Social Change
Social change action with informed and engaged societies
Social Change
As of March 15 2025, The Communication Initiative (The CI) platform is operating at a reduced level, with no new content being posted to the global website and registration/login functions disabled. (La Iniciativa de Comunicación, or CILA, will keep running.) While many interactive functions are no longer available, The CI platform remains open for public use, with all content accessible and searchable until the end of 2025. 

Please note that some links within our knowledge summaries may be broken due to changes in external websites. The denial of access to the USAID website has, for instance, left many links broken. We can only hope that these valuable resources will be made available again soon. In the meantime, our summaries may help you by gleaning key insights from those resources. 

A heartfelt thank you to our network for your support and the invaluable work you do.
Time to read
6 minutes
Print
a- a+
Read so far

HLPF 2019 - Impact - Empowering people and ensuring inclusive societies

6 comments

"Empowering people and ensuring inclusiveness and equality" is the focus for the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) that will convene from Tuesday, 9 July, to Thursday, 18 July 2019 at the UN in New York to review progress on six of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
 

Empowering people and ensuring inclusiveness and equality is of course the main focus for an approach to development that is people-centred, including social change, social norms, media development, behaviour change, amplifying the voice of those most affected, accountability to affected people, local and national conversation, engaged and informed societies, social networking, media freedom, community engagement, and similar strategies.
 

Too often, an essential people-centred approach for effective and sustainable Development is overshadowed by a Development policy and funding priority focus on new technologies, economic models, scientific "breakthroughs", expert opinion, and the like. One major reason often stated for the technical over the people is that there is a lack of evidence for the impact of the people approach.
 

That understanding is wrong. As a contribution to the HLPF process, we have gathered evidence that provides the impact data. Please see Empowering People and Ensuring Inclusiveness and Equality: An Evidence-based Strategy and Investment Paper for Consideration by the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) 2019.
 

Just a few examples of impact data from people-centred strategies: 1.78 times more likely to use a modern family planning method; Public funds captured by corruption down 60%; 72% increase in girls having their own savings; and 11.6 percentile educational gain - see the full strategic argument and set of data at this link. This data is couched, as it should be, in the context of a reality story and a rights perspective.
 

If you are attending the HLPF in New York, please feel free to use this argument and data in the discussions and debates that take place. If you know people who will be attending, please do forward this to them.
 

We very much hope that Empowering People and Ensuring Inclusiveness and Equality: An Evidence-based Strategy and Investment Paper for Consideration by the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) 2019 is helpful for your deliberations and for making the case for a higher policy priority and greatly expanded investment in a people-centred approach for more effective and sustainable Development.
 

We would also very much welcome your critique and comments on this paper. Helpful? Accurate? Compelling? Missing what? Makes sense? Please enter your comments in the comments block here at the end of the short paper.
 

Many thanks.

Warren

Comments

Submitted by Shari Cohen on Tue, 07/09/2019 - 09:57 Permalink

Hello Warren,

As someone who has shifted their personal and professional goals to align and now only take on assignments that allow me to bring in my human rights-based approaches to social change, I agree with all that you wrote. But you're preaching to the choir here, at least those of us who agree with you!

What I'd like to know is, who is informing the decisions that are about to be taken at this HLPF that begins tomorrow? I have asked a few people in my circle who are what I consider 'well-connected' to the UN world and they know nobody who will be present at this event, nor did they know about this event until your email came out yesterday. So it begs the question, HOW will anything CHANGE if we - who are carrying out the work in this area - don't know anyone who is attending this event, let alone where the information the delegates will base their decisiosn on has come from? Is the information that will inform them the links you provided in your post, or are there other forms of information that will influence them?

It feels like yet another UN gathering to discuss the merits of 'people-powered change' without the actual 'people' present. The very nature of calling this "High Level" feels exclusionary, at least to me. So I'd really like to know, is there representation from social change colleagues who specialize in HRBA-powered methodologies, strategies, etc.? The very fact that we only heard of this yesterday through your email, tells me there isn't even time for us to make a meaningful contribution...or is there?

Shari, you are absolutely correct. And this aggravation is amplified when higher level decision-makers be present only as a formality, but decisions have already been decided in advance. This type of process is not unique to the UN, as it occurs at universities, in companies as well as major international donor-funded projects.

Hi Shari Cohen,

I too, feel that there is a disconnect between what goes on in the world and what goes on in the chambers where decisions are made. Not to be too critical, I do agree that a lot of good work with a lot of good intention is going on, however, I feel that it is vital that the involvement of the people be more two-way.

What we see right now is that a few activities and initiatives link us, the people, to the change we wish for ourselves. Commendable, as they may be, in no way are the efforts by the UN sufficient. They are akin to wishful thinking in the sense that many a times the scale of an intervention does not match the growth of a target issue. The time for wishing and hoping is over. Nothing changes enough until all of us, as the people sitting inside the carriage of change also become the people drawing it forth. We need the good work done by UN to be more in quantity while maintaining, if not improving, the quality. And this, in my opinion, is only possible if every person on the planet gets associated with at least one area of change that the UN is working for.

Every citizen of the planet must also be the beacon of change, volunteering time for our world just as we "volunteer" time for our friends, families and neighbors.

Here, a change in the attitude of people is also required. Making positive changes in our society is nothing different than contributing to college funds for our kids, if not more important. We, as people, must realise this. 

I hope something can be done about this.

Regards,
Kriti Gangwar

We are designing everything as advertising power, the power derived from the online electronic screens, and everything returned to some analytics machine to production lines and implementation. Electronically it is quick enough and successful globally.

To experience any of the set goals one has shrink back to an individual human, and then everything is limited by chance. At apex institutional levels a sequential clossed dialogue chain around the globe may be more effective in monitoring a possible change.

Without a similar offscreen human dialogue chains, this communication entity will be considered dead in a few seconds.

Submitted by Shari Cohen on Wed, 07/10/2019 - 11:00 Permalink

Warren, in thinking about your above post today, I have more to say...lucky you...

First and foremost, there is nothing inherently wrong with the Strategic Principles you lay out above, however NONE of it is FEASIBLE until/unless DONORS CHANGE. There is no understanding nor buy in from donors - not even the UN agencies who espouse HRBAs -  because we still, in 2019, have 'deliverables' that are expected within a year of project/programme commencement. It is unreasonable and not at all feasible to create meaningful social changes within a year, let alone lasting, sustainable changes. Why do I always see deliverables pegged to behavior change within the first 12 or 24 months when we know that lasting behavior/social change can take a generation or more? WE allow donors to dictate HOW programs are run, even to the point of allowing them to tell us which activities they want to fund! And then we wonder why inclusion and meaningful participation doesn't happen? It's no wonder any communities are still willing to work with any of us, if I'm being honest. I wouldn't if I was a community being constantly bombarded with competing priorities coming from the orgs and donors that fund them.

We need to stop competing with one another for funding money, and find more creative ways to work together as partners on the organizational side, and we need to stand together as partners and stop kowtowing to donors for every measly dollar they give us, with strings very much attached.

Instead we need to come together and educate donors - and I include the UN in this because they are some of the worst abusers in talking the HRBA talk, but not walking the HRBA walk. If you want to commit to inclusion, to empowering people to create their own change, support their visions for their lives, and all the other verbiage that the UN and other orgs talk about, then donors and orgs need to understand and accept that the process of change takes time, a lot of time, and if they're not willing to give that time to carry out/adhere to all the meaningful 'Strategic Principles' that you lay out above, then they need to get out of the way and let someone else sit at the table.