Introduction

For many years, the study of transnational advocacy collaborations between civil society organizations (CSOs) has focused on transnational campaigns. International non-governmental organizations (INGOs) have commonly had central roles in the study of these campaigns, as powerful actors with funding, credibility, capacity, and connections to play a leading role influencing international political agendas, public opinion, and policy actors and processes. Recent research increasingly does justice to the multiplicity of political arenas, CSO relations involved, and underlying assumptions, putting into question the centrality of INGOs. The roles of CSOs in the Global South have become more prominent in research, and their agency has come more in view. This connects directly with a broader discussion on power relations in international development that seeks to advance Southern and local ownership and leadership in advocacy, based in recognition of existing capacities, understandings, and agendas.

At the same time, there are important knowledge gaps with regard to relations and roles in transnational CSO advocacy. Contractual relations between INGOs and Southern CSOs are still commonly defined by INGOs’ access to funding and their roles managing programmes and distributing funds. However, what new relations and roles can look like within such contractual relations has hardly been researched.

This article is based on a research project with a European INGO seeking to transform its role and form of collaborations with Southern partners. It starts from the reality of civil society advocacy programmes in development that commonly involve international campaigns as well as country-centered advocacy, with potential synergies in connecting advocacy at different levels, and often also an aim to develop these. This can be difficult, as programmes commonly involve highly diverse organizations with diverse aims and perspectives. At the same time, increasingly, the aim of having more Southern leadership and ownership in such collaborations provides the concomitant challenge of transforming roles and relations.

In 2020, I was asked by the “Global Office” (central hub holding key roles in overall management, based in Western Europe) of a development INGO to conduct a research project into their ways of collaborating with Southern partners in advocacy. The research project consisted of an analysis of three advocacy trajectories of their just-finished programme, to identify success factors and challenges so that lessons could be drawn for the running programme. In this programme, advocacy at international level was to make a positive contribution at the national level, and national-level work (evidence of issues, needs, and solutions) was to feed into advocacy at international levels. At the same time, the programme sought to advance local ownership, in the sense of increasing control of country-based actors in programmes the INGO administers. This INGO’s leadership also saw the need for a transformative process for the INGO itself within the new advocacy programme.

The article addresses three interrelated research questions: (1) What ways of relating contribute to linking international and national advocacy, starting from the aim of local ownership? (2) how can this relating be made relevant in the view of country-based actors? and (3) what roles do country-based actors see for Global Office advocates?

The article thus seeks to contribute to reimagining advocacy collaborations within the context of contractual relations in the context of programmes involving advocacy by INGOs and CSOs based in programme countries. The transformations that are explored in this article maintain CSO relations structured by INGO-administered development programming. While this keeps transformation within limits, it can be justified with reference to the continuing commonality of these relations, as well as the possibilities of fundamentally restructuring collaboration “Starting from the South” (van Wessel et al. 2023), as will be shown below.

