Regional Research as an Advocacy Tool    Donna L. Doane, Subregional Research Coordinator, HomeNet South East Asia (social protection)

Introduction: recent HomeNet studies on social protection

I would like to begin by briefly discussing the use of regional research as an advocacy tool in reference to the last study the HomeNets did on social protection for homebased workers in South East Asia and South Asia. By “the HomeNets,” I am referring to HomeNet South East Asia (HNSEA) and HomeNet South Asia (HNSA), the latter in association with the Institute of Social Studies Trust (ISST).

The HNSEA and HNSA studies were different, but they were well-coordinated and very complementary. These studies produced a clear picture of the serious challenges faced by homebased workers throughout Asia – the vast majority of them poor women workers – and also some of the lessons learned regarding both traditional and new forms of social protection as seen through the eyes of homebased workers themselves.

Regarding challenges, it is clear that throughout Asia, the two main concerns identified by homebased workers are (1) health security, and (2) livelihood security. These two critical issues are very closely interconnected – without adequate health care, it is difficult to impossible to achieve any kind of livelihood (in the sense of both job and income) security within the family, and without adequate employment and income, it is difficult to impossible to maintain the health of the worker and the worker’s family.

Through these studies, HNSEA and HNSA/ISST came up with very powerful findings about a diverse range of homebased workers found in different parts of South Asia and South East Asia. They also made a number of specific recommendations. (Interestingly, the challenges faced by homebased workers were very similar across South and South East Asia; in contrast, the responses to these challenges – e.g. in the form of “traditional” and “new” social protection initiatives on each level, from community-based up through national and international responses – varied widely across the region.)

After their completion, the studies were used for both conferences and advocacy efforts through local and national meetings and forums, and at subregional (South Asia, South East Asia), regional (all-Asia) and international forums held in Thailand, India, South Africa, and elsewhere.  The fact that these were multi-country studies – covering several countries in South East Asia and several countries in South Asia – make them particularly valuable, since single country studies generally have much less impact (they at least appear to have much more limited application than do multi-country studies).

It is important to point out that although some of the common themes and research findings have already been explored and analyzed, in fact much more can still be done with these two studies because they include a wealth of information. Moreover, the studies can now be updated over the next few years and thus can continue to be used for advocacy,particularly in the area ofsocial protection, which is a critical concern of informal workers.

We also need to recognize that the real value of these studies is that they do something very unusual: they actually see what is going on, as opposed to what policymakers generally assume to be happening, at the ground level. We have large numbers of studies done with a minimum of field research that presume to know what is happening and why, but when one reads these top-down studies, one quickly discovers that they know very little about what is actually going on. Because so many studies are done with only quick surveys and a minimum of field research, they end up quoting each other, and that “shared wisdom” becomes accepted as “fact.” The HomeNet types of studies are indeed very rare, as will be discussed below.

Based on positive experiences with this type of multi-country research, we hope to do more joint research over the coming years, involving both South Asian and South East Asian countries. In specific, we see that all of the HomeNets have a great deal to learn from each other, and from SEWA and similar organizations, since there are good practices that need to be documented and analyzed – including how their respective “best practices” need to be modified and transformed (sometimes substantially) in order to be at all effective in entirely different social, economic, environmental and political contexts.

We also would like to do coordinated work on many other themes, such as social conflict and social cohesion, and how organizations can create environments in which different communities – including informal workers’ organizations composed of different social “groups” – can work together successfully no matter what the members’ ethnicities, religions, party affiliations, or other differences. Similarly, gender-related problems, especially in rigidly patriarchal contexts, cut across the region. Some of the HomeNets are also interested in sharing and analyzing experiences with different forms of organizations (e.g., cooperatives, fair trade-certified organizations, networks, member-based organizations) in order to learn from one another.

In fact, there is a great deal that we hope to do in the future on a regional basis, involving both South Asian and South East Asian countries, since there is enough similarity and enough contrast to bring out the underlying dynamics regarding homebased and other informal workers in a very clear and compelling way. These themes are not only of academic interest, they are also potentially of great importance to impoverished and marginalized groups of informal workers across the region, particularly if they can be used for policymaking purposes as well as meeting the groups’ own specific needs.

The significance of different types of research

Of course, research can be used in different ways. For example, we know that research can serve as a means to enter new areas and organize new groups, because if you go into a new area asking even general questions about a topic such as social protection, homebased and other informal workers recognize how important it is, and employers generally do not feel threatened by this type of discussion.

