Rights-based approach to development
Learning from
Plan Guatemala
Evaluation of Plan’s Strategy in Guatemala
Tosca Bruno-van Vijfeijken, Uwe Gneiting,
Hans Peter Schmitz and Otto Valle (contributing author)
Transnational NGO Initiative – Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs
Syracuse University
14 June 2009
Rights-based approach to development
Learning from Plan Guatemala
Tosca Bruno-van Vijfeijken, Uwe Gneiting, Hans Peter Schmitz and Otto Valle
(contributing author)
Transnational NGO Initiative – Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs
Syracuse University
14 June 2009
Cover image: © Plan / Alf Berg
Children from the Vista Hermosa Xalija pre school, San Pedro Carcha PU.
1
Acknowledgements
The authors of this book would like to acknowledge the help and support of the Plan
Guatemala team: Ricardo Gomez-Agnoli, Country Director, Debora Cobar, Program
Support Manager, Hilda Bautista, Human Resources Manager, Lorena Garcia,
Resource Mobilization Manager, and Yokasta Lee, Finance Manager.
This report is an independent publication commissioned by Plan International, and
carried out by the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs of the Maxwell School of
Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.
The mission of the Moynihan Institute is to extend, integrate and focus the Maxwell
School’s commitment to exploring the international and global concerns raised by an
interdependent world of diverse cultures, economies and political systems; to
support interdisciplinary, collaborative research projects among teams of faculty and
graduate students, to work on understanding and solving critical world problems; and
to maintain a productive dialogue between the academic and policy-making
communities in the process of translating theory into practice. The Transnational
NGO Initiative represents one of the major programmatic thrusts of the Moynihan
Institute. The initiative was established in 2004 in recognition of the growing
importance of non-governmental organisations in world affairs.
For more information about this report or on the work of the Moynihan Institute,
please contact:
Tosca Bruno-van Vijfeijken
Co-Director
Transnational NGO Initiative
Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs
346J Eggers Hall
Syracuse University
Syracuse, NY 13244-1090
USA
tmbruno@maxwell.syr.edu
ph. +1.315.443.5073
2
Foreword
The question of what role international organisations should play in the domestic
development processes has been debated for decades. The introduction of human
rights into this debate has offered a new possible answer, an answer that requires a
new outlook, new strategies and new perspectives on development. Plan Guatemala
has embraced this challenge since 2004 in a way that is to be commended. The
organisation’s strategic transition towards a rights-based approach (RBA) represents
a fundamental reflection process on the means and ends of development, which has
resulted in an approach that provides new impetus to the debate on how best to
combine human rights and development.
The goal of my work with Plan was to evaluate and systematise Plan’s shift and to
learn from the organisation’s experience of the past five years. The results of this
work are summarised in this document, and hopefully serve as useful lessons for
anybody interested in working in the area of human rights and development. The
document also contains strategic reflections about the future of RBA. These
reflections advocate for a more practical understanding of the actual exercise of
human rights and on the relationship between poverty, democracy and human rights.
Combining political action with a sincere commitment to the lives of marginalised
people and groups is the greatest benefit that human rights can bring to our work for
social progress.
I thank Plan for its genuine support throughout this project, and I hope that the
organisation continues with the same openness, passion and willingness to improve
its work on behalf of the children it serves in Guatemala.
Uwe Gneiting
Berlin, Germany, February 2010
3
Table of contents
Acknowledgements 2
Foreword 3
List of abbreviations 5
1.Executive summary 6
2.Introduction 11
a. Research process ................................................................................................................... 12
b. Why it is important to think about strategy .............................................................................. 13
3.Plan’s rights-based approach in comparative perspective 15
a. RBA sees human rights as both the means and the end of development .............................. 15
b. RBA addresses root causes of poverty and attempts to change power relations................... 17
c. RBA attributes a clear role to the state as duty bearer and transforms passive aid recipients
into active rights holders ......................................................................................................... 19
d. RBA increases participation .................................................................................................... 22
e. RBA requires implementing a rights perspective within the organisation ............................... 24
f. RBA goes beyond traditional governance or civil society projects.......................................... 25
g. RBA provides a moral and legal framework for action and creates room for strategic alliances
on multiple levels..................................................................................................................... 27
h. Comparing Plan’s RBA with other organisations .................................................................... 30
4.Plan’s strategic approach in the Guatemalan context 34
a. Guatemala has a high level of inequality ................................................................................ 34
b. Strengthening of democracy as a non-violent tool for social change...................................... 35
c. Existence of a national legal framework.................................................................................. 37
5.RBA implementation 38
a. Internal diffusion and acceptance of strategy.......................................................................... 38
b. Changes in programming........................................................................................................ 40
c. Implementation of strategic principles in Plan’s programming ................................................ 43
d. Comparison of Plan’s programmes to RBA criteria and strategic principles........................... 51
6.Effectiveness of Plan’s rights-based strategy 61
a. Conceptual approach to measuring effectiveness .................................................................. 61
b. Plan’s actual effects on rights-based indicators ...................................................................... 65
7.Conclusion and recommendations 76
a. Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 76
b. Points of discussion ................................................................................................................ 81
References 95
About the Moynihan Institute 96
4
List of abbreviations
COCODITO child-focused versions of community development councils
COMUNA municipal children’s government
CRC Convention on the Rights of the Child
GRO grassroots organisation
GDP gross domestic product
HDI human development index
NGO non-governmental organisation
PHAST Participatory Health and Sanitation Transformation
RBA rights-based approach
SOSEP Social Works of the First Lady of Guatemala
UNICEF UN Children’s Fund
5
1.Executive summary
This report is the result of a collaborative research project between Plan Guatemala
and the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs at Syracuse University. The objective of
this project is to provide Plan Guatemala with an independent examination of the
organisation’s strategic transition towards a rights-based approach (RBA). The report
is divided into three main parts: 1) an assessment of Plan’s interpretation of a rights-
based approach, how this approach is compatible with commonly accepted RBA
criteria and how it is applicable to the Guatemalan context; 2) an investigation of how
Plan has managed to translate this new strategy into action and how the
organisation’s different programmes have implemented the new strategy and; 3) an
evaluation of the early results of Plan’s new strategy and of the limitations to its
implementation, as well as the trade-offs Plan will have to face.
The project was designed as a qualitative interview study involving a total of 121
activities carried out between February and May 2009. Interviews were conducted
with a variety of stakeholders, including Plan staff, community members and
government representatives. The researcher was embedded with Plan Guatemala
for the duration of the fieldwork.
The project found that Plan’s rights-based strategy is in line with commonly accepted
RBA criteria, in particular the organisation’s emphasis on the relationship between
duty bearers and rights holders. Plan attributes an important role to the government
as a duty bearer (and its responsibility for delivering services to local communities)
and aims at transforming passive recipients of aid into active rights holders. Plan has
broadly aligned its activities with the international human rights framework based on
the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) but makes stronger use of the
national legal framework. In its programming decisions, Plan uses the human rights
framework primarily as a means to improve results and impact, not as its underlying
basis for action. Despite the adoption of RBA, Plan continues to take a
predominantly technical approach to its government and community interactions,
focusing on supporting institutions in their provision of services and building the
capacities of both duty bearers and rights holders. Plan acts primarily as a
contractual partner working with the government, rather than an advocacy
6
organisation challenging government policies on behalf of people living in poverty
and children. Plan does not yet use RBA as a tool to address discrimination and
exclusion as key sources of unequal power relations between government and
people.
Plan’s current strategy is appropriate for the particular social and political context of
Guatemala. The country’s high level of inequality and comparatively low human
development indicators suggest that exclusion and discrimination are at the root of
poverty in the country. A rights-based approach aimed at increasing government
services to rural and excluded populations is therefore a sensible approach. In
consideration of Guatemala’s violent history, the prevalent scepticism towards
political activism and a lack of trust in political institutions and the democratic system,
Plan has chosen a local focus on strengthening the capacities of citizens and
governments. The organisation has developed a non-confrontational approach
towards governmental actors both on the national and municipal level. In order for
people to claim their rights in a non-violent manner, Plan has so far emphasised the
practical exercise of rights instead of formal human rights education and citizen
mobilisation.
The evaluation revealed that Plan has succeeded in diffusing its new strategic
approach across the different levels of its organisation. Plan staff demonstrated a
coherent vision of what it means to work with RBA and expressed a high level of
affirmation for the new strategy. The most significant changes of Plan’s work are the
redefinition of Plan’s relations with communities and a greater engagement with
government institutions on a municipal and national level. The benefits of the new
strategy most commonly mentioned were greater agency and empowerment of
communities and more sustainable impact because the government is slowly
assuming its responsibility and takes over the provision of services from Plan.
Respondents acknowledged the profoundness of the change and the personal
dimension that was part of the adjustment.
Plan’s strategic change is not only visible in the organisation’s strategic plans but
has also found its way into the implementation of its programmes on the ground.
Plan’s relationship with local communities has shifted from technical interactions to
7
more cooperative partnerships geared towards enabling the pursuit of their own
development objectives. The organisation is now seeking the involvement of
government institutions in all of its programmes and projects and coordinates its
activities with local and national government actors. Plan has managed to establish
cooperative relationships with a variety of government institutions and agencies and
has helped them increase their ability to fulfil their human rights obligations. After five
years of implementing its new strategy, Plan has proved that its strategic approach
can be effective and that it is feasible for an international development organisation
to contribute constructively to the strengthening of democracy and the fulfilment of
human rights in Guatemala.
Plan’s programmes have changed to varying degrees. While programmes with a
clear constitutional duty bearer, such as health and education, predominantly focus
on the strategic principle of constitutional responsibility by respective ministries,
other programmes, such as water, participation and protection exhibit a more multi-
dimensional rights-based approach, involving greater focus on citizen participation
and education, the involvement of various government actors, and a greater focus on
municipal level engagement. Plan’s strategic principles have guided the organisation
in its strategic approach but have been implemented with different levels of success.
The report shows that the implementation of inclusion and solidarity as core
principles lags behind.
Plan’s work has been most effective using two of five avenues that have the potential
to improve human rights significantly. Plan has worked extensively to affect the
attitudes and behaviour of rights holders (both adults and children) and has heavily
invested in supporting government institutions in the implementation of programmes.
However, three other human rights-related factors have not gained the same kind of
attention and emphasis: 1) legislation and policies on a national level; 2) the
strengthening of democratic spaces and processes and; 3) civic (or collective)
action. While Plan’s results to date constitute a significant achievement, there are
many additional opportunities for the organisation to increase its impact based on
RBA.
8
Plan has managed to find strategic ways of combining the organisation’s long history
and expertise in community-level work with its new commitment to a rights-based
approach. By focusing its efforts on facilitating the interaction between duty bearers
and rights holders on a municipal level, Plan takes a bottom-up approach to rights-
based development that differs from strategies of other rights-based development
organisations. Despite the organisation’s new rights-based approach, Plan continues
to take a predominantly technical approach in its interactions with government and
communities, focusing on increasing capacities on both sides. While this approach
has proved to yield positive results in the short term, it remains to be seen if this non-
confrontational and apolitical understanding of RBA is sufficient to challenge some of
the structural causes that are at the root of poverty in Guatemala. In the future, the
identity of a rights-based organisation may more directly challenge the organisational
confines of a traditional child sponsorship organisation.
The research concluded with six recommendations for Plan’s future strategic
orientation. First, we recommend that Plan more explicitly acknowledges, analyses,
and addresses the lack of inclusion and the differences of power that exist on a
communal, municipal and national level. This is particularly important in Plan’s
situation analysis work, and in its facilitation and monitoring of community
assemblies, community and municipal development councils and children’s groups.
Second, Plan should facilitate the expansion of citizen participation beyond project
identification and prioritisation to include monitoring the quality, coverage,
accessibility and costs of government services in order to strengthen government
accountability. Third, Plan should go beyond a technical approach to RBA and
increase its political activity and place a greater emphasis on advocacy efforts on a
national and regional level in order to address structural causes of poverty in
Guatemala. This applies in particular to CRC reporting, the dissemination of the Law
of Free Access to Information and implementation and increased government budget
allocations to social services. Fourth, Plan should foster partnerships with local civil
society organisations of a non-contractual nature, in order to increase the influence
and capacity of communities in the local democratic process and to increase their
ability to link with one another and to speak with one, unified voice. Fifth, Plan should
define more explicitly how a rights-based approach affects its own role and
9
relationship with local communities. While Plan’s non-confrontational approach has
enabled strong relationships with government and community leaders, it likely limits
the transformative power of a rights-based approach. Moreover, Plan should develop
more downward accountability mechanisms towards the communities the
organisation works with, recognising its own power towards them while allowing
community members to internalise a rights-based view by learning and applying
those mechanisms in their interaction with Plan. Sixth, Plan should ensure the
sustainability of its work and address emerging new forms of dependencies. While
local communities are now less dependent on Plan’s direct material support, they
now rely on Plan to facilitate and organise activities. Political instability and lack of
resources also limit the ability of the government to deliver services without Plan’s
support. Plan should develop strategies that address those weaknesses and make
both citizens and government less reliant on the organisation’s presence.
10
2.Introduction
This report is the result of a collaborative research project between Plan Guatemala
and the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs at Syracuse University. The objective of
this project is to provide Plan Guatemala with an independent examination of its
strategic transition towards a rights-based approach (RBA). The findings of this
research will also serve as a basis for a case study providing academics and
practitioners with insights into Plan’s experience in moving from a predominantly
service-delivery to a rights-based approach to development. The primary audience of
this report is Plan Guatemala.
The project is divided into three main areas of inquiry. First, the research team aimed
to gain an understanding of Plan’s interpretation of what it means to work with a
rights-based approach. How Plan understands the intersection of human rights and
development and how it translates this understanding in its programmatic strategy
was at the core of this first part of the investigation. In addition, we asked if this
particular strategy represented an adequate and feasible approach for the political,
social and cultural context in Guatemala. In the next section, the team investigated
how Plan has managed to translate this new strategy into action. We investigated if
the new strategy had been diffused throughout the organisation and how the
different programmes had implemented the new strategy. Finally, the team identified
some of the early results of Plan’s new strategy and also investigated limitations to
its implementation. Following from these observations, conclusions on Plan’s
strategy were drawn and suggestions for future action were formulated.
The task of evaluating a particular rights-based approach of an international
development organisation poses a number of challenges. The convergence of
human rights and development constitutes a broad and complex field of inquiry.
Although there is a general agreement among scholars and practitioners on what
common goals and principles a rights-based approach should entail, there is not one
correct way of implementing RBA. A strategic shift informed by RBA is contingent on
the particular organisation’s mandate, resources and other characteristics, the
particular role and meaning that the organisation attributes to human rights in its
11
development efforts and the geographical, political and social conditions in the
communities where this approach is implemented.
a. Research process
The project was designed as a qualitative interview study involving a variety of
participants both inside and outside of the organisation. A total of 121
activities were carried out between February and May 2009, involving
individual interviews, focus group interviews, and internal group discussions
with Plan Guatemala. The participants of these activities included
management and staff of Plan Guatemala, representatives of national
government institutions and municipal governments, adults and children in the
communities where Plan works, members of partner organisations and other
international NGOs that work with a rights-based approach, and external
experts.
The researcher was embedded with Plan Guatemala for the duration of the
fieldwork. The project design and planning process was carried out
collaboratively by the research team and Plan Guatemala, which secured
complete access and support to the researcher for the duration of the project.
The researcher visited all programme sites of Plan Guatemala and interacted
with partners and programme participants at all these sites. Because of its
greater local expertise, Plan programme unit staff selected the participants on
the community and municipal level. The extended field research period of
three months allowed the researcher to gain substantive insights into Plan’s
internal processes, the culture of the organisation, and the particular
interpretation and application of its rights-based approach.
The focus of the project design was primarily process-oriented, giving the
researcher team insights into the dynamics, relationships and processes
associated with the strategic transition to a rights-based understanding of
development work. Given the short time frame since the initial implementation
of the new strategy (first adopted in 2005), we decided to focus our evaluation
of the feasibility and appropriateness of RBA for Plan in Guatemala on two
areas. These were, in the first place, the opinions expressed by various
12
stakeholders and, in the second, in-depth qualitative investigations of specific
early outcomes in the five primary rights areas selected by Plan (health,
education, participation, water and protection). However, the findings of this
investigation were also compared to quantitative data from Plan’s internal
monitoring system and to a results-oriented programme evaluation carried out
during the same time period.
b. Why it is important to think about strategy
During the past decade the international development community has been
exposed to significant internal and external criticism questioning the
effectiveness, accountability, and sustainability of their work. After decades of
heavy investment by northern donors and governments in international
development programmes and projects, the impact of these efforts are today
viewed by many experts as limited. In response, international development
agencies have participated in various projects to learn from past development
experiences and to rethink their approach to development. Joint initiatives to
set standards for effective and accountable development work, such as the
Paris Declaration or the Sphere Project among others, are exemplary results
of this reflection process.
As joint initiatives proliferated, many international development organisations
started to rethink their individual strategic approach to development. Following
a period of dominant market-driven and technical approaches, a growing
number of donors and NGOs began to adopt RBA as a new framework for
their efforts to eliminate poverty and create sustainable economic growth.
