Can civil society organizations claim to be successful while the world is facing a disaster?

From 12 to 18 May we celebrated 50 years of Solidaridad – an exciting journey full of innovations. Six hundred staff and partners from five continents joined in with the celebrations. At various events during the week I had the opportunity to share my thoughts as the outgoing Executive Director, having served Solidaridad in different positions for 35 years. For your kind consideration, I’d like to share some key parts of these speeches with you, my extended Linkedin community.

A CHALLENGING CONTEXT: ANTHROPOCENE - THE ERA OF EXTINCTION

We are becoming increasingly aware of the fact that we are living in the anthropocene. Over the last years, updated science-based reports from the UN Panel on Climate Change, and most recently the Panel report on loss of biodiversity, have created more clarity on the status of our planet. These reports describe a new era in the history of Planet Earth, bringing the Holocene epoch to an end. The new era of absolute dominance of the human race; ‘anthropos’. The human species will be overwhelmingly present with an estimated number of more than ten billion people by the end of this century. With predominant unsustainable consumption causing mass extinctions of plants and animal species, among other lasting impacts.

Indeed the figures are impressive and most worrying. The variety of plant species has decreased significantly and forest coverage in tropical zones, for example, has reduced by at least 50%. In some regions there’s been a 75% decrease in the numbers of flying insects. The populations and different species of bees, butterflies and birds are in rapid decline. Nature is under tremendous pressure and is, in reality, affecting the future of mankind. In this sense, feedback mechanisms show our interdependencies.

Climate change has reached a point of no return already. Political ambitions are formulated to keep the rise of the global temperature at 1.5 degrees; an increase of at least 3.5 degrees is more likely analysing practice, not promise.

Global water supplies are being pumped 3.5 times faster than rainfall can naturally recharge. Topsoil is being lost 10-40 times faster than it is formed.

One conclusion seems inevitable. We have sacrificed our planet and the future of mankind for the enrichment of a tiny elite.

A NEW DIMENSION – ECOLOGICAL POVERTY

In line with the Indian economist Amartya Sen, poverty could be seen as the deprivation of basic capabilities. The approach concentrates on capabilities that are intrinsically important, rather than just on income, which is seen as the standard criterion of identifying poverty. The more comprehensive capacity approach enables us to distinguish different dimensions of poverty. Like the well-known economic, social and political dimensions. And, a more recent development, ecological poverty.

Development is a process of expanding the capacity of people to meet the challenges of these four dimensions and enjoy the freedom that all people deserve. As a recent development, ecological poverty is defined as poverty as a result of the inability to fight climate change, and to overcome ecological environmental degradation. We can clearly identify critical issues related to climate poverty, water poverty, land degradation poverty and pollution-related poverty.

Solidaridad prominently highlights fighting poverty as its core approach. In this aspect, our primary clients become the unreached poor who lack capacity, but have the potential to bring themselves out of poverty. In order to improve the capacity of poor people – the vast majority of world’s population – we must strengthen our response to the four dimensions of poverty.

LESSONS LEARNED - WHAT MARKETS CAN AND CANNOT DO ALONE

One of Solidaridad’s leading strategies is market transformation; giving markets more desirable social and ecological outcomes. An interaction between good governance, corporate social responsibility and solution-oriented civil society organizations (CSOs) could generate this positive outcome. This conceptual thinking still leads our strategies, and for good reason.

However, more than ever we see the impact and disruptive effects of what, in economic science, is known as market imperfections. The main challenges related to sustainable and inclusive development are linked to three market imperfections:

a) Persistent, widespread poverty

Markets cannot serve the urgent needs of the poor because they have no purchasing power. Markets are characterized by an inadequate registration of needs and can only respond to a purchasing power demand. By consequence, they focus on the greed of the wealthy and ignore the basic needs of the poor.

Four billion people are more or less neglected as consumers. This is a political and moral dilemma, while at the same time it could be seen as an unused economic potential. A more equal income distribution makes sense from an economic perspective.

Only good governance can make markets work for the poor.

b) Ecological disaster

Markets are unable to price future shortages of resources and include the perspectives and interests of future generations – of our own children. Everything that comes without a price – nature – has no value and is at risk. Everything with value will be exploited.

Our children will judge, making the assessment whether we as a generation have been responsible ancestors.

c) Markets and supply chains tend to become unbalanced

Markets can destroy their own dynamics. For example when competition is at risk and has to be defended by regulation. Or anti-cartel legislation breaking monopoly power, or restrictions on patents limiting access to innovations, have become crucial instruments to create open markets. Balancing factors, like a fair and enforced tax system charging capital, are even supported by Bill Gates, making his statement that ‘there is no justification for the fortunes of the business elites’. Moreover, countervailing actors like trade unions and other civil society interventions, and mechanisms of internalization of social and ecological costs, are crucial instruments for reducing the growing inequalities in society.