Theoretical Framework

Transnational and Transcalar Advocacy

As said, in the early research of transnational advocacy collaborations between CSOs, the focus was on one typical unit of analysis: the transnational advocacy campaign. CSOs having most of their power base and control in the Global North were often given center stage in these studies. When it comes to the roles of these CSOs, studies have brought out INGOs’ roles as powerful partners with high access to international institutions and rich in resources, supporting needy Southern CSOs in addressing their concerns from a position of need for support from INGOs, setting agendas, and defining understandings of issues and solutions (Keck and Sikkink 1998; Carpenter 2007; Bownas 2017). Research has thus also focused on North–South relations as the key dynamic, most prominently foregrounding Keck and Sikkink’s “boomerang model,” involving INGOs’ response to Southern CSOs’ calling for help when they find attainment of their objectives obstructed, foregrounding the power of INGOs to act politically beyond Southern CSOs’ country borders. Another theme centering North–South relations has been effectiveness, in terms of joint strategy development, bringing out the importance of coordinated strategy development, reinforcing an internationally leading and coordinating role of INGOs (Shawki 2011). Over the years, however, research more and more identifies complexities that are involved, modifying and questioning many aspects. Prominently, research questions the centrality of Northern-based INGOs in transnational advocacy and points to diversity in relations and complex dynamics within actors and levels. Civil society in the Global South is highly diverse in terms of capacity and scope of activity. This makes a simple classification of organizations based in a single country as “local,” problematic. Similarly problematic is the common transnational-local dichotomy. For example, research into Latin American feminist organizations has highlighted their long-standing leadership in transnational advocacy (Vargas 2015). Shipton and Dauvergne’s (2021) analysis of South–BRICS–North collaborations focuses on CSO collaboration in the Global South and shows INGOs in complementary roles. Milhorance and Bursztyn (2017) analyze advocacy collaborations between CSOs in Brazil and Mozambique that center on Southern networking. De Almagro (2018) shows how a campaign on gender security involved power dynamics around the meaning of this security between organizations involved, leading to the exclusion of country-based voices rather than their advancement, as the famous “boomerang model” would have it. Meanwhile, Southern CSOs increasingly show the capacity to take up leading roles in networking for advocacy. For example, the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP) is an association of CSOs working on peace and security in West Africa (Eze 2021). The Panafrican Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) brings together Africa-based CSOs to advance climate justice for Africa (Mwenda and Bond 2020). To illustrate current complexity matching such developments, Tsutsui and Smith (2018) show how human rights advocacy presently involve a combination of international and country-based initiatives, involving also horizontal networking rather than linear global–local relations, creating what they call a “sandwich effect” for human rights institutions, creating pressure from different sides. Pallas and Bloodgood (2022) provide an extensive discussion of such increasing diversity of relations in transnational advocacy. They also relativize the role of INGOs. Southern-based CSOs may opt to work with their own states as allies in international politics, rather than INGOs. Transnational advocacy can also be conceived in more locally centered terms now, consisting for example of country-based responses to international issues (Pallas and Bloodgood 2022). They argue that we should understand such advocacy in terms that acknowledge multiplicity. “Activists must devise ways to engage and persuade local governments, traditional authorities, regional bodies, international institutions, and multiple populations of individual stakeholders and interested citizens to change their policy, practice or behaviour” (ibid: 5). They, therefore, propose to speak of transcalar advocacy, which can accommodate such diversity and complexity of actors and scales, and types of interplay involved—which I will indeed do in the empirical section of this article.

Contractual Relations and Transcalar Advocacy

An important feature of relations between organizations in advocacy has hardly been addressed. Collaboration is conceived in terms of networks, whereas much of advocacy in the context of development does not come about through collaboration in networks (as informal, relatively horizontal collaborations), but through contracts between CSOs, in prominent ways rooted in funding relations. Typically, in such contractual relations, an INGO develops and manages programmes involving advocacy at diverse levels, using funding obtained and controlled in the Global North. Programmes are mostly carried out by contracted “local partners” (i.e., partners working in a single country which can be highly diverse in scope of work and capacity), while also involving advocacy in the INGO’s home country and international institutions such as the EU, UN, or Southern institutions such as the African Union (see, e.g., Arensman et al. 2015). Importantly, programmes often do not revolve around a campaign around which to come together (typically the unit of analysis in research on transnational advocacy). The programmes typically cover multiple countries in the Global South—sometimes straddling different continents—and are mostly based on a programme with a single theme, such as climate change or child rights. Contracts revolve around agreements on programme starting points, broadly formulated aims and activities that may or may not relate closely to each other. Importantly, the basic starting points of programmes are often decided before “Southern partners” are selected to join.

Limited earlier research has indicated that in these contractual collaboration relations, advocacy at different levels may happen as parallel processes rather than in a coordinated fashion. An evaluation of eight CSO transnational advocacy programmes involving INGOs and Southern CSOs in contractual relations found that degree of collaboration varied greatly, and CSOs involved often did not develop a coherent programme, joint strategy, or complementarity in roles across levels. Organizations were often diverse in their interests and approaches, and attention for developing joint understandings or strategy was limited (Arensman et al. 2015; 2017). A few other publications address civil society advocacy within contractual relations (Elbers et al. 2022; Matelski et al. 2022), but focus largely on country-level work. This indicates a knowledge gap, given the scope and aims of many programmes, and the nature of global development challenges including climate change, water management, food security, and biodiversity. The fact that official development aid allocated to advocacy goes to contractual collaborations is another reason to zoom in on the way advocacy takes shape within these relations.

Relatedly, also the tension between effectiveness and ownership is important here. While effectiveness might be helped by coherence, the diversity of organizations involved in collaborations that we often find in contractual relations means that coherence easily implies compromise. Southern CSOs can be under pressure to divert from their mission and transform their organizational structures and processes due to conditionalities and onerous reporting requirements expected from them (see, e.g., Jalali 2013; Banks et al. 2015). To do justice to this in this article, we need to consider the debate on power relations between CSOs in the development sector.

How to Address Power Inequalities?

