Author: mrtombaker

EU Citizens Initiative – All you wanted to know (and much more beside)

From the www.eu2011.hu

Yesterday, the European Council adopted a regulation that will allow the ‘European Citizens Initiative’ to go ahead from early 2012.
A key part of the Lisbon Treaty, the initiative allows a group of  citizen to bring legislative proposals to the European Commission, providing they can gain the support of a million other Europeans.
The documentation is suitably dense but in summary, I understand it as follows;
The initiative allows any group of citizens the opportunity to directly approach the European Commission with a proposal for a legal act of the Union. To do this you need to get a million (verifiable) signatures within 12 months from at least 7 member states (and achieve thresholds in each of these countries). Then the initiative will then get considered by the Commission who may or may not act on it and provide you an opportunity for a Public Hearing at the European Parliament.
I have my doubts about the impact that this will have. It’s a nice idea but the opportunities that it really affords to influence or change EU law if you can collect 1 million signatures seem weak. I’ll leave it to readers of the blog to suggest if they think it’s an effective campaigning method or not.
A more detailed summary of the Regulation is below, although the Commission has committed to bring out more comprehensive and user-friendly guide on the citizens’ initiative shortly;

  • The initiative in theory affords citizens the same rights as members of the European Parliament and Council to submit proposals for legal acts of the Union.
  • Organisers need to get signatures (known as statements of support) from citizens in at least one-quarter of Member States – so 7 at present.
  • Plus achieve a minimum number from each of these states, which is equal to 750 signatures per MEP from the member state.
    • So you only need to get 4,500 Estonians to agree with you (by virtue of having 6 MEPs) but you’ll need 74,250 Germans to agree with you (because the country has 99 MEPs).
  • It needs to be organised by a ‘Citizens Committee’ comprised of individuals from at least 7 member states.
  • Text needs to be submitted in advance (in any official language) for approval by the Commission who will give this within 2 months.
  • The Commission will also run a website that will hold a register of all valid initiatives.
  • The Commission can reject it if they feel that the initiative does not propose a ‘legal act of the Union‘, is ‘manifestly abusive, frivolous or vexatious‘, or ‘is contrary to the values of the Union‘.
  • Citizens of Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Netherlands, Slovakia, Finland and UK won’t need to provide a valid ID number as part of signing. Citizens of other states will.
  • The organisers of the initiative need to be transparent about any sources of funding they are receiving to promote the petition.
  • Statements of support (names on the petition) need to be collected within 12 months of the initiative being approved by the Commission.
  • Names can be collected on-line and the Commission will provide open-source software to facilitate this.
  • When the target has been reached, the names will need to be submitted to the relevant authority within the a Member State for the purpose of verification. This has to be completed within 3 months and comes at no cost to the organisers.
  • The initiative should then be submitted to the Commission accompanied by the relevant paperwork.
  • The amount spent in support of the initiative needs to be declared to the Commission when it is submitted, and must not be any more than the limits set down for political parties.
  • The Commission will receive the initiative, meeting with representatives of the initiative at a ‘appropriate level’ and will set out its political and legal conclusions within 3 months, including the action it will/won’t take.
  • After this has happened the organisers of the petition will have the opportunity to present the initiative to a public meeting, organised by the European Parliament, where a representative of the Commission will attend.
  • The idea will be reviewed every 3 years.
  • The rest of the document covers the way that the regulation will be implemented in Member States, some issues around data protection and also about delegation of powers.

So when might we see the first successful initiatives?
A year has been allowed for the Commission and Member States to prepare for it implementation so the first initiatives won’t be able to be submitted until March 2012 (and could take 2 months for approval, so May 2012). Then assuming it takes at least (and I reckon it’ll be much longer) 6 months to collect the required signatures (November 2012), another 3 months for Member States to verify the information (February 2013), then another 3 for the Commission to consider the initiative (May 2013), we could see the first Public Hearings happening in early Summer 2013.

Happy Birthday War on Want

From www.waronwant.org

I wasn’t aware of the story that led to the founding of campaigning organisation War on Want until this week but it’s an inspiring reminder of the difference that one individual can make, the story goes like this;
On 12th February 1951, The Manchester Guardian published a letter from Victor Gollancz (a prominent publisher and socialist) calling for people to join him in an urgent campaign against world poverty and militarism. Britain was at that time fighting an unwinnable war in Korea, and Gollancz asked all those who agreed with his call for a negotiated settlement to end the conflict to send him a postcard marked with the single word “yes”.