With RBA, underlying structural causes of poverty, including unequal power
relations, exclusion, discrimination and inequality, move towards the centre of
developmental efforts. This new focus on underlying political, cultural and
social causes of poverty created unfamiliar challenges for development work
previously accustomed to more circumscribed, technical interventions within a
service-driven approach. Organisations using RBA will typically spend more
time analysing root causes of poverty, pay greater attention to the most
excluded groups and link their strategic response and programmatic planning
13
process more directly to a thorough analysis of political, economic and social
conditions.
Plan has joined this period of reflection both on a national and an international
level. Internationally, the organisation is slowly moving away from a traditional
service-delivery approach and has officially declared its Child Centred
Community Development (CCCD) approach to programming a rights-based
approach.1 On a national level, Plan Guatemala has critically investigated its
achievements of more than two decades of work and has questioned the
sustainability and effectiveness of its previous work. This examination of the
organisation’s work opened the door for the adoption of RBA. Plan’s current
strategic approach (PT 2010) is a first attempt to address root causes of
poverty and it has fundamentally changed the way the organisation
understands its own role. After nearly five years of implementing this strategy,
an assessment of its validity and feasibility is an important and necessary
process, which will help Plan Guatemala to continue to improve and adapt its
strategic orientation.
1
Plan International (2008)
14
3.Plan’s rights-based approach in comparative perspective2
The growing popularity of rights-based approaches and their adoption by a variety of
international development organisations have led to a wide range of rights-based
interpretations, strategies, tools and programme approaches. As a result, there is not
one rights-based approach to development. In order to assess Plan’s rights-based
approach from a conceptual perspective, this section will identify core characteristics
of RBA and compare those with Plan’s own interpretation of these key insights.
a. RBA sees human rights as both the means and the end of
development
Introducing human rights norms to development broadens the base of any
engagement by adding a set of universal and indivisible civil, political, social,
economic and cultural rights as constitutive and instrumental for development.
RBA changes both the goals of the development work and the processes
used to reach those goals. Understanding poverty as a violation of human
rights leads to a more profound understanding of the dimensions and causes
of poverty, which consequently leads to a change in processes and strategies
of how to address these causes.3
An organisation’s overall goals are generally summarised in its mission
statement. Plan Guatemala, as a branch of Plan International, orients itself
toward the mission statement of Plan International. Plan International’s
mission statement mentions human rights instrumentally as a process to
improve the quality of life of children (not as the goal of its work).4 With
regards to the organisation’s programming approach, the current definition of
Plan International’s programming approach is clearly articulated as a “rights-
based approach … to address structural causes of child poverty”, indicating
that Plan International uses RBA as the underlying framework of its
2
The description of the core RBA characteristics draws on a variety of authors, including Uvin (2004), Sen
(1999), Harris‐Curtis (2003), Nelson (2008), Chapman (2005), Gready and Ensor (2005)
3
Paragraphs in italics indicate the general criteria against which Plan Guatemala’s rights‐based approach was
evaluated.
4
Mission statement, retrieved from website ‘About Plan’ (plan‐international.org/about‐plan)
15
programming approach.5 While there are signs that Plan International is
transitioning towards becoming more of a rights-based organisation, it is the
researchers’ perception that the organisation to date primarily utilises human
rights as a tool for analysis and as a guide for programming, but it does not
see the fulfilment of human rights as its core mission. An examination of the
strategic programme goals of Plan Guatemala confirms a similar finding at the
national level. Although human rights are not mentioned explicitly, language,
such as “to assure access to health services …” (health programme of Plan
Guatemala) indicates a rights-based understanding to programming (i.e.
working towards the assumption of responsibility by the state as duty bearer).6
As a result of the application of human rights to Plan Guatemala’s
programming and less to the overall organisation, human rights play a
predominantly instrumental role. They represent a strategic tool that guides
the organisation in its programmatic decision making by identifying the state
as duty bearer and by supporting the ability of rural communities to claim their
rights. Rights-based tools, such as participation and empowerment, and
concepts, such as constitutional responsibility and the relationship between
rights holders and duty bearers, are frequently mentioned in Plan’s strategic
plan and play an important role in Plan’s overall strategic approach to its work
in Guatemala. At the same time, human rights and development remain
separate concepts for Plan. While Plan defines itself as a development
organisation (not a human rights organisation), it utilises human rights
concepts as a strategic instrument to involve government institutions and to
mobilise citizens. Human rights play a lesser role in internal processes or
organisational conduct and, as a result, remain an external concept.
Consequently, they do not appear to have the same influence on Plan itself
that Plan advocates for the interaction between the Guatemalan state and its
citizens.
5
Plan International (2008)
6
Plan Guatemala (2004)
16
b. RBA addresses root causes of poverty and attempts to
change power relations
By seeing poverty as a violation of human rights, the perspective on the
underlying causes of poverty changes from being technical (lack of resources)
to being structural. The acknowledgment of the critical importance of
systematic factors, such as exclusion, discrimination and inequality, are at the
heart of RBA. Unequal power relations are central to the perpetuation of
structural injustices and resultant persistent poverty. In addressing these
power relations, development work shifts from charitable neutrality to
advocacy aimed at challenging powerful actors and their policies. Scholars
generally agree that while charity is apolitical, the assertion of rights always is
political.
Plan’s RBA attempts to address structural causes of persisting poverty in
Guatemala. Plan works exclusively in rural communities, which are generally
the most excluded and neglected areas. By enabling the government to
extend its efforts in these areas, it emphasises the government’s responsibility
to ensure the universal access to basic rights, such as health services or
primary education. Previously, Plan did not engage consistently with
government institutions, selectively took over services the government should
provide, and used external resources to finance most of its programmes on its
own. With this new approach, Plan is developing more sustainable and
domestic solutions to promote human development in Guatemala. It supports
government programmes by providing technical expertise and temporal
financing to jump start government action. The two most illustrative examples
of this approach are the agreements that Plan Guatemala has reached with
the ministries of health and education. Both of these agreements have as their
long-term goal the complete handover of all of Plan’s current activities to the
government. Besides these concrete agreements, Plan has also fulfilled a
more intangible role by raising awareness of government officials about the
systematic neglect of rural populations in Guatemala. As one programme
17
manager of Plan explained, “One of our greatest achievements is that we
have made these communities visible again to the government.”7
However, Plan’s rights-based approach remains a work in progress. In its
attempt to involve the state as the duty bearer, Plan takes a predominantly
technical approach to its government interactions, focusing on supporting
institutions in the provision of services. As a result, Plan acts primarily as a
contractual partner of the government and less as a lobbying advocate for
people living in poverty, which leaves the unequal power relations between
government and people mostly unaffected. The focus of cooperation between
Plan and the government is in executing existing government programmes
and in supporting the government with technical expertise and resources.
While this is an improvement from Plan’s previous approach (since it
attributes a more explicit responsibility to the state), it falls short of a rights-
based approach. While the areas of health and education offer hopeful signs
of a government taking responsibility, these commitments are primarily driven
by the provision of expertise by Plan and individual leaders within the
government, rather than by a self-sustaining relationship of accountability
between the government and its citizens. This means that government
programmes may be discontinued if leadership changes or Plan withdraws
from these areas. As one government representative explained:
We will never be able to do the same work without Plan since we do
not have the same strong ties to communities, we do not have the
technical expertise and we do not have the human and financial
resources to execute all this on our own.8
The failure of the central government to fulfil its human rights obligations is not
merely a question of lacking resources or capacity, but is closely linked to
existing patterns of discrimination and inequality. One external expert pointed
7
Interview by Uwe Gneiting with Plan Guatemala executive staff member, conducted in Guatemala City, 10
February 2009
8
Interview by Uwe Gneiting with head of municipal government, conducted in Morales, Gutemala, 5 March
2009
18
out that clientelism, corruption and discrimination against rural and indigenous
populations are deeply rooted in the Guatemalan political system and
undermine the state’s ability to fulfil its human rights obligations.9 The same
expert cautioned that international agencies such as Plan are not likely to be
able to change those systemic conditions on their own. Another external
informant remarked, “How can Plan expect its work to be sustainable if it
works within an unsustainable system?”10 As we will show later in this report,
Plan’s work in health and education has led to positive results, which are a
result of a more direct and cooperative partnership with the central
government. And, although the sustainability of these efforts is not
guaranteed, they do constitute an improvement compared to the project-
oriented, isolated development programmes and projects of the past. In order
to make the organisation’s results more sustainable, Plan would have to push
further towards a more political approach and develop strategies explicitly
aimed at facilitating direct accountability of the government towards people
living in poverty as well as institutionalising poverty-action policies in existing
government programmes and laws.
c. RBA attributes a clear role to the state as duty bearer and
transforms passive aid recipients into active rights holders
RBA identifies the state as the principal duty bearer to respect, protect and
fulfil human rights. RBA does not only require the state to abstain from
violations (acts of commission) but also puts emphasis on the government’s
responsibility to actively advance all rights and avoid contributing to violations
through neglect and failure to act (acts of omission). The goal is to transform
passive recipients of services into active rights holders by giving priority to
individual responsibility, agency and greater participation of people in all
decisions that affect their lives. The relationship between a government and
its people changes, as a result, from one of benevolence to obligation, where
9
Presentation by Fernando Carrera, economist, Guatemala City, 17 April 2009
10
Interview by Uwe Gneiting with education specialist of the Inter‐American Development Bank, conducted in
Guatemala City, 22 April 2009
19
governments are held accountable by their citizens for their actions and
omissions.
Plan has adopted a clear focus on the duality of duty bearers and rights
holders and their relationship with each other. It is the central concept of
Plan’s rights-based approach. In the simplest terms, Plan expresses its rights-
based approach in the formula: duty bearers + rights holders = RBA.11 In
each of the five rights areas, Plan has attempted to identify the constitutional
duty bearer (i.e. ministry or other government agency) and has managed to
engage these institutions. This approach has been more feasible in the areas
where a clear responsibility is attributed to a specific state institution, such as
education (ministry of education) and health (ministry of health). In the other
rights areas in which Plan works (water, participation, protection), the
responsibility of ensuring the protection and fulfilment of a particular human
right is less clear and Plan is forced to engage with a variety of government
institutions both on a national and municipal level.
Across all of Plan’s activities, violations of child rights occur for many different
reasons and the government is not the only party with a significant ability to
affect the human rights of children. Plan acknowledges this by addressing the
important role of community members in its programmes (for example,
ensuring that all children are sent to school by their parents or that water
quality is improved by improved hygienic habits). However, Plan strictly
differentiates between the legal human rights obligations of the state as a duty
bearer and the obligations of others, including citizens, parents, or teachers.
While prioritising legal obligations in its current strategic programming is
central to establishing the basic responsibilities of the government, Plan
should also invest in increasing the awareness of other duty bearers capable
of affecting the dignity and rights of children. Since the idea of human rights
points well beyond the law, legal obligations only represent a starting point for
the enjoyment and expansion of rights.
11
Gomez, Ricardo (2006)
20
Plan has also made substantial efforts to change its relationship with local
communities from a provider–recipient relationship to a facilitator–rights
holder relationship. The active participation of community members is an
integral part of Plan’s work in each of its programmes and is a stark
improvement from its previous efforts. Successful examples of community
participation can be observed particularly in Plan’s protection programme
(community protection networks) and its participation programme
(strengthened community organisations and organised children’s groups).
However, Plan does not place a priority on explicitly declaring community
members as rights holders. General human rights education has not been the
central focus of Plan’s work. Except for Plan’s participation and protection
programmes, in which Plan disseminates national legislation to raise
awareness of people about their legal rights, the focus of Plan’s capacity-
building activities is predominantly directed onto applied practices. These are
enabling people to achieve more to ensure the protection of children’s rights,
such as adopting healthy sanitation habits and parenting styles, findings
illustrated in interviews with community members. When asked about
activities Plan had conducted in the community, the issue of human rights was
rarely mentioned. One of Plan’s executives expressed this practical RBA
approach by saying, “We are not trying to make a custom out of the law but
instead law out of custom.”12 In other words, Plan takes a distinct approach to
raising awareness about child rights in its communities. In Plan’s first phase of
its rights-based approach, it emphasises the concept of learning by doing by
encouraging the exercise of rights rather than education about rights. While
we acknowledge the complications of introducing human rights concepts to
communities that are unfamiliar with them, we suggest that knowing about
rights and exercising them are complementary and should not be seen as
separate, sequential steps. While Plan’s current emphasis may not be on
teaching community members about their rights, knowledge of rights and their
significance might already provide individuals with arguments in politically
12
Interview by Uwe Gneiting with members of Plan Guatemala’s Community Development Team, conducted in
Jalapa, Guatemala, 23 March 2009
21
contentious situations and give them new tools to overcome their
powerlessness towards government authorities.
d. RBA increases participation
Human rights and participation are closely tied. Participation is a right itself,
but also a critical tool for people to claim and exercise their rights. The active
participation of people in all decisions affecting their lives is a necessary
element of levelling the playing field in interactions with other, more powerful
actors. Empowerment through participation is therefore at the heart of RBA.
Participation from an RBA perspective is not only focused on the ability of
individuals to effectively claim rights in interactions with political authorities,
but also plays a crucial role within the development work by including those
affected by interventions in all aspects of decision making throughout all
phases of the programme cycle.
Participation is a priority of Plan’s strategy. It is one of the five human rights
that Plan promotes and it is anticipated that it will be the dominant area of
work in the foreseeable future. Plan views participation as the transversal
theme that spans across all other programme areas. In Plan’s vision,
participation will soon become the dominant programme area primarily
because people increase their capacity to claim and exercise their rights on
their own.13 Apart from a strong focus on political participation, Plan also
considers participation in its operational work. The active participation of
children is one of the five strategic principles that Plan applies in all of the
organisation’s programmes and, as a result, a variety of children’s groups
have been formed in the communities, such as school governments and
community youth promoters. Plan has also used participatory techniques in its
planning and diagnostic work (for example in a participatory study about child
abuse and maltreatment and a participatory diagnostic study in a new
programme area). However, these activities were primarily designed to gather
information rather than enable participants to have direct influence on Plan’s
13
Plan Guatemala (2004)
22
decision-making process. It can therefore be concluded that neither adults nor
children appear to have had many opportunities for input into Plan’s decisions
on what type of activities it carries out in the communities and how these
activities are designed and carried out. Instead Plan has focused its efforts on
strengthening the capacity of communities to organise and to participate
politically both within their community and via the local government.
The conception of participation in Plan’s strategy yields interesting insights
into the relationship between rights and participation under a RBA. In the case
of Plan Guatemala, the focal point of participation has shifted away from the
space between communities and the NGO towards the political space
between citizens and government authorities. Plan justifies the primary focus
on political participation by pointing to the government’s role as primary duty
bearer and its legal responsibility towards its citizens. Plan holds that
participation of individual community members in Plan’s activities is always
voluntary and is different from the relationship between a government and its
subjects. Plan also claims that the organisation’s mandate is primarily based
on universal human rights contained in international treaties, such as the
Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Since the Guatemalan
government is a party to those treaties, Plan has no obligation to consult with
communities about the issue areas of its activities.
While Plan can derive some legitimacy from international treaties and the
constitution, we offer two arguments for why expanding local participation in
Plan’s decision-making processes will strengthen the organisation’s impact.
Firstly, Plan is likely to increase the effectiveness of its rights-based work by
allowing communities to participate in the interpretation of human rights for
their daily lives. International treaties, such as the CRC provide only general
guidelines in terms of the substance and scope of a particular human right.
The translation of those rights into practice happens on a local level. In order
to facilitate the adoption of a rights-based view by local communities, Plan
should develop spaces where rights can be discussed and interpreted by
adults and children. Secondly, while prioritising political participation of
23
communities is a valuable step forward, Plan will benefit from making explicit
the power relations created by Plan’s presence as a resource-rich
international actor. While its role is not similar to a government, its activities
have consequences for communities and any decisions Plan takes may
violate the right of people to participate in policies affecting their lives. While
Plan may not be legally obligated in the same way as the government is, it
should view more comprehensive participation as a prudent strategy designed
to increase not only its own legitimacy as an external actor, but also to
strengthen its sustainable impact.
e. RBA requires implementing a rights perspective within the
organisation
Human rights have not only an instrumental but also an intrinsic value. In
addition to addressing root causes of poverty, RBA requires an organisation
to look inward and acknowledge the power relations that emerge as a result of
the interactions between a resource-rich external actor and the local
population. Human rights principles are equally applicable internally and need
to be considered in all internal processes and throughout all phases of the
programme cycle. As one scholar put it, “RBA starts at home.”14
Plan has made efforts to include human rights principles in its programming
work that go beyond the strategic duty bearer–rights holder duality. It has
abandoned the traditionally exclusive approach of child sponsorship (i.e.
offering benefits only to sponsored children and their families) and has made
progress to work more inclusively in communities. Plan now ensures in all its
programmes that benefits of programmes and projects are distributed across
the entire community. For example, school utensils are now given to schools
and handed out to all students, and no longer given to individual families. By
working increasingly with municipal governments, Plan also manages to work
more inclusively since municipal programmes generally apply to all
communities within the municipality and not only the ones in which Plan’s
14
Uvin (2004)
24
sponsored children live. Furthermore, Plan has taken initial steps to apply
human rights internally and to become more participatory in its decision-
making processes. The management style appears participatory and
inclusive, thus facilitating an open environment of discussion and free
expression. Plan has created a democratic forum (Child Centred Community
Development [CCCD] Committee) that links different levels of the organisation
and has played an instrumental role in the creation and diffusion of the new
strategy.