In the development sector, calls to transform relations have become increasingly vehement in recent years (van Wessel et al. 2023). Participants embedded in practice regularly stress that control over resources, engrained organizational practices, and mental models combine to create a situation where change can only come through system transformation. First, shifting control over funding to Southern CSOs is commonly mentioned as of key importance here, as also a leading role for communities as actors with agency and as rightful owners of their own development (Bond 2021). Second, participants argue that a reorientation around capacity is needed. Rather than start out from capacity deficits, programmes should be rooted in capacities in the Global South, helping to develop these, also to develop leadership and sustainability rather than compliance, while also acknowledging already-existing capacities (see, e.g., Baguios et al. 2021). Third, accountability structures should be created that center on the people with whom CSOs work, accepting their criteria for success while giving more space to political roles for Southern actors and working against the push towards compliance with donor requirements (Stephen and Martini 2019; Paige et al. 2021). Fourth, governance of collaborations must be representative of the people involved, rather than privileging the voices of INGOs’ staff and “experts” (Partos 2022). Fifth, rather than falling back on practices to minimize risk like selecting established NGOs as partners, or carrying out extensive checks on organizations, there should be openness to diversity and experimentation (Bond 2021; Paige et al. 2021). Trust is presented as a promising and just foundation for funding and collaboration (Partos 2022). Finally, an overarching argument is that the development sector has a colonial mentality, with inequalities sometimes also framed as being grounded in institutional racism, systematically downplaying Southern actors as lacking not only expertise or capacity but also trustworthiness and the “neutrality” required to do development work properly (Bond 2021; House of Commons International Development Committee 2022).

Research has addressed many of these issues. Much attention has gone to ways in which funding conditions (such as financial management, proficiency in the English language, proposal development, and reporting, as also “fit” with the donor CSOs’ programme) can, for Southern CSOs, lead to NGOization and mission drift and away from representation of constituencies and the building of legitimacy with them (Elbers et al. 2022; Matelski et al. 2022). Relatedly, researchers have addressed tensions between “upward” and “downward” accountability (see, e.g., van Zyl and Claeye 2019). Managerialism has been problematized as lying at the root of many of the issues involved, with research zooming in on how relations get to be shaped by management principles of instrumental rationality and concerns with control and effectiveness, bringing about an emphasis on strategic planning, efficiency, and outcomes (Gutheil 2020). Another research line concerns the question whose knowledge and skills get valued and devalued, rooted in what assumptions and structures, and through what mechanisms (see, e.g., Lewis & Mosse 2006; Eyben et al. 2015; Peters 2020; Woensdregt and Nencel 2023, for the aid sector; see van Wessel 2022, 2023b, for advocacy specifically).

Practitioners and researchers have also sought to contribute to solutions. Participatory grantmaking, new governance setups and alternative forms of fundraising are some of the main types of innovation underway. Sharing control over programme development and implementation with Southern actors, as also the strengthening of Southern CSOs’ capacities to take up this control, given donor requirements. Broadening and transforming accountability relations have also received considerable consideration (Hilhorst et al. 2021). Adaptive management has been embraced extensively too, accepting, at least in public discourse, that programmes work better when decision-making is adjusted to uncertainty and change in context (Gutheil 2020). At the same time, shifting control over funding and programming to actors in the Global South hardly happens thus far (OECD 2020). Gutheil (2020, 63) has also questioned the transformative potential of adaptive management, as it is driven by Northern actors. Localization, as a key concept in debates in earlier years, has been critically assessed as rooted in Northern dominance, imposing constructs that problematically define individuals, organizations, and contexts as “local” and in terms of unequal relations with outsiders (Mac Ginty 2015; van Wessel et al. 2023). Thus far, however, research does not as yet address the problems involved with approaching “the local” as representative, inclusive, and legitimate, given the varied political and social processes that may easily privilege some “local” aspects or actors over others (Schierenbeck 2015).

Centralizing relations between international and Southern actors, some research asks for relations to be built on new foundations, pointing to new starting points for collaboration such as the building of mutual trust (Mawdsley et al. 2005), mutual learning (Eade 2007), capacity strengthening that starts from Southern CSOs’ perspectives and self-defined needs, and as an endogenous process (Theisohn and Lopes 2013). Solidarity is an emerging theme in this context, with proponents proposing Southern CSOs’ agency, understandings, and agendas as starting points for collaboration for outside actors like INGOs (Deveaux 2021; Garbe 2022; Lijfering et al. 2022).

However, some themes receive surprisingly little attention regarding solutions. How to change funding relations has hardly been taken up by researchers, despite widespread recognition that “little changes thus far” in the development sector on this front. The same goes for racism (but see Pailey 2020). And, relatedly, while most research centers on change and transformation in the aid system, there is little exploration of what transformed collaboration could look like in terms of roles (but see van Wessel 2023a).

