Introduction

Our Strengthening Public Accountability for Results and Knowledge (SPARK) program works with grassroots civic movements who represent people directly affected by service delivery failures. We support them in uncovering the fiscal governance causes of – and solutions to – those problems. In a three-part learning series, we explore how SPARK has built the capabilities of grassroots groups to collectively engage with fiscal governance systems – the politics, institutions, policies, and processes that govern the use of public funds and how they are utilized and implemented accountably to provide services.

In this note, we consider the ways in which we have supported grassroots groups – from smallholder women farmers to people with disabilities to women seeking better maternal health – to forge informal coalitions with civic groups that can broaden their expertise and base of support, and identify allies like government officials, auditors, legislators, the media, and others who may share their goal of strengthening accountability of public spending.

Lesson 1: Grassroots groups can lead effective budget coalitions with support and backing

SPARK coalition-building efforts provided a unique proposition by bringing grassroots groups and budget groups together, often for the first time, for concerted budget advocacy. When we began, we found that there were limited efforts and collaborations to bring budget analysis into grassroots groups’ demands to government. We sought to change the status quote by fostering an enabling environment whereby winning coalitions – centering grassroots groups – could lead to more transformative changes.

Grassroots groups retain a crucial front-facing role in SPARK coalitions. They bring the numbers and the lived experience to illustrate how public finance decisions translate into what is delivered for real people on the ground. They ‘own’ the issue, drive the agenda, and present their concerns and analysis directly to decisionmakers.

As our country programs began building these coalitions, they assessed each grassroots partner’s strengths, weaknesses, expertise, connections, and structure and then decided which allies could fill the gaps. At the start of each program, we brought in one or several budget groups who could provide crucial expertise to help the grassroots groups identify the service gaps their community faced, and to propose solutions. These budget groups have played a critical role as very few of our grassroots partners had any budget experience.

Our staff carefully manage relationships to ensure coalition-building efforts remain at the service of the grassroots partner, and the campaigns advance their priorities. Coalition members with budget analysis skills and longstanding access to spaces where public finance management (PFM) decisions are made have been vital, but their primary role is to serve as enablers for grassroots groups to have their experiences heard by decisionmakers.

As campaigns have developed new needs, the coalitions have made tactical and instrumental choices to bring on board allies organically and incrementally. All groups that are brought on board have complementary skills to drive collective action. Each partner contributes a “special piece” to the campaigns that the others need to succeed. For instance, the Small-Scale Women Farmers Organization in Nigeria (SWOFON) has engaged beyond its core partners to bring on board other farmers’ groups that had strong numbers and journalists to raise public awareness about and support for government to prioritize the agriculture budget. Another grassroots partner in Nigeria, Community Empowerment Network (COMEN) required a budget partner that was well connected to the politics, PFM systems, and decision-making of Anambra state, rather than technical support from the Abuja-based Center for Leadership, Strategy & Development. As such, they incorporated Civil Rights Concern into their coalition, which had those skills and connections in Anambra. In Senegal, the country team found that budget partner ONG3D could provide more suitable support for grassroots partner UrbaSen on national budget allocations, but another technical partner proved to be more useful and closely aligned with UrbaSen’s agenda when it came to local campaigning and more granular service delivery problems.

Building and servicing informal but agile coalition relationships is painstaking and a key aspect of SPARK’s strategic accompaniment of grassroots groups. Country managers underestimated how challenging it would be to bring budget groups and grassroots groups together. A great deal of behind-the-scenes negotiation takes place to “stitch together” coalitions, sound out potential allies, and identify openings as well as where doors are firmly closed.

Lesson 2: Coalitions do not have to be formalized to be effective; unity can be sustained through aligned interests

Our teams describe their relationship with coalition members to be collaborative and very horizontal – each member plays an implementing role in the coalition, including our own teams. Partners coordinate but each has relationships and funding sources outside of SPARK. This informality is seen as an asset. It helps to avoid the drawbacks of more formal structures that require negotiating and maintaining strict roles, procedures, and sharing of resources and credit. Instead, coalition members work together in more adaptive ways as opportunities arise. Each campaign has a core of ongoing partners – largely but not solely funded by SPARK – that brings on board other actors in peripheral roles thanks to their position in the accountability ecosystem, connections, or technical insights. These core partners draw on their personal and institutional relationships across civil society and government to gain informal access to government allies or others in positions of power.

