DRAFT

A Field Visit to Peruvian Mining Sites: A Funder’s Reflections on Challenges and Opportunities

to Supporting Transnational Advocacy

Daniel Moss Grassroots International

(Formerly Oxfam America’s Boston-based Program Officer for South America)

Prepared for delivery at the 2001 meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, Washington DC, September 6-8, 2001

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Introduction “Managing runoff water,” Lisa Wade, Yanacocha’s environmental engineer said,

“is the name of the game in mining”. She talked enviously of her predecessor who could

point to a raindrop and tell you what stream would eventually catch it. His goal –

unfortunately elusive – was to identify and control the destination of all water. I never

used to look at landscapes and see springs spilling into ravines into irrigation ditches and

out of drinking spigots. But when you look at a mine operation from the bottom of the

funnel, from the point of view of the farmers whose bony cattle die from polluted water,

whose crops wither, and who wonder if their drinking water is making them sick, you

begin to agree with Lisa: follow the water.

This advice seems to extend upstream as well. Where does the capital and know-

how come from to power the mining operations? The old maxim applies: follow the

money. Working with a northern-based philanthropy, my glance naturally turns

homeward. In the case of Peruvian mining, upstream includes such actors as mining

company headquarters in Denver, private banks in NY and the International Finance

Corporation of the World Bank in Washington DC.

As extractive industries cross borders, advocacy directed at these industries has

necessarily gone international as well. Power imbalances between affected communities

and companies are enormous; to hold companies and governments accountable,

communities require political power and leverage that under some circumstances can be

created through transnational coalitions. International social justice and development

philanthropies increasingly try to work both sides of the border. This working paper will

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address questions relevant to both practitioners and academics: What successes and

obstacles do funders face? What are challenges and opportunities to funding transnational

extractive industry advocacy campaigns?

Inter-woven with issues from human rights to environmental justice and cross-

border actors such as multi-national corporations and public and private international

financial institutions, mining is a particularly interesting and complex window on

transnational advocacy coalitions. The case study here is drawn from field observations of

Oxfam America’s financial and technical assistance to three communities affected by

mining in Peru. Lessons learned extend beyond the Andes and Extractive Industries to

diverse settings in which national and transnational advocacy work is a relevant strategy.

The paper is organized in the following fashion: I begin with a description of the

problems faced by Peruvian communities affected by mining and a discussion of their

advocacy strategies. Subsequently I examine the nature of financial and technical support

offered by Oxfam to the communities affected by mining. Here I also examine Oxfam’s

investment in its own advocacy capacity. The final section closes with a discussion of

lessons learned and future challenges facing funders of transnational advocacy.

Problems faced by communities affected by mining:

“We will die for this water,” a group of Cajamarcan farmers s told an Oxfam

delegation during a June, 2001 visit. We stood just a few feet from a gurgling spring

hidden beneath a tangle of branches; the farmers dipped their white hats, bent the wide

brims and swigged water in dribbling gulps. From this mountain source, close to Minera

Yanacocha’s (MY) open pits and cyanide leach pads, the water began its winding,

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downhill journey, some feeding irrigation ditches and the bulk flowing into Cajamarca’s

water supply. One of the farmers’ many worries is that their principal milk purchaser, a

Nestle subsidiary, may close up shop and seek milk sources not compromised by

contaminated waters.

Almost exactly a year prior to our visit, an MY truck loaded with cannisters of

mercury – the mercury is a by-product of the gold production process – leaked over miles

of highway near Cajamarca. The largest quantity of mercury, more than 300 pounds,

spilled in Choropampa. Thinking it valuable, the Choropampinos scrambled to collect it.

The company’s decision not to evacuate the town, to offer compensation to youth to clean

it up with no protective equipment and to buy the mercury back from those families that

had filled jars with it, contributed to hoarding and consequent high levels of mercury

poisoning. With over one thousand people from Choropampa and surrounding towns still

experiencing illnesses – rashes, nosebleeds, dizziness - and the medical care and insurance

policies offered by MY inadequate for comprehensive treatment, distrust towards the

company is running high.

Facing pollution and threats of pollution, many farmers have sold land to the

Minera Yanacocha (MY) at bargain prices; the MY concession stands at over 100,000

hectares in Cajamarca. As the bottom falls out of farmers’ traditional livelihood - markets

disappear, land loses value and cattle thin - they question whether the mines’ claims of job

creation are a net gain for the valley and ask rhetorically: when the mine is spent in 20

years and land contaminated, will they be able to farm again.

Minera Yanacocha, a majority of which is owned by Denver-based Newmont

Mining, began mining the mountains above Cajamarca in 1992. In mineral terms, they hit

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the jackpot, the mother lode. In water terms, they simply couldn’t have picked a worse

place to mine. The open pits that the Yanacocha mine have excavated spill over both

sides of the continental divide, draining west to the Pacific, and east to the Amazon basin

and the Atlantic, some 3000 miles away.

The mine has done a superb job of building an internal constituency in Cajamarca.

Though some see the mine as polluter, many see the mine as benefactor/employer. Minera

Yanacocha’s stamp on local services and public works is ubiquitous in company-

sponsored schools, potable water tanks, irrigation ditches and a network of roads. The

Oxfam delegation walked by a delapidated adobe latrine that had been painted in

affectionate, misspelled scrawl: “With the support of Minera Yanacocha, I’m happy.”