However, the efforts of Plan to apply human rights internally remain limited.
Plan primarily views human rights as a strategic tool enabling government
action in promoting the rights of citizens and fostering engagement with its
citizens. Plan insists on not being a duty bearer because it is concerned that
this would reintroduce expectations of Plan as a provider of resources and
services. Plan staff reported that this attitude was prevalent during Plan’s
previous strategy and has created a high level of dependency of communities.
Preventing dependency of local communities is an important step forward, but
it should not be understood as a limit to the accountability of Plan towards
those affected by its work. Plan’s power as an international NGO lies in its
resources, expertise, the organisation’s reach and its international links.
In order to become a more effective organisation in applying RBA, Plan
should consider looking at human rights not just as a tool in accomplishing
development goals, but also as an end in itself. Currently, Plan staff do not
take an explicitly political approach in their work and interactions with
communities. While promoting the active participation of children is part of
Plan’s community work, other rights issues, such as gender or exclusion, are
not addressed.
f. RBA goes beyond traditional governance or civil society
projects
RBA may entail familiar concepts, such as governance and civil society
support but it goes beyond a technical understanding of these approaches.
25
Traditional good governance programmes in many cases fall short of RBA
standards because they fail to address root causes of challenges to more
effective governance. They thereby depoliticise democracy and are primarily
geared towards improving institutional efficiency and are motivated by
economic aspects. RBA differs from this neutral conception of governance by
acknowledging the political nature of such an involvement. By placing the
fulfilment of human rights at the core of governance, interactions with
governments become political exchanges (even if they are carried out in a
cooperative manner) and address power relations that exist in a particular
political system.
Plan has managed to build a strong relationship with several government
institutions on a national level and has succeeded in forming agreements with
entities – such as the ministry of health and the ministry of education – that
are in line with Plan’s rights-based agenda. Plan takes a mainly cooperative
approach to its work with government institutions and focuses its engagement
on the execution of existing government plans and policies. This approach
clearly differs from the more confrontational approach towards the state by
more advocacy-oriented human rights NGOs. Plan staff reiterated that
establishing programmes required developing cooperative relationships with
governmental authorities. Also, for historical reasons, there remains a high
level of scepticism within the government towards international NGOs and, as
a result, liaisons in Guatemala between NGOs and the state remain fragile
and sensitive endeavours. This view was confirmed by interviews with
representatives of national and municipal government institutions who
repeatedly named Plan’s cooperative approach as one of the main reasons
why they prefer to work with Plan instead of other international NGOs.
There are important trade-offs associated with taking a more cooperative or a
more adversarial approach in interactions with government agencies. Plan’s
decision to focus primarily on the technical support for existing government
programmes has led to real benefits in terms of effectiveness, but also limits
Plan’s ability to address structural causes of inequality and discrimination.
26
Since Plan does not want to risk the cooperative relationships it has
established, it accepts that little leverage is left to advocate for alternative
government plans or for creating public pressure on addressing urgent human
rights concerns. Furthermore, Plan’s cooperative approach to government
makes the organisation dependent on the political willingness of government
leaders to engage with Plan and limits its freedom to act according to the
most pressing human rights concerns. This thwarts the aim of RBA which is to
gear activities towards the most indigent and marginalised populations. As
one scholar asked, “Are poor people being punished for the sins of the people
that govern them?”15
On a municipal level, Plan’s approach to governments is less apolitical. While
Plan is taking a cooperative approach here as well, its central initiative is more
overtly political and aims at creating municipal child-focused public policies.
These efforts move beyond serving as an implementation agency and here
Plan is assuming a more political role in facilitating and influencing the policy-
making process. Child rights play a central role in these policies and form the
basis and focal point of the formulation process.
g. RBA provides a moral and legal framework for action and
creates room for strategic alliances on multiple levels
Working with human rights creates a common ground of accepted legal and
moral norms and principles that has been formally accepted by the vast
majority of countries around the world. Human rights as the foundation for
action has the potential to supersede political and religious ideologies and to
open spaces for different organisations, movement, and people to come
together and to combine forces in order to speak with one voice for the
fulfilment of these universal rights.
Plan bases its work on the legal frameworks and treaties that exist
internationally and within Guatemala. Although Plan’s areas of rights-based
work are not aligned with the categories of the CRC (survival, development,
15
Uvin (2004)
27
protection and participation), Plan works exclusively for the promotion of rights
that are internationally accepted as child rights. On a national level, Plan is
referring to the legal framework that exists in Guatemala. The constitution and
a number of other laws enable Plan to base its work on a solid legal
foundation. The right to free, primary education and access to basic health
services are explicitly mentioned in the Guatemalan legal framework along
with the constitutional responsible entity (ministry of education and ministry of
health, respectively). Other laws passed within the past decade serve as
additional support for Plan’s efforts, including the National Law for the Integral
Protection of Children of 2003 (backing Plan’s protection programme) and the
Decentralization Law, the Law of Urban and Rural Development Councils, and
the Municipal Code of 2002. These laws are used to further legitimise and
strengthen Plan’s participation programme. Plan utilises the existence of
these legal documents to educate people about their legal rights and the
rights of their children. In addition, it facilitates Plan’s interactions with
government since Plan is now able to find a common ground for action with
state authorities. In both interactions (with rights holders and duty bearers),
the reference to legal frameworks increases the urgency and potency of rights
claims since their non-fulfilment constitutes a legal violation.
Plan has taken limited advantage of the potential alliances and partnerships
that a rights-based approach yields. The most successful example, in which
Plan has engaged in a strategic alliance with other organisations that are
working on child rights, is the Municipalisation Table, an alliance of multi-
lateral organisations, such as the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and other
NGOs that came together to advocate for child rights on a municipal level.
Plan takes a more contractual approach in engaging with local partners. Plan
engages in contracts with local partners for many of the programmatic
capacity-building activities that it carries out, such as training of teachers
(PRODI, FUCUDE), strengthening of community development councils
(FUNCEDE), and projects with children’s groups (DEMOS).
28
Plan is part of a small group of international NGOs employing a rights-based
approach while still executing projects on the community level itself. Most
other organisations, such as Oxfam, ActionAid and Save the Children, have
moved towards partnerships with local civil society organisations. The main
reason why Plan executes its projects directly, and without a local
intermediary, lies with the particular organisational nature of Plan. The
organisation has a long tradition of working as a community organisation and
continues to see its direct ties to communities as one of its key organisational
strengths. Therefore, the efforts to partner strategically with local
organisations are limited and remain not a priority for Plan. The only example
indicating Plan’s efforts to strengthen local civil society is represented by its
relationships with community-based organisations, such as the community
development councils, formally established in 2002 by the Law of Urban and
Rural Development Councils. Plan views the need to strengthen those
councils as an integral part of its participation programme and involves the
council as its main point of contact for most community activities. While the
strengthening of community organisations is an important component of
supporting rights holders, the question of whether the sole focus on
community-level engagement with local civil society is a sufficiently powerful
approach to empower citizens towards its government remains open for
debate. Moving beyond the community level by cooperating with existing local
civil society organisations that are active in the particular geographic area
would offer an additional path for Plan to increase the effectiveness of its
work.
29
h. Comparing Plan’s RBA with other organisations16
ActionAid UK Oxfam GB SC Sweden Plan
Guatemala
The models Popular Equity Classical RBA Local
RBA RBA based on governance
emphasising emphasising international RBA
grassroots campaigns human rights emphasising
duty bearer–
rights holder
relationship
Critical Poverty and Poverty and Lack of child Lack of
development powerlessness the lack of protection, participation,
problems of people living equity, accountability, exclusion and
in poverty structural and capacity government
thinking capacity and
accountability
Development Micro (local), Macro Country-based Country-based
analysis linking to global (global), analysis analysis
linking to local
Development Use poverty Use poverty Use human Improve
goals reduction reduction rights goals quality of life of
goals, not goals, not children by
Clearly defined
human rights human rights addressing
in human
goals goals child rights
rights terms –
Stated with the Aligns to five the realisation
popular fighting goals, of the CRC
poverty theme described in
human rights
terms
Development Through Through the Through child Through child
processes grassroots mixture of rights rights
empowerment global programming programming
campaigns
and country-
based
development
programmes
16
This table is partly derived from Plipat (2006). The comparison refers to the country offices of ActionAid,
Oxfam and Save the Children in Vietnam and Plan in Guatemala
30
The use of Limited Selective and Strong part Gradual
international inconsistent emphasis on
human rights use in monitoring and
standards campaigns reporting
establish
Limited in
relationships
country and
with the
regional work
Committee of
the CRC
Human rights Important for Not important Very important Limited human
education the grassroots –RBA is for all rights
(HRE) approach – delivered stakeholders – education for
people living in through the in order to both duty
poverty have to links of five realise the bearers and
know their aims and the rights of child rights holders
rights in order mobilisation of – emphasis is
to claim them global on the
campaign, practical
which are exercise of
already based rights
on human
rights
31
ActionAid Oxfam GB’s SC Sweden’s Plan
UK’s Popular Equity RBA Classical RBA Guatemala’s
RBA Local
governance
RBA
Overall use Add on Tactical Comprehensive Instrumental
of human approach approach approach approach
rights
Uses human Selectively uses Uses human rights Based on CRC,
framework
rights as a tool human rights in framework as base investment in
to strengthen campaigns for all its work five rights
grassroots
Created its own Uses various Use human
communities
five aims based human rights tools rights as a tool
Variety of on international to interact with
Strong advocacy
human rights human rights to duty bearers
and use of UN
principles, i.e. link and as base and rights
human rights
participation, for all holders
mechanisms at the
empowerment, programmes
international level Limited
accountability
Advocacy at advocacy on
global level national and
global level
Key forces Empowers Advocates for Strengthens Strengthens the
people to claim changes through protection and democratic
their rights campaigns at the realisation of child process on a
global level rights through local
reporting and (municipal)
monitoring, HRE, level
and child
participation
Key issues Food rights, the Economic rights Child rights Child rights
right to
livelihoods
Human rights No, mentioned Yes, developed Yes, multi- Based on CRC,
components as a around five sets dimensions of child investment in
in programme of human rights rights five rights
development area among
strategy other
development
programme
areas
32
Strategies Heavy Five strategic Prioritises areas Capacity
component of change and groups of building of
capacity objectives children most municipalities
building, denied and abused and
Integrates global
strengthening communities,
campaigns into
local groups and
country work
and movements empowerment
of children
Programming Moving from Three types of Twelve Child Centred
area-based to intervention: programme area Community
theme-based humanitarian, and strategies and Development
campaign and recently developed (CCCD)
Diverse
development child rights approach to
programme
programming programming
goals based on Chooses priority
countries themes for each
country within the
context of its five
aims
Advocacy Limited capacity Campaigns as Internationally Limited but
in lobbying work key advocacy conducts lobbying increasing
internationally tool work itself, advocacy on
targeting UN national and
Nationally, Internationally
bodies and international
lobbying done conducts
sometimes the EU level
through local lobbying work
GROs and itself Nationally, lobbies Strong
NGOs through partners, emphasis on
Strong advocacy
mostly city-based lobbying
element at the
civil society municipal
national level
organisations government
33
4.Plan’s strategic approach in the Guatemalan context
Any strategic approach to development has to match the particular context in which it
is implemented. The project, therefore, attempted to answer whether Plan’s strategy
is adequate in the Guatemalan context and whether it responds to the particular
economic, political and social characteristics of the country. The overall conclusion is
that Guatemala represents an appropriate yet challenging context for the application
of a rights-based approach. The high level of inequality in the country and the lack of
strength of the current democratic system, combined with the existence of a solid
legal framework, constitute both challenges and opportunities for the feasibility and
effectiveness of a rights-based approach.
a. Guatemala has a high level of inequality
A rights-based approach addresses structural causes of poverty and their
systematic impact on the development of countries. Inequality is one of those
causes since it is an indication for unequal power relations, discrimination,
exclusion and the systematic denial of human rights. A comparison with other
countries demonstrates the relationship between income, human
development and inequality. Although Guatemala leads other countries in per
capita gross domestic product (GDP), the country continues to lag well behind
the average human development index (HDI) scores of other Latin America
countries (Guatemala ranks 121st out of 177 countries in the 2007-2008
Human Development Index – see table below).17 More importantly, countries
in Central America and around the world with lower levels of per capita GDP
lead Guatemala in terms of human development scores, indicating a strong
relationship there between inequality and poverty. Inequality in the
Guatemalan context is closely associated with issues of discrimination and
exclusion, in particular of the rural and indigenous population, which for
centuries have been discriminated against and still today constitute the most
indigent and most neglected groups in Guatemala.18 As a result, there is a
17
United Nations Development Programme (2007)
18
For instance, in 2005, Vietnam with a GDP per capita of just over $3,000 scored an HDI of almost 0.74
compared to Guatemala’s 0.69 with a per capita GDP of more than $4,500 (Ibid.)
34
need for rights-based development strategies in order effectively to address
these structural causes of poverty. By making the fulfilment of human rights
the main objective of its development work and by increasing government
responsiveness to the most vulnerable sections of domestic society, Plan is
able to contribute towards combating historic problems of exclusion and
discrimination in Guatemala.
Country GDP per capita HDI Gini
(PPP* US$) coefficient
Costa Rica 10,180 0,847 (position 50 of 177 countries) 49.8
Guatemala 4,568 0,696 (position 121 of 177 55.1
countries)
El Salvador 5,255 0,747 (position 101 of 177 52.4
countries)
Honduras 3,430 0,714 (position 117 of 177 53.8
countries)
Nicaragua 3,674 0,699 (position 120 of 177 43.1
countries)
* purchasing power parity
b. Strengthening of democracy as a non-violent tool for social
change
RBA calls for a social transformation in order to reverse the structural causes
that impede the development and the fulfilment of human rights for people
living in people and excluded parts of a population. Systemic change (which is
the only way to break the cycle of poverty in Guatemala) can only be achieved
through a profound social transformation. Strengthening democracy is a non-
violent way to achieve this form of social transformation and Plan’s particular
approach to strengthening the democratic system in Guatemala is seen as
appropriate for three primary reasons.
Firstly, given Guatemala’s violent history, Plan’s non-violent, non-
confrontational approach to social change and government–civil society
relations is adequate and sensible. Relationships between the state and
35
NGOs have been historically difficult and there remains a certain level of
scepticism within the political establishment towards the work of civil society
organisations that for a long time were associated with the guerrilla movement
and an anti-government agenda. Being cooperative in its interactions with
government authorities enables Plan to reduce these concerns and it opens
new avenues for partnerships between NGOs and state institutions.
Secondly, Plan’s focus on increasing the political participation of all citizens
on a local level also is appropriate for a context where participation levels are
particularly low (a lasting result of the internal conflict) and people’s trust in
the political system is poorly developed. The people of Guatemala continue to
regard any kind of authority and public institutions with a high level of
suspicion. In order to strengthen the democratic system in Guatemala, the
relationship between government and its citizens has to be rebuilt from the
ground up, which is what Plan does by focusing on the fruitful interactions
between rights holders and duty bearers on a local level. By enabling people
to have positive experiences in their interactions with their municipalities
(which remain an important political unit of identification for many people in
Guatemala), the confidence of citizens in the democratic system can be
slowly reconstructed.
Thirdly, human rights remain a politically charged concept in Guatemala.
Associated with the political left, the approach has the potential to be
politically explosive. Therefore, Plan’s focus on the local interaction between
rights holders and duty bearers, the practical application of human rights and
the focus on democracy and citizenship (instead of human rights) can be seen
as appropriate as well. Lastly, Plan acknowledges that the profound changes
that constitute the long-term vision of a rights-based approach can only be
achieved through a profound change in attitudes and behaviours. Such
changes are more likely to be achieved with children and young people than
with adults, who often remain affected by the violent history of the country and
are hesitant to engage politically or join political groups or organisations. The
fact that more than half of Guatemala’s population consists of people younger
36
than 18 gives further legitimacy to Plan’s focus on children and adolescents in
its work.
c. Existence of a national legal framework
Guatemala offers a national legal framework that facilitates Plan’s application
of a rights-based approach since it gives Plan a legal basis for its work in all of
its programme areas. More than a decade after the official end of its civil war
in 1996, Guatemala continues to reveal a discrepancy between constitutional
rights outlined in the Guatemalan Peace Accords and the actual fulfilment of
those rights by the state. Despite the commitment expressed in the
Guatemalan constitutions of 1985 and 1993 to ensure the right to free
education, basic health services and food security for all citizens, those rights
are far from being fully implemented. With regard to basic services,
Guatemala continues to lag behind other countries with similar levels of
economic development. The central government’s level of expenditures in
health and education are not sufficient to provide adequate services to its
citizens, in particular in the rural areas.