The ‘glue’ that binds together SPARK’s coalitions is aligned interests and mutual benefits, not funding. For instance, in Indonesia Kota Kita joined Serikat Perjuangan Rakyat Indonesia (SPRI) and its core partners early in the campaign to form the Social Protection Reform Coalition. This decision was driven by shared interests as Kota Kita saw SPRI as a potentially powerful partner with aligned aims on urban development and the needs of the urban disenfranchised.

Nationally-focused organizations find that SPARK coalitions provide an opportunity to collaborate with grassroots groups that have unique lived experiences and insights, which in turn help national groups deepen their knowledge base and credibility. For instance, in Senegal, ONG3D has found that working with informal settlement residents has given them valuable evidence of the applicability and real-life implications of their quantitative budget analysis.

Government insiders sometimes see collaboration as a means of expanding their popular support—for example the Vice-Governor of Jakarta has engaged with SPRI because he knows it represents an important constituency base of poorer residents. Officials, especially at a local level, sometimes see allying with SPARK coalitions as an opportunity to improve their technical knowledge, for example county-level sanitation technicians our coalitions engage with in Kenya.

Lesson 3: Through careful and strategic relationship management, coalitions can engage and leverage accountability ecosystem actors and their oversight powers

From the beginning, SPARK sought to complement citizen-led approaches to accountability, by engaging formal state oversight bodies. Sensitive yet strategically vital relationships with oversight actors – such as national audit offices, legislatures, and other watchdogs – has been actively managed. Coalitions choose their targets strategically based on the strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities of each country’s institutions, and how they best fill the accountability gaps identified in budget and service delivery engagements. In identifying oversight allies, the coalition for people with disabilities in Senegal, for example, deepened its relationship with the National Assembly, which it found to be more transparent than the Supreme Audit Office.

Sometimes coalitions have had to shift between collaborating and applying pressure to the actors and institutions from which they are seeking reforms. And sometimes these shifts have activated internal accountabilities. For instance, in Ghana, the communities represented by SPARK partner Wassa Association of Communities Affected by Mining started out directing their frustration at the Mineral Development Fund (MDF) until they discovered the fund was just as frustrated itself with other parts of government. The MDF subsequently became an important ally in efforts to get other parts of Ghana’s government to improve the timeliness of disbursements of funds to mining communities.

The engagement of one actor to activate another can be high-risk, especially when it leads to individuals or agencies being exposed as corrupt, inefficient, or negligent. Examples include our grassroots partner SPRI’s decision to take its audit findings to the Anti-Corruption Commission when its key ally, the Department of Social Affairs, was slow to respond. The Asivikelane campaign in South Africa, which tracks water and sanitation services for informal settlement residents, has monthly releases that can embarrass Metro officials whose goodwill is crucial to the campaign’s progress.

To move campaigns forward without damaging relationships with accountability ecosystem actors along the way, SPARK advocates need to be able to balance targeting and allying with these official actors, which requires skilful navigation.

Lesson 4: Media actors enrich coalitions by contributing to oversight and pressure for change

The media is playing a wider range of roles in SPARK and is attuned in sophisticated ways to the needs of the coalitions thanks to sustained outreach from partners and the relationships they have built with outlets and journalists. Traditional press and social media are playing a critical watchdog role both by drawing public and government attention to the problems the coalitions are lifting up and keeping it there by actively monitoring the problems or their resolution.

Journalists have provided essential training to coalition members on how to make their advocacy sharper, more visible and hard-hitting, and more likely to get into the media. They have also amplified and disseminated coalitions’ social audit findings or service monitoring data. These efforts raise public awareness around service delivery issues and make it harder for government actors to claim they are unaware of the scale or intensity of the problems.

