A Field Visit to Peruvian Mining Sites: A Funder s Reflections on Challenges and Opportunities to Supporting Transnational Advocacy

Transcription

1 DRAFT A Field Visit to Peruvian Mining Sites: A Funder s Reflections on Challenges and Opportunities to Supporting Transnational Advocacy Daniel Moss Grassroots International (Formerly Oxfam America s Boston-based Program Officer for South America) Prepared for delivery at the 2001 meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, Washington DC, September 6-8, 2001

2 Introduction Managing runoff water, Lisa Wade, Yanacocha s environmental engineer said, is the name of the game in mining. She talked enviously of her predecessor who could point to a raindrop and tell you what stream would eventually catch it. His goal unfortunately elusive was to identify and control the destination of all water. I never used to look at landscapes and see springs spilling into ravines into irrigation ditches and out of drinking spigots. But when you look at a mine operation from the bottom of the funnel, from the point of view of the farmers whose bony cattle die from polluted water, whose crops wither, and who wonder if their drinking water is making them sick, you begin to agree with Lisa: follow the water. This advice seems to extend upstream as well. Where does the capital and knowhow come from to power the mining operations? The old maxim applies: follow the money. Working with a northern-based philanthropy, my glance naturally turns homeward. In the case of Peruvian mining, upstream includes such actors as mining company headquarters in Denver, private banks in NY and the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank in Washington DC. As extractive industries cross borders, advocacy directed at these industries has necessarily gone international as well. Power imbalances between affected communities and companies are enormous; to hold companies and governments accountable, communities require political power and leverage that under some circumstances can be created through transnational coalitions. International social justice and development philanthropies increasingly try to work both sides of the border. This working paper will 2

3 address questions relevant to both practitioners and academics: What successes and obstacles do funders face? What are challenges and opportunities to funding transnational extractive industry advocacy campaigns? Inter-woven with issues from human rights to environmental justice and crossborder actors such as multi-national corporations and public and private international financial institutions, mining is a particularly interesting and complex window on transnational advocacy coalitions. The case study here is drawn from field observations of Oxfam America s financial and technical assistance to three communities affected by mining in Peru. Lessons learned extend beyond the Andes and Extractive Industries to diverse settings in which national and transnational advocacy work is a relevant strategy. The paper is organized in the following fashion: I begin with a description of the problems faced by Peruvian communities affected by mining and a discussion of their advocacy strategies. Subsequently I examine the nature of financial and technical support offered by Oxfam to the communities affected by mining. Here I also examine Oxfam s investment in its own advocacy capacity. The final section closes with a discussion of lessons learned and future challenges facing funders of transnational advocacy. Problems faced by communities affected by mining: We will die for this water, a group of Cajamarcan farmers s told an Oxfam delegation during a June, 2001 visit. We stood just a few feet from a gurgling spring hidden beneath a tangle of branches; the farmers dipped their white hats, bent the wide brims and swigged water in dribbling gulps. From this mountain source, close to Minera Yanacocha s (MY) open pits and cyanide leach pads, the water began its winding, 3

4 downhill journey, some feeding irrigation ditches and the bulk flowing into Cajamarca s water supply. One of the farmers many worries is that their principal milk purchaser, a Nestle subsidiary, may close up shop and seek milk sources not compromised by contaminated waters. Almost exactly a year prior to our visit, an MY truck loaded with cannisters of mercury the mercury is a by-product of the gold production process leaked over miles of highway near Cajamarca. The largest quantity of mercury, more than 300 pounds, spilled in Choropampa. Thinking it valuable, the Choropampinos scrambled to collect it. The company s decision not to evacuate the town, to offer compensation to youth to clean it up with no protective equipment and to buy the mercury back from those families that had filled jars with it, contributed to hoarding and consequent high levels of mercury poisoning. With over one thousand people from Choropampa and surrounding towns still experiencing illnesses rashes, nosebleeds, dizziness - and the medical care and insurance policies offered by MY inadequate for comprehensive treatment, distrust towards the company is running high. Facing pollution and threats of pollution, many farmers have sold land to the Minera Yanacocha (MY) at bargain prices; the MY concession stands at over 100,000 hectares in Cajamarca. As the bottom falls out of farmers traditional livelihood - markets disappear, land loses value and cattle thin - they question whether the mines claims of job creation are a net gain for the valley and ask rhetorically: when the mine is spent in 20 years and land contaminated, will they be able to farm again. Minera Yanacocha, a majority of which is owned by Denver-based Newmont Mining, began mining the mountains above Cajamarca in In mineral terms, they hit 4