In other words, the implications of transformation for INGOs in real, concrete terms are largely avoided. Most publications do not go into design, leaving CSOs with little to work with that is evidence-based or carefully conceptualized on a concrete level. It is here that this study seeks to contribute. By examining closely what transcalar CSO advocacy collaborations could look like within contractual relations between Northern and Southern CSOs, this study seeks to contribute to reimagining advocacy collaborations in a way that concretely addresses power relations by Starting from the South.

Methodology

For this study, three transcalar advocacy trajectories were selected that concerned collaboration between Global Office advocates and country-based advocates. Each of the cases formed part of a 5-year programme working towards restoring what the INGO called “the social contract” between states and people in fragile settings, through empowering people to voice their interests and influencing decision-making. Countries in the programme shared that they are commonly classified as fragile, i.e., incapable of assuring basic security, maintaining rule of law and justice, or providing services and economic opportunities for citizens. The programme addressed a variety of themes addressing aspects of this fragility, including health coverage, justice, women’s rights, and peace and security. The advocacy trajectories selected for this addressed issues at international and national levels: peace and security; women, peace, and security; and universal health coverage. The in-country civil society organizations were varied in terms of thematic focus, including peacebuilding, health, education, justice, and women’s rights. They also varied in terms of scope and size. Organizations worked at both national or sub-national levels and addressed a smaller or larger set of topics. All were, however, formally organized NGOs with paid staff.

One of the cases revolved around advocacy based on a national-level research project initiated and managed by a Global Office advocate and a European research organization. This project was primarily executed by European researchers in collaboration with the INGO’s country-based partners having a role primarily in data collection. Advocacy based on the study was subsequently carried out by the Global Office advocate, Country Office staff, and country-based partners. Country-based partners have subsequently also drawn on the study for other activities. A second and third case involved national-level policy processes in which international-level actors (states and multilateral organizations, respectively) had a role to play. These cases involved collaboration between Global Office advocates, Country Offices of the INGO, and country-based partners (CSOs, consultants) and in one case a regional CSO partner, with advocacy carried out internationally as well as nationally. Two African countries and one Asian country were involved, with two of the trajectories involving two countries in our sample and one involving one country. The contractual relations involved concerned agreements between the Global Office of the INGO in Europe, Country Offices of the INGO in programme countries, and country partner organizations contracted (and thus funded) by the Country Offices. Agreements involved funding for activities that fit the programme, by organizations often working individually and sometimes collectively. What constituted fit, and who was to do what, was negotiated, with the Global Office, Country Offices, and partners each often seeking to advance priorities as they understood them, while also working from varied perspectives on what relations between the organizations should look like.

In all cases, the national and international were intertwined, reflecting the transcalar nature of advocacy across sites and arenas that Pallas and Bloodgood (2022) speak of. For example, country-based advocates lobbied international institutions that were working at country level, seeking also support from Global Office advocates in this. A Global Office advocate supported a country-level advocacy process by lobbying a powerful state actor of the country at international level. Interest in a country-level report at international level was used to advance advocacy using the same report at country level. Advocacy at national level involved meetings convening international as well as national-level actors. Advocacy at national level supported a state actor’s subsequent performance at a high-level UN meeting. The three advocacy trajectories thus provide suitable cases for studying the ways that advocates could relate their work at different levels.

At the same time, in this programme, country-level and international advocacy was facilitated through separate funding streams, with funding for international advocacy primarily controlled by the Global Office and allocated primarily to staff at the Global Office responsible for the international advocacy in the programme. Country-level programmes were managed at country level, with considerable autonomy from the Global Office, and funded separately. The aim of the programme was to link these, but this was not how the programme was structured—programming at country level and Global Office level was not integrated, but had to take shape through Country Offices and Global Office advocates connecting with each other on specific themes and aims.

In total, 29 online interviews were conducted. Twenty-three were carried out with advocates, managers, and consultants directly involved with one of the three trajectories between. Six interviews were done with Global Office managerial staff, providing contextual knowledge and pointing to organizational understandings and knowledge needs regarding the transformation process that the leadership of the INGO deemed necessary. All interviews were carried out in the period July–November 2020.

Global Office advocates, Country Office staff (advocates, managers), and country-based partners have the most direct experience with linking international- and national-level advocacy and understandings of these linkages based most directly in experience. They are also the ones primarily responsible for building these linkages in practice. Because of this, this article centers on their views on how international- and country-level advocacy can be linked, the relevance of this for country-level actors, and the roles of Global Office advocates from the perspective of country-level actors. The question of what local ownership would entail is thus operationalized through these three dimensions of relations between Global Office advocates and country-level actors, exploring who matters how, for whom, in this particular relation. This can be justified given how central this linear relation is in research literature thus far, and in this study, this assumed centrality is put to question. It is important to note though that the results of this study reflect understandings of local ownership only in terms of these relations.