Journalists’ involvement with SPARK coalitions has also allowed them to deepen their own investigative work. When the pandemic broke out, journalists were among the few able to travel freely in Nigeria. Our team helped SWOFON to create an effective partnership with the International Center for Investigative Reporting so that its journalists could report on the problems their women farmers faced. These investigative journalists quickly became vocal independent advocates for SWOFON’s cause. They raised public support for women farmers and showed the critical role they played feeding the nation during the pandemic. One well-positioned journalist managed to secure commitments directly from a state governor, complementing SPARK engagement efforts.

Lesson 5: Through careful negotiation, frontline workers can be valuable coalition members

SPARK coalitions have sometimes started off perceiving frontline workers as adversaries or advocacy targets, but later shifted to working with them as allies. SPARK partners have often found that frontline workers are not the decision-makers or responsible for the causes of service delivery failures. They are often victims of dysfunctional public finance systems, and unhappy with the status quo. In some cases, new, more trusting, and empathetic relationships needed to be built between community members – who had seen frontline workers as the source of problems – and the workers – who felt unjustly criticized by the community. In some cases, this has also required difficult conversations to take place, such as to address community concerns around frontline workers’ absenteeism or poor treatment of patients. In other words, the same balance between critical engagement and collaboration needs to be found with frontline workers as with other actors in government.

Working with frontline workers as part of reform coalitions has improved the targeting of campaigns, the information available through detailed insider knowledge, and the legitimacy of claims made by grassroots groups. In Nigeria, frontline health workers have been more “invisible” allies in efforts to improve primary health care facilities. In India, their active involvement in engagements with local authorities has added numerical strength to campaigns. In both cases, their engagement was important in campaigns that increased the resources available at the local level, and in India the release of payments owed to workers.

Conclusion

Following on our first learning brief on how SPARK has built grassroots groups’ collective agency, this paper has underscored the importance of building coalitions as a means to more effective campaigns for budgets and services that meet the needs of marginalized communities. Even strong grassroots actors cannot “go it alone” and bringing them together with other capable civil society organizations, media, and government allies, including oversight actors, has contributed significantly to SPARK’s outcomes. These emerging collective approaches go beyond many of the isolated, project-based efforts common in civil society in SPARK countries.

However, as we look forward, building sustainable, empowered coalitions is an objective in itself that deserves further attention. Advocacy history includes both coalitions that collapse when external funding is withdrawn, and legendary coalitions that live on in adapted forms or turn their energies and skills to new issues. There are several strategic questions for SPARK moving forward. First, what will keep grassroots groups engaged in campaigns, when they move from securing quicker improvements in service delivery to addressing issues in the PFM system that will take longer to reform? How can these coalitions keep grassroots groups engaged and front and center for as long as it takes to bring systemic change (building on the learnings that we explore in our learning brief on government engagement)? Second, how can SPARK connect grassroots groups with more allies and help them consolidate relationships not mediated by funding? Lastly, should SPARK’s strategic accompaniment focus on building the coalitions or on building the capacities of grassroots groups so they can move forward after SPARK and join and leave coalitions as circumstances dictate? These questions will be critical for SPARK coalitions to be sustainable long-term.

This brief is based on a longer Learning Note produced by Rosie McGee and Colin Anderson.

Introduction

Our Strengthening Public Accountability for Results and Knowledge (SPARK) program works with grassroots civic movements who represent people directly affected by service delivery failures. We support them in uncovering the fiscal governance causes of – and solutions to – those problems. In a three-part learning series, we explore how SPARK has built the capabilities of grassroots groups to collectively engage with fiscal governance systems – the politics, institutions, policies, and processes that govern the use of public funds and how they are utilized and implemented accountably to provide services.

In this note, we examine why government officials are motivated to respond, what prevents them from responding, and how the SPARK program has found the right entry points to leverage or create incentives to respond.

Lesson 1: Leveraging political incentives and power

Both elected officials and bureaucrats are influenced by political incentives, even if elected officials are more overtly so. The SPARK program has leveraged these incentives and mobilized the implied political power of large grassroots groups to influence government responses.

Our partners have strategically taken the political and electoral incentives of decision-makers and institutions into account to engage and secure responses from political actors. SPARK partners have been savvy in targeting individual politicians at opportune times when alignment with a large grassroots group would help advance their political prospects. In Indonesia, our program aimed its advocacy at a governor at a time when he was expected to run for President and being seen as responsive to the demands of poorer residents was important for his campaign. In Ghana, our partners used the COVID pandemic and elections to put pressure on the government to act on smallholder farmers’ demands for more assistance. In Nigeria, our partners targeted members of parliament (MPs) who were facing re-election to use their budget amendment powers to stem the federal government’s proposed cut to the agriculture budget.