The letter provoked a massive response. Within a month, Gollancz had received more than 10,000 postcards, and War on Want was born.
War on Want celebrated 60 years since that letter was published  last weekend, and while I don’t always agreed with everything that War on Want has said or the approach it always takes to campaigning, I’m grateful for what they’ve been doing for the last 60 years. Here are some of my reasons, do add yours in the comments below.
1. Faithfully stuck to their founding principles – Unlike most of the big campaigning organisations in the development sector, War on Want didn’t start out as a service provider and then moved into advocacy. As the story of Victor Gollancz shows, right from the start War on Want understood that ‘Poverty was Political’ and ever since they’ve been in the business of speaking out. Today they run campaigns in the UK on a variety of issues as well as raising money to support grassroots organising across the world.
2. Spoken up on issues that other’s have overlooked – Few other charities have such a diverse portfolio of campaign issues with the organisation currently working on Trade Justice, Palestine and Sweatshops. But unlike many other campaigning organisations, one of the characteristics of  War on Want’s campaigning is that they doggedly stick to the issues that they’ve selected to work on even when others have moved on. For example they’re still talking about Trade Justice when charities like Christian Aid and CAFOD moved on year ago.
But it’s not simply sticking with issues when others have moved on, they’re often ahead of the agenda, War on Want was one of the first organisations to start to talk about a Tobin Tax, long before governments and other NGOs were discussing the need for a financial transaction tax.
3. Not afraid to court controversy – The history of War on Want shows a long list of times when they’ve courted controversy or challenge the status quo, for example questioning the Charity Commission when it questioned the organisations support for the Bangladesh national liberation struggle, or being vocal in its support for the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement in Palestine despite complaints from Conservative MPs and others. It might have been easy for the organisation to accept these criticism and back down, but time and time again War on Want has demonstrated a admirable fearlessness.
So Happy 60th Birthday War on Want….here’s to another 60 years.

#SaveOurForest – a campaign reader

From http://saveourwoods.co.uk/news/save-our-forests-protest-at-alice-holt-forest-in-surrey/

Put a note against Thursday 17th February in your diary, as it marks an important moment for campaigning in the UK. The coming of age of 38 degrees.
Today, the online campaigning movement celebrated as it notched up its most high-profile victory yet, the government make a U-turn and abandons its plan to sell of the forests (watch the announcement to Parliament here).
Lots has already been written about the campaign, and I don’t think I can add much at present,  here is a reader of some of the top articles which explore how the campaign unfolded and the impact it’s had.
1. The Guardian explores the important role that social media played in the campaign in Forest sell-off: Social media celebrates victory
2. Johnny Chatterton, from 38 degrees writes for Left Foot Forward about the size of the campaign, with his boss, David Babbs, Executive Director saying  ‘Forest sell-off U-turn is a victory for people power‘
3. Chris Rose wrote last week about how ‘Clicktivism By-passes Inside Track To Harry Potter Forest‘ and also the roots that this campaign had in previous battles for forests around the country.
4.  Jonathan Porritt criticised the larger environmental NGOs by not supporting the campaign of ‘collective betrayal‘ on his blog, while this blog argued that the campaign had highlighted some of the challenges large NGOs faced in responding to an issue with the agility an organisation like 38 degrees can.
5. The Sunday Telegraph ran many articles, demonstrating the broad support the campaign had ‘Save our forests, say celebrities and leading figure’ something that was clearly important in the victory.
6. But not everyone has been so kind, with Anthony Barnett at Open Democracy, suggesting that 38 degrees shouldn’t take all the credit for the campaign victory, following up on an earlier post challenging them not to compete but campaign with others.
7. But the last word picture should go to cartoonist Steve Bell in today’s Guardian.
What other articles have you read that help to explain the story behind the campaign? Why did this campaign work when so many others haven’t?

What’s stopping NGOs speaking out against the cuts?

