WORKSHOP

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• WORKSHOP
• Building an Asian community of practice on
  monitoring and budget analysis
• 9 - 11 July, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

The use of Social Indicators for advocay and
monitoring the Social Watch experience.
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Advocacy

• A strategy of political influence that defends
  and pushes an issue or agenda in a certain space
  of power.
• An strategy that is aimed at changing not only
  the laws and regulations related to those issues
  but the way they are understood by the rest of
  the society.
• These strategies develop from social or
  development actors and imply a wide view of
  politics, beyond the borders of political
  parties.
• And they also involves a series of relations with
  other actors such as the state, media, interest
  groups, etc.

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Stages

1. Define a clear political objective As a result
   of a broader agenda.
2. Identify other actors, their agendas and
   interests.
3. Establish strategic alliances, and their costs.
4. Planning attainable advocacy actions and
   measuring their impacts.

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• Why do we want to advocate a certain issue?
  (substantiation).
• What do we want to advocate for? (expected
  results).

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Different types of advocacy actions

• Lobby It implies making pressure on a particular
  person or group with certain relative power for
  it to guide its actions or make decisions
  according to our political objective.
• Awareness raising the action is aimed to put the
  issue on the public agenda or to raise awareness
  on the issue among a certain group of persons or
  actors.

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• Mobilization it implies that citizens meet in a
  public space to transmit their common defensive
  or offensive position.

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Tensions on the road towards advocacy

• Tensions among actors
• Local-global tensions
• Tensions among types of strategies
• d) Tensions among different advocacy spaces

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Local-global tensions

• Global agendas affect regional agendas, which
  affect national and local agendas and vice versa
  .
• Interconnection of advocacy agendas at
  various levels
• Allows the collective action of actors in
  different levels

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• The agenda of the founders prevails over those
  who are working at a local level.
• Communication rationalities
• Information flows

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Linking the local with the global the SW Report

• Every year, the report analyzes in depth a
  different matter. The discussion on the issues is
  strongly related to the global agenda and to the
  subjects and frameworks that are being discussed
  internationally at this time.
• The choice of the subject is made on a
  participatory process basis in which members
  share their opinion on the relevance each matter
  proposed has for their national advocacy agendas.

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• The international perspective is complemented
  with the production of national and regional
  reports.
• The prevailing idea in the production of indexes
  and tables is that of linking levels, producing
  comparable information internationally but also
  enabling a local reading.

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• Key moments to make its contents known are the
  launchings which take place globally and in each
  country, where most of the attention is focused
  on the results of the national chapter.
• The launchings are vital to convey the way in
  which Social Watch understands the problems
  affecting development (and the alternatives for
  their solution) to people in key places and to
  raise awareness among public opinion on the
  relevance of addressing certain situations that
  are socially unfair.

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Reaching the goal challenges for advocacy

• Challenges in alliance articulation and building
  
• Challenges in identity and legitimacy building
• Challenges in the production of policy-oriented
  contents
• Challenges in impact, efficiency, systemizing and
  resources

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Legitimacy

• Definition the recognized right to influence in
  the formulation and implementation of policies.
• Main sources Political and technical.
• The ability to advocate will be determined both
  by an organizations political legitimacy as by
  its technical legitimacy.

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• More and more, the legitimacy of an organization
  or group of them has to do with their technical
  capacity. With the ability to produce valid,
  relevant and useful information.
• The communication of results can play a role as
  important as the results themselves.

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Challenges in the production of policy-oriented
contents

• CSO members are more focused on the promotion of
  equity and justice, the promotion of social
  change or the empowerment of certain social
  groups.
• Researchers, in general, will focus their efforts
  in the production of elegant theory, the
  generation of valid data and the production of
  replicable results.

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• Delimiting the problem in such a way that both
  the resources contributed by researchers and by
  activists are involved.
• Setting shared values, goals and expectations.
• Identifying the institutional arrangements that
  may favor or hinder communication.
• Learning from the problem collectively but also
  from the collective learning process.

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Social indicators

• What are they?
• What is their utility?
• How to choose them?
• A social indicators system
• The work of Social Watch

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• Social indicators are tools for discussion and
  policy-making in diverse fields and arenas both
  within countries and at an international level.
• Although their construction does involve
  technical elements, indicators can and should be
  accessible for appropriation and criticism by the
  community.
• So they can give strength to advocacy practices

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What is a social indicator?

• A social indicator is a tool to measure an
  abstract social concept (of theoretical or
  programmatic interest). It translates some aspect
  of social reality into tangible figures.
• It is a construction based on a certain
  methodology that yields information about an
  aspect of a real situation and its changes.
• Social indicators are conventionally adopted and
  their use becomes generalised and legitimised
  through user perception of their utility (in
  social, economic and political fields).
• Indicators both show and hide aspects of social
  life what do we need to show to make
  inequalities visible?

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What is their utility?

• They are tools that provide information on a
  situation or process of interest
• Assist in policy decision-making, the setting of
  goals, initiative result evaluation and the
  monitoring of progress, regression or stagnation
• Provide evidence and figures to facilitate an
  independent monitoring of initiatives
• Can function as an early warning system to
  prevent the development of critical situations
• Enable the identification of vulnerable groups or
  risk situations.

