSAA in short. This is one of the bestplatforms that we have in the country for us to make, for example, an announcement or to get across the message. If you go through PUNSAA, there are many people who will listen and then people who will respond.
Halima: What are some of the challenges of doing that and how can CSOs negotiate those? I'm aware that Somalia has gone through a transition, especially when it comes to passing over law, criminalising all sexual offences. So, what are some of the challenges of doing that and how comes CSOs negotiate those busy on the previous experiences.
Sununguraui Chingarade: With reference to Zimbabwe, what I have observed during the month of the research was that, one of the challenges is competition for resources. Non-governmental organisations, civil society organisations are competing for resources. So, in terms of coming together to share ideas, they are suspicious of each other. So, because of that, there is a serious challenge that needs to be addressed to bring together civil society organisations to run with a common cause. I have also noticed an issue to do with different ideologies. For example, you'll have young women's organisations that have got a pro-choice approach to the safe abortion issue and you have the older sort of non-governmental organisations that are running with the pro-life approach to safe abortion. So, their approaches, which are different completely also make it difficult for them to coordinate.
Halima: Thank you professor. Any other person who has a contribution to that?
Suad Ibrahim Abdi: I think one thing that's very important in bringing civil society, and local organisations together is kind of building the trust. If there's no trust between and among civil local organisations, then things won't move forward. For instance, in the case of Somaliland, it had taken quite a long time for local organisations coming together and discussing and creating understanding among themselves on what are the issues. So, talking about itself for about five or six months sometimes. In the case of NAGAAD, it took us about seven months to come together and discuss, only discuss, what we want to achieve as women organisations in Somaliland. Because of the background of different organisations coming from different backgrounds, different levels of education and different mindset, coming up with one agenda has quite be a challenging for us. So, before we go out to the public, we have to consult with ourselves in terms of differences. How do we want to do things? What will be our responsibilities? What will be the relationship between... the relationship and the rules and responsibilities between umbrellas [organisations] and individual organisations?
Suad: Unless those are clearly defined, it's very hard to move on forward. So, we were able to come up with something and we were able to come up with only two main objectives. One was to increase women's participation in decision making and capacity building for our women local organisations. So, for a good number of years we were only focusing on that and to some extent we were able to make an achievement. For instance, say, in a society like ours, Somalis who are very conservative and religious, praising the voices of women, this is quite challenge. So, I always tell people that if it was not for NAGAAD, that issue wouldn't come out.
Suad: We had lot of challenges, we had a lot of backlashes coming all the directions, criticising us, sometimes giving us bad names, like: those who are promoting Western agendas, you name it. Whatever they said, we never listened to them, we never bowed to them. But we continue with our own agenda and we were able to put women's agenda in all the decisions. We haven't made that much success but at least to some extent we were able to have a woman running for elections both in local council and in parliament. We were able to get some ministers in the cabinet, the issue of quota, which had been tabled for discussion for quite, I think sometime, it's still lingering down there in the parliament, which we are hoping to have it passed, because we're going to have an election in 2020, we are expecting to have that woman's quota in parliament and local council be passed next year.
Suad: So, despite all these challenges, at least the united voices makes civil societies, civil local organisations, their voice is heard, people at least listen to you because once they see this collective voice, they immediately realise that this is a national issue.
Suad: It's not the interest of one person or Suad or Hawa or Hasha. It's what Somaliland women and Somali woman wants, let's at least listen. They might not be making progress, but at least the first thing that they do to us is, they come and they listen. When we ask them that we want to... when we asked our politicians and leaders even to some extent the president. If we asked them to sit with us, they at least come to us. They listen to us. So, I think it's a very, very, very important thing to have that kind of a united voices.
Halima: How can CSOs negotiate for this kind of changes? Let's say a platform for example, we know since 2014 especially in Somalia, we've seen organisations who have been supporting the advocacy process towards the passage of the law in partnership with the Ministry of Justice, Religious Affairs and Rehabilitation, and also engagement in sensitive and intensive discussions with religious leaders, parliamentarians, experts as well as community members. For that instances, for example, and based on your experiences, how can CSOs negotiate for those kind of changes?