However, if you are going to do research and then hope to use it for advocacy purposes, it needs to be very good research. The research must be detailed and cannot gloss over the facts, even a little. Above all, it is impossible to do advocacy effectively and with integrity if one doesn’t know what is happening “on the ground.”

For these purposes, first, it is important to understand that one needs good qualitative research as well as quantitative research. Quantitative research alone is not likely to yield the insights one needs to understand what is happening to local communities, or why it is happening. Qualitative research is based on skilled interviews, observations, life stories, community histories, an understanding of local legal codes and enforcement, and many other sources of information and analyses; it may tell us much more than quantitative research alone, but we might not be able to generalize to other communities without other means of making comparisons.

Therefore, it is important to have not only excellent qualitative work, but also good quantitative data – however limited – to back up the research derived from interviews, observations and analyses. In part, this is simply the nature of the present era; some policymakers as well as academics feel that even excellent qualitative evidence is “anecdotal,” and thus you will need numbers as well – but these will hopefully be numbers based on careful research, and not databases that are questionable to begin with. Moreover, to deal with policymakers the evidence must be strong, and arguments must be made in a tight and systematic way. (The importance of finding the best means of presenting research findings will be discussed below.)

Second, it is important to be very clear about the idea of action research. This is what organizations such as the HomeNets always hope to do, and rightly so. “Action research” is not simply a matter of gathering data and acting on it – to begin with, in principle there should be a clear theoretical framework that stands behind the research, and a strong and explicit connection should be made between the field research and the framework that provides the foundation for the research.

To understand what is meant by “action research,” it may help to draw on distinctions made by researchers in the sciences regarding different types/intentions of research activities:

• First, there is “basic” (sometimes called “pure” or “fundamental”) research – which asks basic questions that are far away from any direct use. (For example, what is happening on the subatomic level? What makes trees grow in very different ways, depending on environmental and other factors?) If we were to try to understand the collective activities of informal workers, a relatively “pure” research question might be: under what conditions are people able to work in a collective or cooperative way, and under what conditions is it very difficult for them to do so?

• Then there is “applied” research, which involves questions that are meant to find answers so that something can be done based on those answers. (How do we split atoms in order to create energy?  How do we grow trees in a certain way in order to get the most fuelwood and fodder out of them?) For the HomeNets, we might want to know answers to such questions as: under what circumstances can joint marketing (e.g., in the form of producer groups joining together, or as cooperatives) benefit impoverished communities and groups of informal workers? Which commodities work best if produced and marketed in this way? (“Generic” applied research would give us answers to these questions that can be used by many different kinds of producer groups and cooperatives, and not just one particular group that the researcher has in mind.)

The action research that the HomeNets like combines some aspects of basic research with applied research – or in many cases only applied. It is research that does not just make a chapter in a book, but is meant to be something that can offer immediate benefits to homebased and other informal workers.

There is a next step in action research. In an industrial context, the next step is the “development” of specific products based on the basic and applied research (this is the “D” of “R & D”, or “Research & Development”). In the case of the HomeNets, this could take the form of pilot projects, such as developing a new type of cooperative or joint marketing approach, or maybe coming up with specific occupational safety and health procedures to clean up homebased production – even for the extremely poor – so that you don’t have to slowly poison yourself or ruin your health over time. This is also part of action research, usually the concluding section of a larger study, or the focus of a separate study.

All of these types of research can be used in advocacy, but they are aimed at different audiences. For our social protection research, we wanted to know what was going on in terms of the homebased workers’ access to and perceptions regarding social protection in their countries – what was the involvement of families, communities, national programs, and so on, and why so many programs were not reaching the intended beneficiaries. This is more on the “basic” research side in a sense, and is the starting point for both academic and advocacy work. We need to know what is actually going on in local communities before trying to promote new ideas, policies or legislation.

Once we know the dynamics of trends over time and have an idea of why these trends take on certain forms, we can go on to try to solve problems in a general sense (as “applied” research) and in very specific “developmental” senses (e.g., through a pilot project that can be thoroughly documented). This work will be of particular interest to policymakers, but in fact all three types of research will contribute to this understanding. Again, it is very difficult to do convincing and effective policy-oriented advocacy from a position of ignorance about what is actually going on.

The importance of “grassroots” research and informed advocacy

Unfortunately, a great deal of policy-oriented research does exactly this: it discusses ideas in a general way, with very little understand of the actual conditions on the ground. This causes policymakers to think that a program or policy is succeeding when it might actually be totally ineffective or even causing great harm.