SPARK programs, however, do not rely exclusively on targeting politicians directly for their support even when politicians may have powerful incentives to respond. One risk is that support is likely to be shallow, in that promises would be made but not kept, and short-lived in that access to the political actor may disappear as soon as the politician has realized a political gain (i.e., being re/elected). A second concern is that groups run the risk of their claims being dismissed as partisan when they become associated with specific politicians, or any advances made being overturned when political power changes hands. A third risk is that relying on politicians for access and influence could be met with stonewalling by bureaucrats.

Our programs often rely on the power of diverse political institutions, such as the offices of mayors, political heads of relevant sector institutions, or legislature committees, to influence government responses. In Senegal, we found that while decision-making on urban sanitation infrastructure is national, the impacts are felt locally. Having mayors’ support to engage the national ministries has been important. In Indonesia, the Anti-Corruption Commission issued instructions on COVID-19 relief packages, but evidence from our grassroots partner led them to switch the packages from in-kind food parcels to cash relief to address corruption. Our partner then advocated to the President’s Office to put pressure on ministries that were slow to respond and implement the revised instructions. In Ghana, it was important to target the national government on budget allocations to subsidized fertilizer as well as local government, including agricultural extension officers, to ensure that the subsidized fertilizer reached farmers equitably.

Lesson 2: Leveraging technical incentives with evidence and informed engagement

The SPARK program has found that government response also depends on the quality and validity of the data that partners present on service delivery issues. If the data is presented in ways that feed into existing government processes (rather than generic advocacy asks) and if it is presented to the right officials who can act on it, even if they are not as visible or high-ranking in government, then partners were more likely to see response.

Our grassroots partners have gained traction when they have been able to prove that they represent broader constituency groups, beyond a particular geography (community or district) or affiliation, with legitimate needs that government has often already committed to addressing. Through social audits, member surveys or other data collection, our grassroots partners have been able to bring credible evidence to the table on the significance and scale of the service delivery failure they were experiencing, and to bring persuasive data that decision-makers lacked. For instance, our partner in Senegal, the Federation of Associations of Persons with Disabilities, has a nationwide membership base that allows them to credibly claim to represent all people who need Equal Opportunity Cards that grant people with disabilities access to social services. As a result, the data they collected on the difficulties people with disabilities were having accessing these cards was difficult for officials to dismiss. Conversely, in South Africa, our Asivikelane campaign initially had social audit data on service delivery questioned by some city governments because it only included some communities. Eventually, as they grew their network to gather data from more informal settlements, they were able to overcome initial skepticism.

Our partners often raised awareness by having community members present evidence of service gaps or sharing photos through the press and social media. Authentic testimonies put a human face in front of decision-makers, who are often far removed from the problems. It has brought unique knowledge to the policy table about the needs, priorities, and circumstances of communities who rely on these services. In some cases, officials may have felt incentivized to respond as the testimonies were perceived or feared to influence public views on the government institution or actor.

SPARK has also garnered government responses thanks to the credibility of its diagnostic work. SPARK partners have provided precise evidence about how bottlenecks in service delivery have led to shortfalls in people receiving reliable services – whether it is that registration criteria for services is too burdensome, the money allocated for a service does not reach the agency charged with delivering, etc. SPARK has brought new insights to actors in different parts of the service delivery chain about why their policies are not working.

Bringing evidence into advocacy can help shift the credibility of grassroots groups as budget actors. These efforts have been powerful because traditionally governments did not readily expect or allow civil society organizations to ask questions about budgets and technical issues. In Senegal, the program found that bringing in women from urban groups they worked with made government uncomfortable. When the women started speaking and presented clear, technical evidence, the conversation shifted.

SPARK programs have also used comparisons to demonstrate the extent of the problems. Examples are the use of traffic lights in reporting on the state of shared sanitation facilities in different cities in South Africa, or photographic evidence that compared actual food packages against what they should be in Indonesia.