Given Guatemala’s ongoing struggle with the legacy of years of civil strife and
authoritarian rule, an explicit inclusion of rights-based efforts in development
initiatives promises significant benefits for NGOs working in Guatemala. The
central government no longer openly resists the work of international NGOs in
Guatemala but, primarily, lacks the capacity to provide constitutionally
guaranteed services. Plan’s rights-based approach contributes to improving
the responsiveness and capacity of constitutional duty bearers in fulfilling their
human rights obligations and delivering on promised services. The low
capacity of government institutions combined with the relatively strong legal
human rights foundation in Guatemala makes an approach like Plan’s – that
combines the two factors – a promising strategy, as long as it is coupled with
strategies that address more structural factors, such as discrimination and
exclusion, as described above.
37
5.RBA implementation
In this section, the research team presents results on the progress of RBA
implementation. Plan’s rights-based approach constituted a drastic departure from the
organisation’s previous, more service-driven work. It is therefore important to examine
how Plan’s management and staff have reacted to this strategic change, how
operational practices have changed and how Plan’s programming has been affected
by the strategic reorientation. Forty-three individual and group interviews were
conducted. Within Plan, approximately 80 management and staff members
participated in this exercise to assess the level of understanding of RBA, the overall
perception of the new framework and specific opinions on its validity and early results.
a. Internal diffusion and acceptance of strategy
The evaluation revealed that Plan has succeeded in diffusing its new strategic
approach across the different levels of its organisation. Respondents
demonstrated a coherent vision of what it means to work with RBA. The
understanding of RBA by Plan staff in the different programme offices was
very much congruent with Plan’s strategic plan. The predominant changes
that people perceived from Plan’s previous strategy were a greater level of
engagement and participation of communities and a stronger link to and more
cooperation with municipal and national government institutions.
While RBA introduced drastic changes to the daily operations of Plan
Guatemala, Plan’s management and staff appear to be overwhelmingly in
favour of the new strategy. The benefits of the new strategy most commonly
mentioned were greater agency and empowerment of communities and more
sustainable impact because the government is slowly assuming its
responsibility and takes over the provision of services from Plan.
Respondents acknowledged the profoundness of the change and the
personal dimension that was part of the adjustment. A frequent comment
when asked about the transition process was, “I had to be convinced
personally first before I could start advocating the new strategy to
communities.”
38
The vast majority of respondents (more than 90 per cent) was in favour of
Plan’s focus on five rights and the application of the organisation’s five
strategic principles and supported a further strengthening of Plan’s rights-
based approach. The most common suggestions for future strategic change
included (in no ranking order):
• Greater integration of programmes: Several members of programme
office staff mentioned that programmes remained separated and would
benefit from more integration. They explained that the closer you move
towards the community level, the more visible and important are the
links between the different rights that Plan works on. Plan continues to
have separate programmatic initiatives, which lead to numerous
isolated activities with community members and it should increase its
efforts to take a more integrated approach to human rights.
• Greater focus on results as complementary tool to capacity building: In
particular, field staff advocated for a greater emphasis on extending
community support from capacity building to project work so that
communities have tangible results as a result of their participation with
Plan’s activities. Since municipalities are often not able to answer to
rights claims by communities, it was recommended that Plan could play
a facilitating role by providing resources for projects to be executed.
• More training for field staff: The work of field staff has changed
significantly since the introduction of the rights-based strategy. This
requires a new skill set and field staff advocated for greater emphasis
on training and capacity building, in particular with regards to group
facilitation, working with children, and a more methodological approach
to their work.
• More inclusion and coverage across and within communities: Several
respondents remarked that Plan is still not reaching the most indigent
and most excluded people in communities and should therefore put
greater effort into reaching this goal. In addition, Plan implements
programmes selectively in communities, which leads to different levels
39
of services across communities. These differences can create
perceptions of inequality and Plan should proactively explain the
variation in emphasis in different communities.
b. Changes in programming
The next question was what impact Plan’s new strategy has had on its
programming. Respondents within and outside Plan observed two main
changes in Plan’s programming: 1) a redefinition of Plan’s community work
and 2) a greater engagement with government institutions on a municipal and
national level. Other, less frequently mentioned programme changes included
a more inclusive work approach achieved by working primarily on a
community and municipal (rather than family) level and greater child
participation in programme activities.
i. Redefinition of relationship with communities
The new strategy had a transformative effect on the relationship
between Plan and the communities in which the organisation works.
Previously, Plan’s work with communities was focused around the
delivery of materials and resources. It was a technical and project-
oriented approach to combating poverty at the community level. With
the inception of its rights-based approach, Plan drastically reduced the
material help it was giving to communities since the resulting
dependency and expectations between communities and Plan were not
a sustainable basis for development work. The new focus of
community-level work shifted towards organising and building the
capacity of community members so that they could claim their rights
from the government. As fieldworkers from Plan succinctly remarked
on several occasions, “Suddenly the cheque book was missing.” Plan
faced the challenge of redefining its relationship with communities and
achieving the same level of cooperation without material incentives.
This study shows that Plan has succeeded in redefining its relationship
with most of the communities. According to informants from each of
40
Plan’s programme offices (at both field and management level), more
than 75 per cent of all communities have accepted Plan’s new
approach and have a productive relationship with Plan. While some
communities have yet to embrace the shift towards RBA and some
scepticism persists across many others, it is possible for an
organisation such as Plan to shift relatively quickly away from a
paternalistic and technical relationship towards a rights-based
partnership. While community members frequently expressed their
regret at not receiving more material help by Plan, they acknowledged
the power and long-term benefits that a more capacity-oriented
approach by Plan brings. Several expressions by community members
illustrate this observation:
• “Plan is leaving us something that nobody can take away from
us: consciousness. If we continue to use it, it will be like Plan
never left.”19
• “Plan has been the seed that we needed to advance.”20
• “You cannot develop as a community without the active
consciousness of its people.”21
ii. Involvement of government authorities
The second big change that Plan’s rights-based approach has brought
to its programming is the engagement of the state as a central element
in all its programmes. Constitutional responsibility is the guiding
principle for Plan in its interactions with government institutions. While
Plan’s previous mode of operations focused entirely on the community
level, it now places a greater emphasis on involving (or at least
19
Interview by Uwe Gneiting and Otto Valle with members of a Community Development Council, conducted
in Masagua, Guatemala, 19 February 2009
20
Interview by Uwe Gneiting and Otto Valle with members of a Community Development Council, conducted
in Masagua, Guatemala, 19 February 2009
21
Interview by Uwe Gneiting with members of a Community Development Council, conducted in Sioux,
Guatemala, 4 March 2009
41
coordinating with) national or municipal government actors in all its
activities. A visible illustration of how Plan has changed its approach
towards the state is the collaboration of Plan and the Guatemalan
health ministry. Plan had a previous agreement with the health
ministry, in which Plan committed to finance the provision of basic
health services to rural communities. Plan defined the project goals
and executed the programme with little support from the ministry. In the
new agreement, signed in 2004, Plan took a more rights-based
approach by appealing to the constitutional responsibility of the
government to provide basic health services to all of its citizens. As a
result, it was agreed that the financing of the project would gradually be
assumed by the ministry, a process completed in 2009. The
implementation of the project was led by the ministry and local health
service providers, while Plan only provided technical support. Plan did
not play an advocacy role in this case.
The primary focus of Plan’s government interaction has been on the
municipal level. The organisation’s emphasis on the links between
rights holders and duty bearers results in the identification of the
municipal government as the primary duty bearer for many citizens’
claims. It started to engage municipal government and created a staff
position in each of its programme offices explicitly for the interaction
with municipal authorities (it is the only Plan country organisation in
Central America that has done this). According to Plan staff, the
organisation has created cooperative relationships with 12 of 22
municipalities. With eight more municipalities a basic relationship was
established and only two municipalities have yet to establish a
relationship with Plan. Interviews with the representatives of ten
municipalities left a positive impression about the progress of Plan’s
engagement with local authorities and verified the comments by the
local staff. Plan was seen by all municipalities as an important partner,
valued in varying degrees for its cooperative approach, its technical
expertise, its local reach and its resources. In contrast, awareness
42
about Plan’s rights-based approach among local government
authorities was limited and those actors generally expressed very
limited overall interest in human rights perspectives.
c. Implementation of strategic principles in Plan’s
programming
Plan introduced five principles in its strategic plan to guide the implementation
of its programmes. According to Plan, these principles represent the
programmatic Child Centred Community Development (CCCD) approach to
programming and emphasise a rights-based approach to development.22 The
research showed that Plan has had varying success in implementing the five
principles. While the implementation of the two principles of constitutional
responsibility and municipal strengthening have made significant progress,
the principle of active child participation shows moderate levels of success,
and the two principles of inclusion and solidarity lag behind.
i. Constitutional responsibility
Constitutional responsibility was the principle named most frequently
as the most successful example of Plan’s shift towards RBA.
Reference was made mostly to Plan’s success in engaging the
ministries of health and education and building relationships and a
greater sense of commitment to children’s issues with municipal
governments. The level of responsibility that state institutions have
assumed to date as a result of Plan’s efforts can be labelled a
significant achievement by Plan.
Despite this success and Plan’s rigorous efforts to involve government
institutions in its programming, three main limitations are identified
here. Firstly, Plan’s success in operationalising constitutional
responsibility is dependent on the existence of one responsible
government agency. While health and education are clearly linked to
the respective ministries, no such singular responsibility exists in the
22
Plan Guatemala (2004)
43
areas of water, participation and protection. For example, a lack of
clearly defined responsibilities between national and municipal actors
continues to undermine the development of a coherent strategy to
systematically train and build the capacity of development councils on
a local level. Those development councils are a cornerstone enabling
the effective political participation of local communities. Instead of a
strong government role in the community-level capacity building of
development councils, Plan still continues to carry out most of these
programmes with partners on its own.
A second area of concern is the level of sustainable commitment that
the constitutionally responsible institutions are able to demonstrate. A
high number of government respondents voiced doubts about being
able to continue to fulfil their responsibility without the material and
technical support of Plan. Plan is seen by most as an indispensable
partner and much of their capacity continues to depend on Plan’s
engagement and its support of initiatives and programmes. What we
observe is a shift of dependency from the community to the
government level. Government agencies are now Plan’s new
dependents.
Lastly, the sustainability of government services and effective local-
government relations are jeopardised by the high level of government
instability and turnover on both the national and local level.
Relationships and work agreements with government institutions have
to be restarted frequently due to recurrent changes in leadership and
political programming. Plan’s participation programme and the
organisation’s relationship with the Executive Coordination Secretary of
the Presidency (SCEP) serves as an example. Due to a change in
political leadership and a new prioritisation of institutional engagement,
the SCEP, which is the national institution formally responsible for
developing and strengthening the development council system, has
shifted its efforts to manage a social policy programme headed by the
44
Guatemalan First Lady.23 According to an external informant, the arrival
of new political leadership has effectively stopped the decentralisation
process, which is a critical step in strengthening local participation.24
ii. Municipal strengthening
The involvement of municipalities in the organisation’s work represents
a second example of relative success in the implementation of Plan’s
new strategic approach. Plan has made the establishment of links with
municipalities a priority for each of its programme offices and has had
significant success in applying this principle. As mentioned above, Plan
has created specialised positions (municipalisation managers) in each
of its programme offices, charged exclusively with strengthening the
capacity of municipal governments. Beyond creating such relationships
with 20 out of 22 municipalities, Plan’s engagement has led to the
creation of child-centred public policies in nine municipalities and of
municipal children’s governments in a further nine municipalities. Eight
municipalities have committed themselves to Plan’s quality learning
initiative and have signed tripartite agreements with the departmental
offices of the education ministry. In ten municipalities, Plan has
contributed to the signing of municipal water plans and strategies.
Plan has made efforts to integrate its programmatic areas on a
municipal level by focusing on the creation of municipal public policies.
This strategy offers particular advantages in terms of participation,
sustainability and effectiveness. Its creation involves the active
participation of not only the municipal government but also local civil
society. Public policies are not limited to the particular government in
power but apply to the municipalities in general, making it less
susceptible to changes in political office. Finally, they attribute a
23
Interview by Uwe Gneiting with former executive staff member of the Executive Coordination Secretary of
the Presidency, conducted in Guatemala City, 18 March 2009
24
Presentation by Renzo Rosal, Public Policy Expert, Guatemala City, 17 April 2009
45
specific budget to proposed programme and activities, making the path
to implementation more realistic.
As with the principle of constitutional responsibility, Plan faces a
number of obstacles in the successful strengthening of municipalities.
Firstly, the interviews with ten different municipal authorities also
revealed that municipalities are valuing Plan’s support but are not
necessarily sharing Plan’s commitment to child rights. Answers show
that the relationship in many cases continues to be understood in
technical terms, which is reflected in a low awareness and commitment
to child issues among municipal authorities. Secondly, interviews with
communities in an area where Plan is currently phasing out its activities
show that municipalities have not yet reached a level of capacity (and
commitment) that make the achievements to date sustainable.
Community respondents observed a decrease in municipal activity and
responsiveness after Plan terminated its activities in the area. As a
result, patterns of dependency (which used to be a perceived problem
for Plan under its previous strategy) continue to exist. While local
communities are now less dependent on Plan’s material resources, any
progress remains highly reliant on Plan’s presence and ability to
facilitate interactions, organise communities and help them to find
access to municipal authorities. Thirdly, achievements on a municipal
level are largely tied to individual leadership and have yet to be
institutionalised independently of such favourable circumstances. While
the level of influence and power of the municipal mayors is significant,
Plan staff reiterated the need to build the capacity of municipal staff
and municipal committees, which are generally more stable than the
leadership of municipal governments.
iii. Active child participation
Plan has made active child participation an element of all programmes,
primarily by encouraging the formation of organised children’s and
youth groups as part of its programme activities. In the education
46
programme, democratically elected school governments have been
formed in almost every school in which Plan works. In the area of
protection, a large network of community youth promoters have been
trained to promote the rights of children in the communities. In water
and health, school committees on water and hygiene have been
formed and so-called Jovenes Pares (young peers) are raising
awareness about the risks of HIV to their peers. Lastly, in the
participation sector, child-focused versions of community development
councils (COCODITOs) and municipal children’s governments
(COMUNAs) have created spaces for children to participate politically.
Group activities with children and adolescents in communities supplied
the researchers with first-hand impressions about Plan’s efforts to
promote children’s participation in the communities. Children generally
appeared outspoken and confident in their interactions with
researchers and there was a significant difference in these dynamics
between those who were members of children’s groups and those who
were not. Children spoke very positively about their experience in their
respective groups and named having more knowledge about their
rights and feeling less fear as the two greatest benefits of these
experiences. This finding was confirmed by teachers and parents who
reported that children had an increased ability to participate (i.e. more
outspokenness, more confidence, more knowledge) as a result of
Plan’s activities. Yet, Plan’s internal monitoring data on the perceptions
of children offers a more complex picture of children’s participation.
According to a recent survey of 20,000 sponsored children, children
perceive a much higher level of freedom to express themselves in their
private homes than in their interaction with adults in the community and
community organisations. While 92 per cent feel as though they can
express themselves freely in their homes, only 36 per cent of children
feel that the community organisations give them access to information,
and only 33 per cent feel that the community organisations take
children’s opinions into consideration when making their decisions.
47
Plan interprets the principle of child participation less as part of its
rights-based strategy and more as a central ingredient of the
organisation’s own programme design and activities. The purpose of
this principle is not so much associated with strategic ways of
combating root causes of poverty, but instead finds its main rationale in
Plan’s organisational mandate as a child-centred organisation. Thus,
the focus of this principle is directed more on the immediate effects of
participation on the individual child than on the permanent place of
these groups within political institutions. Since several of the children’s
groups and networks exist without significant government support, the
sustainability of the children’s groups remains in question. As one
manager of Plan self-critically reflected, “I am not sure that you will see
COCODITOs or COMUNAs ten years from now.”
iii. Inclusion
This principle (together with the principle of solidarity below) has been
the one with the most room for improvement in its implementation. Plan
has broadened its local engagement beyond individual children and
their families in order to include the community at large in its
programme activities. As a direct result, Plan has been able to reduce
tensions within communities – which were reported to occur regularly
under its old strategy – about the allocation of resources. Working now
in a more community-wide setting, Plan hopes to create less
competition for resources and the gradual emergence of a sense of
solidarity. However, Plan’s new strategy has also caused new frictions
since families are used to the direct delivery of resources and at times
lack the understanding for why they do not receive any more direct
material support from Plan (or why families that are not affiliated with
Plan receive the same level of support). Plan couples its community-
focused approach to its engagement with municipal governments, a
further contribution to the possibility of achieving municipality-wide
coverage of its initiatives.