Suad: The first thing is for them to come to the level where they have the same understanding on a particular issue. For instance, in the case of Sexual Offences Bill, one of the challenges that Bill had faced is, in the past and it continues, is that people don't see, particularly people in the NGOs, don't see gender-based violence as a national issue. For so long you have these fragmented civil society groups who don't see an issue, that it's a national issue and it's something that needs to be addressed. It's very, very hard to move on that particular issue. NAGAAD had taken that step forward by bringing together civil society. During the research, what I found out is that, in the beginning there was some kind of a working together. But in a later stage, some of the NGOs never show up in meetings or coordination meetings because they see that this is a NAGAAD's project. So, so long as NGOs see that if one is a focal point for a certain issue, the others feel that they don't have the ownership.
Suad: They feel that they don't have the ownership of that particular issue because one NGO, nongovernmental organisation is kind of managing, coordinating, calling for meetings. It's very hard for them to come and intend to come to terms whereby they go together. So, I think one by one they left the process and it was only NAGAAD, who for quite some time pushing it. But I think with Amplify for Change, a grant provided by AmplifyChange, which is [for] coalition building, NAGAAD again is able to bring around twelve civil society [organisations] together. I was kind of part when they were designing that project, giving them an advice based on the past experience. The basics of that discussion was how can the coalition, it's not yet formal.
Suad: How can the coalition have the same ownership and not the initiative and the process be only owned by NAGAAD? So, NAGAAD has to abandon some of its role to member coalition members, so that at least they call for meetings, they coordinate for some activities, joint activities working together, build this and brings ownership for... It also creates motivation for NGOs to come together, but the problem has always been a one NGO leading as one process and others are not on board. Then, there's the danger of not having a real change. But, if this is a trial process for NAGAAD coalition building, it's a two years project. So, they have just started and my initial feeling on that is it's taking the right direction. People are coming together and they are now doing a joint advocacy meeting, the parliamentarians together, having the same view of any issue, meeting with the government and other actors as well. So, I think the challenge I see is trust building and ownership and funding. Those three issue are key. If these issues are solved, NGOs can move forward.
Sahra: If I can just add to how best the civil society can negotiate for change. I think one of the important tools that civil society can use is to provide evidence of the need to have this change, the need to collaborate. We lack evidence, for example, the weight of the problem, of the issue. In the case of let's say, just to give an example as we're discussing Sexual Offences Bill in the case of Somalia, it was only when survivors came forward and their families by the way, and there was evidence of the weight of the complexity and the consequences of what a rape can do to the family that civil society really massively advocated for justice.In the recent case in Puntland of the little girl that was raped, and it was even murdered, Aisha Ilyas, it is only recently that survivors are coming forward, families are speaking up and talking about these issues and that their stories are being heard. Their voices are being heard and there's no shaming anymore because everybody is on their side.
Sahra: I remember when this happened early this year [2019] in February, even the diaspora, the entire Somalia, Somaliland were on board for justice for Aisha. There was even a hashtag because the civil society was support of the family of the survivor, in this case, the late Aisha. They came together, they were holding hands and they were demanding for justice and because of that, the forensics lab, for example, in Puntland, in Garoowe, they took the case seriously and did some tests where DNA confirmed of these criminals who are today in jail and facing prosecution. It was only because of the evidence. I think what civil society needs to do is to move from the talk, talk and move to really walking the talk. Really coming forward with concrete action plan on why it is important to come together, why it is important to do things together and why it's important that together we can do so much. For example, the Sexual Offences Bill, not many people even know about it.
Sahra: There's a complete disregard for this bill. Traditional elders don't know about its existence. Those who know about it are not using it. There are all kinds of problems around the implementation of the Sexual Offences Bill. Now, what civil society can do, for example, in this specific case to negotiate with change, is to sit down with religious leaders, traditional elders, their concerned relevant ministries and really come with concrete plans as to how to do things differently. Change, there is a possibility, but I think that coordination, that level of doing things at that level of evidence based is really lacking here.