Some explanation on categorization is required here. The category of “country-level actors” includes the INGOs’ Country Offices and country-based partner organizations (including one regional partner) into one single category. Country-level involvement with transcalar advocacy is embedded in the broader country-level programme, with different actors involved, and the sample of interviewees reflects this (Table 1). The views of these different actors are brought together under the banner of “country-based actor,” in relation to Global Office advocates. This limits the analysis in the sense that the distinction between Country Office and partners is actually highly relevant to the collaboration in the programme. The relations with the Global Office are different and the relations between the two categories are also significant in the relations with Global Office advocates. Also, the categorization of “country-based actors” does not do justice to the diversity of organizations. However, the focus of this article is on relations between actors working at different levels, and, as will be shown below, perspectives on this were similar across different country-based actors. In addition, the information participants shared is highly sensitive to them, and differentiation and specification could facilitate identification, which therefore needs to be avoided as much as necessary. Because of this, the analysis is limited to the issue of linking between the national and international.

Table 1 Interviewees
Full size table

The analysis in this article focuses on the insights that can be drawn from the interviews with the groups of actors described above but includes contextualizations that bring in understandings and reflections from other interviewees (consultants, researchers, a regional partner, and Global Office managers). Interviews were recorded and transcribed to allow for capturing of details. Analysis of the data developed through inductive coding, establishing the main patterns in the data concerning the research questions. To protect identities and organizational interests, names of individuals, organizations, and countries are not provided in this article. For the same reason, no further specifics about programme contents will be provided.

Findings

Difficulties in Relating

Global Office advocates identified difficulties in building linkages with country-based actors for advocacy. Their explanations focused primarily on limits they encountered seeking to develop working relations and activities with Country Offices and partners. These limits concerned attitude, agendas, capacities, and understandings. Speaking of attitudes, Global Office advocates sometimes felt they were faced with country-based staff that would not show the engaged, proactive, and/or independent attitude they were looking for. “Only if I was there something would be done,” as one described it. They also saw a lack of effective collaboration as rooted in Country Offices or partners having different agendas and thus insufficient interest to prioritize the issue or activity Global Office advocates wanted to engage them with, or advocacy as such. Explanation was also sought in partners’ focus on national government and context and thus a lack of interest in advocacy with international actors. Considering capacities, Global Office advocates would say that difficulties came down to partners’ capacity not matching the programme, a lack of advocacy capacity, or a lack of research capacity, as required in one of the cases focused on for this study. One Global Office advocate also pointed to problems in advocates’ limitations in effectively relating to country contexts, stating that, because of the INGO’s project-based work, the link, the knowledge, and experience specifically on a geographical level “are going down more and more.”

During interviews with Global Office advocates, two stories emerged where Global Office advocates had taken the lead in an advocacy trajectory, found that country-based actors were not responsive, but then understood this non-responsiveness as a result of failure on the part of country actors rather than a collective problem. Lack of responsiveness and proactivity was then described as the main problem and left at that, rather than as a symptom of an underlying problem, let alone one that had been addressed in the collaboration. This raises questions about the level of trust and communication in some collaborations. One Global Office advocate discussed differences in understanding and approach that were dialogically taken up and resolved.

Country Office staff and partners sometimes mentioned difficulties that confirmed perspectives that Global Office advocates provided. Sometimes, taking the stance that linking is a matter of dealing with requests from Global Office advocates, staff would speak of being “too busy” to do what was requested, or mentioned having limited advocacy and research capacity. However, they also pointed out that advocates themselves may not relate to the Country Office and staff engagingly, coming up with demands and sometimes also apparently out to advance their own ideas and leadership rather than show the supportive, facilitating and encouraging attitude that would have led to better result in their view. Lack of dialogue and ownership was also mentioned in this context, as well as limited communication as such. Finally, interviewees mentioned the problem of Global Office advocates sometimes having limited knowledge of the countries, potentially resulting in misrepresentation at international levels, and in one instance also limits in knowledge of the domain of the trajectory.