The firm as substitute for a weak, underfunded state is not unique to Cajamarca.

For example, in Yauli – near the Doe Run metallurgical facility in La Oroya – activist

women criticized the mine’s community relations program as a form of blackmail –

desperate communities will agree to most anything. At the same time, they feel slighted

by the firm for not offering their town public works projects. Similarly, a taxi driver we

spoke with blamed the mine for polluting his drinking water and then dropped that he was

waiting to hear back on a pending employment application with the firm. Scarcity of

services and jobs creates unusual bedfellows.

Cajamarca commerce has skyrocketed. The mine claims to employ 4000 (with a

small portion of local hires) and counts 9000 as dependent beneficiaries. Transporation

services are up, the mine alleges $18 million of local purchasing. Prostitution, delinquency

and inflation are also booming, problems that existed on a much smaller scale previously.

Rural to urban migration swells as farmers sell land to the mine, face poor harvests,

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disappearing markets and sick animals. Job prospects in the city for uneducated peasants

are few.

I mentioned to a local tourism operator that I was concerned about the mine’s

negative impacts on the local economy and on his business. He conceded that there may

be some contamination from the mine but asked what other economic development

strategies I might propose. Feeling confident with my textbook knowledge of forward and

backward linkages and informed by recent conversations with Cajamarcan farmers, I

suggested milk products for the domestic and export markets. He looked at me with

incredulity and scorn, “Peru is a poor country, we’re desperate for hard currency and you

want to replace $2 billion in mineral export earnings with cheese?” He added, “You want

us to remain undeveloped forever.” He was unconvinced by my proposals about

sustainability, poor but healthy and dignified peasants living in an uncontaminated

ecosystem. Cash in Peru’s mineral riches now, the pollution may turn out to be fiction

anyway.

We visited 3 mining sites in Peru. The problems I describe above are not unique to

Cajamarca but rather were shared by La Oroya and Tambogrande. Organizations in all

three sites had documented negative economic, social and environmental consequences of

the mining operations and had these claims refuted by the company. All three sites were

vulnerable due to the same weak environmental laws and implementation agencies as well

as land legislation that favored expropriation for mining purposes. In La Oroya, site of the

Doe Run metallurgical facility, residents faced a public health crisis - blood lead levels of a

majority of the urban population ran dangerously high. In Tambogrande, mineral

extraction had not yet commenced; what was at stake was whether the company’s stated

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commitment to respect the public will through public consultation would be sincere. A

broad multi-sector coalition there actively opposed the mine but the mine had not yet

withdrawn its plans.

A Thumbnail Sketch of Local Demands and Organizing Strategies

Tambogrande

The San Lorenzo Valley in Tambogrande was once a scrubby semi-desert.

Following World Bank investments in the 1950’s, it became one of Peru’s most fertile

agro-export regions, home to the largest concentration of mango and lime producers in

the country. It is these farmers who are most concerned about Manhattan Mineral’s plans

to dig a series of open pit mines in the valley. Together with the residents of the town of

Tambogrande – the mine will literally consume the earth on top of which a quarter of the

town lives and relocate those families – the farmers formed the Tambogrande Defense

Front. The coalition printed posters that warned, “What would ceviche taste like without

lime”? Their position is clear: No to Mining, Yes to Agriculture.

Not an easy victory, the Tambogrande Defense Front won the mayor’s opposition

to the mining company’s plans. The mayor has since headed a petition drive in which over

35,000 people expressed their opposition to the mine’s plans. He now supports a public

referendum on the issue. A church-based NGO. Diakonia from the provincial capital of

Piura, has provided the Defense Front with organizational and legal assistance – including

defending arrested activists – and has played a key role in moving the Piura Bishop’s

position to one of active opposition to the mine. In June 2001, the Bishop published an

open letter signed by dozens of clergy stating the reasons for why the mine would be

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socially and environmentally inviable. Activism on the issue has spread throughout Piura

where environmentalists and human rights workers have offered their support. An

assortment of support NGO’s have pooled their skills and resources to offer technical

assistance to the Defense Front.

Local tactics have varied from dialogues with the company, to mass marches, to

road blockades, and on one occasion, to a violent raid on the company’s Tambogrande

facitilies. In February 2001, the model homes from which the residents were to choose

designs for their relocated village were torched.

The firm undertaking exploration in this area, Manhattan Minerals, is a Canadian

company. Canadian environmental organizations have publicized in Canada the potential

threat to Tambogrande farmers, questioned whether Manhattan has adequately consulted

their plans with the local community and whether it has adhered to British Colombia

environmental standards as they claim to. The Oxfam America Policy Department has

also publically raised concerns about the mine. In May 2001, Oxfam America, the Mineral

Policy Center and the Environmental Mining Council of British Colombia hired a mining

expert to review Manhattan’s preliminary environmental impact statement and carry out

independent field research. The study has been a powerful tool both in Peru and

internationally to question the viability of the proposed mining operation.