5 the jackpot, the mother lode. In water terms, they simply couldn t have picked a worse place to mine. The open pits that the Yanacocha mine have excavated spill over both sides of the continental divide, draining west to the Pacific, and east to the Amazon basin and the Atlantic, some 3000 miles away. The mine has done a superb job of building an internal constituency in Cajamarca. Though some see the mine as polluter, many see the mine as benefactor/employer. Minera Yanacocha s stamp on local services and public works is ubiquitous in companysponsored schools, potable water tanks, irrigation ditches and a network of roads. The Oxfam delegation walked by a delapidated adobe latrine that had been painted in affectionate, misspelled scrawl: With the support of Minera Yanacocha, I m happy. The firm as substitute for a weak, underfunded state is not unique to Cajamarca. For example, in Yauli near the Doe Run metallurgical facility in La Oroya activist women criticized the mine s community relations program as a form of blackmail desperate communities will agree to most anything. At the same time, they feel slighted by the firm for not offering their town public works projects. Similarly, a taxi driver we spoke with blamed the mine for polluting his drinking water and then dropped that he was waiting to hear back on a pending employment application with the firm. Scarcity of services and jobs creates unusual bedfellows. Cajamarca commerce has skyrocketed. The mine claims to employ 4000 (with a small portion of local hires) and counts 9000 as dependent beneficiaries. Transporation services are up, the mine alleges $18 million of local purchasing. Prostitution, delinquency and inflation are also booming, problems that existed on a much smaller scale previously. Rural to urban migration swells as farmers sell land to the mine, face poor harvests, 5

6 disappearing markets and sick animals. Job prospects in the city for uneducated peasants are few. I mentioned to a local tourism operator that I was concerned about the mine s negative impacts on the local economy and on his business. He conceded that there may be some contamination from the mine but asked what other economic development strategies I might propose. Feeling confident with my textbook knowledge of forward and backward linkages and informed by recent conversations with Cajamarcan farmers, I suggested milk products for the domestic and export markets. He looked at me with incredulity and scorn, Peru is a poor country, we re desperate for hard currency and you want to replace $2 billion in mineral export earnings with cheese? He added, You want us to remain undeveloped forever. He was unconvinced by my proposals about sustainability, poor but healthy and dignified peasants living in an uncontaminated ecosystem. Cash in Peru s mineral riches now, the pollution may turn out to be fiction anyway. We visited 3 mining sites in Peru. The problems I describe above are not unique to Cajamarca but rather were shared by La Oroya and Tambogrande. Organizations in all three sites had documented negative economic, social and environmental consequences of the mining operations and had these claims refuted by the company. All three sites were vulnerable due to the same weak environmental laws and implementation agencies as well as land legislation that favored expropriation for mining purposes. In La Oroya, site of the Doe Run metallurgical facility, residents faced a public health crisis - blood lead levels of a majority of the urban population ran dangerously high. In Tambogrande, mineral extraction had not yet commenced; what was at stake was whether the company s stated 6

7 commitment to respect the public will through public consultation would be sincere. A broad multi-sector coalition there actively opposed the mine but the mine had not yet withdrawn its plans. A Thumbnail Sketch of Local Demands and Organizing Strategies Tambogrande The San Lorenzo Valley in Tambogrande was once a scrubby semi-desert. Following World Bank investments in the 1950 s, it became one of Peru s most fertile agro-export regions, home to the largest concentration of mango and lime producers in the country. It is these farmers who are most concerned about Manhattan Mineral s plans to dig a series of open pit mines in the valley. Together with the residents of the town of Tambogrande the mine will literally consume the earth on top of which a quarter of the town lives and relocate those families the farmers formed the Tambogrande Defense Front. The coalition printed posters that warned, What would ceviche taste like without lime? Their position is clear: No to Mining, Yes to Agriculture. Not an easy victory, the Tambogrande Defense Front won the mayor s opposition to the mining company s plans. The mayor has since headed a petition drive in which over 35,000 people expressed their opposition to the mine s plans. He now supports a public referendum on the issue. A church-based NGO. Diakonia from the provincial capital of Piura, has provided the Defense Front with organizational and legal assistance including defending arrested activists and has played a key role in moving the Piura Bishop s position to one of active opposition to the mine. In June 2001, the Bishop published an open letter signed by dozens of clergy stating the reasons for why the mine would be 7

8 socially and environmentally inviable. Activism on the issue has spread throughout Piura where environmentalists and human rights workers have offered their support. An assortment of support NGO s have pooled their skills and resources to offer technical assistance to the Defense Front. Local tactics have varied from dialogues with the company, to mass marches, to road blockades, and on one occasion, to a violent raid on the company s Tambogrande facitilies. In February 2001, the model homes from which the residents were to choose designs for their relocated village were torched. The firm undertaking exploration in this area, Manhattan Minerals, is a Canadian company. Canadian environmental organizations have publicized in Canada the potential threat to Tambogrande farmers, questioned whether Manhattan has adequately consulted their plans with the local community and whether it has adhered to British Colombia environmental standards as they claim to. The Oxfam America Policy Department has also publically raised concerns about the mine. In May 2001, Oxfam America, the Mineral Policy Center and the Environmental Mining Council of British Colombia hired a mining expert to review Manhattan s preliminary environmental impact statement and carry out independent field research. The study has been a powerful tool both in Peru and internationally to question the viability of the proposed mining operation. La Oroya The metals refinery facility has been operating since the 1950 s and was acquired by the US-based Doe Run company in In La Oroya, area farmers have organized to demand that the Doe Run smelter diminish harmful emissions in particular to decrease lead levels; to install modern scrubbers; to accelerate an overall technological 8