‘The Insider’ is turning into a must read blog for those involved in the Third Sector. Written by an anonymous individual in a major NGO, the blog last week dwelt on the challenge of speaking up in the new political landscape.
‘The problem is that as a charity we have a mission to campaign as well as to serve….we are making some noise about this threat but not quite enough to upset anyone, just in case we fall out of favour. It’s an old argument but still a relevant one’
It picks up on a theme that Polly Toynbee explored in the Guardian last week on the back on Jonathan Porritt’s criticism of environmental NGOs for not speaking out on the sell off of the forests, Toynbee quotes Debroah Doane from WDM who said;
“The same is happening with development NGOs – there is a fawning attitude over this government which defies belief. Many are acting in their own self-interest, at the behest of government, fearing cuts if they raise their head above the parapet. So professionalised have they become that they’ve lost the view of the role they’re meant to play – to uphold the public good, and fight for the rights of the commons, by keeping government held to account”
I think it’s wrong to suggest that the whole NGO sector has totally lost its collective voice since the new government came into power.
Sir Stephen Bubb, head of ACEVO (Association of Chief Execs of Voluntary Organisations, so hardly a radical bunch) wrote in response to criticism from Big Society Ambassador, Shaune Bailey who suggested that charities are simply ‘a few people with their vested interests who think they were going to make a lot of money’ that his statement was ‘a disgusting slur on the work of some of our countries most loved and most effective institutions. Our ” vested interests” are the most vulnerable, the most needy and the most damaged parts of our communities’
But I do recognise a hesitance from some to get stuck in to criticising the programme of cuts outlined by the current government.
So what’s could be stopping NGOs from speaking out?
The common argument is that it’s about NGOs worrying about loosing their funding, and there is certainly truth in that, especially in the sectors that are most reliant on large amounts central or local government funding to provide core service.  The new government has come to power at a time when voluntary income in scarcer, and many organisations are worrying about future funding.
But I don’t believe its simply balance sheets that are driving the debate.
Waiting to make a ‘big’ impact?
For some, I think its about choosing the right moment, there is no doubt that when some of the big NGOs come out and critique the actions of the government it’ll be big news. It is if you like a nuclear option, and a tool that can perhaps only be used once (perhaps twice) before it becomes ineffective. Are some NGOs waiting for the ‘right’ moment to go public with their concerns and if so how many have thought through what the red lines are that would lead them to do that? Equally, I imagine that many NGOs are making their concerns known privately to MPs and minister, but will it get to a point when they feel the need to go ‘public’.
Legal Restrictions
For others, it’s the restrictions that charitable status places on them (something that doesn’t for example cover organisations like WDM or Greenpeace who have been set up to be largely free of these restrictions). According to the NCVO website, charities are allowed to campaign, providing it is ‘trying to change a law or government policy’ and can keep going ‘until its goal has been met, but political activity can not become the only activity of a charity, indefinitely; it should be a means to an end, rather than the end itself’.
Are NGOs concerned that statements against particular cuts, could be threaten their need to ‘remain independent and politically neutral’ and be interpreted as ‘seeking to persuade people to vote for or against a candidate or political party’? Is this concern especially acute given the coalition government, which means that the Labour Party is the main political party speaking out against most of the cuts? However, if NGOs believe that the cuts are seriously undermining their ability to fulfil their overall objectives at what point do the restrictions need to be challenged?
Understanding the landscape
Finally, are some NGOs still trying to make sense of how to influence the new government, and until they do that they’re going to be reluctant to burn their bridges by being seen as overly critical.  The sector has become used to a certain level of open door access to minister and decision makers within Whitehall, but that’s appears to has somewhat disappeared (evidenced by the records released by Tom Watson before Christmas about who was getting meetings at No 10).
Combine that with a scepticism that NGOs are simply lobbying outfits by part of the new intake of MPs and a growth in ‘crowd sourcing’ policy initiatives that appear to leap frog one of the more traditional roles that NGOs have played, are some still trying to work out the most effective ‘insider’ approach before resorting to an ‘outsider’ strategy?