The overall conclusion is that markets cannot overcome their structural shortcomings on their own. Public interventions and policies have to better inform markets on needs, potentials and returns. When Solidaridad wants to reach scale and speed, our programmes have to have much stronger links to these urgently needed market transformations.

Sustainability has been hijacked, some say

Indeed sustainability has become a buzzword. However, in reality, we’re not making enough progress. And often our partners are lacking a full understanding of what the transformation is about, and together we are unable to bring urgent changes to speed and scale.

Sustainability is too often interpreted as transparency and traceability. But ‘being honest’ about origins and critical issues in the supply chain is not the same as solving them. Often sustainability is seen as an ambition without quantifying targets and timelines. And when there are targets, they are constantly postponed while the business as usual targets are met.

Moreover, we have learned that there can be a huge difference between the broad statements and the daily practices of the ‘procurement guys’. And we have learned that a change of company ownership, or management, can erode earlier commitments.

Finally, the most critical issue is, as always, who pays? Throughout the entire supply chain players are reluctant, or even refuse to pay for sustainability. ‘Let others pay,’ is the common response.

That means in the end, in most cases, it’s the farmer who has to pay. Farmer premiums for sustainable production are generally low, or non-existent. The market does not reward sustainability enough. The gap between promise and practice is indeed a real issue.

But, personally, I am on the optimistic side. If only because we cannot permit ourselves pessimism or being sceptical. Solidaridad has to challenge its partners to be serious about sustainability and will have to put the best practices to the forefront as shining inspiration.

Fair data

Data is the new equivalent to oil or gold. And its disruptive power can change the world, we understood. But we have to be more precise. Data itself is going to be nearly worthless. What matters are the insights from the data, and the direction in which the information it provides us with tells us to go. Which problem, and whose problem, will be solved. The problem of increased disparity in the world? Or only the continuation of the islands of wealth?

One battlefield is the ownership of the data, the interpretation of the data and, at the end, what kind of interests are served. When data becomes ‘transformative knowledge,’ the power of data has become political, and it determines the character and direction of the transformation. We would need to develop a societal identity for rights of farmers and workers, whose rights and future are controlled by companies. We already know that multinationals, food companies, seed companies and agri-tech suppliers have asymmetrical power over the lower end of the supply chain – and it’s to the farmers’ disadvantage. .

Empowered by the lessons learned starting the fair trade movement in the eighties, Solidaridad could initiate the fair data movement, protecting the rights, and creating new perspectives, for farmers to have a dignified livelihood.

Strategic dilemma: Being profoundly radical and smart pragmatic

Giving these enormous challenges we cannot think anymore in terms of doing the right things but at a limited scale. We have to think in terms of a process of fundamental changes; the need of a game-changing transformation towards a circular, or even regenerative, economy. We have to restore what has already been lost. Speed and scale will be decisive if we are to make the required changes in the limited time frame we have.

We have to be ‘radical’ in the real sense of the Latin word, of understanding the radix: the root causes of the crisis, and to act accordingly. Not doing this would be irresponsible. However, when this type of radical commitment is really needed, our agenda becomes even more challenging. After all, without broad societal support we cannot achieve our ambitions. We have to build alliances, get support, get funding. Be convincing to partners, and become relevant. Being just ‘right’, in splendid isolation, does not make sense. Indeed, we have to be ‘pragmatic’. However, in the common sense of the world, ‘pragmatic’ means that we are driven by what is achievable. But, that will be too little, too late. Our definition of pragmatism should be: ‘making possible what is needed and urgent’. The still-rare combination of radical analysis and smart pragmatism is the way forward.

CSOs are smart in claiming the successes of their programmes and presenting them as having a positive impact. Evaluations tend to be focused on proving instead of improving, giving evidence about only modest successes. However, lasting results are linked to market transformation facilitated by good governance and redirecting capital to sustainable development. This process of fundamental change is more urgent than ever, but this dynamic is still out of reach. We cannot claim to be successful while the world is facing a disaster and growing inequality. For that reason accelerating solutions was the central theme of our Ambition 2025 discussions and bringing them to scale and speed.

The official hand over of the Executive Director role to Jeroen Douglas

Read more

• Solidaridad 50 years: “Old roots, new routes” (online flipbook)
• Solidaridad celebrates 50 years as new director takes the lead