9 improvement program and to rehabilitate pastures, rivers and other affected areas. Farmer tactics have included sick animal fairs, in which sick and dead llamas were deposited at the company gate. Perhaps because mining-related activities have been central to the La Oroya economy and culture for decades, opposition to the facility is diffuse. There are internal divisions within rural communities and many more between the rural areas and the urban areas that depend on the firm for employment. The firm s community relations program is extensive including public works schools, health posts, community centers, computer centers and the like extending into some rural hamlets. A broad coalition such as the one in Tambogrande has not taken root; a cohesive coalition has not articulated and rallied around a set of clear demands. A constellation of support NGO s accompany urban and rural representative organizations and communities in documenting health and environmental problems, advancing advocacy campaigns through dialogue and protest as well as providing technical assistance to carry out economic development projects for example maca production to support alternative means of livelihood. The NGOs also aid communities in carrying out participatory environmental monitoring activities. This activity involves local people in gathering scientific data and detecting environmental problems. Although the scientific validity of this monitoring is challenged by the company, the information is extremely useful for public education and the activity itself is a useful organizing tool. The Doe Run company is based in St. Louis, Missouri. La Oroyan local leaders involved in efforts to improve Doe Run s social and environmental behavior have traveled to the company s headquarters to exert pressure. They have done this with the technical 9

10 support of the Canadian Environmental Law Association, with whose help they have also begun to identify appropriate alternative technologies for the smelter and discuss these alternatives with headquarter s staff. AIDA has also provided technical assistance to local groups to identify and document health and environmental problems and critically review the company s technological improvement plans. Oxfam has publicized the threats to social and economic rights of the La Oroya population with its US-based constituents. Cajamarca As previously mentioned, Minera Yanacocha (MY) began their operations in Cajamarca in Many of the Cajamarcan farmers affected by Minera Yanacocha s operations had previously been organized in the Rondas Campesinas and so activism against the mine s impacts was frequently able to piggyback on existing chapters of this organization. Long-standing irrigation groups, some organized within the Rondas, some not, also became active on the issue when problems related to the mine s operations appeared in their watersheds. Since the initiation of the mine s operations, urban opposition in Cajamarca had simmered among environmental and university professionals. It recently exploded and extended to other sectors with the Choropampa mercury spill, fish kills in Bambamarca and disclosure of the mine s plans to exploit Cerro Quilish, which sits at the head of the watershed and is an important source of Cajamarca s potable water. Although the emerging coalition is fraught with divisions, due to increased constituent concern even the Cajamarca mayor has taken a position against the mine s expansion to Cerro Quilish. It is worth noting however that the overall mine operation does not appear to be in jeapordy; 10

11 organizing activities are focused on stopping the Cerro Quilish expansion and cleaning up sources of river contamination. Internationally, a campaign is building against Minera Yanacocha and Newmont Mining generally. Newmont is a major multinational mining company, relatively visible in the public eye and criticized by environmental and human rights activists in many of the countries in which it operates. Newmont portrays itself as a cutting-edge, socially responsible business and so becomes an easy target when it falls short of its rhetoric. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector investment arm of the World Bank is a 5% owner of MY. The World Bank has relatively stricter standards of environmental and social protection and these standards can be useful benchmarks to criticize the mine and the Bank s behavior. A transnational mining advocacy group, Project Underground, has campaigned against Newmont, researching and disseminating information about its global operations. Oxfam America and the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) are aiding Cajamarcan organizations in bringing a formal complaint against MY before the IFC omsbudsperson. At the time of this writing, the IFC omsbudperson is entering into conversations in Cajamarca to attempt to resolve community/company/government tensions. Local Affiliation with National Federation of Communities Affected by Mining (CONCAMI) Although local organizations are the prime drivers of activism to protect communities affected by mining, an umbrella coordinating body, the Federation of Communities Affected by Mining (CONACAMI), serves to coordinate local strategies and actions nationally, provides political training and accompaniment to local chapter 11