La Oroya

The metals refinery facility has been operating since the 1950’s and was acquired

by the US-based Doe Run company in 1997. In La Oroya, area farmers have organized to

demand that the Doe Run smelter diminish harmful emissions – in particular to decrease

lead levels; – to install modern scrubbers; to accelerate an overall technological

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improvement program and to rehabilitate pastures, rivers and other affected areas. Farmer

tactics have included sick animal fairs, in which sick and dead llamas were deposited at the

company gate.

Perhaps because mining-related activities have been central to the La Oroya

economy and culture for decades, opposition to the facility is diffuse. There are internal

divisions within rural communities and many more between the rural areas and the urban

areas that depend on the firm for employment. The firm’s community relations program is

extensive including public works – schools, health posts, community centers, computer

centers and the like – extending into some rural hamlets. A broad coalition such as the one

in Tambogrande has not taken root; a cohesive coalition has not articulated and rallied

around a set of clear demands.

A constellation of support NGO’s accompany urban and rural representative

organizations and communities in documenting health and environmental problems,

advancing advocacy campaigns through dialogue and protest as well as providing

technical assistance to carry out economic development projects – for example maca

production to support alternative means of livelihood. The NGOs also aid communities in

carrying out participatory environmental monitoring activities. This activity involves local

people in gathering scientific data and detecting environmental problems. Although the

scientific validity of this monitoring is challenged by the company, the information is

extremely useful for public education and the activity itself is a useful organizing tool.

The Doe Run company is based in St. Louis, Missouri. La Oroyan local leaders

involved in efforts to improve Doe Run’s social and environmental behavior have traveled

to the company’s headquarters to exert pressure. They have done this with the technical

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support of the Canadian Environmental Law Association, with whose help they have also

begun to identify appropriate alternative technologies for the smelter and discuss these

alternatives with headquarter’s staff. AIDA has also provided technical assistance to local

groups to identify and document health and environmental problems and critically review

the company’s technological improvement plans. Oxfam has publicized the threats to

social and economic rights of the La Oroya population with its US-based constituents.

Cajamarca

As previously mentioned, Minera Yanacocha (MY) began their operations in

Cajamarca in 1992. Many of the Cajamarcan farmers affected by Minera Yanacocha’s

operations had previously been organized in the Rondas Campesinas and so activism

against the mine’s impacts was frequently able to piggyback on existing chapters of this

organization. Long-standing irrigation groups, some organized within the Rondas, some

not, also became active on the issue when problems related to the mine’s operations

appeared in their watersheds.

Since the initiation of the mine’s operations, urban opposition in Cajamarca had

simmered among environmental and university professionals. It recently exploded and

extended to other sectors with the Choropampa mercury spill, fish kills in Bambamarca

and disclosure of the mine’s plans to exploit Cerro Quilish, which sits at the head of the

watershed and is an important source of Cajamarca’s potable water. Although the

emerging coalition is fraught with divisions, due to increased constituent concern even the

Cajamarca mayor has taken a position against the mine’s expansion to Cerro Quilish. It is

worth noting however that the overall mine operation does not appear to be in jeapordy;

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organizing activities are focused on stopping the Cerro Quilish expansion and cleaning up

sources of river contamination.

Internationally, a campaign is building against Minera Yanacocha and Newmont

Mining generally. Newmont is a major multinational mining company, relatively visible in

the public eye and criticized by environmental and human rights activists in many of the

countries in which it operates. Newmont portrays itself as a cutting-edge, socially

responsible business and so becomes an easy target when it falls short of its rhetoric. The

International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector investment arm of the World

Bank is a 5% owner of MY. The World Bank has relatively stricter standards of

environmental and social protection and these standards can be useful benchmarks to

criticize the mine and the Bank’s behavior. A transnational mining advocacy group,

Project Underground, has campaigned against Newmont, researching and disseminating

information about its global operations. Oxfam America and the Center for International

Environmental Law (CIEL) are aiding Cajamarcan organizations in bringing a formal

complaint against MY before the IFC omsbudsperson. At the time of this writing, the IFC

omsbudperson is entering into conversations in Cajamarca to attempt to resolve

community/company/government tensions.

Local Affiliation with National Federation of Communities Affected by Mining

(CONCAMI)

Although local organizations are the prime drivers of activism to protect

communities affected by mining, an umbrella coordinating body, the Federation of

Communities Affected by Mining (CONACAMI), serves to coordinate local strategies and

actions nationally, provides political training and accompaniment to local chapter

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organizations, provides assistance in planning local advocacy campaigns, offers

international visibility and contacts, and provides a forum for leadership training - 25

youth recently graduated from a leadership school. CONACAMI was born out of the

impacts of mining and conflicts with poor and indigenous communities affected by mining

activities (including metallurgical and hydroelectric activities). Within CONACAMI there

are 16 regional organizations called “Regional Coordinating Committees” that represent

local organizations (communities, peasant federations, indigenous organizations, defense

fronts and organized urban populations). According to official statistics, of the 5,660

native communities recognized in Peru – the bulk of which dedicate themselves to

agricultural production and livestock raising - more than 3,200 are affected by mining

activities. (Oxfam Internal Document 2000)

Importantly, the national federation takes on issues that are not likely to be

winnable through strictly local efforts and that are of importance to all communities

affected by mining. For example, under CONACAMI’s umbrella, communities have come

together to oppose the “ley de servidumbre” – the Land Easement Law that legalizes land

expropriations for mining purposes. Winning reform or abolition of this law at the

national level would aid in resolving many of the affected communities’ outstanding land

battles.

