Third World Network-Africa
From TrustAfrica wiki - African Regional Organizations
Third World Network-Africa
9 Ollenu Street, East Legon
P. O. Box AN 19452 Accra, Ghana
Tel: +233-21-503669/ 511189/ 500419/ 503816
Fax: +233-21-511188
Email: twnafrica@twnafrica.org
Website: http://www.twnafrica.org
Dr. Yao Graham, Coordinator, ygraham@twnafrica.org
Description
TWN-Africa is a pan-African policy research and advocacy organization based in Accra- Ghana. It was established in 1994 as an independent African affiliate of Third World Network (TWN), an international coalition of groups and individuals (established in 1984). TWN seeks a greater articulation of the needs and rights of the peoples of the South, especially marginalized social groups, a fair distribution of the world’s resources and forms of development which are ecologically sustainable and fulfil human needs. On this basis it carries out advocacy on North-South relations and in relation to issues of sustainable development from the perspective of countries and peoples of the global South. TWN-Africa is registered under Ghanaian law as nonprofit company limited by guarantee. TWN-Africa has a 3-member management team headed by the Coordinator with the Heads of Programs and Finance and Administration as the other two members. In keeping with Ghanaian law TWN-Africa has an assembly of subscribers (shareholders) with an Executive Council (board). The Executive Council is chaired by Professor Akilagkpa Sawyerr, head of the Association of African Universities (AAU).
In its first five years (1994-1999) TWN-Africa was hosted by ISODEC, a Ghanaian non-governmental organization which provided administrative and financial management services. This arrangement was ended at the beginning of 2000 in response to the organization’s growth. Since then TWN-Africa has evolved significantly and its work expanded. Through its program areas—political economy, gender and environment—a coordinated analysis and focused research and policy advocacy framework has been defined. Today the organization’s work is carried out through 3 policy units—The Political Economy, Environment and Gender units and a Communications Unit. Its core programs are as follows: The Environment Program, which focuses on the political economy of mining and development; corporate social responsibility and accountability in the extractive sector; governance in Africa’s extractive sector; the protection and advancement of the rights and livelihoods of communities affect by mining; and the role of extractive sector resources in the development of African countries.
The Gender Program, which focuses on: economic policy research and advocacy under the Gender and Economic Reforms in Africa (GERA) project, a pan-African research and advocacy program that supports research, capacity building and advocacy on the gender dimensions of economic reforms; engendering of TWN-Africa; and initiation of or participation in collaborative relations in the global and African women’s movement or with issue-based networks.
The Economic Policy Program, which works on policies and policy frameworks which serve at the global level to defend and expand the space for autonomous policy by African countries and through the adoption of appropriate global instruments and regimes of the WTO, as well as the IFIs; at the continental level, to contribute to Africa’s response to European and American agenda for free-trade agreements in Africa, and promotion of appropriate policies for economic integration; and at the national level to provide policy alternatives based on a equitable national development strategy.
Overall, TWN-Africa also conducts capacity building for NGOs, trade unions and other civil society groups in Africa on the key developmental issues and challenges in the definition and implementation of Africa’s economic integration; negotiations of international trade and investment agreements affecting Africa, including Doha negotiations in the World Trade Organization and the negotiations under the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) and Free-trade agreements between US and African countries; the evolving trade and investment-related financing policies and instruments of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund; African civil society participation in the discussion, adoption and implementation of developmental policies, and specifically in the formulation of trade policy options and their translation into national positions in international negotiations within the WTO and ACP-EU Partnership agreement; and public mobilization around trade and investment policy issues in the context of the WTO, regional free trade agreements, and the policies of the IFIs.
TWN-Africa’s budget is projected at US$1.8m annually for the next three years (2008-2010). To date 75 percent of its budget comes from core funding, while 25 percent is funded from projects. Core funding contributors are Oxfam-Novib and HIVOS (Netherlands), InterPares and Development and Peace (Canada), and Ghana Research and Advocacy Project (G-RAP), a fund set up by consortium of bilateral donors. Project funding has come from the UNDP Africa Bureau and Kairos (Canada).
Track Record
In defining its remit as pan-African, TWN-Africa has sought to fill a number of critical gaps in policy advocacy work on Africa’s economic development challenges. These include the less than optimal sharing, cooperation and common work at pan-African level in particular, among groups and constituencies working in the areas of trade and investment, mining and development, and gender and economic policy; a relative absence of policy advocacy targeted at Africa’s regional and continental policy organizations in the areas of economic policy; and the lack of a concerted African voice in global economic policy debates, including on issues of particular interest to Africa.