Suad: I think what I would like to add to Sahra is issue of legitimacy. In the case of Somalia NGOs, people are really very critical saying that the NGOs are not indigenous efforts and they are not based on social movement. Meaning that who are their constituency? Who do they [NGOs] really represent? Because what we know, for example, is that we do have NGOs who represent issues but not a constituency. So, as long we have an NGOs that does not have a constituency, then, it will be an NGO running itself. In the case of Somaliland, what happened is that when the Sexual Offences Bill was suspended because of the voices, strong voices of religious leaders saying that this is anti-Islam, civil society was really very afraid to come out and say something about it.
Suad: We were not able to address it and challenge those religious leaders. In fact, what happened is that we... everybody kept quiet. So, we gave the platform to the religious leaders and their supporters because religious leaders, as you know, they do have very strong local communities whom they represent. They have the voice, they have the space, but it's a challenge. So, I think if NGOs want to really negotiate on that, one of the things that they need to do is to create a legitimacy on the ground. They have to really be having community-based sense whereby people will come and say: This is our issue. It's not NGO shame. This is what's happening here, out there. This is rape happening. Nobody will listen if you don't have the support of grassroots. So, NGOs and local government NGOs, donors, together they should be building the trust with the community so that the issue is owned by all.
Halima: Professor Sununguraui. We know how messaging is very key and we've seen engagement of religious leaders in sexual reproductive health rights and family express packaging family planning words into messaging like child spacing, which has been positive. In your experience, how important is it to frame messages?
Sununguraui: In my experience, it's important to frame messages. It's important because we have been targeting different audiences with different levels of knowledge. So, for example in Zimbabwe, regarding the safe abortion issue, there's being debate among civil society organisations on whether to call it abortion or termination of pregnancy. So, framing the message depends on the target audience that you have in mind. So, those that are in the health sector appreciate [the term] safe abortion. They understand abortion differently from people at the grassroots. When they hear about termination of pregnancy or when they hear about abortion in vernacular, it means something that is completely different, which has negative connotations all together. So, it then becomes important to frame messages targeting at specific audience, because those audiences are different in terms of their orientation and approach.
Halima: You talked about trust initially as part of the challenges. Does trust between CSOs play a role, or can change be achieved without it?
Suad: I think without trust; no change will be made. It won't be achieved because throughout the history of Somaliland, there has been a mixed reaction towards the existence of NGOs, and the work they do. It's not only limited to Somaliland, but I think in Somali context. I think in many parts of Africa and the other [parts of the] world. So, when people and the majority of public see and believe that you are doing your own things and you don't have that trust within yourselves and between the community that you are working [with], it's very hard to make a change. For example, what happened in the past is that initially the NGOs have started to work on less controversial issues, like talking about issues of women, youth, minorities, disabled and all that.
Suad: But as time passes by, they realise that there is a need for NGOs to shift from that and move towards changing and making at least input in certain areas. Because Somaliland has adopted the democratisation process and had had several successful elections both for the president, local council and the parliament whereby everyone's vote is counted. So, NGOs wanted to make use of that, and they thought that it's good for them to move from having not working on those. So they started talking about issues of human rights, particularly abuse made by the government, which are against the constitution and the laws. They talked about issues of corruption, talked about issues of good governance and all that. But what happened is that all of these attempts by the civil society, it went into a deaf ears. Nobody listened to them because it was individual NGOs talking about these issues.
Suad: But the moment that they agree and come together as one entity, representing different parts of the country, then that's when government understands okay. Because it creates that feel, feel of having a voice against them. Also, the government is always afraid that the voices that are against them might have some impact on the local communities because people also have some fuss. They might be having some... but because of that I think it makes change. It's impacted on the communities. And the next time what do you see is that government making some changes alongside because that issue has been raised by the civil society. And we have had successful stories. For example, whereby coming, a coalition of civil society changing electoral laws in Somaliland, it [had] never happened. Nobody was expecting that to happen because in the constitution we do have, a provision that says people, men and women, cannot stand and fight for the positions if they are at 35, less than 35 cannot stand.