CONACAMI works in collaboration with NGOs that have significant experience

working in the mining sector such as ECO, Labor, Cooperaccion, and SPDA. These

organizations offer support to CONACAMI in such area as environmental monitoring,

conflict resolution, and legal aid.

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Evolution of Oxfam support to Communities Affected by Mining

Oxfam America’s mission is to create “lasting solutions to hunger, poverty, and

social injustice through long-term partnerships with poor communities around the world”.

Oxfam combines innovative community development projects to help poor communities

overcome poverty, capacity building of poor peoples’ representative organizations to

support them in building power and advocating for their needs, and support to non-

governmental organizations to assist these communities and representative organizations

in their community development and advocacy efforts. Grant-making overseas is

combined with policy and education work in the United States and internationally to

support grantees’ struggles. Oxfam America is based in Boston, Massachusetts and

operates six regional offices around the world.

Oxfam’s South America program began in the mid 80’s with a broad mission to

fortify the indigenous movement, both in the Andes and the Amazon. The program’s

current strategy paper describes the principal objective as: “to empower the indigenous

peoples of the Region by increasing the capacity of communities and their representative

organizations to defend their rights and sustainably manage their resource in ways that

strengthen their culture and identity, improve their livelihoods, reduce poverty and

promote gender equity.” (Oxfam America South America Program Paper, 1999)

It is by way of this long-term accompaniment of indigenous communities and

organizations that Oxfam learned of the threats that communities faced from extractive

industries. Scurrah and Ross in their paper “Resource Extraction Activities and the Local

Community” found that, “While internal threats (overfishing, overgrazing of pastureland,

opering more agricultural plots at unsustainable rates) have always been present, so that

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over time most communities have developed mechanisms to handle them, the external

threats represented by oil and mining activity dwarf them in magnitude and in risk and

present new challenges beyond the scope of traditional mechanisms.” (Scurrah and Ross,

2000) Organizational capacity building and local development projects alone were not

capable of responding to the many emerging problems; Oxfam broadened support to

affected communities.

Specifically, Oxfam America increased training and support for communities’

advocacy activities. Oxfam’s working definition of advocacy, and what is sought through

advocacy actions, is intentionally multi-dimensional. That is, Oxfam does not measure

advocacy exclusively by whether or not it acheives a policy change – although this is

obviously an extremely desired outcome and the most commonly identified feature of

advocacy – but also by whether it opens new channels of participation in decision-making

processes for people previously marginalized and whether it builds democratic and

effective civil society organizations. This multi-dimensional definition of advocacy is best

captured in a quote from Cohen, de la Vega and Watson’s forthcoming book on advocacy.

The passage summarizes gains in the advocacy campaign in Ecuador to win clean up of

Texaco’s contamination.

The emergence of the Frente de Defensa de la Amazonia and organized indigenous

communities was a civil society gain (emphasis added) that strengthened the power of Oriente

residents to defend and assert their rights. This was also instrumental in the campaign against

Texaco because it created a unified block of Oriente residents that government officials in Quito

had to acknowledge and negotiate with. By creating more access to decision-makers, the

existence of Oriente residents’ organizations led to a governance impact, opening new channels

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of participation, however tenuous. That impact, in turn, was instrumental in achieving one of the

major policy victories of the campaign: securing the support of the Ecuadoran government for

the lawsuit against Texaco. Coming full circle, the lawsuit has fed and animated the Frente and

indigenous organizations, which represent long-term structural civil society gains because they

are forums for articulating interests, building shared understandings and developing processes for

engaging and influencing decision-makers. (Cohen, de la Vega and Watson 2001)

I now turn to describing some specifics of Oxfam America’s support to

communities affected by mining in Peru to carry out local organizing and participate in

transnational advocacy efforts.

Supporting CONACAMI and its Chapters in Building Power: Training in Organizing

and Advocacy

CONACAMI faces formidable odds: in a poor country that earns more than half its

export revenues from minerals, they seek to tame a powerful industry and an enabling

government. For communities affected by mining to win protections, they require

significant political power. Building and exercising this power requires, among other

things, smart and effective advocacy strategy. Noting that CONACAMI’s experience in

planning and implementing advocacy campaigns was thin, Oxfam staff opened discussions

with CONACAMI’s leaders on how to improve that capacity. CONACAMI knew the

political changes that they desired to protect communities affected by mining, they knew

who some of the key decision makers were, but they lacked experience in the mechanics

of planning and implementing winnable advocacy campaigns. Through a program offered

to regional offices by the Oxfam America Policy Department entitled the Advocacy

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Learning Initiative (ALI), the South America Regional Office was able to offer a

workshop to CONACAMI in which they could learn practical advocacy skills as well as

draw up their own advocacy plans.