Throughout its existence TWN-Africa has devoted considerable attention to facilitating the building of linkages among and between African CSOs working in these areas, as well as between CSO and African scholars and academics. In the process TWN-Africa has developed strong relationships with diverse organizations, ranging from active collaboration with CBOs around Africa, through international campaigning coordination with advocacy organizations around the world, to active policy dialogue with key international institutions.. TWN-Africa has gained recognition in Africa among civil society groups and governmental and inter-governmental institutions as adding critical value in the form of analyses of Africa's development needs, and advocacy for improvement of conditions of its people, particularly in the areas of trade policy, mining and development and gender and economic reforms.
It is now firmly established as a critical link among African advocacy groups in areas of trade and investment and mining and development through its role in the establishment and coordination of networks such as the Africa Trade Network (ATN), the African Initiative on Mining Environment and Society (AIMES), and through its role in global processes such as Structural Adjustment Participatory Review Initiative (SAPRI) and Social Watch. The ATN is the foremost CSOs trade policy network in Africa, recognized as a partner by regional and continental bodies. SAPRI, a collaborative multi-country review of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) by the World Bank, national governments and CSOs, ended with the publication in May 2004 of an authoritative volume.
Over the past decade, and through research, publications, network building and advocacy work, TWN-Africa has played a leading role in changing the profile and influence of African CSOs in pan-African trade policy and mining and development policy discussions. Acting in concert with other ATN members, TWN-Africa has engaged in dialogue with African countries on trade negotiations in the WTO and other fora. TWN-Africa is well known to African trade officials in many capitals, in AU countries, at the Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), in the RECs, at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and in Geneva and Brussels. AIMES is the first pan-African CSOs effort at joint work around mining, a strategic economic and environmental issue in many African countries.
TWN-Africa continues to play a strong intermediating role and mutually reinforcing linkage, at levels of both substance and process, among diverse organizations and actors in Africa and beyond—including CBOs, advocacy organizations and research networks—as well as between these groups and officials and policy making institutions. TWN-Africa has implemented the GERA project, a pan-African research and advocacy program, since 2000. GERA has supported research and advocacy on global trade and investment regimes and policies and African women in more than 20 African countries. Policy advocacy built around outcomes of these researches has led to TWN-Africa becoming one of the few mainstream policy advocacy CSOs in Africa with a specifically gender-based input into advocacy in this area.
To facilitate its pan-African effectiveness TWN-Africa has maintained an active bilingual policy (English-French) in most of its meetings and key documentation and publications. This has been backed up by dedicated in-house translation capacity bolstered by external contracting as required.
In 1994 TWN-Africa established and has since sustained African Agenda, a widely regarded news and policy analysis magazine. It has also published a number of highly regarded books and pamphlets on African development policy, gender and development, trade policy and mining and development.
Challenges
Funding and staffing are two key challenges that TWN-Africa faces. By its nature, a pan-African research and advocacy organization constitutes an ambitious undertaking. Given the key role of networking to an organization’s effectiveness, it must maintain a minimum size, type and capacity to anchor or participate in the types of network needed for effectiveness. Networking on a pan-African scale implies considerably greater demands of scale, minimum size, communication and content than networking within countries. For instance, meetings of pan-African networks involve greater cost than national level events. Communication costs are more substantial because of the need to operate in multiple languages if the purported regional/ continental approach is to have credibility. Multi-country research is a necessity for building a credible basis for regional/ continental research-derived policy proposals, something that considerably raises the costs of research. All the preceding would be better achieved if more funding were available. TWN-Africa has always sought to have a pan-African blend in its staffing, not simply as a public relations exercise but to ensure diverse perspectives in forging the outlook and intellectual foundations in the institution. That the organization has only been partially successful in this regard has been largely due to the relatively uncompetitive salaries that TWN-Africa offers.
TWN-Africa’s board recently decided the organization should construct and equip its own customized office as a long-term basis for institutional stability. Raising the funds for building such an office constitutes a key ambition for the next three years.
Opportunities
Private foundations can make a significant contribution in strengthening TWN-Africa’s funding base, staffing and institutional sustainability. In particular, investing in the construction and operationalization of the planned TWN-Africa office would take the organization further along the road to self-sustainability since plans include facilities with cost recovery potential.
TWN-Africa stands head and shoulders above other African regional organizations in the fields of advocacy, research and networking on economic justice-related issues. It constitutes a powerful countervailing force to the mainstream, and a crucial vector for alternative ideas. It has also been able to engage with a wide range of institutional actors, including the World Bank and IMF, without compromising its core values and beliefs, or diluting the cutting edge of its policy work. That the high proportion of its funding is made up of core resources attests to its success in convincing donors to buy into its program while leaving it firmly in the driving seat. In the coming years, TWN-Africa will need to definitively address its ongoing difficulties in attracting and retaining the highest calibre of program staff. Its current salary levels are simply not competitive when compared with packages offered by INGOs, the intergovernmental system and multinational private sector. As a result it continues to rely on the commitment of its small group of founders, a situation that is not sustainable.