Suad: But because of those efforts of civil society pushing it for quite some time, I think for 12 years, they would able to change it in 2010 saying, the whole electoral law has been changed. So now people who are 25 years old can run for council, run for parliament and run for president. It's a success and that success cannot happen with one NGO, can only happen when we have this collective voices. So, I believe without trust of civil society change, it's not possible at all.
Halima: You previously talked about providing evidence as one of the ways CSOs can negotiate to address challenges. And when we talk about data, how important is having data to help create lasting change?
Sahra: Very important question because I have a research background. I'm a researcher and I've been living in Somalia for 10 years and I can tell you that there is very little reliable data available on any topic on any sector. This has to do with the many losses that we have endured during the war. We had a very functioning government before the war and everything sort of just collapsed after... during the war and we're still rebuilding. It's very important to have information and data because when you have data you can use that to make effective policy and there's very little research being done in Somalia. You will see that whatever knowledge is being produced is in the hands of a particular organisation who's doing their own implementation of their own projects. So, whatever information is out there is in the hands of a very few people and it's not even online.
Sahra: You will find sometimes an abstract or a summary of a report somewhere, but to retrieve it or to find it is very, very problematic. We don't know what is working. We don't know where we are making things that can change. We don't know where we are contributing massively. We don't know where we should be heading, what we should be expanding on, simply because of the lack of data. I have been working in the past four, five years in this sector of research, I'm also a PhD candidate myself, and I find that finding information is extremely difficult. One has to go to extreme lengths or even sometimes look at other cases, other countries that have gone through similar processes in order to make a conclusion about something or to make analysis. In the case of the Sexual Offences Bill and in its implementation and how important data is, it is very, very important.
Sahra: I'm very happy to tell you that in Puntland, we have a very strong resistance, very strong movement that has come about as a result of the rape and murder of Aisha Ilyas early this year [2019]. It has even led to the emergence of other organisations that are oriented around sexual violence, around... and even we have the Puntland Women Lawyers Association. We have a women lawyers association and they are working very closely with the courts and the custodial cops. What they're using is data.
With the support of donors, we have a system in place now, which collect information on the patterns and prevalence of sexual violence against children and women, having a triangle of: the hospital, on one hand, we have the women lawyers and civil society on the other hand, and then we have the police, and the courts on the other. So, there's this triangle and they are working very closely. The Ministry of Women Affairs and Family Development is actually the one who's chairing this GBV [gender-based violence] technical working group and GCPD, the organisation, is a partner of AmplifyChange in Kakayo. They are also a very important member of this coordinating group where they are representing the civil society, they're presenting information, they're presenting their cases that are happening in the region where they are based in Muduk region.
Sahra: So, to answer your question, it's very important to have data because then you know, for example, if the number of sexual offences against children and women is increasing, which is indeed the case. It was only when this triangle, I call it triangle, was formed mid this year [mid 2019] led by the Minister of Justice and the Ministry of Women Development that we are now looking at concrete figures. We are looking at the age of these children.
Sahra: We are looking at the profiles of these victims and these survivors. We are looking at how many cases we're talking about and because of this, there is this urgency now to implement the Sexual Offences Bill.
Halima: Thank you Sahra. This question now goes to Sununguraui coming back to you. Elections are times of upheaval and change, but what sorts of opportunities can they bring based on your experience for Zimbabwe?
Sununguraui: Of course as you have said, there are lots of challenges that come with elections, but there are also opportunities. With elections come an appetite for audience. So, you see that election candidates are interested in meeting with people. It's a time when people want to meet with their audience, they want to share their manifestos, they want to hear what people want. So, to me election time presents that opportunity for stakeholders who are interested in elections to hear more about what the people want. The current president of Zimbabwe, when he was campaigning, he also wanted to meet with various categories, various groups of people. And it created an opportunity for the women's coalition in Zimbabwe to seek audience with him. He is a person that under normal circumstances would be very difficult to meet with. But because it was an election time, he had to create time to meet with the stakeholder.