Campaign tweeters you should be following

A very lazy Sunday evening post, but here is my list of some of the people I think you should be following on twitter for interesting thinking about campaigning.
It’s the list of campaigning people I look out for in my twitter. I’ve tried to avoid the corporate feeds from organisations but I’m sure I’ve missed people.
Additional contributions encouraged.
Monday 14 Feb – UPDATED with some new additions.
@forumforchange – Forum for Change from NCVO – consistantly useful sources of information, UK NGO sector should always grateful for what Forum For Change is doing.
@fairsay – Duane Raymond, Fairsay – was talking about e-campaigning before Malcolm Gladwell had heard about Twitter!
@j_chatterton – Jonny Chatterton, 38degrees – the latest from 38 degrees and lots of other interesting things aside.
@mcgregormt – Matthew McGregor, Blue State Digital – works for Obama’s ‘favourite internet strategy firm’ but used to work for War on Want so get’s UK campaigning.
@SMKcampaigners – Campaign Central from Sheila McKechnie Foundation – supporting the next generation of campaigners.
@brandzel – Ben Brandzel – appears to have been involved in almost every big e-campaign you’ve heard about, taught me the concept of ‘crisis-tiunity’ which I’ve bored colleagues with every since!
@HUdigital – Hands Up Digital – great little campaigns consultancy run by former colleague of mine (@benclowney).
@paulhilder – Paul Hilder – involved with Avaaz, author of Contentious citizens: Civil society’s role in campaigning for social change.
@kelcurrah – Kel Currah – should have more followers, heads up What World Strategies, knows lots about global campaigning.
@PolDyn – Political Dynamite – I’m biased, but constantly challenging blog about what’s working in campaigning.
@GlenTarman – Glen Tarman, BOND – consistently useful source of info about campaigning and the UK development scene.
@BenNiblett – Ben Niblett, Tearfund – my boss but also tweeter of interesting things, especially on climate change.
@stevenbuckley – Steven Buckley, Christian Aid – lots of useful tweets about comms trends, my bridge into the scary world of corporate comms and fundraising!
@timsowula – Tim Sowula – fellow collaborator in the short lived ‘Young Campaigners Forum’. Thinks alot about comms and campaigning.
Suggested by @BenNiblett
@imchrisjohnston – Chris Johnson – author of the brilliant http://activismismyrent.wordpress.com/ blog
Suggested by @timsowula
@aaronjohnpeters – Aaron John Peters – blogs at http://radicaldandy.wordpress.com/
@caspertk – Casper ter Kuile, Co-founder of the UKYCC – blogs at http://www.caspertk.co.uk
@KenRoth– Ken Roth, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch
@AdamRamsay – Adam Ramsay – blogs at http://www.brightgreenscotland.org
Suggested by @haroldforbes
@billmckibben – Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org
Update 2
@nicola_gilbert – Nicola Gilbert, Campaign Effectiveness Officer at NCVO
@hackofalltrades – Liam Barrington-Bush
@emmataggart – Emma Taggart

When a NGO admits it’s wrong. WWF and it’s (non) involvement in the Save Our Forests campaign