This is why action research is so important, but also very rare. Our experiences over the years in the area of social protection have shown that most of the top-down research done in the field generally does not incorporate a view from the “grassroots” level, but remains at the level of what is assumed to be going on. Again, although it is not true in all cases, in general there tends to be a sharp disconnect between what appears on paper and what is actually happening on the ground.

In order to avoid this, the HomeNets’ approach to action research involves (to summarize just a couple of key points) the following ideas:

• The research must not be of a “hit and run” variety, where the research is essentially from a distant “macro” perspective alone, or one that involves a quick survey or set of questions without any type of systematic confirmation or follow-up.

HomeNet research involves checking and confirmation in communities the HomeNet organizations work with over time. In addition, by working in the communities, the HomeNet field researchers not only get much more accurate information and insights because of  relationships of trust that have been built up over time, they also try to find ways to use this information for the direct benefit of the communities.  (This stands in contrast to what many street vendors in Cambodia have said, for example, regarding researchers who come and keep asking them questions, then go off and write up their reports, and the vendors never benefit from any of it; the vendors are tired of answering these questions that take up their valuable time, but only help the researchers and nothing comes of it. This view, however, is not shared by all – it depends on many factors, including how the research is to be used. )

• Only through careful “grassroots”-based action research can the complexities of homebased workers’ diverse circumstances and needs be acknowledged. Quick surveys and short focus group discussions in communities in which the researchers have no personal experience tend to result in statements based on a lack of understanding of the nuances and complexities of the informal workers’ realities.

The HomeNets’ research is messy and complex and rich in the kind of detail we need for effective and informed advocacy. This kind of research takes time and does not easily translate into a standard “hypothesis-data collection-data analysis-presentation of results” format, but we have seen that large-scale survey-based (and quick and uninformed qualitative) forms of research do not get at the complexities and realities on the ground, and sometimes can do more harm than good by missing the actual dynamics at the community level (e.g., the power relationships and economic realities that determine how new schemes are actually being – or not being – implemented).

In fact, good research of this sort needs to be rich and detailed in order to reflect complicated realities (social, economic, political, and more), even when one of the goals is to identify and understand the general lessons in common that can be learned across diverse groups and communities. Moreover, we find that without this detailed understanding, informed advocacy will not be possible.

Why it is important to modify research-based advocacy to conform to the realities of different country contexts

The way many of us think about advocacy usually involves making presentations “up” to policymakers: we ask them to listen to us, which they may or may not do. In fact, we have to explore different means of getting ideas out in order to be as effective as possible in using research as a basis for advocacy work.

First, it is true that we need to address government officials, but there may be others as well who need to be “advocated to” in order to influence policies, programs and legislation. In some cases – e.g., in the work done by the Fair Trade Alliance of the Philippines (with PATAMABA, of Homenet Philippines, as one of the FTA members) – the advocacy work addresses and brings together influential groups of business people, together with trade unions, informal workers’ organizations, local politicians, academics, and many others. Their work can be effective only if they are supplied with good data and insights based on careful and detailed research.

Second, the means of presenting research to policymakers is also important. What we have learned from HomeNet South Asia and Homenet Thailand, for example, is that high profile discussions of research findings are especially good as a way to use research for advocacy. Having a Prime Minister, a respected senator who advocates for the poor, and other well-known individuals inaugurate and make presentations at meetings brings the issues to the public’s and policymakers’ attention in ways that other types of forums cannot.

This brings me to two important points I learned these past two weeks from our HomeNet affiliates in Lao PDR and Cambodia. Using research effectively will involve not only advocating “up” to policymakers directly, but also “down” to communities and “out” to many others, in ways that depend very much on local circumstances.

For example, one of the many lessons I have learned from the HomeNet affiliate in Lao PDR is that effective advocacy has to be done in accordance with local conditions. In Laos, effective advocacy is not just “up” or “out” to the general public, as it might be in a country such as Thailand where one can attend NGO forums or take out demonstrations in a context of civil society organizations that can be very vocal.