The difficulties appear to arise primarily from a mismatch in expectations and a lack of collective processes building relations and commitment to agendas and actions. In two of the cases studied, difficulties were rooted in Global Office advocates wanting something from Country Offices or partners that they were reluctant or unable to give to the extent desired by the Global Office advocates. Collaboration initiated by Global Office advocates tended to come with requirements for those in the countries, from ambitions largely rooted in Global Office advocates’ understandings and plans. This pattern of linking revolved around Global Office advocates seeking collaboration through requests, seeking to enroll country-based actors in externally defined activities. Vying for the attention and collaboration of country-based staff seemed to be common, while requests the other way around were not found in this study.

The difficulties described above can be illustrated by developments in one of the cases. The case centering on a research study was conceived by the Global Office advocate in collaboration with European partners, with Country Offices and partners subsequently enrolled for participation. This participation consisted of providing some input in the fieldwork stage, collection of data, and advocacy based on the research results. While input was given and data collected, European actors appreciated the quality of the work by some of the country-based actors, but complained of lack of research capacity leading to quality challenges for other parts of the study. “The interviews were not carried out as they should have.”Footnote 1 In addition, uptake for advocacy was less effective than hoped. “They never used the great advocacy opportunity this offered to them,” “It seems they were not interested in advocacy with the international actors.” “The organization of the events was not as it should have been.”Footnote 2 Country-based actors on their part complained of lack of ownership: “[consultant] didn’t give us a chance to get involved”; “the time was too short”; “we were too busy”; “we should be involved from the start, then people are more engaged and it is more effective”; and “the concept note was in English, which we don’t understand well.”Footnote 3 One country-based actor emphasized the challenges in terms of compliance rather than ownership—due to different capacity issues (time, expertise), it was difficult to deliver, and the demands were too much. Some partners stated that the final report was not sent by the European partner or translated [it is available online, also in translated form, MvW], but they also had not inquired, even though 10 months had passed since the study was completed. Meanwhile, the research report appears to have been received well at advocacy events in New York, and some national-level advocacy events took place involving many of those involved. After this, there has been little communication between Global Office and country-based actors on how to proceed. Interviews indicated that the main insights and recommendations of the studies have subsequently not been taken up by country-based actors for advocacy. Some country-based interviewees who were involved did state they have learnt from the study and the initial advocacy they were involved in, following completion. They also explained how they use specific insights from the research that were relevant for their work on other topics. While COVID-19 has played a role in the limited use for advocacy, country-based actors explained these limits referring to, in sum: limited usefulness in their context, too limited involvement in the study, the results being too academic, not having received the report, not having the report in their language, and having other priorities.

What Helps in Relating?

Several interviewees thought that limited advocacy capacity at country level was an issue that could hamper linking national and international levels but also mentioned that collaboration could offer opportunities for advocacy capacity development. Talking of Global Office advocates, several country-based interviewees gave accounts of learning in the context of collaboration and expressed appreciation for it. Interviewees also spoke of the importance of Global Office advocates learning about national-level contexts and priorities, taking these more as starting points. As one country-based actor explained, speaking of their experience with Global Office advocates representing country-based interests in international policy processes:

International lobbyists of [the INGO] should improve their taking into account what is happening in the country when they are in international fora. Because sometimes, you have people who are talking about [country] but they are not talking about the real problems that are happening in the country. For instance, [Global Office advocate] has to participate in an international forum, where he will talk about [country], for me it will be good to contact people from the field, to have their opinion, their view and try to present that in the international forum. I don’t mean that they are not doing it, but this should be improved.Footnote 4

Another factor identified as helpful in linking is the building of equal partnership between Global Office advocates and country-based actors. A Global Office advocate told how personal relating, seeking meaningful connections, with approachability and availability, builds foundations for collaborating on an equal footing. As one Global Office advocate put it: “This work boils down very much to personal relationships, making time for it, building trust and showing that you take someone seriously and take someone's work seriously. I invested a lot in this during that first period.”Footnote 5

Addressing differences in perspectives and priorities, Global Office advocates stressed the importance of rooting linking in mutual respect and trust, seeking dialogue, being sensitive to cultural differences, and openly addressing of issues that may arise. This openness is not a given. Assumed power relations can come in here. For example, one country-based actor explained how Country Office staff sometimes do not share their thoughts about “requests” they get from Global Office advocates but may simply choose not to respond to these rather than confront the person. Relatedly, a country-based actor spoke of the need for Global Office advocates to work hard to build connections with country-based partners, from cultural sensitivity, spending time in the country and supporting people to get out of their shell rather than imposing expectations on them.