Finding a scarcity of advocacy training resources in the region, the South America

Regional Office and ALI staff sought external trainers. In the short term, the goal was to

enhance CONACAMI’s advocacy capacity with a one-time training. For the long term,

the trainings were also meant to pose a question to CONACAMI, participating NGOs,

other funders present at the training and to Oxfam itself: if advocacy is a skill needed to

protect communities affected by mining and there is a lack of qualified support

organizations and trainers in the Andean region, what can Oxfam do to follow up and

create or strengthen an advocacy capacity building network? That is clearly a long-term,

ambitious agenda and a point to which I return in the next section; the first step was to

pilot a workshop, offer a modifiable methodology and evaluate results.

Sun and Planets – CONACAMI’s Protagonism with NGO Support

Quite deliberately, Oxfam has helped to build a sort of solar system around

CONACAMI. That is, while preserving CONACAMI’s legitimacy and protagonism as a

representative organization of communities affected by mining, it has fortified the support

NGO’s that offer them assistance. Funding support NGOs to provide direct technical

services to affected communities and the CONACAMI federation has proven to be a

useful tool in making the NGO support most strategic and relevant.

Oxfam has directed support to CONACAMI to both its national structure and

activities as well as to local chapter growth. This senstivity has been informed by previous

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and current experiences in funding the indigenous movement where a recurring problem

has been national leaders’ limited contact with their grassroots bases. Oxfam program

staff put this problem on the table for discussion with CONACAMI leaders and co-

designed leadership development and accompaniment projects so that specific regional

chapters would receive direct capacity-building support. These sensitive conversations

were made easier because Oxfam program staff had worked closely with CONACAMI as

trusted political advisors since its inception as an organization. This type of political

accompaniment could occur both because Oxfam program staff have experience in

indigenous movement building and because program staff are encouraged to play a more

activist role than may be standard in other development organizations.

By the year 2000, besides CONACAMI, Oxfam was supporting nearly half a

dozen NGOs in this loose coalition. Coordination meetings continue to be held between

CONACAMI and these support NGO’s to come to agreement on common goals and to

arrive at a division of labor based on political protagonism, skill sets, geographic focus and

constituency. These meetings have also been important initial occasions for Oxfam

America to define its most useful role within this coalition - for example, what financial

and training resources it can provide or help to identify, and what advocacy role it ought

to play. In addition to coordinating existing programs, this group has set out to find fresh

resources to finance new activities.

Supporting Communities Affected by Mining’s’ Information Needs

• Timely Reports to Question Company Claims

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Does objective science exist on potential and current environmental and health

impacts? Can crop failures, dead farm animals, and assorted diseases in humans and

animals be fairly ascribed to the mine’s operations? What about nose bleeds, bone aches

and blurry vision that the Choropompinos claim is residual from the Minera Yanacocha’s

mercury spill? . “Am I dying?,” a woman asked our delegation. The mines tend to deny

claims; people’s doubts and fears persist.

It is a cliché to say that information is power but it is almost certainly true in this case.

Engineering and scientific information drive and justify mining plans as well as establish

terms of debate. Companies publish well-researched reports and refute community

complaints as statistically insignificant and unscientific. Communities may feel something

is not quite right, but cannot defend their position with science. NGOs and communities

are frequently reproached by companies and governments for subjective and unscientific

observations and complaints. A scientific study can undercut this criticism.

In Tambogrande, Oxfam co-sponsored a study to enable community groups to

respond to the company with credible information. The study found for example that the

methodology used to take water samples was inadequate. A counter-study carried out by

an expert disarms the firm and validates community concerns; it may also be a useful

organizing tool. In some cases, the study itself can be a spark for the firm to clean up its

operations. Since 1999, Oxfam has also funded a comparative study of legislation

governing extractive industries in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia; a case-study of

the Texaco case; and a study by Instituto Labor on perceptions of various actors of the

impacts of mining in Andean communities.

• Changing Development Discourse through Innovative Research

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In Spring 2001, Oxfam commissioned a comparative study by Dr. Micheal Ross, a

University of Michigan economist, on the poverty alleviation impacts of extractive

industries. The findings question whether extractive industries as a development strategy

is truly a poverty alleviation tool as the World Bank, extractive companies, host

governments and many development institutions claim. The study will have multiple uses.

It will be a credible piece of research that can used as evidence as the World Bank begins

its process of evaluating the impact of its lending into the extractive industries sector. The

broad comparative study and any country-specific reports may feed into in-country

initiatives and campaigns questioning the development benefits of extractive economies,

and their links to increasing poor country debt. Together, this range of studies may

generate debate and open more political space to question extractive economies and

propose alternatives. If these studies show that mining produces few or negative local

benefits, they may support communities’ “right to say no” to mining operations.

Investments in Oxfam America’s capacity to provide strategic support for trans-

national advocacy work

• Flexible and complex grant-making

Oxfam America’s grant-making has evolved alongside partner’s expanded needs vis a

vis transnational advocacy opportunities. In addition to “seeds and tools” support in the

areas of resource management and development finance to sustain traditional livelihoods

and pursue alternative livelihoods; core capacity building support to representative

organizations to convene and organize members, to provide effective leadership and to

offer needed services; Oxfam has made a variety of grants related to national and trans-

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national advocacy. Advocacy has been fortified by learning and exchange visits between

Bolivian, Peruvian and Ecuadoran indigenous organizations. Direct support has been

provided for Andean representatives to attend international forums such as LASA and the

Amazon Alliance; for networking, speaking and advocacy tours to meet with current and

potential allies and constituents in the US; and for participation in international campaigns

such as the initiative currently coordinated by the Mineral Policy Center.