Lesson 3: The importance of public policy priorities and reputational benefits and risks

Even when presented with credible evidence from groups that are representative, officials did not always respond. We have found that government actors are most likely to respond when they perceive the service as important for their personal, institutional, or government performance, reputation, or priorities. For example, in Senegal, local officials have an incentive to deliver services reliably, because they live in local communities and must answer questions personally when services are not delivered.

When SPARK must engage officials to deliver services that they have not demonstrated interest in delivering, the programs look for a policy hook that does interest them. For instance, in Nigeria our grassroots partner made the case to protect the agriculture budget and subsidies for women farmers by arguing these investments were critical to ensuring food security during the pandemic. Creating incentive alignment through mass mobilization or media campaigns, or seeking out like-minded officials to work with, are alternative strategies when government is uninterested. Sometimes there can be financial incentives at play – politicians or officials may be concerned that service delivery could impact their ability to grow (or lose) budgets they control.

When there are clear policies in place that entitle grassroots constituents to services, officials are also more obliged and freer to respond. When specific policies are linked to specific budget allocations to provide a target service to a grassroots constituency, SPARK campaigns have an even strong lever to push officials for delivery. The reverse is also true: it is difficult to get officials to respond in the absence of clear policy and budgetary commitments.

Some officials respond because their personal value systems may be compatible with ensuring that grassroots constituents access services. These officials are important allies and if they are in powerful positions that can influence decisions about services, they are often the first port of call in our government engagements.

Lesson 4: Selecting advocacy strategies and government entry points

Governments are not homogenous – we and our partners look to find the right institution, person, advocacy approach, and windows to engage. SPARK programs take care in sequencing public versus closed-door advocacy to officials and balancing confrontational versus collaborative approaches. As explored in our learning note on coalitions, our partners often leverage the media or public rallies to raise awareness and support for their issues. But other times they may choose to not jump the gun going public with information or becoming more confrontational if a government actor is not responding. In Ghana, for example, the program has avoided publicizing information without first sharing it with officials as they have found this can be counterproductive, even if it gets a lot of attention.

Grassroots groups may also avoid more public or confrontational approaches to mitigate risks for their members. For instance, when our partners in India tried to publicize information about the persistence of manual scavenging, despite it being illegal, they were threatened by the police. They have since turned to sharing their data with legislators and providing information to the media on-background, which has garnered government responses at district and state levels.

SPARK programs often invest in building ‘insider’ relationships with specific government actors. Our programs often need to get technical messages on technical systems to specific persons that can influence technical and political decision-makers to make a change that can improve service delivery. These messages can be difficult to communicate efficiently through public, mass action. Our partners must access the inner offices of bureaucracies armed with good knowledge of who sits there, what motivates them and what powers they have, and what relationships and political factors they might exploit to get the technical changes they seek. SPARK has often seen success when partners seized windows of opportunity where government actors’ incentives matched their aims, and they tailored their advocacy messages to align. On the other hand, entry points that have worked well in the past may cease when key interlocutors move on or are replaced.

Given political circumstances shift, SPARK partners have sought to sustain engagement by institutionalizing their “seat the table.” For example, in Nigeria, we helped our partner secure a space on Anambra state’s budget forum. In South Africa, our partners gained access to city government structures that monitor the effective delivery of COVID relief.

Conclusion

Our findings show that governments are persuaded to respond because our programs combine representation with quality evidence and persuasive presentation tailored to different actors. As explored in the first learning brief on collective agency, mobilizing large, representative grassroots constituencies is the starting point to create incentives for governments to respond. The political leverage brought by large numbers, the visibility of communities directly affected, and the technical evidence of why the situation has come about, together with specific technical proposals, make it more difficult for government actors to dismiss these campaigns.

Engaging governments successfully is highly context driven. What will work to trigger a response differs across countries, levels of government, services and time. We continuously scan the environment for opportunities to engage. This requires knowing individual government actors, the web of institutions in which they operate, their reasons to act (and how these change over time), and their reach on the levers of change. SPARK campaigns rarely rely on one entry point to government, or rarely use only direct advocacy to officials, or only public advocacy. We and our coalition partners have found that we must work with multiple government partners at the same time and can use power dynamics between institutions to get the responses we seek.