Bringing Things Together

The relating that is needed is seen as requiring collective process. Global Offices’ engagement with people at country level was sometimes experienced as ad hoc and interfering with national-level planning. Relatedly, interviews also brought out the importance of building shared understanding of what needs to be done why and shared interest in that. However, interviewees also told of their experience of building links from a top-down approach, with too limited engagement with, or involvement of, country-based actors. The leading role of Global Office advocates can put country-based actors in a passive role. As one Global Office advocate lamented, speaking of the INGO’s history of developing programmes as disempowering country-based actors:

What I have learned about [the INGO], how they used to do things: all the work was done in [the Global Office], the identification, the formulation, the implementation and basically the colleagues here had it very easy, they just follow the instructions. That was wrong, because by doing that, they did not really develop any capacity here on the ground for them to be standing on their own.Footnote 6

A broader, related problem was that international and country-based advocacies were not integrated, as he explained.

In the [programme] proposal, you can see that the idea is that we have to do international advocacy by [Global Office advocates] in the service of progress in countries. But [...] we are always structured separately. We report separately, we have separate activities. That was a mistake in the proposal. in [new programme] advocacy is at the service of the national agenda. But you have to institutionalize things, otherwise it just doesn’t happen.Footnote 7

Frequent communication was identified as a final factor regarding collective process. Another Global Office advocate stressed the importance of making connections to “bring things together”:

Constant coordination. I’m in a call again today with someone in [country], someone who normally works in New York. And me here: ‘What are we doing at EU level? What is going on at the level of the United States? What is happening in [country capital]? How can we coordinate it? How can we strengthen it? We are very good at that. Very good at bringing things together, so when we were doing things in the US, we were also doing it with women from [country].Footnote 8

This Global Office advocate’s communication was lauded by country-based staff as a greatly contributing factor facilitating effective linking with country-based counterparts. In another case, communication was much more limited. This created situations in which counterparts did not know of each other what the status was of projects or how to proceed. Language barriers could also limit communication. In such cases, a basic lack of interaction can hamper not only activity but also ownership and engagement.

Relevance of Global Office Advocates for Country-Based Actors

Interviewees articulated different forms of relevance for linking national and international advocacy. This relevance was consistently articulated from the perspective of national-level advocacy. Interviews expressed hope for external influence of international advocacy on a national issue through policy, but were more articulate in explaining how international-level advocacy could strengthen national-level advocacy. Many interviewees understood the issues they worked on in terms of transcalar governance. For the support for national-level advocacy, interviews came with relatively concrete accounts of how international linking matters, as illustrated by a country-based actor discussing the contribution of a Global Office advocate working internationally to support a policy process in his country: “[Global Office advocate] contacted the minister at [international conference] and when he came here, that facilitated contact with us. Because he had already met the minister and the general secretary.”Footnote 9

Through participation in international advocacy, some country-based actors gained knowledge and experience, which can provide a wider view on their issue and their work as advocates. In addition, country-based advocates’ participation in international advocacy, in collaboration with Global Office advocates, can raise the profile of country-based actors at country level. As a country-office staff member told, speaking of the way a Global Office advocate’s international role helped his Country Office:

So, we were bringing the local colleagues to New York while the option could have been [for the Global Office advocate to say] ‘I go alone to New York and I will do all the messaging, I will do the speaking or whatever.’ Instead, [Global Office advocate] said ‘no, this is a very unique opportunity. The time is right, we bring a team of not just [the INGO], but also our partners to New York, we work together to do the massaging, the lobbying, the advocacy…’, and then they went as far as [country-based advocate] giving a speech. And then from New York, they went to [international-level political arenas]. Now, of course, that raised the profile of [the INGO] [at country level] tremendously. […] in the last one or two years, we have become increasingly visible and not just in [topic], but more generally. People are more aware of [the INGO] and what we are here to offer to everybody.Footnote 10

The relevance in linking can also lie in national-level advocacy becoming more evidently part of a larger scale effort of the INGO globally, raising the legitimacy of its advocacy at national level, as a regional-level actor shared, for example: “We position ourselves as backed by [the INGO]. So, people know, okay, this is not just a [country] issue; it is a regional issue, is a global issue. So, it adds value.”Footnote 11

This legitimacy can also lie in providing a sense of neutrality of not being entangled in national-level politics. As a country-based actor explained, speaking of a policy process in their country that they were seeking to influence:

[National-level policy process] became very political. We had some criticism about [the INGO]’s involvement. Because people were saying [the INGO] was involved because it was supporting the president. So, well, we had to explain that we were supporting [policy agenda] and it was not because we were in favor of the president. And so, we had to sometimes step out a little and to show that [the INGO] was involved in this process not because we were supporting politically [politician], but because we were supporting more globally a process and [national-level policy development]. We had to show our neutrality.Footnote 12

At the same time, speaking of the influence of international advocacy as such, which is mostly carried out by Global Office advocates, country-based interviewees made only brief references to relevance, in general terms, and from a country-centered perspective. Interviewees argued, for example, for international advocates “supporting our work,” “presenting our results at international level,” or “building support” with regard to a national-level issue. Interviewees largely did not elaborate on the processes involved or roles for themselves or their organizations in it thus far, but did express interest in further engagement.