12 organizations, provides assistance in planning local advocacy campaigns, offers international visibility and contacts, and provides a forum for leadership training - 25 youth recently graduated from a leadership school. CONACAMI was born out of the impacts of mining and conflicts with poor and indigenous communities affected by mining activities (including metallurgical and hydroelectric activities). Within CONACAMI there are 16 regional organizations called Regional Coordinating Committees that represent local organizations (communities, peasant federations, indigenous organizations, defense fronts and organized urban populations). According to official statistics, of the 5,660 native communities recognized in Peru the bulk of which dedicate themselves to agricultural production and livestock raising - more than 3,200 are affected by mining activities. (Oxfam Internal Document 2000) Importantly, the national federation takes on issues that are not likely to be winnable through strictly local efforts and that are of importance to all communities affected by mining. For example, under CONACAMI s umbrella, communities have come together to oppose the ley de servidumbre the Land Easement Law that legalizes land expropriations for mining purposes. Winning reform or abolition of this law at the national level would aid in resolving many of the affected communities outstanding land battles. CONACAMI works in collaboration with NGOs that have significant experience working in the mining sector such as ECO, Labor, Cooperaccion, and SPDA. These organizations offer support to CONACAMI in such area as environmental monitoring, conflict resolution, and legal aid. 12

13 Evolution of Oxfam support to Communities Affected by Mining Oxfam America s mission is to create lasting solutions to hunger, poverty, and social injustice through long-term partnerships with poor communities around the world. Oxfam combines innovative community development projects to help poor communities overcome poverty, capacity building of poor peoples representative organizations to support them in building power and advocating for their needs, and support to nongovernmental organizations to assist these communities and representative organizations in their community development and advocacy efforts. Grant-making overseas is combined with policy and education work in the United States and internationally to support grantees struggles. Oxfam America is based in Boston, Massachusetts and operates six regional offices around the world. Oxfam s South America program began in the mid 80 s with a broad mission to fortify the indigenous movement, both in the Andes and the Amazon. The program s current strategy paper describes the principal objective as: to empower the indigenous peoples of the Region by increasing the capacity of communities and their representative organizations to defend their rights and sustainably manage their resource in ways that strengthen their culture and identity, improve their livelihoods, reduce poverty and promote gender equity. (Oxfam America South America Program Paper, 1999) It is by way of this long-term accompaniment of indigenous communities and organizations that Oxfam learned of the threats that communities faced from extractive industries. Scurrah and Ross in their paper Resource Extraction Activities and the Local Community found that, While internal threats (overfishing, overgrazing of pastureland, opering more agricultural plots at unsustainable rates) have always been present, so that 13

14 over time most communities have developed mechanisms to handle them, the external threats represented by oil and mining activity dwarf them in magnitude and in risk and present new challenges beyond the scope of traditional mechanisms. (Scurrah and Ross, 2000) Organizational capacity building and local development projects alone were not capable of responding to the many emerging problems; Oxfam broadened support to affected communities. Specifically, Oxfam America increased training and support for communities advocacy activities. Oxfam s working definition of advocacy, and what is sought through advocacy actions, is intentionally multi-dimensional. That is, Oxfam does not measure advocacy exclusively by whether or not it acheives a policy change although this is obviously an extremely desired outcome and the most commonly identified feature of advocacy but also by whether it opens new channels of participation in decision-making processes for people previously marginalized and whether it builds democratic and effective civil society organizations. This multi-dimensional definition of advocacy is best captured in a quote from Cohen, de la Vega and Watson s forthcoming book on advocacy. The passage summarizes gains in the advocacy campaign in Ecuador to win clean up of Texaco s contamination. The emergence of the Frente de Defensa de la Amazonia and organized indigenous communities was a civil society gain (emphasis added) that strengthened the power of Oriente residents to defend and assert their rights. This was also instrumental in the campaign against Texaco because it created a unified block of Oriente residents that government officials in Quito had to acknowledge and negotiate with. By creating more access to decision-makers, the existence of Oriente residents organizations led to a governance impact, opening new channels 14

15 of participation, however tenuous. That impact, in turn, was instrumental in achieving one of the major policy victories of the campaign: securing the support of the Ecuadoran government for the lawsuit against Texaco. Coming full circle, the lawsuit has fed and animated the Frente and indigenous organizations, which represent long-term structural civil society gains because they are forums for articulating interests, building shared understandings and developing processes for engaging and influencing decision-makers. (Cohen, de la Vega and Watson 2001) I now turn to describing some specifics of Oxfam America s support to communities affected by mining in Peru to carry out local organizing and participate in transnational advocacy efforts. Supporting CONACAMI and its Chapters in Building Power: Training in Organizing and Advocacy CONACAMI faces formidable odds: in a poor country that earns more than half its export revenues from minerals, they seek to tame a powerful industry and an enabling government. For communities affected by mining to win protections, they require significant political power. Building and exercising this power requires, among other things, smart and effective advocacy strategy. Noting that CONACAMI s experience in planning and implementing advocacy campaigns was thin, Oxfam staff opened discussions with CONACAMI s leaders on how to improve that capacity. CONACAMI knew the political changes that they desired to protect communities affected by mining, they knew who some of the key decision makers were, but they lacked experience in the mechanics of planning and implementing winnable advocacy campaigns. Through a program offered to regional offices by the Oxfam America Policy Department entitled the Advocacy 15