• Advocacy

A core strength of Oxfam America lies in its deep ties to grassroots organizations

in the countries in which it works. As a matter of ethics and policy, Oxfam does not

negotiate on behalf of partners; rather it attempts to provide tools so they can build

capacity and power to be able to negotiate for themselves. Oxfam seeks to draw out

partners to articulate their positions and if they deem it strategic, echo their concerns in

decision-making forums to which they may not have access.

Oxfam’s Policy Department based in Washington DC seeks to build on the grant-

making work of the Oxfam Global Programs Department by becoming international

advocates on issues identified by grantees. Such was the case with extractive industries.

In 1999, Oxfam hired Keith Slack as its Extractive Industries Policy Advisor. He

constructed the Extractive Industries advocacy program hand in hand with the South

America Regional Office and partner organizations. He has provided training to South

American grantees on strategies to improve the performance of the World Bank’s

International Finance Corporation and has worked with communities to file complaints

with the IFC Omsbudsperson. He seeks opportunities to interject the voices of

communities affected by mining into emerging environmental and human rights coalitions

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around extractive industries. He is an important link for grantees to international

campaigns on extractive industries, to potential allies and to technical and legal support.

In coordination with grantees, the Extractive Industries Policy Advisor has directly lobbied

companies and International Financial Institutions.

In the South America Regional Office, added expertise and capacity was necessary

to provide high quality technical assistance and accompaniment to grantees in their

advocacy work. To fill this niche, Javier Aroca, a lawyer with considerable experience in

indigenous rights, was hired in Spring 2000 as the Advocacy Officer.

• Education and Communications

A necessary third leg in the grant-making/advocacy triangle is public education and

constituent campaigning. That is, a critical mass of active and informed people will likely

make a transnational advocacy campaign more effective. Since its inception, Oxfam

America has educated and cultivated an activist constituency through the Fast for World

Harvest. While that focus has waned in recent years, currently through the CHANGE

initiative Oxfam America is making a concerted effort to organize students. Current

constituent involvement could include legislative pressure to pass International Right to

Know legislation and to pressure specific companies to improve behavior. A challenge

here is determining on what issues and with what decision-makers constituent pressure is

most needed and most productive.

Recently, Oxfam commissioned the Guarango Cine y Video group to produce a

documentary about the Choropampa mercury spill. It is meant to both highlight the plight

of this poisoned community and to provoke debate about extractive industries as a

development model. It may be shown at the upcoming World Bank activities and will be

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an important education and organizing tool for Oxfam’s educational work with its

constituencies.

With the growing need to collect and publicize information about the activities of

grassroots grantees and with grantees increasingly seeking help in gaining media exposure

for their struggles, in Winter 2001, the South America Regional Office hired a

Communications and Information Officer. She is backed up by significant staff capacity in

Oxfam’s Boston and Washington offices to carry out media campaigns on issues that

emerge from grantees’ work.

• Donor education and fundraising for transnational advocacy work:

Oxfam has been able to build its advocacy and education capacity due to support

from its 120,000 individual members – a flexible source of funding that permits strategic

institutional investments. Many donors support Oxfam America for its emergency aid

during natural and human-made disasters and to “seeds and tools” community

development projects. Educating donors to look deeper at the structural causes of

poverty and expand their priorities to supporting advocacy activities is an important

ongoing conversation. A recent Oxfam America fundraising letter highlighted the blood

lead crisis in La Oroya and the farmers’ efforts to improve Doe Run’s behavior. A future

challenge may be turning these donors into activists as increased public pressure becomes

necessary to change long-standing corporate practices.

Lessons Learned, Lingering Questions and Future Challenges and Opportunities.

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Perhaps the central challenge to funding transnational advocacy emerges from the

same planning exercise that Oxfam has supported CONACAMI in carrying out - mapping

an advocacy strategy and building a work plan based on this strategy. If the strategy is a

sound one, it names the problem faced, breaks it down into a workable issue, identifies

allies and targets, generates a plan for utilizing strengths and overcoming internal

organizational weaknesses, and sets out a workplan of tactics and evaluation benchmarks.

A transnational advocacy funder must have a good sense of where it fits in this advocacy

plan and how it best contributes to its grantees’ advocacy strategies. How best can a

funder facilitate bringing together necessary ingredients for successful advocacy? What

changes will be required of the funder as it learns to play an ever more productive role?

Oxfam’s work with Peruvian communities affected by mining is a rich example of

seemingly successful funder approaches to transnational advocacy support – I say

seemingly because the fight is far from over. I now turn to some remaining challenges.

Assisting Grantees in Building Power through Coalitions and Movement Building

• Successfully analyzing complex local political realities: Finding and funding catalytic

actors

To win an advocacy campaign against such powerful actors as mining companies and

national governments obviously requires a powerful coalition. Ought a funder attempt to

fund an entire coalition or just one key organization within it? How can the funder detect

who are the key actors in the coalition and what are their strengths and weaknesses?

