Role of NGOs

Although the UN was seen to have more access to the governments and there-fore to be in a fluid position to influence policy change through technical sup-port and advocacy, the interviewees stressed that the UN can not do the policy influencing as the only entity. All UN interviewees saw collaborating with civil society organizations in their policy influencing efforts as crucial.

The NGOs were seen to have an important role especially in representing the communities and affected populations, which is important for implement-ing participatory approach in the advocacy (see, e.g. Morris 2003; Muturi 2005).

As the NGOs represent the general population, they can also bring evidence from the ground and from the people SRHR hindrances are affecting, which the UN officials might not have as easy access to. One UN interviewee gave an ex-ample, that whenever they are designing a campaign on SRHR issues concern-ing young people, they are always firstly consultconcern-ing the civil society organiza-tions dealing with young people to give necessary information, because they can speak the best for the target group.

Remember the NGOs are just like us, just like me. I might be advocating for key population, but I am not key population. You need also to have key population in the table. The advantage of NGOs is that they also bring evidence of some of the chal-lenges that people are confronting, which we may not have as UNFPA, which may not be documented. (INT5)

An interviewee representing an NGO added that because civil society organiza-tions represent the general public, it is easier for them to approach individuals at the grassroots level in the local SRHR initiatives. Compared to government programs, which the interviewee felt as more top-down oriented, it is easier for people to be taught by groups they perceive as their peers.

Red tape the UN has as a bureaucracy affects and sets certain limits to the kind of approach the organization can take in its policy influencing efforts.

While the nature of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) requires having states as the organization’s members, this means that the IGOs remain account-able to their member states (Bäckstrand 2006, 295). Some UN interviewees un-derlined that therefore, an advantage of working with civil society organiza-tions is that they can take a more confronting and critical approach in advocacy due to their more neutral institutional nature. This approach was seen as faster and more effective at times. Like Murdie and Stroup (2012) suggest, the tone of advocacy can be determined by the nature of organization. Organizations with less governmental funding and policy access, such as NGOs, can take a more confrontational approach, whereas organizations with higher rate of national funding, such as the UN, are often more cooperative in their efforts. (Murdie and Stroup 2012, 430-432.)

An interviewee representing a government body also stressed that collab-oration with civil society organizations brings advantages to the advocacy work, because NGOs can take a stand in certain SRHR issues such as abortion that the interviewee as government representative cannot due to the national policy en-vironment. Through NGOs it was seen as leanier to push through SRHR issues seen as more controversial in the respective countries.

Because we have different strands. UN is considered a neutral player, NGOs are not neutral, they have an agenda but they have information that is useful and other stakeholders they are also important because at the end of the day, if you propose policies and they are difficult to operationalise because there is no engagement with the parliament, means that they will not actually be implemented. So the advantage is that it brings comparative advantage of everyone so that you can create a neces-sary signage to create something that is concrete. (INT5)

Additionally, NGOs were seen as important in SRHR advocacy because they are eligible to hold the governments and policy makers accountable for their actions. Policy makers remain accountable to their citizens and civil society or-ganizations hold governments accountable to their commitments (Murdie &

Stroup 2012, 427). The NGOs are more distant from the governments due to their institutional characteristics, and therefore they can better hold them re-sponsible for their action. One NGO interviewee stressed also holding the UN organizations accountable by reviewing policies created by them, with ensuring

that preferred approaches, such as gender sensitivity for youth, is adequately presented in the documents.

They [civil society] get things done really fast and they also help to bring the checks and balances in terms of advocacy and accountability to say “look, these are the commitments that governments met but this is not happening and we have to push for those”. (INT3)

Altogether, the interviewees felt that every partner's input is needed in effective advocacy on sexual and reproductive health and rights in East and Southern Africa. Different stakeholders bring different comparative advantages to the collaboration, which benefits the policy influencing only when the advantages are recognized and appreciated mutually between the partners.

6 DISCUSSION

In this chapter, the main results of this research are summarized with answer-ing to the research questions. Also, how the results link with previous under-standing based on the theoretical background is discussed. As this research fol-lows abductive reasoning, earlier research was also discussed within the find-ings in the previous chapter.

This research focused on finding out the factors to be taken into considera-tion when influencing policy advancements for sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in East and Southern Africa. It aims to especially describe, how an enabling policy environment for the issues can be achieved. Enabling policy environment in this research context means, that perceptions towards the desired policy changes are supportive so that the SRHR advancements are pos-sible. Additionally, this research is interested in the role of stakeholders in the policy influencing. These factors are studied through two research questions, which are presented individually in this chapter, discussing how the findings answer them.

The regional focus of this research is on East and Southern Africa, centralizing on case organization United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and its regional East and Southern African office. Therefore, the research problem was approached by interviewing professionals of UNFPA East and Southern Africa Regional Office (ESARO) and the organization’s important stakeholders which are NGOs, partner UN agency UNESCO and a government official from a health related ministry.