16 Learning Initiative (ALI), the South America Regional Office was able to offer a workshop to CONACAMI in which they could learn practical advocacy skills as well as draw up their own advocacy plans. Finding a scarcity of advocacy training resources in the region, the South America Regional Office and ALI staff sought external trainers. In the short term, the goal was to enhance CONACAMI s advocacy capacity with a one-time training. For the long term, the trainings were also meant to pose a question to CONACAMI, participating NGOs, other funders present at the training and to Oxfam itself: if advocacy is a skill needed to protect communities affected by mining and there is a lack of qualified support organizations and trainers in the Andean region, what can Oxfam do to follow up and create or strengthen an advocacy capacity building network? That is clearly a long-term, ambitious agenda and a point to which I return in the next section; the first step was to pilot a workshop, offer a modifiable methodology and evaluate results. Sun and Planets CONACAMI s Protagonism with NGO Support Quite deliberately, Oxfam has helped to build a sort of solar system around CONACAMI. That is, while preserving CONACAMI s legitimacy and protagonism as a representative organization of communities affected by mining, it has fortified the support NGO s that offer them assistance. Funding support NGOs to provide direct technical services to affected communities and the CONACAMI federation has proven to be a useful tool in making the NGO support most strategic and relevant. Oxfam has directed support to CONACAMI to both its national structure and activities as well as to local chapter growth. This senstivity has been informed by previous 16

17 and current experiences in funding the indigenous movement where a recurring problem has been national leaders limited contact with their grassroots bases. Oxfam program staff put this problem on the table for discussion with CONACAMI leaders and codesigned leadership development and accompaniment projects so that specific regional chapters would receive direct capacity-building support. These sensitive conversations were made easier because Oxfam program staff had worked closely with CONACAMI as trusted political advisors since its inception as an organization. This type of political accompaniment could occur both because Oxfam program staff have experience in indigenous movement building and because program staff are encouraged to play a more activist role than may be standard in other development organizations. By the year 2000, besides CONACAMI, Oxfam was supporting nearly half a dozen NGOs in this loose coalition. Coordination meetings continue to be held between CONACAMI and these support NGO s to come to agreement on common goals and to arrive at a division of labor based on political protagonism, skill sets, geographic focus and constituency. These meetings have also been important initial occasions for Oxfam America to define its most useful role within this coalition - for example, what financial and training resources it can provide or help to identify, and what advocacy role it ought to play. In addition to coordinating existing programs, this group has set out to find fresh resources to finance new activities. Supporting Communities Affected by Mining s Information Needs Timely Reports to Question Company Claims 17

18 Does objective science exist on potential and current environmental and health impacts? Can crop failures, dead farm animals, and assorted diseases in humans and animals be fairly ascribed to the mine s operations? What about nose bleeds, bone aches and blurry vision that the Choropompinos claim is residual from the Minera Yanacocha s mercury spill?. Am I dying?, a woman asked our delegation. The mines tend to deny claims; people s doubts and fears persist. It is a cliché to say that information is power but it is almost certainly true in this case. Engineering and scientific information drive and justify mining plans as well as establish terms of debate. Companies publish well-researched reports and refute community complaints as statistically insignificant and unscientific. Communities may feel something is not quite right, but cannot defend their position with science. NGOs and communities are frequently reproached by companies and governments for subjective and unscientific observations and complaints. A scientific study can undercut this criticism. In Tambogrande, Oxfam co-sponsored a study to enable community groups to respond to the company with credible information. The study found for example that the methodology used to take water samples was inadequate. A counter-study carried out by an expert disarms the firm and validates community concerns; it may also be a useful organizing tool. In some cases, the study itself can be a spark for the firm to clean up its operations. Since 1999, Oxfam has also funded a comparative study of legislation governing extractive industries in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia; a case-study of the Texaco case; and a study by Instituto Labor on perceptions of various actors of the impacts of mining in Andean communities. Changing Development Discourse through Innovative Research 18

19 In Spring 2001, Oxfam commissioned a comparative study by Dr. Micheal Ross, a University of Michigan economist, on the poverty alleviation impacts of extractive industries. The findings question whether extractive industries as a development strategy is truly a poverty alleviation tool as the World Bank, extractive companies, host governments and many development institutions claim. The study will have multiple uses. It will be a credible piece of research that can used as evidence as the World Bank begins its process of evaluating the impact of its lending into the extractive industries sector. The broad comparative study and any country-specific reports may feed into in-country initiatives and campaigns questioning the development benefits of extractive economies, and their links to increasing poor country debt. Together, this range of studies may generate debate and open more political space to question extractive economies and propose alternatives. If these studies show that mining produces few or negative local benefits, they may support communities right to say no to mining operations. Investments in Oxfam America s capacity to provide strategic support for transnational advocacy work Flexible and complex grant-making Oxfam America s grant-making has evolved alongside partner s expanded needs vis a vis transnational advocacy opportunities. In addition to seeds and tools support in the areas of resource management and development finance to sustain traditional livelihoods and pursue alternative livelihoods; core capacity building support to representative organizations to convene and organize members, to provide effective leadership and to offer needed services; Oxfam has made a variety of grants related to national and trans- 19