48
While Plan has made significant progress in distributing resources in a
less discriminatory fashion within communities, there remain two main
areas of concern. Firstly, Plan offers different levels of services to
different communities, creating the impression that it treats some
communities better than others. None of Plan’s programmes are
perceived to cover all of its communities and levels of support therefore
differ even between neighbouring communities. Secondly, Plan
continues to struggle with the goal of reaching the most indigent and
excluded children and families. Plan builds its community interactions
on existing community structures (i.e. by identifying the community
development council as its principal point of contact with adults), which
in many cases are dominated by the most powerful members of the
community. Although the community development councils are
supposed to be elected democratically through community gatherings,
several informants remarked that they often reproduce existing
inequalities and imbalances of the community. Furthermore, local
political authorities continue to use the councils for their own political
interests and women and children remain regularly excluded from
participation and decision making. These concerns will be further
discussed in section 6.
iv. Solidarity
Among all the principles, the implementation of solidarity as a strategic
principle is least advanced. From a human rights perspective,
increasing the sense of solidarity in communities by promoting the
participation of all members of the community is seen as an important
objective since the power of citizen claims is augmented when a
community manages to come together and speak with a unified voice.
Community members and Plan fieldworkers diagnosed low levels of
solidarity within the communities. Several field observations supported
those impressions. In one case, community water systems were
reported to be compromised by families damaging the tubing to divert
49
more water to their individual homes. In other communities, tensions
were reported between community leaders and the rest of the
community. Members of the community development councils were
accused of advancing their own personal interests rather than working
for the benefit of the entire community. In yet another instance, parents
of sponsored children complained about the loss of the distinctive
benefits they used to receive as families with sponsored children.
Those instances point toward the difficulties Plan continues to
experience in advancing a vision of greater solidarity within
communities.
The interviews with Plan staff showed that solidarity as a core principle
is less well understood than other principles. When asked about the
definition and implementation of this principle, answers pointed towards
a conflation of the principles of inclusion and solidarity. The most
commonly named example of applying the principle of solidarity in
practice referred back to the inclusion of children whom Plan had
previously helped in their community work and those whom they had
not helped. The meaning of this principle was therefore perceived as
Plan’s solidarity with communities, not solidarity within communities
themselves. No clear reference was made to strategies and activities to
increase the sense of unity within communities and to strengthen the
participation of excluded groups and families in community activities
outside of Plan’s programmes.
The main positive example for fostering solidarity is the creation and
support of community-wide protection networks (protection
programme) and community councils charged with identifying families
with the greatest needs for scholarships (education programme). In the
health and water programme, no signs for increasing the solidarity of
communities were found. In participation (the programme that
supposedly should address this principle most directly), the record is
mixed. Plan’s emphasis on strengthening the participation of women
50
and children can be seen as an effort to build a greater sense of
solidarity in communities. However, the organisation also continues to
work primarily with the existing community leadership and with people
who are openly seeking a leadership role. A more conscious effort by
Plan to encourage the participation of excluded sections of
communities may offer opportunities to strengthen community
solidarity.
d. Comparison of Plan’s programmes to RBA criteria and
strategic principles
In this section, we compare Plan’s overall strategy with the actual
programmatic implementation on the ground. Do Plan’s five individual
programmes exhibit the characteristics essential to rights-based approaches?
Does Plan implement the strategy and the principles outlined in its
programmes? The findings reveal that Plan has modified its programmatic
approach significantly and that the end result is a transitional mix of needs-
based and rights-based activities and methodologies geared towards the
eventual assumption of responsibility by the Guatemalan government as legal
duty bearer to ensure the fulfilment of children’s rights. Programmes show
differing operational points of focus (i.e. application of strategies) that reflect
differences in the particular right, the operational situation, and the obstacles
faced. In particular, the programmes on health and education differ
significantly in their approach from the three other programmes on water,
participation and protection.
i. Education
Plan’s education programme focuses on improving the quality of
primary education in rural areas, which was confirmed by experts to be
the fundamental problem of the education system (according to Plan
only 30 per cent of children enrolled in primary schools complete all six
51
grades).25 While the programme of quality learning was a central
element of Plan’s previous strategy as well, the modality through which
Plan now attempts to reach the goal of improving the quality of primary
education in rural communities has changed markedly. Plan has added
a rights-based component to its education strategy by engaging the
constitutional duty bearer (the ministry of education) in its
programming. The agreement outlines a mutual commitment to
improve the quality of primary education in rural communities and,
most importantly from a rights-based perspective, sketches out the
gradual transition of this responsibility to the ministry. This agreement
is not only a significant achievement for Plan but has also proved to be
a creative and effective way of supporting the government to assume
its responsibility and increase its efforts in the area of education.
Plan has maintained needs-based elements in this first phase of rights-
based implementation of its education programme since the ministry of
education only gradually assumed its new responsibilities. The
organisation continues to supply school utensils and materials to
children and it pays for scholarships for boys and girls to attend
secondary schools. In addition, Plan in some cases supports
communities in the construction and repair of school buildings. Overall,
these activities still constitute more than 60 per cent of Plan’s
programme budget. Plan has succeeded in implementing these
activities in a more inclusive manner by handing out utensils using the
schools (benefiting all school children) instead of giving utensils directly
to the families with sponsored children (only benefiting the sponsored
children). Despite the organisation’s successful efforts to engage the
ministry as the main constitutional duty bearer, visits to schools
confirmed that schools continue to have urgent needs and that Plan
continues to be perceived as the only actor responding to these needs.
25
Interview by Uwe Gneiting with education specialist of the Inter‐American Development Bank, conducted in
Guatemala City, 22 April 2009; Plan Guatemala (2004)
52
Plan remains the primary source of support for teachers and school
administrators both in terms of material help and in training teachers.
Plan’s work in education has clearly moved towards RBA, but there
remains additional room for an even greater emphasis on rights. The
new approach attributes a role to the government in providing
educational opportunities to its citizens and it raises the awareness of
government officials on the national level about the education situation
in rural communities. Plan has also worked in a rights-based manner
by promoting children’s right to education on a community level (talks
with parents) and by starting to advocate for mechanisms that allow
communities to monitor the performance of the government. On the
other hand, there are areas where Plan could move further in a rights-
based direction. Most importantly, Plan should closely monitor the
progress of the transition process towards greater assumption of
responsibility by the education ministry in order to ensure the feasibility
of its programmatic strategy. Also, Plan does not put a strong
emphasis on doing advocacy work and thereby does not address some
of the fundamental causes for the lack in quality of primary education in
Guatemala, such as teacher training, teacher turnover and allocation of
resources. Interviews with Plan management and staff confirm that
Plan may move in this direction in order to become more inclusive (at
the moment Plan is implementing its education programme in roughly
50 per cent of the communities) and to scale up impact (policy changes
are likely to have nationwide effects).
ii. Health
The health programme of Plan is one of the most single-focused
programmes. Most of its resources and energy went into the support of
the government’s Coverage Expansion Program, which formed the
basis of the agreement between the ministry of health and Plan. This
agreement can be seen as a significant success for Plan and was most
frequently mentioned as an example of success by Plan management
53
and staff. The responsibility for providing basic health services has
been successfully transferred to the ministry of health and the
government appears to have assumed this responsibility. The success
of this programme is directly traceable to Plan’s work and investment.
As a result of Plan efforts, basic health services are now available in
more than 300 rural communities of Guatemala where previously Plan
provided this service (and around 300 more where there was no
previous health coverage at all). People are utilising these services and
are actively participating in supporting the programme. Community
members have received training by the ministry and are involved in the
implementation of the programme in different functions, such as
assisting in the delivery of health services and checking up on patients
in the communities. There are now mechanisms in place for giving
feedback about the quality of the service which represent an important
component in the empowerment of rights holders. However, it is as yet
unclear how established this feedback process is.
Plan had a previous agreement with the health ministry, which serves
as a good contrast to the programmatic changes undertaken since the
introduction of RBA. By focusing on the responsibility of the ministry to
provide basic health services to its citizens, Plan achieves a clear
attribution of responsibility by the government and thereby ensures that
the institutional roles and tasks are more clearly defined and separated
(i.e. Plan’s role is solely to support the government to be better able to
assume its responsibility). This new approach also enabled Plan to
work in a more inclusive manner since it addresses the entire
community in its work (and not only selected families) and supports the
expansion of the health programme to communities in which Plan has
not previously worked. At the same time, the programme’s
predominant focus on the collaboration with the ministry has made it
more difficult to apply some of Plan’s strategic principles, such as
active child participation or solidarity. The only way in which children
are actively participating is through their utilisation of health services
54
and through health-related activities in their schools (which falls under
the education programme). The programme has no clear mechanism in
place to increase a sense of solidarity within communities, nor does it
address the dynamics of the duty bearer–rights holder relationship.
Due to the centralised nature of the decision-making process within the
health system, people have little leverage to claim their rights against
local authorities and remain recipients of government services. Efforts
to establish social audit mechanisms have been initiated but it is too
early to evaluate the implementation and effects of those audits.
The success of Plan’s health programme combined with the limited
application of Plan’s strategic principles leaves the question of how
relevant these principles are in each programme. Given that the
process of providing reliable health services in rural areas is primarily a
technical and operational challenge that requires coordination on the
national level, the room and opportunities for local participation and
citizen action are limited. Since Plan had the opportunity of supporting
an existing government programme that was in line with its own
organisational objectives, the organisation did not feel the need to
engage on a political level. This technical approach, however, could
become a challenge to the sustainability of the results in the medium
and long term. As was confirmed by Plan programme staff, there is no
guarantee that the current government programmes to extend the
coverage of basic health services would continue.
iii. Water
The strategy of the water programme has only been recently
implemented and programme offices are at different points in this
process (in some programme areas Plan started three years ago, in
others only last year). It was therefore more difficult to get a coherent
picture of the implementation of this programme. The strategy
corresponds to a rights-based approach comprehensive both in its
underlying rationale as well as in its implementation. Plan spent
55
significant time and resources on a large diagnostic study on water
quality and reasons for contamination before drafting and implementing
its water strategy. This form of strategic analysis and research is a
critical element of a rights-based approach since it thoroughly
assesses the situation and provides clear evidence about related
human rights violations. It thereby provides a strategic tool for
advocacy directed at political authorities. The overall water strategy
has a 15-20 year time frame, thereby acknowledging the long-term
changes (in policy, attitudes, institutions etc.) associated with
implementing a rights-based strategy.
The right to clean water is possibly the most complicated to be applied
through Plan’s rights-based strategy. While this right is acknowledged
as part of the right to the highest attainable standard of health in the
CRC, it is not explicitly mentioned in the Guatemalan constitution and
there is no national law, policy, or strategy that assigns a government
institution to its fulfilment (the health ministry and municipal
governments are generally assumed by Plan to be the responsible
actors). Accordingly, it is difficult for Plan to identify and target one
responsible actor. Plan has realised this disadvantage and has lobbied
for the institution of a national water policy and has supported
municipal governments in getting local water strategies passed, a
decision that represents a rights-based response to the lack of access
to clean water of rural communities. The organisation also applied its
two-fold strategic focus on duty bearers and rights holders to this
programme. Apart from lobbying for a national water policy and the
support of local governments, Plan attributes an active role to
community members in their quest for access to clean water. The
organisation departed from a technical approach and started to
implement (in cooperation with the health and education ministry) two
main programmes geared at raising awareness and capacity on a
community level about hygienic habits to improve water quality. These
two programmes are the health school programme (carried out by the
56
education ministry) and the PHAST programme (carried out by
personnel from the health ministry) and have, according to our
observations, been well received by the communities.
A thorough situation analysis, advocacy for national and local policies
(in combination with others through the Guatemalan network on Water
and Sanitation - RASGUA, involvement and coordination with
government institutions and focus on the active agency of community
members (both adults and children) are positive elements of Plan’s
water strategy that correspond to RBA. The implementation of its
strategic principles has been more difficult since a clear constitutional
responsibility is not assigned. Municipalities are targeted and
strengthened and children were observed to be an active component of
programming activities. As in other programmes, it remained unclear
how the principles of inclusion and solidarity were addressed and
applied in the execution of activities. Activities were executed
community-wide and were geared to the benefit of all community
members. Yet there was no clear effort discernible to ensure that all
community members were reached, nor that they participate in the
planning of projects or community decisions.
iv. Participation
The participation programme is considered the programme with the
greatest relevance to implementing a rights-based approach. The
organisation’s strong and direct focus on the duality of the duty bearer–
rights holder relationship makes the programme the central piece of
Plan’s rights-based strategy. The programme represents Plan’s
strategic logic that strengthening democracy (as a non-violent form of
social change) is necessary to affect structural causes of persisting
poverty and inequality in Guatemala. Promoting the right to
participation for all citizens is a key element to strengthening the
democratic process and to increasing the responsiveness and
accountability of the government. Giving children a stronger voice by
57
creating spaces for their participation addresses the issue of their
general neglect and exclusion from decision processes (both within
communities and the government). Plan’s participation programme is
also consistent with the general RBA criteria used for this evaluation.
By sensitising duty bearers, empowering rights holders and building the
capacities of both, the unequal power relations between the state and
citizens in Guatemala are addressed and a more democratic process in
political decision making on a local level is achieved. In contrast to
other programmes, Plan has directly emphasised human rights in its
interactions with both duty bearers and rights holders. The organisation
uses child rights in its promotion of municipal policies and it teaches
members of community councils about their legal rights to participate in
the political process.
As in its other programmes, Plan has had mixed results in
implementing its strategic principles in this area. Plan has implemented
the principle of constitutional responsibility and municipal strengthening
by targeting and engaging municipal governments. Since the
municipality is the primary space for the political participation of
citizens, it represents the core political actor facilitating and promoting
citizen participation. Plan has worked to strengthen spaces for political
participation (such as the municipal development councils) and has
trained municipal governments on administrative tasks, thereby
increasing the capacity of municipalities to be responsive to citizen
claims. Plan has also engaged with actors on a national level in order
to strengthen the national system of development councils. However,
at the national level, the accountability mechanisms are less clearly
developed since there is no one institution formally responsible for
enhancing the political participation of citizens. Plan has also put a
strong emphasis on promoting children’s participation, which is a
central element of both a child-focused rights-based approach as well
as Plan’s organisational mandate. The creation of spaces for children
to participate in their schools, communities, and on a municipal level is
58
an effective tool to open up opportunities to make their voices heard
and their opinions to be taken into consideration. As in many other
programmes, the more difficult principles to implement are solidarity
and inclusion. It remained unclear to the researchers how Plan has
translated these principles into practice. Plan works mostly with
existing leadership and does not question existing power structures in
communities.
v. Protection
The protection programme is the most recent programmatic area that
Plan added to its portfolio. Similar to the water programme, Plan
undertook extensive research in 2003 about the situation of child abuse
in Guatemala before formulating its strategy in this area.26 The
protection programme is divided into two main parts – protection and
prevention – representing the duty bearer–rights holder relationship
that is the basic core of Plan’s work. This strategic approach
acknowledges the variety of factors that can have an impact on child
rights and attempts to increase the capacities of both rights holders
and duty bearers to do their part to ensure the integral protection of
children.
Plan’s implementation of its protection programme gives additional
insights into the opportunities and limitations of the organisation’s
rights-based approach. Plan makes strong use of human rights in this
programme by utilising the legal framework of child protection that
exists in Guatemala as the basis of its capacity-building activities. By
educating community members about the rights of children to be
protected, Plan increases the power of children towards parents and
other members of the community. The power of human rights (in their
legal form) as a tool to empower children was observed in several
conversations with children, parents, and other adults. On the other
26
Plan Guatemala (2007)
59
hand, Plan’s efforts to engage government institutions remain a fragile
achievement. Its attempt to increase the government’s efforts to attend
to abuse victims has worked well in one programme area while in the
other there was no apparent willingness for cooperation. The
sustainability of community organisations that have been created by
Plan also very much depends on the willingness of municipalities or the
human rights ombudsman to support them. Commentaries by
programme participants demonstrate that this support is not very
strong and that many organisations remain dependent on Plan’s
support.
Plan is perceived to have devoted significant efforts to the application
of its five strategic principles in the protection programme. It has
engaged with several government institutions (e.g. the health ministry
and the judicial system) encouraging them to assume their
responsibilities in contributing to the protection of children in
Guatemala. The application of this principle is complicated by the fact
that there are different institutions that are responsible for different
tasks, such as helping abuse victims (health ministry) and prosecuting
abusers (judicial system). Municipalities do not play a significant part in
this programme (except for the inclusion of a protection component in
municipal public policies). Children and adolescents participate actively
in this programme, in particular through the formation of community
youth promoter networks that do promote child rights in their
communities. The protection programme is also one of the few
examples where the idea of promoting solidarity is put into practice. By
supporting the creation of community protection networks, Plan created
alternatives to existing community structures and strengthened these
new networks to train other community members and report cases of
abuse and maltreatment. The networks are also more inclusive since
they provide access to people not part of the traditional community
leadership (women and children).