We have also found government actors respond more easily when the service is relevant to their personal, institutional or government performance in the prevailing political context. Our programs have faced hurdles when neither the service in question, nor the grassroots group, has political currency. In these instances, leveraging media advocacy, and seeking out powerful allies (as discussed in our second learning brief on coalitions) are critical to improve services or at least deter backsliding.

This brief is based on a Learning Note produced by Alta Folscher.

Introduction

Our Strengthening Public Accountability for Results and Knowledge (SPARK) program works with grassroots civic movements who represent people directly affected by service delivery failures. We support them in uncovering the fiscal governance causes of – and solutions to – those problems. In a three-part learning series, we explore how SPARK has built the capabilities of grassroots groups to collectively engage with fiscal governance systems – the politics, institutions, policies, and processes that govern the use of public funds and how they are utilized and implemented accountably to provide services.

In this note, we consider the ways in which collective agency — the ability of grassroots groups to organize, mobilize, and represent their constituents to take strategic and focused action — can be leveraged to open up spaces where fiscal decisions are made, strengthen public accountability, and contribute to more inclusive service delivery.

Lesson 1: Grassroots groups must be able to demonstrate their strong connection to and representation of constituents, as this is critical in eliciting responses from government

SPARK partners can harness collective agency to prompt government responses when groups demonstrate a strong and valid connection to grassroots constituents. The strength of this connection is not solely about the grassroots groups’ scale in terms of numbers, but also about representation and whether groups can demonstrate that constituents connect to the issues they raise.

Government actors respond to grassroots groups because there are potential political gains and costs. The number of voters the groups represent holds political currency. Public officials may expect that responding to the group’s concerns will persuade their constituents to vote for them or improve their image with other voters. Public officials also respond because they perceive the grassroots groups to have credible representation and valid evidence.

Identity-based structures, a large membership base, and geographic coverage of service locations are all effective means of demonstrating representation. In most SPARK countries, our programs selected identity-based groups that had formal membership-based connections to large numbers of constituents. It is unlikely that smaller or newer identity groups would have had impact on the same scale. Many of these groups also had specific entitlements targeting their demographic on which they could claim to have legitimate views. For example, in Senegal our partner representing people with disabilities can credibly claim to represent people nationwide who are having trouble accessing equity cards meant to expand services for people with disabilities.

Some of our location-based groups had to expand their geographic representation to show that they had direct connections to a significant number of people in enough communities impacted by the service in question. Once they did, their political leverage has been significant. For example, as our South African partner’s campaign to improve water and sanitation services grew to include more informal settlements across more metros, decision-makers began to take note.

Grassroots groups must demonstrate representation relative to the level of government in which they seek change. For instance, groups that connect to far fewer members in total, such as our partner in Indonesia that represents poor urban women, has secured better services and even system improvements, but the changes they sought were at the subnational level where they had significant numbers of direct constituents.

Conversely, programs hesitate to engage at levels of government where the grassroots group’s membership or connections may not be sufficiently representative. For instance, in Kenya our program has identified that the decentralization of financing, reporting, and oversight of water services is incomplete and unclear, but they have not been able to engage on these concerns with national-level authorities, as their partners do not have a broad enough, nationwide constituency with which they can collect representative data and mobilize around this issue.

It has also been important to show decision-makers that the grassroots groups’ constituents stand behind the issues they raise. This bolsters groups’ claims of representation and allows space for authentic testimony, which can persuade officials to act. Mass-based groups can mobilize their members at rallies to show public support for their campaign asks. Many groups also give voice to their constituents by bringing them into closed-door consultations with government or featuring their testimonies in traditional and social media. National identity-based groups, which have advocacy capacity concentrated centrally, must make a concerted effort to activate constituents in lower-level branches when they are seeking changes at the sub-national level.

SPARK programs have been able to drive change so long as grassroots partners have a constituency that is willing to mobilize around a priority service and government decision-makers perceive the service and/or the grassroots group as important. In some instances, however, SPARK supported non-membership based civil society organizations to engage more deeply with members of a specific constituency (i.e. Dalit students in India or informal residents). For example, in South Africa, our program first targeted informal settlement residents and their access to water and sanitation, and incrementally added community leaders, volunteers and other organizations to their campaign that could organize and mobilize residents around this issue across many different metro areas.