20 national advocacy. Advocacy has been fortified by learning and exchange visits between Bolivian, Peruvian and Ecuadoran indigenous organizations. Direct support has been provided for Andean representatives to attend international forums such as LASA and the Amazon Alliance; for networking, speaking and advocacy tours to meet with current and potential allies and constituents in the US; and for participation in international campaigns such as the initiative currently coordinated by the Mineral Policy Center. Advocacy A core strength of Oxfam America lies in its deep ties to grassroots organizations in the countries in which it works. As a matter of ethics and policy, Oxfam does not negotiate on behalf of partners; rather it attempts to provide tools so they can build capacity and power to be able to negotiate for themselves. Oxfam seeks to draw out partners to articulate their positions and if they deem it strategic, echo their concerns in decision-making forums to which they may not have access. Oxfam s Policy Department based in Washington DC seeks to build on the grantmaking work of the Oxfam Global Programs Department by becoming international advocates on issues identified by grantees. Such was the case with extractive industries. In 1999, Oxfam hired Keith Slack as its Extractive Industries Policy Advisor. He constructed the Extractive Industries advocacy program hand in hand with the South America Regional Office and partner organizations. He has provided training to South American grantees on strategies to improve the performance of the World Bank s International Finance Corporation and has worked with communities to file complaints with the IFC Omsbudsperson. He seeks opportunities to interject the voices of communities affected by mining into emerging environmental and human rights coalitions 20

21 around extractive industries. He is an important link for grantees to international campaigns on extractive industries, to potential allies and to technical and legal support. In coordination with grantees, the Extractive Industries Policy Advisor has directly lobbied companies and International Financial Institutions. In the South America Regional Office, added expertise and capacity was necessary to provide high quality technical assistance and accompaniment to grantees in their advocacy work. To fill this niche, Javier Aroca, a lawyer with considerable experience in indigenous rights, was hired in Spring 2000 as the Advocacy Officer. Education and Communications A necessary third leg in the grant-making/advocacy triangle is public education and constituent campaigning. That is, a critical mass of active and informed people will likely make a transnational advocacy campaign more effective. Since its inception, Oxfam America has educated and cultivated an activist constituency through the Fast for World Harvest. While that focus has waned in recent years, currently through the CHANGE initiative Oxfam America is making a concerted effort to organize students. Current constituent involvement could include legislative pressure to pass International Right to Know legislation and to pressure specific companies to improve behavior. A challenge here is determining on what issues and with what decision-makers constituent pressure is most needed and most productive. Recently, Oxfam commissioned the Guarango Cine y Video group to produce a documentary about the Choropampa mercury spill. It is meant to both highlight the plight of this poisoned community and to provoke debate about extractive industries as a development model. It may be shown at the upcoming World Bank activities and will be 21

22 an important education and organizing tool for Oxfam s educational work with its constituencies. With the growing need to collect and publicize information about the activities of grassroots grantees and with grantees increasingly seeking help in gaining media exposure for their struggles, in Winter 2001, the South America Regional Office hired a Communications and Information Officer. She is backed up by significant staff capacity in Oxfam s Boston and Washington offices to carry out media campaigns on issues that emerge from grantees work. Donor education and fundraising for transnational advocacy work: Oxfam has been able to build its advocacy and education capacity due to support from its 120,000 individual members a flexible source of funding that permits strategic institutional investments. Many donors support Oxfam America for its emergency aid during natural and human-made disasters and to seeds and tools community development projects. Educating donors to look deeper at the structural causes of poverty and expand their priorities to supporting advocacy activities is an important ongoing conversation. A recent Oxfam America fundraising letter highlighted the blood lead crisis in La Oroya and the farmers efforts to improve Doe Run s behavior. A future challenge may be turning these donors into activists as increased public pressure becomes necessary to change long-standing corporate practices. Lessons Learned, Lingering Questions and Future Challenges and Opportunities. 22