60
6.Effectiveness of Plan’s rights-based strategy
a. Conceptual approach to measuring effectiveness
Measuring the effects of Plan’s rights-based work is a more complex task than
doing the same for previous development interventions. The cause–effect
relationships assumed for traditional development interventions (i.e. logical
frameworks) are not capable of capturing the complexity of broad social and
cultural change associated with RBA. Rights-based approaches seek to
analyse and address the root causes of poverty and derive policies based on
framing poverty as a violation of fundamental human rights in developing
countries. Results are often more long-term and less clearly attributable to the
efforts of a single organisation or intervention. Human rights violations can
occur as a result of planned, wrongful action (persecution of critics,
discriminatory policies, abuse of a child etc.) but may also be the result of acts
of omission (lack of basic health services, children not going to school, failure
to report child abuse etc.). Identifying and dealing with root causes of
intentional actions violating rights might be easier since it usually involves only
one perpetrator and broader, structural factors may not be central to solving
the problem. At the same time, human rights can also be advanced using very
different strategies. While legal frameworks and government policies and
programmes are central in advancing rights, many improvements can begin
with changing the behaviour and attitudes of individuals. Linking the two levels
of collective local action and government effectively by creating spaces of
political participation offers the most promising avenue for a sustainable
improvement of human rights.
An appropriate rights-based strategy recognises this complexity of factors and
addresses them in its programming. A sound rights-based strategy also
acknowledges the importance of links between different factors that contribute
to the full enjoyment of a particular right. The right to primary education in
Guatemala for example is violated on different levels and in different ways.
Due to a lack of awareness as well as economic constraints, some parents do
not send their children to school, thereby violating their children’s right to
61
education. At the same time, the federal government (i.e. the constitutional
duty bearer) fails to fulfil its responsibility of investing in the education sector.
As a result, the education ministry does not have the capacity to equip and
monitor schools or to train and remunerate teachers appropriately. There are
no established links or mechanisms for parents and communities to report
and give feedback about teacher performance to the government. Insufficient
teacher training and a high teacher turnover are the direct result of inadequate
legislation and education policies.
Generalising from the example of education, external actors have
opportunities to affect the following five categories relevant to the promotion of
human rights: 1) attitudes and behaviours; 2) spaces and processes; 3)
institutions; 4) legislation and policies and; 5) civic action. Understanding the
interactions between these five categories is central to designing a rights-
based strategy and to measuring its effectiveness. The graph below illustrates
these relationships.
62
Figure 1 : Effectiveness Framework
This model was developed as an instrument to measure the effects of Plan’s
rights-based strategy. It reflects the complex dynamics associated with social
change processes and departs from a linear conception of development
interventions. The categories of the model are built on indicators at the
outcome, not impact level (i.e. factors that can be influenced by Plan and
contribute to an improvement in human rights but not the human right itself).
Considering the relatively recent implementation of RBA within Plan, the
research team focused on qualitatively tracing some of the early results of this
transformational strategy. Below is a summary of how Plan has included the
different factors in its five programme areas:
63
Education Health Water Participation Protection
Attitudes Capacity Capacity Capacity Capacity Capacity
and building for building for building for building for building for
behaviours greater greater greater greater greater
awareness by awareness of awareness of awareness of awareness of
parents and sanitation the importance legal child
teachers of habits to of healthy framework and protection
children’s right prevent illness habits to about role of rights and
to quality and of ensure water community differences in
education government quality councils in the parenting
obligations to development styles
provide process
services
Spaces and Support of Support of Support of Municipal Improvement
processes process for participation of cooperation development of reporting
parents to communities between councils are process for
monitor school in health communities capacitated to cases of child
performance service and give more abuse and
and deliver programme municipalities room for the maltreatment
data to the execution and to execute participation of
ministry monitoring water projects citizens
Institutions Creation of Support of Support Strengthening Cooperation
and greater health ministry municipalities of with hospital
programmes awareness of better to in the creation municipalities (health
ministry about execute the of municipal to be more ministry) to
rural Coverage water plans responsive to create centre
communities Expansion citizen’s claim to attend
and supporting Programme abuse victims
the adoption of
new teaching
methodologies
Legislation Member of the Member of the Advocacy for a Advocacy for Advocacy to
and policies Great Alliance Mesa national water the creation of congress
for Education Sectorial de policy and to child-centred with National
Salud institutionalise municipal Committee
the healthy public policies against Child
school Mistreatment
programme - CONACMI
64
Civic action Support of Support of Support of Building the Creation of
process for participation of communities to capacities of Community
parents to communities execute water community Protection
monitor school in health projects development Networks
performance service councils to and young
programme petition local community
execution and governments; peers that
monitoring support of are active in
children’s their
groups to communities
undertake
projects
b. Plan’s actual effects on rights-based indicators
Examining the effectiveness of rights-based strategies requires a different
approach to measurement. Due to the complex and long-term aspirations of
RBA, the effectiveness of rights-based programmes to empower rights
holders and make duty bearers more accountable and responsive has to be
measured by assessing trends and processes, which are often qualitative in
nature, and not by solely relying on fixed, quantitative indicators. “This is a
process, not a project”, as a member of one of Plan’s partner organisations in
its protection programme explained. In order to draw conclusions on Plan’s
effectiveness (and the feasibility of its strategy), we examined if and to what
degree Plan has been able to affect social, political or cultural change within
the five categories described above.
i. Attitudes and behaviours
Changing attitudes and behaviours of adults and children through
human rights education and capacity building affects the respect,
protection and fulfilment of human rights by breaking with cultural
traditions and increasing the awareness of the rights of a certain
excluded group (i.e. women or children) or about a certain topic (such
as children’s right to education or how to improve water quality). This
change in attitude can also have an impact on how people view their
role in society and in the process of development, which in turn can
lead to increased activism and engagement in the political process.
65
Plan has devoted substantial energy to raising awareness and capacity
on a community level, indeed these undertakings are an integral part of
each of Plan’s programmes. Community visits and observations by
Plan field staff indicate that Plan’s efforts have had a positive impact on
the behaviours and attitudes of children, adolescents and adults in
most communities. Changes among children observed by community
members (parents and teachers) and Plan field staff included
increased confidence and a greater level of articulating their views.
“We have less fear now”, was an expression that the researchers
heard from children on several occasions when asked about the
changes they observed within themselves as a result of Plan’s
activities. Children (in contrast to most adults) showed a general
knowledge about human rights, were able to name several child rights
when prompted, and appeared to translate them into their daily lives
(“we have fewer arguments now and respect each other more”). Plan’s
activities with children and adolescents have also facilitated the
emergence of individual leadership, in particular female adolescents.
The researchers encountered young women leaders in several
communities, who were displaying a great sense of engagement and
articulating vividly their plans and hopes for the future. All of these
young women directly attributed their ability and motivation to Plan’s
support. The formation of these female leaders is an important
achievement for Plan, not only because of their potential role as future
leaders but also because of the symbolic value that female leaders
represent in a male-dominated culture.
Changes of attitudes and behaviours were observed to be less
pronounced among adults. As Plan staff repeatedly emphasised, it has
been much easier to work with children and adolescents than to try to
influence the habits and attitudes of adults in the communities. The
areas where Plan was perceived to have increased awareness among
adults in the communities are in the areas of water/sanitation habits
and the prevention and treatment of HIV (the two topics most
66
frequently mentioned by communities as beneficial to them). In
addition, teachers and parents observed a positive change in parenting
styles due to Plan’s focus on child protection and its educational
programme Raising Children with Love. “There is less violence in our
families now”, as one parent mentioned while a member of a municipal
protection committee remarked on the power of the legal application of
human rights:
Before, people saw children as their property and they thought
that they could do with them whatever they want. Now they
know that children have rights and they are afraid of the law.27
Plan field staff also mentioned that in many cases communities have
developed a stronger sense of agency as a result of Plan’s new
approach and the organisation’s focus on the active role of
communities. People are more aware of their responsibility and role (as
community council members for example) and have a greater
commitment to work towards the advancement of their community. As
one fieldworker of Plan observed, “People suddenly don’t want to be
poor anymore.”28 This was confirmed by interviews with community
members. While the researchers also encountered a few communities
that perceived Plan’s rights-based approach primarily as a reduction in
help and advocated for more material support, most community
participants were enthusiastic about Plan’s new focus. As one
community leader summarised it, “Plan has been the seed that we
needed to advance.”29 Another woman from a community where Plan
27
Interview by Uwe Gneiting with members of a Municipal Protection Council, conducted in Guanagazapa,
Guatemala, 1 April 2009
28
Interview by Uwe Gneiting with Plan Guatemala community facilitator, conducted in Coban, Guatemala, 25
February 2009
29
Interview by Uwe Gneiting and Otto Valle with members of a Community Development Council, conducted
in Masagua, Guatemala, 19 February 2009
67
is currently phasing out explained, “Plan has given us great
instructions. Now all we have to do is continue using them ourselves.”30
ii. Spaces and processes
Creating and supporting spaces of interaction between rights holders
and duty bearers as well as citizen groups can have a positive impact
on the human rights situation. By creating room for participation,
governments are more directly exposed to popular scrutiny and are
exposed to greater pressure to fulfil their accountability towards their
citizens. These spaces of participation therefore have the potential to
create a more level playing field. Supporting the establishment of
participatory processes to monitor government performance can also
contribute to a better provision of government services or the
advancement of a particular human right.
The support of participatory spaces and process has been the most
successful in Plan’s participation and protection programmes. In
participation, Plan has managed to strengthen participatory spaces on
a municipal level, such as the municipal development councils, which
are the primary spaces for direct citizen interaction with local
authorities. Comments from different sources confirmed the critical
importance of this relatively new space of participation. According to
Plan staff, community members, and external informants, the creation
of development councils has given communities a new opportunity to
participate in decisions regarding the development of their community.
Plan has supported the formation and organisation of these councils
and their various commissions. Meetings with three councils showed
that Plan’s activities remain critical since members are not yet fully
aware of their individual function and the general role of the council. As
internal data from 14 of Plan’s 22 municipalities shows, Plan has
supported this space in nine out of the fourteen municipalities while in
30
Interview by Uwe Gneiting and Otto Valle with members of a Municipal Development Council, conducted in
Masagua, Guatemala, 19 February 2009
68
five others efforts have been limited. The reason for this discrepancy in
activity levels between different programme units is unknown. The
overall goal achievement of Plan’s sub-programme to strengthen the
municipal government is surprisingly low at 36.93 per cent.31
Despite Plan’s efforts to strengthen the municipal government and the
spaces for popular participation within the municipality, the positive
effects of this process have yet to become visible to the communities.
The overwhelming majority of communities remain disappointed with
the level of response by municipalities to their claims. Most of the
community leaders reported having asked their municipality for help
with projects, but only two indicated receiving measurable support.
Municipality leaders acknowledged that people are making more claims
and are asking for more help than before (which is not only attributable
to Plan’s efforts) and they admit that they have been able to respond to
only a small fraction of the claims made by communities. The main
reason for the inability of municipalities to respond to citizen claims is a
lack of resources on a municipal level, which was cited as the main
obstacle by all ten municipality leaders interviewed.
Creating more spaces for children’s participation is another area where
Plan has had some success in its participation programme. While the
effects on children’s attitudes have been very positive, the effects of
Plan’s work on spaces for children’s participation are mixed. The
establishment of school governments and the introduction of a more
active teaching methodology have enabled a more active role for
children in their schools. Beyond their school environment, children
reported mixed experiences about the space they are given in
community affairs and meetings. A survey by Plan of almost 40,000
sponsored children in Guatemala confirmed this finding. While 88 per
cent of children mentioned that they feel as though they can express
themselves freely in their homes, only 33 per cent feel that the
31
Data retrieved from Plan Guatemala participation programme monitoring database
69
community organisations consider the opinions of children and
adolescents in their decisions.32
Other programmatic achievements of strengthening spaces and
processes can be found in the protection programme where Plan has
worked to strengthen an institutional process to respond to and attend
to cases of child abuse and maltreatment. The establishment of a
telephone help line for abuse victims and of community protection
networks are two more examples of Plan creating processes and
spaces that help to improve a particular human right (i.e. child
protection). In the education programme, the attempt of Plan to involve
communities in the monitoring of their schools is also worth mentioning
although this process is just in its start-up phase.
iii. Institutions and programmes
Strengthening institutions in their capacity better to plan and implement
programmes that improve the human rights situation are another area,
in which an organisation like Plan can contribute. Its technical
expertise, its human and material resources and its presence in remote
communities make Plan a valuable partner to these institutions.
Plan has had a significant impact on government institutions and their
programmes both on a national and a municipal level. On the national
level, the most striking examples of success are Plan’s support of the
health and the education ministry. Its cooperation with the health
ministry in support of the Extension of Coverage Programme of basic
health services has brought health services to more than 600
communities that previously were serviced by Plan only or did not have
any access. As a result, 82 per cent of children under one-year-old in
these communities have medical check-ups at least twice a year (up
from 52 per cent).33 The delivery of the services to all of these
32
Data retrieved from Plan Guatemala (2009)
33
GETSA (2009), Evaluation of Plan Guatemala’s Health Program
70
communities is today financed by the health ministry, which indicates a
successful completion of this cooperation. Plan’s engagement with the
education ministry shows similar characteristics although progress has
been slower. Plan has trained teachers and supported schools in the
adoption of a more active teaching methodology in more than 300
communities.34 The ministry has started to take over the support of
these schools and has introduced components of Plan’s quality
learning programme in its new national curriculum (although it
remained unclear what the exact contribution of Plan in this process
has been). Another successful cooperation has been the agreement
with the Social Works of the First Lady of Guatemala (SOSEP), which
works on the construction and maintenance of day care facilities for
children aged 0 to 6. Plan has helped this institution by supporting
communities to qualify for those facilities.
On a municipal level, Plan has made the strengthening of
municipalities the priority of its participation programme. According to
Plan, it wanted to ensure the municipalities’ ability to respond to citizen
claims before extensively mobilising communities.35 Plan has done so
by strengthening municipal offices, supporting systematisation and
computerisation and building the capacities of the municipalities in
resource mobilisation. Again, the level of activity ranges widely from
municipality to municipality with an average goal achievement of 53 per
cent in the area of strengthening municipal offices.36 According to the
municipal leaders interviewed (as well as Plan staff), Plan’s capacity
building was seen as effective since it has increased their awareness
of child issues, increased the capacity of municipal staff and has
enabled them to organise themselves better. However, many saw the
34
Interview by Uwe Gneiting with Plan Guatemala executive staff member, conducted in Guatemala City, 9
February 2009
35
Interview by Uwe Gneiting with Plan Guatemala executive staff member, conducted in Guatemala City, 11
February 2009
36
Data retrieved from Plan Guatemala participation programme monitoring database
71
effectiveness of the training as limited due to the lack of resources
which are needed to put those newly won capacities to use. Plan’s
capacity building and training was seen as particularly valuable by new
municipal governments which faced a steep learning curve in their new
role. The greatest focus of Plan’s work with municipalities, however,
was the creation of child-centred public policies. This activity will be
discussed in the section on legislation and policies.
iv. Civic action
Strengthening the capacity, organisation and mobilisation of local
citizen groups (adults and children) is an important component of
empowering rights holders. The unified force that these groups gain by
their collective action greatly exceeds the power individual citizens
would have. The groups and movements can affect the human rights
situation by engaging in projects or capacity-building activities as well
as by working beyond the community level and serving as a vehicle to
advocate to local and national authorities.
Plan has managed to affect positively the ability of community groups
to engage within their communities. Due to its long-standing ties to
communities, the organisation has been able to form and sustain
groups in each of its programme areas. Examples include the
community development councils (which are not independent civil
society groups) and several child and adolescents groups, such as
Young Peers (informing their peers about HIV) or school governments
(enabling children to participate in their schools). The most successful
examples, however, are to be found in Plan’s protection programme
where both adults and adolescent groups have been formed and are
now taking over important functions in their communities. The
formation and training of community protection networks and their
subsequent work within their own communities has contributed to an
increase in awareness about child rights and to changes in attitudes
with regards to child-raising and parenting styles. These groups also
72
serve an important monitoring function by investigating and denouncing
cases of child abuse and maltreatment and by being the link to
municipal authorities (such as the municipal protection committees or
the local representatives of the human rights ombudsman). Community
members commented on several occasions on the great influence that
their initiative to raise awareness about child rights has had in the
communities. Furthermore, Plan has supported the formation of a large
network of so-called Youth Community Promoters which have been
enabled for the most part by personnel from the human rights
ombudsman and which now promote child rights in their communities
(often in collaboration with the community protection networks). These
groups were observed to have a high level of agency and personal
engagement and serve as a good example of how Plan has sparked
civic action on a community level.