Lesson 2: Grassroots groups gain collective budget agency when campaigns focus on specific budget issues, present credible evidence, and target specific government actors

Generally, the service delivery and system improvements that SPARK has secured were linked to the quality and extent to which technical work was done, and whether it was targeted at specific actors, moments, and issues in the budget process. Government officials have been responsive when SPARK partners present new evidence on service delivery gaps and the bottlenecks that prevented the services from being delivered, thereby turning generalized collective actions into focused collective agency.

Data collection on whether constituents receive adequate services, such as through social audits, provided government with key data it lacked and through concerted advocacy contributed to service improvements. For example, in Indonesia, our partner presented data on how fisherfolks’ livelihoods were impacted by the COVID pandemic, which led the government to purchase their catch. When officials were presented with technical analysis about what prevented services from being delivered, they were also able to push for systemic reforms. Robust budget analysis – such as in Nigeria where our partners were able to show how cuts in agricultural subsidies would impact food security – allowed some programs to shift budget allocations. Quality budget analysis also opened doors for grassroots partners to have a seat at the table in spaces where fiscal decisions are made – such as in South Africa, where our partners gained formal access to municipal processes to manage COVID relief.

SPARK programs have been most effective when they targeted the right officials who could resolve specific problems in the institutions that govern a particular service. This includes mapping how public resources are assigned, monitored, and implemented in the delivery of services across levels and offices of government and identifying bottlenecks. Once a bottleneck is identified, we and our partners use our combined numbers and relationships for advocacy. For instance, in Indonesia, analysis of the fiscal governance system underlying fuel subsidies for fisherfolk pinpointed two bottlenecks that prevented access to these subsidies. National rules for accessing the subsidies involved procedural requirements that were hard for small-scale fishers to fulfil. In addition, fuel stations where fishers could pump subsidized fuel were often inaccessible. Our partner leveraged members at the national and local level to engage with relevant national and local officials to improve accessibility of fuel stations.

Lesson 3: Collective budget agency develops incrementally from tackling issues closer to constituents’ daily lives first

It is easier for grassroots partners to mobilize constituents on budget issues that clearly affect their access to adequate services, compared to more removed problems around public finance management. SPARK has addressed problems in service delivery that are recognizable to constituents, such as providing more fuel stations, relaxing stringent requirements to register for services, and enabling their inclusion in cash transfer lists. These are important wins for SPARK because they show grassroots groups how targeted budget advocacy can lead to tangible improvements in everyday services.

Leveraging grassroots groups’ collective agency to address systemic challenges behind poor service delivery, such as poorly structured budgets, weak accounting systems, or poor cash management systems, is harder. Nevertheless, SPARK programs are starting to find ways to do so. In South Africa for example, we are beginning to work with grassroots partners to address the underlying issues driving poor access to reliable sanitation, such as reforming budget allocation practices that finance the maintenance of water infrastructure in informal settlements. In Nigeria, our grassroots partner, which focuses on improving investments to primary health care facilities, has begun to leverage its constituencies and technical expertise to address bottlenecks throughout the budget pipeline that keep money that is budgeted and allocated at the national, state and local level from reaching facilities.

Lesson 4: To leverage collective budget agency, SPARK grassroots groups must build budget capacities throughout their membership

In SPARK programs, training has been supplemented by ongoing mentoring. IBP and its budget partners have worked continuously with grassroots groups to collect service delivery data and to broker, prepare, and join with them for meetings with state actors. We have also facilitated their participation and accompanied them in government-led budget forums. There are green shoots from these efforts – in Kenya and South Africa community representatives are independently engaging governments using their budget knowledge.