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Construction and selection of indicators

• Data become an indicator in response to a
  question about reality and such questions arise
  from a certain view of that reality.
• From the concept / problem to the indicator
• Conceptually define the problem or area to be
  studied
• Define the dimensions and sub-dimensions of the
  analysis
• Identify pertinent indicators in each dimension
• Examples of concepts the dimensions and variables
  of which need to be defined
• Social development
• Poverty
• Equity

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Concept, dimensions, indicators

• (CONCEPT) Gender equity
• (DIMENSION) Education
• (INDICATORS) Literacy gap
• Primary enrolment gap
• Secondary enrolment gap
• Tertiary enrolment gap
• (DIMENSION) Economic activity
• (DIMENSION) Empowerment

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The collection of data and criteria for
constructing and selecting indicators

• The information needed to construct the
  indicators can be collected directly (PRIMARY
  SOURCE) or come from a collection made by others
  (SECONDARY SOURCE).
• Some criteria
• Relevance
• Clarity
• Social legitimacy
• Validity
• Reliability
• Specificness
• Sensitivity
• Durability
• Exact in calculation methodology, robust and
  statistically validated
• Availability
• Systematic collection
• Timely
• Comparability
• Disaggregatability

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Indicators and Indexes

• Indicators (univariated) e.g Infant mortality
  rate, Literacy rate, PBI
• Indexes (summary measure of several indicators)
  e.g. HDI, BCI, GEI
• An index is a single composite value that
  expresses how a variable behaves when data from
  the various indicators is considered together.
• For the synthesis of indicators it must be
  decided which is the most conceptually and
  operatively appropriate criterion to reduce data
  to a single value. This can include mathematical
  calculations and/or logical processes. A very
  much used criterion is the simple or weighted sum
  of the indicators values (in this case it is
  important that all indicators are measured in the
  same scale)

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What is a social indicators system?

• Many dimensions are needed to characterize a
  social phenomenon.
• An indicators system is a group of indicators
  that capture an aspect of social reality.
• Examples
• a system of health indicators
• a system of housing indicators
• a system of labour market indicators

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Social indicators system
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Ex. Social indicators system
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• The work of Social Watch

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SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
DIMENSIONS
WATER AND SANITATION
I T INFORMATION
FOOD
HEALTH (IMMUNIZATION AND MORBIMORTALITY)
GENDER EQUITY
PUBLIC EXPENDITURE
REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH
EDUCATION
INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION STATISTICS
INTERNATIONAL HEALTH STATISTICS
INTERNATIONAL FOOD STATISTICS
INTERNATIONAL STATISTICS
SYSTEM OF SOCIAL INDICATORS
FOOD INDICATORS
EDUCATION INDICATORS
HEALTH INDICATORS
OTHER INDICATORS
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The position of countries in each thematic area

• The situation a country, according to each
  indicator, is given by the latest available value
  for that indicator.
• The average values of each thematic area are
  classified to create four country categories
• Countries in better situation
• Countries above average
• Countries below average
• Countries in worse situation
• A fifth group is also presented (Countries with
  insufficient data to summarise the area).

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Progress or regression? Rate of change

• The rate of change for each country is obtained
  by considering the variation in the values of the
  indicator over the time period within which the
  measurements are made. The quotient between the
  variation in the indicator and the time period
  reflects the rate of change for the item in
  question.
• Five categories
• Significant progress (countries progressing at a
  higher rate than the average rate of progressing
  countries)
• Slight progress (countries progressing at a lower
  rate than the average rate of progressing
  countries)
• Stagnant (countries not showing significant
  progression)
• Slight regression (countries regressing at a
  lower rate than the average rate of regressing
  countries)
• Significant regression (countries regressing at a
  higher rate than the average rate of regressing
  countries)

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COUNTRIES CURRENT SITUATION
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COUNTRIES EVOLUTION
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BCIBasic Capabilities IndexA synthetic index
focused on the minimal or basic capabilities
essential for social development

• Under 5 mortality rate
• Births attended by skilled personnel
• Children reaching 5th grade

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SOCIAL WATCHs BCI. RESULTS RANKING
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Gender Equity Index A synthetic index for the
analysis of gender equity.

• Dimensions and indicators
• Empowerment ( of women in technical positions,
  of women in management and government positions,
  of women in parliaments, of women in
  ministerial posts).
• Economic activity (income gaps, of economically
  active women (excluding the agriculture sector)).
• Education (literacy rate gap, primary school
  enrolment rate gap, secondary school enrolment
  rate gap, tertiary education enrolment rate gap).

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SOCIAL WATCHs GEI

• Education gap
• Economic gap
• Empowerment gap

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SOCIAL WATCHs GEI RESULTS RANKING
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To sum up

• Social phenomena / problems can be measured
• Dimension I
• Indicator I
• Indicator II
• Indicator III
• Dimension II
• (Indexes)
• SW work
• The use of indicators for measuring social
  development / progress and regression
• Synthetic indexes (BCI, GEI) as advocacy tools

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Group work

• Advocacy
• Is the practice an advocacy action according to
  the definition given?
• Does it have a clear political objective?
• Who are the other actors involved?
• What alliances were formed? What other alliances
  could be useful?
• What advocacy actions were taken? Suggest other
  actions to complement those.
• Which were the reasons that originate the action?
  and the expected results?
• What was the strategy of communication
  implemented? What other means could be used?
• Does the practice include indicators to diagnose
  the problem and\or evaluate and monitoring the
  results?

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Group work

• Social indicators
• What are the dimensions involved?
• What indicators could be use to measure those
  dimensions?
• What kind of sources should be necessary to
  gather (primary or secondary)?
• What are the advantages or disadvantages of using
  indicators in this case?
• What would be the contribution of using
  indicators?
• In which stage of the practice should be better
  to use them? (Diagnostic, advocacy actions,
  evaluation and monitoring)

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• Thank you!
• Split into groups!
• Have a cup of coffee!
• We are not singing!