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Policy Entrepreneurship Workshop for Child
Workers in Asia
24-25th of October 2005, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Summary Workshop Report
This training workshop on Policy Entrepreneurship was
facilitated by Naved Chowdhury as part of the capacity development
support provided to southern CSOs by the Civil Society Partnerships
Programme. The workshop was hosted by Child Workers in Asia
(CWA) and Underprivileged Children's Education Programme Bangladesh
(UCEP).
Child Workers in Asia (CWA) was established in 1985 as a
support group for child workers in Asia, and the NGOs working
with them. From a small group of five organizations, it now
brings together over 70 groups / organisations working on
child labour in 14 countries. It facilitates the sharing of
expertise and experiences between NGOs and strengthens their
collaboration to jointly respond to the exploitation of working
children in the region. For the last fifteen years, CWA has
been a venue for interaction between big and small NGOs. The
network has strived to contribute to the development of the
understanding of the situation of children who work and are
exploited. It has tried its best to support the emergence
of local actions for working children and for the promotion
of children's rights. CWA currently has links with organisations
in: Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Laos, Vietnam,
Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and Hong
Kong.
This 'Policy Entrepreneurship for Members of Child Workers
in Asia' Workshop was organised in Dhaka by UCEP-Bangladesh
(Underprivileged Children's Education Programs) and supported
by ODI (Overseas Development Institute). The workshop was
conducted through ODI's Civil Society Partnerships Programme
(CSPP). The objective of the workshop was to expose CWA partners
to current theory and practice of evidence-based policymaking
and to assist them in developing a strategy to strengthen
work towards eliminating Bonded Child Labour in Asia. There
were 24 participants from South and South East Asia, mainly
from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Indonesia, the Philippines and
Bangladesh.
The workshop began with an opening address given by Ms. Jacquelyn
Pinat of CWA secretariat. In her speech she expressed the
hope that the workshop would contribute towards enhancing
the policy analysis and advocacy skills of the participants.
Regarding their expectations of the workshop, the following
points were mentioned: (i) Sharing of information and knowledge
on advocacy at the regional and national level; (ii) discussion
on how research can influence policy advocacy and its practical
application, especially on impacting the legal framework on
child labour and human rights; and (iii) sharing of information
on ways to use research in the policy advocacy activities
of CWA and for each partner nationally.
Several cases studies were presented during the workshop.
The first one addressed the issue of abolition of the Komaiya
system (Bonded Child Labour) in Nepal. While discussing this
issue it was revealed that advocacy for the abolition of this
system in Nepal was first actively taken up by civil society
in 1990. The activities until now have been advocating towards
establishing a legal framework in Nepal which will make it
illegal and therefore the komaiya system will cease to exist.
This has been going on through the engagement of the komiaya
themselves, civil society and law makers in Nepal. The campaign
has proven to be quite successful: the Komaiya system was
declared illegal in 2000 by the government, whereas previously
the policymakers had denied its existence. Unfortunately however
the implementation of the law has been very limited. Komaiyas
still exist and it is very difficult for them to contribute
to society as the government has not done enough for their
reintegration and rehabilitation.
The second case study detailed the National Plan of Action
on the abolition of bonded child labour in Pakistan and highlighted
the intricate nature of this and other issues in Pakistan.
Politicians who are themselves feudal lords employ bonded
child labour and therefore they lack any political will to
eradicate this moral and social evil. Consequently research
and advocacy carried out by various human rights organisations
so far has had limited success in Pakistan.
While discussing and analysing the case studies presented
the participants identified a number of issues around policy
and research processes which were crosscutting in these countries:
- Many polices are made as responses to certain crisis instead
of long term planning and through discussion between various
stakeholders, consequently the impact of these polices has
been very limited;
- Research depends on quality data and frequently the robustness
and rigour of the research is contested not only by policymakers
but also other researchers;
- Credibility of the research and legitimacy of the CSOs
are frequently questioned by the policy makers;
- While there exists rich experience of advocacy, unfortunately
the research and policy analysis capacity of CSOs is limited;
- Coordination between the stakeholders is often poor and
most importantly there is a clear lack of trust of policymakers
by the CSOs, which makes the engagement acrimonious and
difficult.
Other policy challenges include:
- The realisation that bonded child labour is a problem
defined by the social, cultural and political histories
of a particular community;
- The issue of bonded child labour is complex, and therefore
to fight against it an integrated approach is needed.
- Interventions will remain incomplete unless land, parents,
employment, education, health and gender issues are tackled
simultaneously.
- Comprehensive laws exist in India and Pakistan, but the
problem perpetuates with the lack of enforcement mechanisms
or the lengthy or costly provisions required to go through
with any case. Law enforcement, therefore, calls for a strong
political will of the states and vigilance among civil society
members.
In national policy making, community knowledge aspirations
are rarely respected. Promoting respect for community knowledge
and the people's right to be key actors are crucial. The other
challenge lies in the capacity building of local institutions,
including elected bodies, in governance, research, documentation,
etc. Moreover scattered across the region are hundreds of
small grassroots NGOs directly working on the problems confronting
bonded children and their families. It is important to locate
them and build links across the region to tap on the wealth
of human resources, initiatives, and lessons these small groups
have generated.
Based on research over the last few years, ODI's RAPID Programme
has developed a framework to help researchers identify the
key factors influencing research-policy linkages in their
own situation. These factors fall into four groups: the political
context (political and economic structures and processes,
culture, institutional pressures, incremental vs. radical
change etc); the evidence (credibility, the degree it challenges
received wisdom, research approaches and methodology, simplicity
of the message, how it is packaged etc); the links between
policy and research communities (networks, relationships,
power, competing discourses, trust, knowledge etc); and external
influences (socio-economic and cultural influences, donor
policies etc).
On the second day of the workshop while discussing the necessity
of coordination between CWA secretariat and the partners in
the countries it was emphasised that ultimately the improved
links between the members and their shared vision on collaboration
is what drives CWA forward. It was also emphasised that while
any organisation is a partner of CWA, it also has its individual
identity and that this needs to be understood. The research,
it was felt, should not only be aware of the needs of the
target audience, therefore making the research demand driven,
but in addition the purpose of the research should be for
better understanding and generating knowledge and analysis
on any specific issue. The Policy Entrepreneurship Questionnaire'
which analyses different skills of people in regard to policy
advocacy was also accepted with lots of interest.
The tools presented for policy advocacy were used successfully
by the participants. Several issues were highlighted while
the participants used the tools (force field and problem tree
analysis) in their specific context:
- The need of the local community may not match the issue
as identified by CSOs.
- There needs to be a balance between the broader objective
of CWA and the activities of its partners in specific contexts
and if one or other dominates then the success of CWA will
be limited as a network.
- In addition to quantitative studies, other tools such
as story telling could be an effective way of getting the
attention of various stakeholders.
In their evaluation of the event, most participants felt
the workshop to be very useful for their work. While the content
and the presentation of the materials was appreciated, some
felt that two days was too short to digest all the information.
It was therefore advised to extend the workshop for another
day or a half. The participants were eager to use the knowledge
gained at the workshop and also to make valuable contribution
towards CWA in order to be more effective in its endeavours
towards elimination of the worst forms of child labour in
Asia.
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