Sununguraui: It's also an opportunity for people to share what they want from those who will be vying for office. For example, in the past election in Zimbabwe, there were so much concentration on socio-economic rights. Almost everyone who was campaigning was emphasising the need for ensuring that there is realisation of the rights of people that are provided for in the constitution, including socio-economic rights. So, that was an opportunity to talk about [other] issues, like safe abortion, to talk about maternal health issues because most of the candidates that we are campaigning were talking about maternal health. They know women constitute more than 50% of the population in Zimbabwe and there are maternal health challenges in Zimbabwe.
Sununguraui: So, it was an opportunity that was presented by an election for candidates to be talking about all those issues and also for different groups of stakeholders to be engaging with those candidates because they also created what they were calling candidate debates.
Sununguraui: So, during those candidates debates, various stakeholders would engage with the candidate on what they intended to offer to the population. It was quite an opportunity that people would share their interests and debate with the various candidates on what they would offer. So to me, elections present an opportunity where the various stakeholders can meet, can interface. They seem to have a listening ear at that point in time because they are interested in getting votes. So it's an opportunity that is presented by elections. So, to me elections don't just come with challenges, but they also bring with them opportunities of appealing to different audiences.
Halima: We all know and we are all aware of how having strong leadership is important to drive change. What steps can civil society organisations take to ensure change continues once that leader is gone?
Suad: Continuity is essential in bringing change. So, I think mentorship helps kind of sustaining that effort started by others to continue. What usually happens is that in civil society leadership you always see that one person is running the show. If that person goes, then it's very hard to bring on others on board. So networking, creating strong networks that have very clear roles and responsibilities and very clear strategies in place to continue efforts started earlier. I think that's a way of continuing change to happen. Because, in the case of Somaliland, what happened is that when we started the issue of women's participation in political circles, what happened is that one of the things that we face is bringing on younger generations on board.
Suad: I have to admit that it was an elder and middle woman running the show. Of course with all the good intentions, we kind of trying to take it to the next level. What we overlooked is continuity, issue of continuity. So it was always elder woman rights and now, it's very hard to see younger girls coming out and demanding that right. If we all go and retire, my worry is that there won't be anybody coming up unless a miracle thing happens. So, I think mentoring, engaging younger generations, educating them, bringing them on board, giving them ownership of the issue, that helps for the lasting change to come.
Halima: Why is having strong community roots so important in creating lasting change? And for each of you, what will be your top tip to our listeners to create those?
Sununguraui: For lasting change, it should be created. It is important because we need to have sustainability of the evidence... of the advocacy issues. Civil society organisations, nongovernmental organisations come and go, but communities remain there. They are permanent structures, so that permanent presence of those structures makes it important for community roots to be there in advocacy. A top tip that I would give to our listeners, whatever is happening, there is need to involve the leadership at the community level. Those people that shape opinions, the traditional leaders, the religious leaders, if they're involved in everything, it means the efforts will be sustainable.
Suad: I think giving the grassroots the necessary tools to advocate for themselves. What we are talking about is a lasting change. So, as the professor said earlier, NGOs come and go. What's most important is to have, is that the community has the necessary skills to stand for themselves and raise their issues and concerns to the right authorities. So, investing them, educating them, building their knowledge and understanding on issues, the strategies to go about all these helps for lasting change to come. Because at the end, whose issue are you addressing? It's a community issue. It's a national issue, so if people are not involved, if they don't have the voice and the space, then that lasting change is hard to come. So, my advice to them is invest in the grassroots so that they can have their voices and their spaces to bring change.
Halima: Thank you. Any additions? Sarah?
Sahra: I think it's very important to consider community roots, they are very important in creating lasting change, because they are the ones who are on the ground. They are grassroots. Today what we need above anything is sustainability. Sustainability, continuation of efforts, interventions, and I think community roots can provide that because it's about participation. They can provide insight, they can provide evidence on where strength lies, where synergy is possible. That's what I would like to say.
Halima: We've come to the end of our podcast today. Thank you, Miss Suad, Sununguraui and Sahra. It's been a pleasure to have you on the podcast today and to talk to you. Until next time, thanks for listening. If you want to learn more about our work, you can check out on www.amplifychangelearn.org. Thank you.