Plan has not worked much on promoting civic action across
communities and has therefore not had significant impact on
strengthening the voices of civil society towards the government. The
exception to this is Plan’s strengthening of development councils on a
community and municipal level which has been described throughout
this report. However, since the formation of the council system is
mandated by law and since these councils remain closely linked in their
work to the state, they cannot be considered voluntary organisations or
parts of civil society. Furthermore, they are at times highly politicised
since municipal mayors attempt to influence their composition and their
work. Because of their ties to politics and their relative isolation as
community organisations, their ability to serve as independent voices
for community needs remains limited. Supporting existing civil society
groups to engage across communities and to represent the concerns of
communities vis-à-vis the government would be one alternative for
Plan to increase further the power and scope of civic action.
v. Legislation and policies
73
Proposing, opposing and supporting legislative initiatives and policies
that contribute to the protection and fulfilment of human rights is one of
the most traditional and important ways of affecting lasting social,
cultural and political change. In order to augment the leverage and
power citizens have towards their government, a solid and explicit legal
foundation has to exist in order for people to be able to exercise their
rights. International organisations have the ability to play a positive role
in the establishment of such laws and policies.
Plan has made significant efforts in the promotion of child-centred
public policies on a municipal level but has undertaken limited and only
selected efforts to engage in national-level advocacy. The organisation
formally is a member of a range of strategic alliances, such as the
Great Campaign for Education (aiming to raise government
expenditures for education to 4.5 per cent of the national budget) and
the Sectorial Table for Health (led by the Swedish Embassy in
Guatemala), the Guatemalan Water and Sanitation Network
(advocating for a national water policy, which is currently stalled in
Congress), and has advocated together with the National Commission
against Child Abuse for a reform of the Guatemalan penal code (a goal
which has been recently achieved). Apart from the reform of the
national penal code, Plan has had limited influence on the formulation
of new legislation or policies. Influencing national-level policy has not
been a primary goal of Plan for two reasons. Firstly, Plan is primarily
making use of the existing legal framework consisting of the
Guatemalan constitution and a series of other laws that were passed in
recent years, such as the Decentralization Law of 2002 and the Integral
Child Protection Law of 2003. It therefore chooses to focus more on the
application of existing laws. Secondly, Plan’s focus is primarily on the
municipal level. The central initiative in its interactions with municipal
governments has become the creation of child-centred public policies,
which are based on improving the child rights situation on a local level.
74
Plan has contributed to the passing of child-centred public policies in
nine of twenty-two municipalities in which it is active. In several others
the policy creation process is underway (only two of twenty-two
municipalities are reported by Plan to be not cooperative). Plan reports
a 44 per cent success rate with regard to its efforts in creating public
policies (diagnostic, formulation, approbation and dissemination).37
Considering the relative short time frame of Plan’s implementation of its
rights-based approach and the novel nature of the relationships with
municipalities, this should be considered a significant achievement and
an important step towards a more democratic and child-focused
political process. Plan’s impact on policy formulation on a municipal
level is not only an effective way of strengthening the capacity of duty
bearers but has increased the power of citizens as well. It also places
child rights on local policy agendas and serves as a guiding tool to
plan, finance and implement programmes aiming at the improvement of
the situation of children in the municipality. As one municipal mayor
explained his use of their new public policy, “With this policy under my
arm, I go from door to door of the national and international institutions
to collect funds for our projects and programmes.”38 The mayor further
emphasised that many of the initiatives the municipality has taken on in
the areas of education, health and water could only be developed
through this process since the municipality did not have the resources
to fund them on its own. The policies also serve as an important
benchmark for government performance and give citizens the ability to
monitor the execution of their political commitments. Since they are
generally agreed upon with municipalities and not with a particular
government, they should survive turnovers in political office.
37
Data retrieved from Plan Guatemala participation programme monitoring database
38
Interview by Uwe Gneiting with head of municipal government, conducted in Masagua, Guatemala, 19
February 2009
75
7.Conclusion and recommendations
a. Conclusion
The transition from a needs-based to a rights-based approach to development
work is a profound process of transformation that affects all parts of an
organisation. While a needs-based approach involves charity, material
assistance and the satisfaction of immediate needs, a rights-based approach
views poverty as a systematic violation of human rights and shifts away from
the symptoms towards the underlying root causes of poverty. International
organisations embracing RBA no longer act solely as providers of goods and
services but instead become political participants in struggles for justice by
supporting the rights claims of excluded groups. Adopting a rights-based
approach hence requires a redefinition of organisational goals and profoundly
changes the types of available strategies and activities. RBA fundamentally
changes the roles external actors play in local development processes and
forces them to redefine themselves as organisations. Only by acknowledging
this profound transformation, can an organisation effectively contribute to the
structural changes that constitute the long-term goals of a rights-based
approach to development.
Plan Guatemala has embraced this challenge and has made remarkable
progress in its transition towards RBA. As this assessment found, Plan has
devoted significant time and energy on a critical reflection on its own history in
Guatemala, its role as an international development organisation, and the
sustainability and effectiveness of its work. The result has been a drastic
redefinition of the organisation’s understanding of the development process
and a significant change in its strategic approach to development work. Plan
has managed to find strategic ways of combining its long history and expertise
in community-level work with its new commitment to a rights-based approach.
By focusing its efforts on facilitating the interaction between duty bearers and
rights holders on a municipal level, Plan takes a bottom-up approach to rights-
based development that differs from strategies of other rights-based
development organisations. Unlike organisations such as ActionAid, Plan is
76
not working to support local movements and grassroots organisations (GROs)
to claim their rights but instead focuses on strengthening existing community
structures as democratic expressions of community life. Thus, the focus of
Plan lies (so far) less on grassroots activism but instead on the practical
exercise of human (and child) rights by local communities and their ability to
participate in the local democratic process. Plan combined its rights-based
approach with its organisational strength and engages in the struggle for
human rights and democracy where it has the most expertise and influence,
namely, the local level. It can be concluded that the organisation has seen
some encouraging early results in helping excluded and powerless
communities to find their voice and claim their rights while at the same time it
has worked to ensure that authorities have the capacity to respond effectively
to them.
The research team found that Plan’s strategic change is not only visible in the
organisation’s strategic plans but that it has found its way into the
implementation of programmes on the ground. Plan’s relationship with local
communities has shifted from technical interactions to more cooperative
partnerships geared towards enabling the creation of their own development
objectives. In contrast to its previous work, the organisation is now seeking
the involvement of government institutions in all of its programmes and
projects and coordinates its activities with local and national government
actors. Plan has managed to establish cooperative relationships with a variety
of government institutions and agencies and has increased their ability to fulfil
their human rights obligations. After five years of implementing its new
strategy, Plan has proved that its strategic approach can be effective and that
it is feasible for an international development organisation to contribute
constructively to the strengthening of democracy and the fulfilment of human
rights in Guatemala. The continuous monitoring of this feasibility and of the
progression towards Plan’s ambitious goals is one of the major challenges for
the organisation in the future.
77
Plan has a long tradition of doing needs-based development work at a
community level. Given the organisation’s history and expertise in this area, it
is not surprising that Plan’s transition process towards a rights-based
approach has been in line with its organisational strength and has centred on
the local level. Internationally, the organisation remains partly a traditional
child sponsorship organisation with the associated donor expectations and
constraints. As has been acknowledged by Plan itself, combining a traditional
child sponsorship approach with a rights-based approach to development is a
challenging task, because a traditional focus on a single child does not
necessarily require addressing structural causes of inequality and poverty.39
Plan has implemented a rights-based approach within its own organisational
constraints by focusing on what it does best, namely, working with
communities to improve their quality of life. Despite its new rights-based
approach, Plan continues to take a predominantly technical approach in its
interactions with government and communities, focusing on increasing
capacities on both sides. The main innovation is that Plan now encourages a
more active role of communities and simultaneously calls on the government
as duty bearer to fulfil its role. While this approach has proved to yield positive
results in the short term, it remains to be seen if this non-confrontational
understanding of RBA will be able to overcome some of the structural causes
that seem to be at the root of poverty in Guatemala. In the future, the identity
of a rights-based organisation is likely to challenge the organisational confines
of a traditional child sponsorship organisation and questions about the
compatibility of those two organisational identities will become more
pronounced.
Plan’s work over the past five years has been most effective using two of the
five avenues that have the potential to improve human rights significantly (see
graph). While this constitutes a significant achievement, it also reflects an
important limitation to Plan’s current impact. Plan has worked extensively to
39
Personal interview by Uwe Gneiting with Plan Guatemala executive staff, conducted in Guatemala City, 20
April 2009
78
affect the attitudes and behaviour of rights holders (both adults and children)
by building their capacities based on the existing legal framework (in particular
in participation and protection) and on a variety of rights-related topics.
Furthermore, Plan has heavily invested in supporting government institutions
in the execution of programmes and can point towards a substantive increase
of government responsibility in the areas of health and education. The
agreement with the health ministry and Plan’s work with the SOSEP to ensure
pre-primary education illustrate these achievements. Yet, three other human
rights-related factors 1) legislation and policies on a national level; 2) spaces
and processes and; 3) civic action) have not gained the same kind of attention
and emphasis. As this research has showed, these factors are particularly
relevant if Plan hopes to move beyond the impressive initial results and aims
for self-sustaining and productive interactions between local communities and
the government. Spaces and processes matter because they constitute
opportunities for participation and the emergence of political power exercised
by rights holders. Plan has worked on expanding spaces of participation, such
as the municipal development councils and participatory processes, such as
attempts at community involvement in the monitoring of government services,
but efforts remain limited and should be extended to other civil society actors.
Secondly, Plan has predominantly focused on community development
councils as vehicles of adult participation. Due to their general fragility and
isolation, their potential to spark civic (and collective) action remains limited.
In order to increase the power of communities and to connect their voices,
local civil society groups, which could serve as a connecting and empowering
mechanism, could also be supported by Plan. Thirdly, it became clear during
the research that effectively advancing the rights for which Plan is advocating
requires more attention to national-level policy processes, even when using a
local, bottom-up approach. The ability of local government actors to respond
to the rights of citizens strongly depends on support at the national level.
Supporting government action without the corresponding legislation and
policies carries the risk of making success solely dependent on the support of
individual political leaders and the continuing presence of Plan. The
79
Guatemalan constitution, which is referenced by Plan as its guiding legal
document, offers a good basis for a rights-based approach but remains limited
with regard to crucial human rights issues. In order further to expand the
rights of citizens, additional advocacy efforts at the national level should focus
on the passing of specific legislation designed to implement constitutional
protections, including efforts to improve the quality of education and
budgetary measures to secure the funding of existing government
programmes, such as the Health Service Expansion Programme.
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Figure 2 Rights-based human development
b. Points of discussion
i. Power relations and inclusion
Inequality and exclusion are rooted in unequal power relations that limit
the ability of people to participate politically and to claim and advocate
for the fulfilment of their rights. These power relations cause citizens to
have unequal access to the local democratic spaces that have been
created, which means that marginalised groups (the most indigent
members of a community, indigenous communities, the disabled,
women and children etc.) will not be as well served by the government
and have very limited means to address this injustice. Plan’s
programme staff has recognised that it generally reaches only a
fraction of community members and does not generally reach the most
indigent and most excluded. Plan should therefore more explicitly
81
acknowledge, analyse and address the lack of inclusion and the
differences in power that exist on a communal, municipal and national
level. Working on behalf of people living in poverty requires
establishing equal access as well as the ability for all community
members to participate in decision-making processes that affect their
own lives. Plan should identify as well as reach out to vulnerable,
discriminated against and otherwise disadvantaged members of the
community. While Plan has, to date, mostly worked within the
established system of local governance (i.e. the locally established
development councils), it should also examine in what ways those
structures may reflect and perpetuate existing inequalities and
discrimination.
Plan can increase its efforts to combat the problems of exclusion and
unequal power relations by more closely monitoring the composition of
the democratic vehicles that it attempts to strengthen, such as
community development councils. Plan can further encourage
community leaders to consider and reach out to disadvantaged groups
in order to facilitate more inclusive decision processes on a community
level. Plan can furthermore engage with communities in analysing
power relations and exclusion through the use of Participatory Rural
Appraisal tools. Ultimately, Plan must pay attention to a two-step
process. The mere participation (or inclusion) of more people in
community affairs does not necessarily change unequal power
relations that are often deeply rooted in social settings. These people
might still not see an increase in decision-making power despite their
presence at events and discussions in their communities. Therefore,
Plan needs first to encourage the greater inclusion of disadvantaged
groups and, subsequently, work to facilitate democratic and inclusive
decision-making processes. Putting the principle of inclusion into
practice comes with costs for the organisation and the complete
fulfilment of this principle might remain an ideal. However, it is the
aspiration towards this ideal that gives rights-based approaches their
82
ambitious nature. Effectiveness remains a critical concept under RBA
but promoting a truly inclusive process leading to positive results
becomes a critical prerequisite.
ii. Participation
Greater participation of adults and children in local political processes
has been a core theme of Plan’s rights-based strategy. Plan has
expanded the space of children’s participation both inside and outside
of their community and has strengthened critical spaces of political
participation, such as the community and municipal development
councils. While this is a significant achievement, it is equally important
that the participation of citizens does not remain limited to project
identification and prioritisation. We recommend that Plan should also
facilitate the scaling up of citizen participation beyond the project
identification and prioritisation stage in order for citizens to have the
capacity to monitor the fulfilment of government obligations and
thereby to strengthen the accountability of government institutions.
There are several tools that Plan can use to expand the scope of
citizen participation. Supporting social audit mechanisms is one
obvious first step. Plan has already worked towards the creation of
such mechanisms (in its health programme for example) but so far,
however, with limited success. Other activities that would increase the
capacity of citizens to participate include budget literacy trainings in
order for citizens to be better able to monitor the quality, accessibility,
cost and financial transparency of government project implementations.
Another suggested effort focuses on encouraging more widespread
citizen usage of the new Free Access to Information Act that was
recently passed in Guatemala but has not yet been utilised much by
citizens.
Lastly, we recommend that Plan considers expanding the scope of
citizen participation also in its own decision-making processes.
Ironically, the universality of human rights as the sole source of
83
legitimacy for Plan’s activities has limited the organisation’s efforts to
include people in the selection of issues, the design of programmes
and the evaluation of results. As of today, community members are
primarily involved in the implementation of Plan’s projects and
programmes and less so in programme planning and design processes
and decisions. Since the organisation does not view itself as the
constitutionally responsible duty bearer, the participation process has
shifted away from the space between communities and Plan towards
the political spaces between municipal governments and communities.
This shift puts primary emphasis on the accountability of a government
to its citizens, but it should be complemented by encouraging
participative and inclusive decision-making processes also linking Plan
to local communities.
iii. Advocacy
Plan has placed the primary focus of its interactions with government
institutions on the implementation of existing legislation and policies
and the support of municipal and national authorities to implement
existing programmes and projects. In Plan’s view, lack of resources
and capacity is the primary reason why constitutionally responsible
institutions fail to meet their human rights obligations towards the
citizens of Guatemala. While a lack of resources and capacity matters,
it is important to recognise the role of more fundamental factors limiting
the Guatemalan state to be more responsive to its citizen’s concerns
and claims. These factors include the historic discrimination against
rural and indigenous populations, a high level of corruption and
clientelism, a culture of impunity and the strong links between
government representatives and powerful economic and military
interests. A purely technical approach to NGO–state government
interactions is not likely to be adequate in addressing many of these
factors limiting the government’s responsiveness to disadvantaged
local communities.
84
Plan can choose among a number of options if it decides to expand its
advocacy efforts on the national level. One such option would be the
participation in the drafting of shadow reports on the national situation
of child rights. Such reports would summarise Plan’s and other NGOs’
expertise about the situation and children and would be submitted to
the United Nations committee monitoring the Child Rights Convention
(CRC). The government and NGO reports could then be used to enter
into a discussion with government officials about how further to
improve the situation for children in the country. Another option would
be to advocate for a revitalisation of the decentralisation process
(including greater budget autonomy for municipalities), which would
aim at increasing resources at the municipal and local levels. Plan
could also advocate for a more proactive implementation of the Free
Access to Information Act that was recently passed and which is
geared towards increasing transparency of government spending.
Beyond Guatemala’s borders, Plan should be open for coordinated
regional and global advocacy efforts, it should feed its own
observations information and experiences to the international level and
it should attempt to influence the targets and message of transnational
advocacy campaigns affecting child rights.
A stronger involvement in these political processes may expose Plan to
greater risks associated with challenging the interests of political
leadership on the national level. Those risks can be mitigated by
partnering with local civil society actors or with networks of other
international organisations. Plan can then let local partners decide on
the risks associated with advocacy messages. Also, becoming more
political is not limited to policy advocacy and directly challenging the
powerful, but can express itself in expanded situational analysis
(including research), agenda setting or negotiations with political
authorities. Most importantly, increasing advocacy efforts on the
national level does not entail siding with a specific political faction or
85
becoming involved in party politics. Plan should only take sides with the
people that it is trying to support – the children of Guatemala.
iv. Partnerships
Plan works in cooperation with local civil society organisations in all of
its programmes but mostly on a contractual service-delivery and not a
mutual-partnership basis. As a result, Plan retains control over the
activities carried out and also remains the critical factor in the
achievement of its goals. The organisation’s efforts to strengthen and
empower local civil society are for the most part limited to the
community level. The primary point of contact with communities (apart
from community volunteers) is through the legally established
community development councils. These councils constitute hybrids
between civil society and the state since they are established by law as
public entities and mandated to function as part of the national
development system. Their members are elected private, non-
remunerated citizens representing their own communities. Although it
appears sensible for Plan to interact and support this system on a
community and municipal level, the predominant focus on building the
capacities of those councils may limit Plan’s ability to foster other,
authentic expressions of community organising emerging outside of the
councils. In addition, the councils are often not representative of the
communities (non-inclusive membership) and are politicised by
municipal leaders.