For grassroots constituents to drive their budget advocacy and authentically participate, both the leadership of the grassroots partner and their constituents should understand the budget reason why services were not delivered, who is responsible and what changes they seek. SPARK can only directly build the capacity of a core group, so grassroots groups must secure buy-in and ownership among well-placed “budget champions” for this capacity to permeate across their ranks. In smaller groups, SPARK teams have been able to reach more members directly, whereas well-organized groups are able to create more champions on their own. Hierarchical groups can be at a disadvantage because information is slow to filter down and champions can be blocked by gatekeepers. In some countries, SPARK has supported grassroots groups to develop participatory data collection methodologies that ensure constituents know how their data is used to improve a service. Other important ways of developing and transferring budget capacities include bringing constituents into meetings with government officers, politicians, or legislature committees; public advocacy processes like rallies; and media engagements. As grassroots groups see results, other parts of their networks or new partners may opt to join in and scale up budget capacities. This is an ongoing process especially for our partners with a larger membership base. IBP and its budget partners use learning sessions and constant monitoring to ensure budget knowledge continues to filter down to constituents.

When building budget capacity, different approaches are required based on which level of government a campaign is targeting. Identity-based groups tend to have capacities concentrated in national secretariats, but our work with these groups has often required building the budget capacities of local members to target bottlenecks and related advocacy at the sub-national level. For instance, for the smallholder women farmers association in Nigeria, mentoring state coordinators has been key in delivering credible budget advocacy around state budgets. Similarly in Indonesia, we have mentored branch-level leaders of the national fisherfolk union to engage local officials on improving access to fuel stations. For national groups, SPARK teams primarily build capacities in the national secretariats who then make sure capacities flow down to their members at the subnational level. When our teams work with many grassroots groups across many locations, however, they need to build budget capacity across many more groups. In South Africa, for instance, our team is working with nine grassroots partners with diverse reach and organizational structures to develop their budget capacities.

Lesson 5: SPARK strengthens the collectiveness of grassroots groups, in turn strengthening their collective budget agency

SPARK programs have strengthened the collectiveness of its grassroots partners by energizing their constituents to work together toward concrete solutions to the service gaps they face. Our teams work closely with grassroots partners to help them design and implement mass action in ways that build and leverage their collective base. Our model shifts these groups’ organizational capacities, messaging, and advocacy targets to focus on specific budget issues and to use data to drive improvements in a particular service. These efforts have emboldened grassroots groups by demystifying for their constituents what they previously saw as opaque government practices – the “black box” of government.

SPARK programs also increase the cohesiveness of grassroots groups by building their credibility among and connections to their own constituents. These efforts have strengthened constituents’ willingness to participate in the collective action of grassroots groups in three ways. First, the program has triggered some efforts by groups to strengthen their organizational practices and internal communications for improved cohesion between their leadership and constituents. Second, SPARK has facilitated groups’ access to fiscal governance spaces, which demonstrates to constituents that they can produce results. Third, SPARK has organized constituents to solve problems they had previously tried to solve on their own. It is empowering for constituents when they are brought together to collect evidence, participate in rallies or budget forums, or hear how information they provide is used, and can link these collective actions to results.

Conclusion

Grassroots groups and their constituents are central to the achievements of SPARK because of the large and potentially powerful interest groups they represent. However, not all SPARK partners have significant power to mobilize large numbers nationally. While the majority of our partners are mass-based, some partner organizations are local, are not organized by membership, or serve as intermediaries between grassroots constituents and community representatives and leaders. Nevertheless both mass-based and smaller organizations have been able to effectively leverage collective budget agency to elicit government responses thanks to several factors.

These groups were recognized as valid budget actors when they demonstrated that they represented grassroots constituents who connected to the issues they raised and put those constituents out front in their advocacy. Groups did not necessarily need to have scale in terms of members; location-based groups had to demonstrate that their constituent base was geographically representative and could be mobilized on the service in question. Groups had to show they represented significant numbers of constituents at the level of government in which they sought changes.

When they were able to show credible representation, decision-makers recognized these groups as legitimate budget actors, which opened doors for them to bring valid evidence about services into government spaces where budget decisions are made. It was also crucial for grassroots groups to focus on specific budgets issues – and present credible data, evidence and persuasive advocacy messages – to government officials who could address the bottlenecks causing these issues. The groups’ data proved useful to government actors and was taken seriously because it concerned a majority of their constituents.

This brief is based on a Learning Note produced by Alta Folscher.