23 Perhaps the central challenge to funding transnational advocacy emerges from the same planning exercise that Oxfam has supported CONACAMI in carrying out - mapping an advocacy strategy and building a work plan based on this strategy. If the strategy is a sound one, it names the problem faced, breaks it down into a workable issue, identifies allies and targets, generates a plan for utilizing strengths and overcoming internal organizational weaknesses, and sets out a workplan of tactics and evaluation benchmarks. A transnational advocacy funder must have a good sense of where it fits in this advocacy plan and how it best contributes to its grantees advocacy strategies. How best can a funder facilitate bringing together necessary ingredients for successful advocacy? What changes will be required of the funder as it learns to play an ever more productive role? Oxfam s work with Peruvian communities affected by mining is a rich example of seemingly successful funder approaches to transnational advocacy support I say seemingly because the fight is far from over. I now turn to some remaining challenges. Assisting Grantees in Building Power through Coalitions and Movement Building Successfully analyzing complex local political realities: Finding and funding catalytic actors To win an advocacy campaign against such powerful actors as mining companies and national governments obviously requires a powerful coalition. Ought a funder attempt to fund an entire coalition or just one key organization within it? How can the funder detect who are the key actors in the coalition and what are their strengths and weaknesses? Personally, I walked away from Cajamarca with my head spinning the local intracacies were staggering. How can a funder sift through complex local political and 23

24 economic contexts and competing interest groups to identify catalytic organizations capable of bringing together a strong coalition? Practically speaking, which organization ought to be the fiscal conduit for this assistance? Perhaps because problems with extractive industries cut across issues of environmental justice, indigenous rights, human rights, land rights and sustainable livelihoods, there tend to be many actors of diverse backgrounds with self-interest in participating. With limited funds, Oxfam generally funds just one or two actors within a much broader coalition. The idea is that these organizations become stronger players and play a leadership role in coalescing allies. It is, however, an immense challenge to discern who is key, to strengthen their capacity, and to encourage them in building an effective coalition. Some mechanisms to improving the ability to figure out what is happening on the ground and secure ongoing, accurate information may be the following: more funder site visits although this may be difficult for program officers juggling large grant portfolios; contracting consultants from the local area to make site visits, channel information and enhance the ability of the funder to understand local dynamics; employing staff with considerable experience in movement building and community organizing experienced staff will be able to more quickly diagnose coalition problems and key actors to support; and hiring an organizer or organizing team on a short-term basis who through intensive work can actually help actors overcome differences and build a coalition infrastructure among interested parties in conflict. These last two options are only available, however, if there exists a local or national pool of people qualified in organizing and advocacy. This is not always the case; I return to this point in a later section. 24

25 Supporting Coalitions and Funding Unknown Territory: What Role for Funder-to- Funder Collaboration? If it is true that changing practices and policies of transnational actors are most likely to be won by transnational advocacy coalitions, then a transnational advocacy funder must concern itself not simply with the capacity of one partner organization who may be its grantee say CONACAMI - but rather with the overall health and capacity of a constellation of allies and technical groups that are part of the coalition. Depending on whether the coalition has already coalesced and requires resources for specific activities that it has identified or whether dispersed actors are in search of assistance to simply come together, funder roles are different. In either case, the work is vast and expensive. If the goal is to aid an entire transnational advocacy effort, a funder s own resources are likely to be insufficient. The implication may be that the funder ought to seek collaborative arrangements with other funders. The funder must then essentially immerse itself in the same coalition building processes it supports its grantees in constructing. For the sake of argument let s imagine that CONACAMI and activists from the town of Yauli, near La Oroya, have determined that they are not likely to have the power to stop mining contamination of local rivers without the support of other constituencies. They know that Lima s water originates in the mountains around La Oroya and arrives in the capital city undrinkable. Lima water users may then represent an important ally. Or perhaps it is not CONACAMI that determines that this might be a fruitful alliance, but Oxfam America staff. Should Oxfam America suggest to CONACAMI that they seek out such an alliance and perhaps offer grants to urban environmental organizations to participate in a coalition with CONACAMI? 25

26 Another likelihood is that international alliances will be an important source of power to communities affected by mining. Here, Oxfam has played and continues to play a key role in helping CONACAMI generate a map of potential allies around the globe and in providing them with resources to engage in joint actions. I would argue that if a funder s granting strategy is guided by advocacy strategies (that by definition identify potential allies), support for these alliances becomes logical. The challenge is that these new actors may represent new terrain for the funder for example, Oxfam America currently does not fund environmental groups with a Lima focus. If the funder feels that such support is too much of a stretch outside of its geographic and thematic focus and strengths, it would be important that they seek collaboration with other funders to fill that gap. Collaboration between funders for transnational advocacy would then arise not out of convenience but rather out of necessity; without that collaboration the advocacy effort is far less likely to succeed. Furthermore, donor outreach to new funding sources is an opportunity to educate and steer/influence philanthropies grant-making priorities. Thinking 25 Years Out: Funders Investmentst in Advocacy Infrastructure: Training Networks and Leadership Schools I posed the question earlier: if we accept that transnational advocacy is useful to protect mining communities but note that training and accompaniment resources to support such an effort are lacking, can a funder like Oxfam assume the job of building or strengthening an advocacy training network? In the Peruvian mining case, such an organizer leadership school or training center would be an extremely useful resource to a 26