It’s not often you see a big NGO come out in public and admit that they got something wrong.
So it’s great to see WWF put out a statement today effectively apologising for its lack of public action and clarifying its stance on UK forest sell-off in response to some harsh criticism it’s received in the press this week.
It’s a spat that started in the Guardian on Monday when environmentalist Jonathan Porritt accused major charities, including WWF, RSPB and the National Trust of “collectively betrayed” for their failure to support the grassroots campaign that has grown in the recent weeks to halt the sale of English forests, while Polly Toynbee put the boot in on Tuesday accusing green groups of ‘keeping their heads down over selling off forests’.
Today, WWF have responded with an excellent statement on their website confessing that they should have done more from the start. 
Porrit stated “There have been no statements, no mobilisation of its massive membership, no recognition that this is an absolutely critical issue for the future wellbeing of conservation in the UK. Nothing”.
Suggesting that the lack of action had “made themselves look foolish and irrelevant as one of the largest grassroots protests this country has seen for a long time grows and grows without them – indeed, despite them.”
There is no doubt that the campaign mounted by 38 degrees and others has gathered a huge amount of momentum in a short time, it’s petition has just gone over the half a million mark.
Perhaps most interestingly, it feels like it’s not only the ‘usual suspects’ who are signing on. A non-campaigning friend of mine posted the link to the petition on Facebook tonight encouraging people to sign, and the Observer reported of the opposition of many land owners last weekend. 
So I’m impressed to see the response from WWF today, who write of the statement that ‘It’s fair to say this is a bit overdue as loads of you have asked us what we’re doing about the proposed government sell-off (or long-term leasing) of UK forests’
Going on to explain ‘Not having much of a history working on UK forests, we did most of our work behind the scenes and focused our public firepower on issues like illegal logging via our ‘What Wood You Choose?’ campaign. We are working with peers getting an amendment tabled in the House of Lords and had questions asked in parliament, but to be honest we did precious little in public’ (emphasis mine)
In time it might be right to ask if criticising environmental NGOs in such a public way was the right approach by Porritt? As an unnamed source in the original article says ‘Rule one of clever campaigning is that you don’t criticise members of your team, at least not in public’ and WWF say they’ve been working on this behind the scenes.
But for me this spat has once again highlights some of the challenges that the more ‘traditional’ NGOs need to address in their campaigning.
1. Agility
Movements like 38 degrees are so well placed, because they can respond within hours not days. They lack the restrictions of charitable status and often no desire for a seat at the table in ongoing consultation. Combine this with a phenomenal e-mail network mean that they can be ‘first to market’. The challenge that many ‘traditional’ NGOs face is that they’re not set up to turn around a response in the time that online campaigns like 38 degrees.
No doubt heated discussions have been happening at all the NGOs that Porritt choose to criticise (as you can see implied by the response from WWF), but the very nature of these organisations mean that multiple departments need to be involved and opportunities and risks needs to be carefully calculated, but that whole process takes time, and internal compromises often have to be negotiated. In this digital age waiting even 24 hours to respond or act can be too long.
2 – Collaboration
Within a day or so 38 degrees had already collected the first 50,000+ names on its petition, and then you have to ask how much value there is in starting a second competing petition. This for me is the second challenge are traditional NGO prepared to ‘brand’ and ‘profile’ aside and collaborate for the common good when situations like this arise?
Would the NGOs named be prepared to promote the 38 degrees petition assuming they agreed with the essence of what it was calling for?
On this regard I’ve got a huge amount of respect for WWF for saying in their statement ‘To their great credit, 38 Degrees organised a massive public response (sign here if you haven’t already)’ but no doubt that line will cause some anxiety in the organisation as supporters are encouraged to share their valuable data with others. 
Collaboration is essential, and to do it well campaigners need to recognise the different roles and approaches needed for effective campaigns.
Save our Forests is no different, surely it’d be of huge value to have organisations with both years of experience in nature conservation joining the campaign and impressive contacts within Parliament to be involved.  But to do that requires someone to initiate the collaboration, and in situations like this perhaps it’s not clear who that should be.
3. Accountability 
Perhaps it wasn’t Porritt’s criticism and the Guardian articles that lead WWF to clarify their position. The statement from WWF certainly indicates that they’ve also been hearing complaints from supporters saying ‘The scale of passion around this issue has led to a lot of emails as to WWF’s role’.
This case seems to be another example of the increasingly complex relationship that organisations have with their supporters. The tools of collaboration and campaigning aren’t just in the hands of a few professionalised campaigners, they’re available to supporters to lobby the organisations they belong to. It also shows that many campaigners are active in more than one campaigning network.
So congratulation on an excellent response from WWF, a response that already seems to be yielding appreciation from supporters with one writing;
Thank you. As a WWF member and supporter of the Save Our Forests campaign, I’m very glad you’ve joined the campaign. The statement above is everything we could have hoped for.
Now I’m left wondering if we’ll see the National Trust and RSPB come out with a statement in recent days.

Future of No10 petition site kicked into long grass….again!

So Martha Lane Fox has today delivered her review of digital provision in central government and the future of the No10 petition site still remains unclear.
 
The site, which has seen 5 millions people take action, was taken down ahead of the May general election, and ever since its future has remained uncertain (I’ve argued this might not be a bad thing but it’d be good to know one way or another). For the last few weeks it has displayed the following message;
November 2010 – The overall future of all HMG digital comms and engagement is bound into the Martha Lane Fox review, which will be announced imminently. The future of e-petitions will be part of that review.
But a decision is going to be hard when the report which was released today says nothing about the site, e-petitions or how the government can use digital media to engage directly with citizens on public policy issues.
I might be missing something (another report from Lane Fox perhaps), but it seems that the Coalition Government is keen to continue to kick the future of the site into the long grass.
So much for a ‘new way of doing politics’.