Personally, I walked away from Cajamarca with my head spinning – the local

intracacies were staggering. How can a funder sift through complex local political and

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economic contexts and competing interest groups to identify catalytic organizations

capable of bringing together a strong coalition? Practically speaking, which organization

ought to be the fiscal conduit for this assistance? Perhaps because problems with

extractive industries cut across issues of environmental justice, indigenous rights, human

rights, land rights and sustainable livelihoods, there tend to be many actors of diverse

backgrounds with self-interest in participating.

With limited funds, Oxfam generally funds just one or two actors within a much

broader coalition. The idea is that these organizations become stronger players and play a

leadership role in coalescing allies. It is, however, an immense challenge to discern who is

key, to strengthen their capacity, and to encourage them in building an effective coalition.

Some mechanisms to improving the ability to figure out what is happening on the

ground and secure ongoing, accurate information may be the following: more funder site

visits – although this may be difficult for program officers juggling large grant portfolios;

contracting consultants from the local area to make site visits, channel information and

enhance the ability of the funder to understand local dynamics; employing staff with

considerable experience in movement building and community organizing– experienced

staff will be able to more quickly diagnose coalition problems and key actors to support;

and hiring an organizer or organizing team on a short-term basis who through intensive

work can actually help actors overcome differences and build a coalition infrastructure

among interested parties in conflict. These last two options are only available, however,

if there exists a local or national pool of people qualified in organizing and advocacy.

This is not always the case; I return to this point in a later section.

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• Supporting Coalitions and Funding Unknown Territory: What Role for Funder-to-

Funder Collaboration?

If it is true that changing practices and policies of transnational actors are most likely

to be won by transnational advocacy coalitions, then a transnational advocacy funder must

concern itself not simply with the capacity of one partner organization who may be its

grantee – say CONACAMI - but rather with the overall health and capacity of a

constellation of allies and technical groups that are part of the coalition. Depending on

whether the coalition has already coalesced and requires resources for specific activities

that it has identified or whether dispersed actors are in search of assistance to simply come

together, funder roles are different. In either case, the work is vast and expensive. If the

goal is to aid an entire transnational advocacy effort, a funder’s own resources are likely to

be insufficient. The implication may be that the funder ought to seek collaborative

arrangements with other funders. The funder must then essentially immerse itself in the

same coalition building processes it supports its grantees in constructing.

For the sake of argument let’s imagine that CONACAMI and activists from the

town of Yauli, near La Oroya, have determined that they are not likely to have the power

to stop mining contamination of local rivers without the support of other constituencies.

They know that Lima’s water originates in the mountains around La Oroya and arrives in

the capital city undrinkable. Lima water users may then represent an important ally. Or

perhaps it is not CONACAMI that determines that this might be a fruitful alliance, but

Oxfam America staff. Should Oxfam America suggest to CONACAMI that they seek out

such an alliance and perhaps offer grants to urban environmental organizations to

participate in a coalition with CONACAMI?

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Another likelihood is that international alliances will be an important source of

power to communities affected by mining. Here, Oxfam has played and continues to play

a key role in helping CONACAMI generate a map of potential allies around the globe and

in providing them with resources to engage in joint actions.

I would argue that if a funder’s granting strategy is guided by advocacy strategies

(that by definition identify potential allies), support for these alliances becomes logical.

The challenge is that these new actors may represent new terrain for the funder – for

example, Oxfam America currently does not fund environmental groups with a Lima

focus. If the funder feels that such support is too much of a stretch outside of its

geographic and thematic focus and strengths, it would be important that they seek

collaboration with other funders to fill that gap. Collaboration between funders for

transnational advocacy would then arise not out of convenience but rather out of

necessity; without that collaboration the advocacy effort is far less likely to succeed.

Furthermore, donor outreach to new funding sources is an opportunity to educate and

steer/influence philanthropies’ grant-making priorities.

Thinking 25 Years Out: Funders Investmentst in Advocacy Infrastructure: Training

Networks and Leadership Schools

I posed the question earlier: if we accept that transnational advocacy is useful to

protect mining communities but note that training and accompaniment resources to

support such an effort are lacking, can a funder like Oxfam assume the job of building or

strengthening an advocacy training network? In the Peruvian mining case, such an

organizer leadership school or training center would be an extremely useful resource to a

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host of organizations – from indigenous to women’s to environmental. This school/center

could train representative organization members and NGO staff in such areas as advocacy

campaign planning, community organizing strategy and techniques, coalition building, and

communication strategies.

A compelling reason to build this regional capacity is to avoid having to import

trainers and models when assistance is needed. It certainly gave me pause for thought

when I was co-facilitating an advocacy training workshop and a highly effective

indigenous leader told me that he had no experience with advocacy. His lack of

appreciation for his experience was a signal that our language was off and that advocacy

models from overseas are essential departure points, but with time, local methodologies

must evolve.

This is obviously an enormous and expensive long-term endeavor, yet I would

argue that if the funder is interested in supporting advocacy, they must ensure that the

infrastructure for it is in place. The funder will require new skill sets to help build this

advocacy infrastructure as well as significant resources. Here again, collaboration with

other funders is likely to be essential.