27 host of organizations from indigenous to women s to environmental. This school/center could train representative organization members and NGO staff in such areas as advocacy campaign planning, community organizing strategy and techniques, coalition building, and communication strategies. A compelling reason to build this regional capacity is to avoid having to import trainers and models when assistance is needed. It certainly gave me pause for thought when I was co-facilitating an advocacy training workshop and a highly effective indigenous leader told me that he had no experience with advocacy. His lack of appreciation for his experience was a signal that our language was off and that advocacy models from overseas are essential departure points, but with time, local methodologies must evolve. This is obviously an enormous and expensive long-term endeavor, yet I would argue that if the funder is interested in supporting advocacy, they must ensure that the infrastructure for it is in place. The funder will require new skill sets to help build this advocacy infrastructure as well as significant resources. Here again, collaboration with other funders is likely to be essential. Complex Capacity Building With the impacts of globalization presenting new challenges and opportunities to grantees, capacity building - both for the grantee and donor - has become more complex. Some examples: Fortifying leadership ties to base organizations and chapter growth 27

28 Internal tensions between national federations and local affiliates are common: the funder can direct a portion of funds to supporting national structures and other funds to work with particular chapters. Building capacity of support NGOs The challenge is not only identifying representative organizations with great social movement potential and building their capacity, but building the capacity of various technical and allied groups that can offer these social movement actors the necessary technical and political counsel. Avoiding NGOization of social movement organizations. Project work with communities is critical to address pressing needs, to keep people hopeful about sustaining a livelihood from their resources, as a leadership development school and as a vehicle to further organize the community. The danger is that the focus of the organizations becomes operating the development project and not struggling against structural causes of poverty. Some of this occurs because of donor shortsightedness, not understanding well the comparative advantage of the organization it supports and contributing to their overextension into new areas, a form of mission drift. Part of the solution here is continuing to provide support for organizing and advocacy and identifying measurable benchmarks of success in these areas. Preserving space for varied tactics In what cases do stakeholder dialogues offer a productive vehicle for resolving conflict and in what cases are more confrontational tactics effective? It is of course necessary to evaluate the impact of multiple tactics and it is likely that in diverse circumstances, each tactic will have value. Oxfam has supported activities as diverse as CONACAMI s 28

29 national march in Lima and an assessment of a mining certification system in which affected communities will propose acceptable standards for mining operations. The challenge for the future will be to preserve space for both insider and outsider tactics. Enhancing Funders Internal Advocacy Capacity It is critical that a donor develop an internal capacity building and learning plan for expanding expertise in and mobilizing resources for advocacy. This is not to say that all capacity must be in-house, indeed that would be a mistake. In-house capacity may create that the perception that it is unnecessary to enter into coalitions, which ironically would undermine the power-building needs of a transnational advocacy effort. Funders Can Play a Strategic Role in Supporting Partners Information Needs The Ross analysis mentioned earlier can feed nicely into local campaigns and initiatives questioning poverty-reducing benefits of extractive economies. Southern and Northern research can complement one another. Similarly, when a funder can work with grantees to contract a renowned hydrologist to conduct fieldwork and question the veracity of a company s environmental impact study, the study can become a powerful local advocacy tool. The fieldwork period with grantees becomes a useful training period to learn new collection and analytical techniques. Preserving Funding for National Advocacys with No Apparent International Link There exists a certain danger in overly privileging international work particularly because actions directed towards national decision makers have the potential to be most meaningful to affected communities and to create a positive ripple effect for future 29

30 advocacy campaigns. It is crucial that disenfranchised communities forge local alliances andattempt to influence national targets and not solely direct their energies towards unknown persons with funny last names in unknown international institutions. With respect to building civic values, knowledge of political systems, and organizations with broad bases, this national work may be the best thickener of civil society. These national campaigns are likely to be roots of grassroots power and form the basis of skill sets and organizational capacity to participate in transnational campaigns. In addition, international networks may be extraordinarily time consuming and may draw leaders too far away from their bases. Funders should examine with grantees the oppportunities and costs of transnational advocacy, and most importantly, maintain ongoing support for national struggles. Conclusion: Mutual Learning and Funder Accountability There is no secret - much of what I ve suggested here will work best if the donor is an accountable member of the transnational advocacy effort that it is itself funding. When funding for advocacy is driven by this coalition strategy, the donor-as-advocacyactor can find itself within that strategy. The funder s role is then clear to itself as well as to other coalition members. Aside from the obvious boost to the effectiveness of a transnational advocacy strategy an important actor now has a clearly assigned role donor actions become more transparent and accountable. Certainly an argument against donor-as-advocacy-actor is that donors are too powerful already. With their financial resources, they can already start-up or pull the plug on advocacy efforts. Why grant them more power; why not just ask them to put their 30