Instead, in a country such as Lao PDR, where one does not find civil society, public demonstrations and the like, one works “up” through personal ties with policymakers, and through the presentation of convincing project results and research findings. In addition, advocacy in Laos involves discussions that reach “down” to the communities – for example, motivating women to join organizations, run their own institutions, and advocate for themselves. In a system such as that of Lao PDR, one must coordinate with party members and with government institutions, but this method can be used effectively: the advocacy can be either direct (up to policymakers) or down through the community and then “up” again to policymakers, and this process can be empowering for women, informal workers, and for local communities. In other words, the use of research as an advocacy tool needs to be done in a way that is appropriate to the local context in order to be most effective.

In addition, one of the many lessons I learned from the HomeNet South East Asia partner in Cambodia is that when one advocates “down” to the community, the medium of advocacy is very important. In a context of limited education, even the use of simple texts may not be effective. When people are very poor and large numbers are illiterate, photos with explanations as well as drawings and other visual media are likely to be more appropriate than, for example, simple brochures. As Sitann Nuth of the Artisans’ Association of Cambodia (AAC, the HomeNet partner in Cambodia) has emphasized, training programs using photos, drawings and other visual media tend to be far more effective in village contexts in Cambodia because even simple text may not convey the “story” and lessons to be learned as effectively.  (Visual media, if employed well, may also leave a much stronger impression.)

In fact, even for sophisticated policymakers and the general public, the medium of conveying research findings can be very important. Photo series with short explanations in a prominent place, or photo series in book form with longer explanations, can convey ideas in a way that even well-written but text-heavy books dealing with research findings cannot. Advocacy may have to be relatively quiet and low-key, particularly in highly politicized contexts, but a well-chosen medium may make all the difference in determining whether the points are understood and remembered or not.

The HomeNet researchers have also found that life stories and community stories (and community histories) coming out of field research can also move and enlighten, and can be very effective in conveying both serious problems (e.g., through photos and explanations of what has happened in a generation), and ways forward. Thus, we have found that the medium of communicating research findings is extremely important – but again, we need to begin with careful and detailed research, and avoid any form of rhetoric, stereotypes, and simple generalizations without any grounding.

“Conclusions” of sorts

There is a good deal we can learn from each other across the HomeNets of South and South East Asia (and from other like organizations). We can emphasize good research, and strategize with each other about how to present it as effectively as possible – advocating “up,” “down,” “out” and in every other way possible.

We can advocate, using research findings, to policymakers, academics, NGOs, and to homebased workers and community members so that they can advocate for themselves using these findings.  This can result in new legislation, new programs and policies, and above all new ways of thinking about

• key challenges facing homebased workers and other informal workers, and
• key lessons to be learned.

The point is to benefit homebased and other informal workers in very practical and concrete ways. Research is extremely important, and it can have a strong impact if we design it correctly. We tend to get busy and avoid planning the most strategic use and medium of conveying our findings, but it is something we need to think more about, and do seriously.

Hopefully, we will be able to work on this together over the coming months and years.

References

Breman, Jan and Parthiv Shah, 2003. Working in the Mill No More. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Doane, D. L., 2007. “Living in the Background: Home-based Women Workers and Poverty Persistence.” Chronic Poverty Research Centre, Manchester, UK (CPRC Working Paper 97), December 2007. Available through www.chronicpoverty.org (http://www.chronicpoverty.org/pdfs/97Doane.pdf).

HomeNet South Asia and the Institute of Social Studies Trust, 2006. Social Protection for Home-Based Women Workers in South Asia: Learning from Action and Research. New Delhi: ISST. (Ratna M. Sudarshan, Shrayana Bhattacharya and Jyotsna Sivaramayya, along with the Research Teams of HomeNet South Asia, and HomeNet Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.) Available through www.homenetsouthasia.org.

HomeNet South East Asia, 2006. Social Protection for Homebased Workers in Thailand and the Philippines. Quezon City, Philippines: Regan. (Donna L. Doane, Rosalinda Pineda Ofreneo, Benja Jirapatpimol and the Research Teams of PATAMABA and Homenet Thailand are the principal authors of this study.) Available through www.homenetseasia.org.

Mathur, Om Prakash (assisted by Indu Patnaik), 1994. “Women, Urban Poverty and Economic Development.” In Noeleen Heyzer and Gita Sen, eds., Gender, Economic Growth and Poverty: Market Growth and State Planning in Asia and the Pacific (International Books: Utrecht, The Netherlands).
Sudarshan, Ratna M. and Suchi Pande (eds.), 2007. Ensuring Public Accountability through Community Action: A case study in East Delhi. New Delhi, Institute of Social Studies Trust (ISST). Available through isstdel@isst-india.org.