Complex Capacity Building

With the impacts of globalization presenting new challenges and opportunities to

grantees, capacity building - both for the grantee and donor - has become more complex.

Some examples:

• Fortifying leadership ties to base organizations and chapter growth

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Internal tensions between national federations and local affiliates are common: the

funder can direct a portion of funds to supporting national structures and other funds to

work with particular chapters.

• Building capacity of support NGOs

The challenge is not only identifying representative organizations with great social

movement potential and building their capacity, but building the capacity of various

technical and allied groups that can offer these social movement actors the necessary

technical and political counsel.

• Avoiding NGOization of social movement organizations.

Project work with communities is critical to address pressing needs, to keep people

hopeful about sustaining a livelihood from their resources, as a leadership development

school and as a vehicle to further organize the community. The danger is that the focus of

the organizations becomes operating the development project and not struggling against

structural causes of poverty. Some of this occurs because of donor shortsightedness, not

understanding well the comparative advantage of the organization it supports and

contributing to their overextension into new areas, a form of mission drift. Part of the

solution here is continuing to provide support for organizing and advocacy and identifying

measurable benchmarks of success in these areas.

• Preserving space for varied tactics

In what cases do stakeholder dialogues offer a productive vehicle for resolving conflict

and in what cases are more confrontational tactics effective? It is of course necessary to

evaluate the impact of multiple tactics and it is likely that in diverse circumstances, each

tactic will have value. Oxfam has supported activities as diverse as CONACAMI’s

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national march in Lima and an assessment of a mining certification system in which

affected communities will propose acceptable standards for mining operations. The

challenge for the future will be to preserve space for both insider and outsider tactics.

• Enhancing Funders’ Internal Advocacy Capacity

It is critical that a donor develop an internal capacity building and learning plan for

expanding expertise in and mobilizing resources for advocacy. This is not to say that all

capacity must be in-house, indeed that would be a mistake. In-house capacity may create

that the perception that it is unnecessary to enter into coalitions, which ironically would

undermine the power-building needs of a transnational advocacy effort.

Funders Can Play a Strategic Role in Supporting Partners Information Needs

The Ross analysis mentioned earlier can feed nicely into local campaigns and initiatives

questioning poverty-reducing benefits of extractive economies. Southern and Northern

research can complement one another. Similarly, when a funder can work with grantees

to contract a renowned hydrologist to conduct fieldwork and question the veracity of a

company’s environmental impact study, the study can become a powerful local advocacy

tool. The fieldwork period with grantees becomes a useful training period to learn new

collection and analytical techniques.

Preserving Funding for National Advocacys with No Apparent International Link

There exists a certain danger in overly privileging international work particularly

because actions directed towards national decision makers have the potential to be most

meaningful to affected communities and to create a positive ripple effect for future

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advocacy campaigns. It is crucial that disenfranchised communities forge local alliances

andattempt to influence national targets and not solely direct their energies towards

unknown persons with funny last names in unknown international institutions. With

respect to building civic values, knowledge of political systems, and organizations with

broad bases, this national work may be the best “thickener” of civil society. These

national campaigns are likely to be roots of grassroots power and form the basis of skill

sets and organizational capacity to participate in transnational campaigns. In addition,

international networks may be extraordinarily time consuming and may draw leaders too

far away from their bases. Funders should examine with grantees the oppportunities and

costs of transnational advocacy, and most importantly, maintain ongoing support for

national struggles.

Conclusion: Mutual Learning and Funder Accountability

There is no secret - much of what I’ve suggested here will work best if the donor

is an accountable member of the transnational advocacy effort that it is itself funding.

When funding for advocacy is driven by this coalition strategy, the donor-as-advocacy-

actor can find itself within that strategy. The funder’s role is then clear to itself as well as

to other coalition members. Aside from the obvious boost to the effectiveness of a

transnational advocacy strategy – an important actor now has a clearly assigned role –

donor actions become more transparent and accountable.

Certainly an argument against donor-as-advocacy-actor is that donors are too

powerful already. With their financial resources, they can already start-up or pull the plug

on advocacy efforts. Why grant them more power; why not just ask them to put their

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money on the table and excuse themselves? The catch here is that with communities and

grassroots organizations facing new threats and opportunities from globalization, they

increasingly welcome a role for funders as coalition partners. Donor power is nothing to

them; perhaps by inviting the donor into a coalition as a peer the relationship may tend to

equalize. As donors learn new skills, invest in their own advocacy capacities, and attempt

to steer the priorities of their philanthropic colleagues, they become increasingly valuable

allies. The donor money becomes only one of many contributions. It then is a question of

ethics and coalition governance if the funder behaves like a responsible coalition member.

By participating in coalition efforts themselves, donors will themselves be

attending the school of hard knocks in the rough and tumble world of advocacy coalition

building. They will be walking the walk. Donors will undoubtedly become smarter and

more sensitive about their grantees’ efforts and will forge deeper relationships of

reciprocity and solidarity with them. The logic here is somewhat circular but the win is

obvious: reciprocity and solidarity are cornerstones of effective transnational advocacy

coalitions, coalitions that are the best bet for advancing a long-term social justice agenda.