Plan should consider diversifying its partnerships with local civil society
organisations beyond the community development councils. Local civil
society could further facilitate and enrich citizen participation on a
municipal level. In order to increase the influence and capacity of
communities in the democratic process, it is critical that they have the
ability to link with one another and to speak with one unified voice.
Local civil society organisations that work across communities and that
are more stable in their existence (community development councils
86
are re-elected every two years) could be an important vehicle to
achieve this link. Engaging in more equal partnerships with such local
civil society partners working across communities could therefore be
one way of increasing the effectiveness and the sustainability of Plan’s
work. As one informant expressed succinctly, “The only sustainable
factor in all this is civil society.”
v. Plan’s role as an organisation
An organisation’s strategic orientation is generally closely tied to the
way the organisation sees its role as a development actor. Given
Plan’s organisational characteristics described above and its strategic
interpretation of RBA (focusing on local interaction of duty bearers and
rights holders), it is not surprising that Plan has chosen a non-political
approach to its rights-based work. As mentioned above, Plan has not
engaged in national-level advocacy or the mobilisation of local civil
society groups since such actions are likely to lead to more
confrontational encounters with government officials. Plan has been
careful to maintain a certain level of neutrality, although the research
indicates some acknowledgement of some of the political power Plan
already has. The interviews revealed different opinions on the extent to
which Plan should take on more politically controversial positions.
While approximately 40 per cent of the respondents perceived Plan as
a non-political actor, 60 per cent saw the organisation as a political (yet
non-partisan) actor. The researchers also observed some ambivalence
within Plan if the organisation is or is not part of civil society. This
finding implies that there is a need for Plan to ask itself what its role
within a rights-based approach is and should be. It is of critical
importance that Plan sees itself as a civil society organisation and as a
part of global civil society in order to have legitimacy to be an active
participant in Guatemalan society, to work with a human rights-based
approach and to engage in advocacy activities.
87
Until now Plan has chosen a more instrumental approach to RBA. Its
focus on building the technical capacity of rights holders and duty
bearers and supporting their activities has allowed the organisation to
take a relatively neutral approach to its community and government
interactions. As was discussed in section 2, Plan has refrained from
addressing power imbalances within communities and generally avoids
being confrontational in its work with the government. While this has
allowed Plan to build relationships quickly with government and
community leaders and engage in the execution of programmes, it also
limits the transformative power of a rights-based approach. By not
questioning institutional politics (within governments) and structural
injustices (within communities), Plan leaves some fundamental issues,
such as exclusion or discrimination, untouched.
The question then is how Plan’s role should change in the future in
order to overcome some of these limitations. Ultimately, Plan will be
faced with the question of how much control over the processes and
outcomes of its work it is willing to relinquish. So far, Plan has ensured
that it remains in control of its programmes and that results are
attributable to its work. It continues to execute its programmes directly,
to deliver material help and to have direct ties to the communities. In
comparison to its former role as direct provider of material support,
Plan in its new role as facilitator has less direct control over activities
and outcomes. This needs to be explicitly acknowledged and means
that the organisation has to engage in more process-oriented, long-
term and flexible goal setting and performance assessment. However,
this would require Plan to give up some of some of its control over
activities and results and to accept a more organic and less linear
approach to its work, which would have significant repercussions on its
definition of success and its ability to report results to donors.
Lastly, the question remains as to what human rights mean for Plan as
an organisation. Plan has been explicit about not being a duty bearer
88
itself because it is based on voluntarism and it seeks to avoid raising
expectations for material aid within the communities. In contrast to
democratic governments, which are primarily accountable to citizens,
international NGOs have multiple stakeholders creating sometimes
conflicting accountability demands. Still, formal differences between the
role of a government and a NGO aside, any actor with power and the
ability to change peoples’ lives should consider developing appropriate
means of accountability to those affected by its presence. As a
resource-rich organisation with a large international network Plan holds
significant power over marginalised people living in poverty in rural
communities in Guatemala. Accountability mechanisms towards
communities are less common and more complex to develop. RBA
requires developing some form of downward accountability that will
represent critical learning mechanisms for Plan and that can thereby
improve Plan’s effectiveness. Creating accountability for its power by
including communities in a meaningful way in the creation and
evaluation of programmes is not only the right thing to do, but it is part
of a process of increasing the effectiveness of Plan’s efforts. Members
of those communities are then more likely to understand and
internalise a rights-based perspective if they learn those mechanisms
in their interactions with Plan.
vi. Sustainability
Another result of Plan’s technical and apolitical role is the fact that the
question of sustainability remains a topic of concern. On a government
level, Plan is viewed by both national and municipal authorities as a
valuable source of technical support. Interviews with government
officials showed that the importance of Plan’s support remains high and
that institutions continue to be highly sceptical about their ability to
maintain their activity level if Plan left the area. On a community level, a
similar situation has emerged. Plan’s perceived role has shifted from
being a service provider to being a facilitator since the organisation
89
now predominantly engages in organising and building the capacities
of community groups and opening spaces for them to interact directly
with government authorities. Plan’s new focus on increasing the
capacity and participation of rights holders has reduced the
dependency of communities on Plan’s resources. However, the
research shows that dependency continues to be an issue associated
with Plan’s presence. Communities are now overly reliant on Plan’s
facilitating role and spaces of participation for both adults and children
were disappearing again as soon as Plan stopped advocating for these
spaces and no longer sustained the interaction between the
government and communities.
The two main reasons why Plan’s achievements to date might not be
sustainable are the political instability and fragility that is characteristic
of many state institutions in Guatemala and the inherent lack of
resources that many of those institutions are facing. Since many of the
spaces for participation and other institutional changes (in particular on
a municipal level) are not institutionalised yet, they can disappear or be
discontinued when governments of political leaders change. Plan
programme staff recognised this as the major obstacle of their work.
The inherent lack of resources of many governments in the developing
world is the other major challenges for the sustainability of Plan’s
rights-based approach. Duty bearers might have the willingness to
assume more responsibility but might not have the resources to
execute and maintain programmes or projects. If citizens continue not
to see any results from their increased participation and engagement,
then participation fatigue is likely to set in and trust in democratic
systems and the state in general further declines. Signs of this
development have been observed in Plan’s case where the majority of
communities voiced disappointment about the level of support and
responsiveness that municipal governments have shown.
90
The research team is aware that the past five years represent only the
first phase of Plan’s rights-based approach and that it might be too
early to ask for sustainable results (in particular when considering the
fundamental, long-term changes implied in RBA). Also, Plan has
emphasised that the implementation of its five strategic principles will
ensure the sustainability of its efforts. However, we recommend that
Plan takes additional steps to increase the sustainability of its efforts in
order to ensure the long-term feasibility of its strategy. Placing a
greater emphasis on the institutionalisation of changes within
government institutions (by for example focusing on building the
capacities of second-level bureaucrats instead of political leaders) and
systematising its efforts to enable municipalities to look for outside
funding (as has been achieved in some cases) are two apparent first
strategies. Furthermore, Plan is encouraged to develop indicators that
monitor the progress of the interactions of duty bearers and rights
holders so that the organisation has the opportunity to reassess its
strategy in the future. Sustainability has been one of the great
challenges of many development interventions in the past and has
been one of the principal reasons for Plan to shift towards a rights-
based approach. A rights-based approach, however, does not
automatically guarantee sustainability and it is therefore critical that
Plan remains vigilant about this topic in the future.
vii. Operational areas of improvement
Besides the strategic considerations outlined above, there are several
operational concerns that could be addressed in order to strengthen
Plan’s rights-based approach. Three of them are summarised below.
1. Human resource training
Plan has devoted significant efforts to training its personnel in its
new strategic approach and it has managed to disseminate its
new strategy within the organisation. Following a diagnostic
regarding the current level of knowledge about human rights and
91
democracy, Plan’s staff received training about human rights
and democracy by one of Plan’s local partners. In addition, Plan
now has their own trainers who conduct capacity-building
exercises on a regular basis. In addition, the internal Community
Development Committee includes representatives from each
programme unit and has served as a vehicle for dissemination
of information and strategic considerations. However, the
research shows that there is a need further to educate and train
personnel. When Plan staff was asked about their training, the
general consensus was that more capacity building is needed.
As one fieldworker explained, “Plan has told us what to do but
not how to do it.”40 The most common suggestions for training
were related to new methodologies and tools to be applied in
their community work, such as facilitation of groups, working
with children etc. The role of community-level staff has changed
drastically as a result of the introduction of Plan’s rights-based
approach. Plan staff is now acting as a facilitator, which implies
taking a less technical and more people-oriented approach to its
work. Translating this new role into reality would mean for
fieldworkers to detect and address communal dynamics that are
in conflict with human rights principles, such as exclusion and
discrimination, and to apply techniques that make human rights
real for people in communities.
2. Programme integration
Plan continues to place a high premium on its programmatic
work. Much of its personnel structure both in the headquarters
and on a programme unit level is organised around
programmatic tasks and responsibilities. Headquarter staff
remarked that people remain primarily tied to their programmes
40
Interview by Uwe Gneiting with Plan Guatemala community facilitators, conducted in Jalapa, Guatemala, 24
March 2009
92
rather than necessarily viewing their efforts within the broader
idea of human rights. This is an important area for improvement
since the integration of programmatic tasks has direct
consequences for the effectiveness of Plan’s work. The principle
of the indivisibility of human rights has real implications on the
ground where the access to one right has a direct affect on the
ability of people to access another (children need to be healthy
to be able to go to school, for example).
Plan has moved towards greater programme integration. The
organisation’s strategic approach is the gradual integration of all
programmes under its participation programme, thereby making
the strengthening of rights holders and duty bearers the central
theme of all of its programmes. Plan has started to do that on a
local level by basing its engagement with municipalities on
public policies, which take an integrated approach to child rights.
It has also started to engage cross-programmatic initiatives,
such as the healthy school programme and some of its
protection initiatives (PHAST, Raising Children with Love) that
cross programmatic separations and involve a range of
government institutions. This process should be expanded in
order for people to take advantage of the complementary
benefits that improvements in individual human rights can bring.
3. Measuring success
As mentioned above, the task of measuring the effectiveness of
rights-based approaches is more challenging than assessing
traditional development interventions that rely on the
contributing role of the development organisation. Plan has
made some initial efforts to adjust its monitoring and evaluation
mechanisms to its rights-based strategy. It has established
mechanisms that are geared towards measuring the advances
of its participation programme, which entails Plan’s core rights-
93
based efforts (i.e. focus on strengthening rights holders and duty
bearers). Given the ambitious nature of Plan’s long-term goals
(i.e. a profound social transformation), it will be critical for Plan
to monitor and evaluate its continuing progress towards these
goals. The indicators that Plan has used so far in its logical
framework have been appropriate for assessing the initial
achievements of Plan in influencing rights holders and duty
bearers since Plan has been playing a very active role in this
process. In the future, however, the challenge will be to modify
these indicators in order to be able to assess the gradual
processes through which duty bearers and rights holders relate
to each other without the constant interventions by Plan. These
indicators most likely will be more qualitative in nature. They
should be determined with the active participation of the people
involved in these processes and they should be flexible in nature
since it is difficult to predict the exact course of processes of
social change. In this process, Plan will be forced to accept that
the goal is not to measure its direct influence on changes in
social and political processes but first to assess the actions of
duty bearers and rights holders and then draw conclusions
about its own contributions to these changes.
94
References
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Gomez, Ricardo (2006). Plan Guatemala Rights-based Strategy. Guatemala City,
Plan.
Gready, P. and Ensor, J. (2005). Reinventing Development? Translating Rights-
based Approaches from Theory into Practice. London, Zed Books.
Harris-Curtis, E. (2003). Rights-based Approaches: Issues for NGOs. Development
in Practice, Vol. 13, No. 5., pp.558-564.
Plipat, S. (2005). Developmentizing Human Rights: How Development NGOs
Interpret and Implement a Human Rights-based Approach to Development Policy.
Pittsburgh, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of
Pittsburgh.
Plan International (2008). Child-centred community development handbook. Woking,
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Plan Guatemala (2004). Plan Guatemala Country Strategic Plan 2010. Guatemala
City, Plan.
Plan Guatemala (2007). Guatemala: Strategic Outline for Child Protection.
Guatemala City, Plan.
Plan Guatemala (2009). Rights-based Child Rights Survey. Guatemala City, Plan.
Nelson, P.J. and Dorsey, E. (2008). New Rights Advocacy: Changing Strategies of
Development and Human Rights NGOs. Washington, DC, Georgetown University
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Sen, A. (1999). Development as Freedom. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
United Nations Development Programme (2007). Human Development Reports,
Guatemala. Available at
hdrstats.undp.org/countries/country_fact_sheets/cty_fs_GTM.html. Accessed 26
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About the Moynihan Institute
The Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs is located in the Maxwell School of
Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in Syracuse, NY. The institute’s
mission is to extend, integrate and focus the Maxwell School’s commitment to
exploring the international and global concerns raised by an interdependent world of
diverse cultures, economies and political systems; to support interdisciplinary,
collaborative research projects among teams of faculty and graduate students, to
work on understanding and solving critical world problems; and to maintain a
productive dialogue between the academic and policy-making communities in the
process of translating theory into practice.
The Transnational NGO Initiative represents one of the major programmatic thrusts
of the Moynihan Institute. The initiative was established in 2004 in recognition of the
growing importance of non-governmental organisations in world affairs. The initiative
is comprised of three components. A research component is designed better to
understand the challenges to governance, leadership and effectiveness currently
facing NGOs that work in a transnational context. An educational component is
dedicated to training a new generation of students in the skills and perspectives they
will need to work with or in transnational NGOs in the future. Third is a professional
engagement component designed to facilitate learning among transnational NGO
leaders and between such leaders and academic experts.
About the researchers
Tosca Bruno-van Vijfeijken (project supervisor) is administrator of the
Transnational NGO Initiative at the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs at the
Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, USA. As a
former practitioner, Tosca worked at the European Centre for Development Policy
Management (ECDPM) in the Netherlands from 1987-1992. She worked on
grassroots democracy and human rights issues when serving as UN District
Electoral Supervisor in Cambodia during the UN Transitional Authority (UNTAC)
peace-keeping operation (1992-1993). This experience was supplemented with
assignments for the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the US NGO Pact,
96
both in Cambodia (1993-1994). Later, Tosca worked for six years at the World Bank
(1995-2001). At the World Bank’s headquarters in Washington D.C. she was
responsible for overseeing the mainstreaming of public participation approaches
(including the involvement of civil society organisations) throughout the World Bank’s
operations and policy work in East Asia. From 1997-2001 she was based in Vietnam,
where she spearheaded the World Bank’s social development agenda, coordinated
the Bank’s dialogue and collaboration with NGOs and led the Bank’s policy dialogue
with the government of Vietnam on civil society matters. Tosca also teaches
graduate level courses on Governance and Global Civil Society, as well as
Community Organizing and Community Development at Syracuse University and
advises Proliteracy, a large adult-literacy-promotion NGO, based in Syracuse.
Uwe Gneiting (field researcher) works as Research Associate for the Moynihan
Institute of Global Affairs. He holds a Masters degree in International Relations (with
a focus on international development) from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and
Public Affairs at Syracuse University. His previous research examined strategic
change of transnational NGOs in Guatemala. He will begin to pursue his doctorate at
the Berlin Graduate School for Transnational Studies in Berlin, Germany in 2009.
Hans Peter Schmitz (project supervisor) is Associate Professor of Political
Science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University.
From 1999-2001 he was a lecturer in the Human Rights Programme at The
University of Chicago. He received his Ph.D. from the European University Institute
in Florence, Italy. He is the author of Transnational Mobilization and Domestic
Regime Change: Africa in Comparative Perspective (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). His
research articles have appeared in Comparative Politics, Human Rights Quarterly,
the International Journal for Human Rights, International Studies Review, Monday
Developments, the Handbook of International Relations and the Zeitschrift für
Internationale Beziehungen. He is currently leading a multi-year study on the
governance, effectiveness and accountability of more than 150 transnational NGOs
focused on advancing objectives in areas of conflict resolution, environmental
protection, human rights, humanitarian relief and sustainable development. The
97
study is supported by the National Science Foundation and the Moynihan Institute of
Global Affairs at Syracuse University
Otto Valle (contributing author) has worked for many years as a consultant for
public policy and development projects in Guatemala and Latin America. He has
worked on projects for various organisations including the European Union, World
Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, UNDP and UNICEF. He holds a Masters
degree in Public Administration from the National Institute for Public Administration
and the University of San Carlos in Guatemala and has been a lecturer of
development and political science at the University del Valle de Guatemala and the
University Rafael Landivar.
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Otto Valle