To conclude, country-based actors see relevance in linking international and country-level advocacy because of what it may offer regarding country-level needs: support with country-level advocacy, developing knowledge and experience of country-based actors, raising country-based actors’ profiles, making country-based advocacy part of a global effort, and providing a sheen of neutrality. Some of these contributions could be characterized as capacity strengthening, in a delimited, linear understanding of international CSOs enhancing the capacity of country-based partners with knowledge and skills. A commonly found more expansive view would regard capacity strengthening more in terms of the enhancement of the overall ability of CSOs to manage their affairs and achieve goals (Venner 2015), which would include, for example, resources, institutions, and mindsets. Capacity strengthening seen in such terms is a complex, transformative process. Most of the forms of relevance mentioned by interviewees, however, instrumentalize international collaboration, from an articulate understanding of country-based needs and how linking with international advocacy could be of use in addressing these. While collaboration may transform country-based actors through new experiences and interactions, in important ways, the international becomes an extension of the national, as already-understood. So what does this imply for Global Office advocates’ roles?

Country-Based Actors’ Perspectives on Global Office Advocates’ Roles

Country-based actors gave importance to Global Office advocates and largely did so in terms of joint action, facilitation, and support. In this context, they commonly assigned roles that addressed country-level needs and realities, drawing Global Office advocates into country-level processes rather than the other way around. This is important, since Global Office advocates have been known often to build processes linking up with country-based actors as the initiating party, seeing opportunities for international-level advocacy in which country-based actors could play a role—making linking often start with requests for collaboration coming from Global Office advocates.

Country-based interviewees stressed the importance of Global Office advocates’ capacitating roles. Some interviewees mentioned training, but more prominent roles were given to learning in undertaking joint action, learning by doing together, through accompanying, coaching, and advising country-based staff. As a country-based actor stressed, underlining several relevant roles they see for Global Office advocates:

In [the upcoming programme], the focus is more on capacity development, but we need experts to be involved in the international lobby, because in [this programme] we have different levels of lobby and this include the international one. And in the international lobby we need them to be part of the lobbying sessions, we need them to help us with the networking, they need to help us with the lobby messages.Footnote 13

Drawing on their specific expertise, Global Office advocates also have a role as translators, adapting messages from country-based actors to help make sure they are effective in influencing international audiences. Also important is the convening power of Global Office advocates. Their networks were highly appreciated by country-based actors, who deemed these needed for linking internationally and with international actors working in the country. Global Office advocates can open doors, as another country-based actor explained:

For me, a strong point I have seen [with Global Office advocates] is the facility to make connections between national colleagues and international stakeholders. Every time we needed to meet someone for instance from Geneva, from Brussels, they facilitated easily, and we can talk with people in [cities where multilateral institutions are located].Footnote 14

The emphasis on facilitation of country-based actors also came in regarding development of objectives and strategy. Global Office advocates can help with analysis. Country-based actors saw such roles in terms of supportive, rather than leading roles for expertise. An issue that can emerge here is that disagreements and perspectives not coming together. Several interviewees mentioned the need for autonomy at country level, more equality, or the need for country-based actors taking a more leading role, emphasizing their own expertise. As illustrated by a country-based actor’s explanation:

They should not take the lead, and we will not accept it. But what they should do is to come up with ideas, they should give advice, they should come up with suggestions…we accept those suggestions if they make sense. Maybe we do some tweaking here and there, because [country] context might be different from another context. But we should not have a [Global Office advocate] in [Global Office city] deciding what should be done.Footnote 15

Still, while there can be sensitivities involved, linking international and national by Global Office advocates may lead to their close involvement in national-level advocacy. As a Global Office advocate told, explaining how international and national-level work can be interwoven in their work:

If I’m going to talk to the [multilateral organization] and the [multilateral organization] and the embassy of the Netherlands in [country capital], is that international or national advocacy? That is a very good question. But those are very important target groups for us. So actually the [multilateral organizations] and embassy in [country capital] are much more important to us than all those players in Brussels and New York and The Hague. New York has to know, we have to talk to them, and they have to support us, but most of the gains can still be made in [countries]. I came to the [international event] every year and that was fantastic, because then I was able to reach the top of the ministry of [country].... That was my job, I just spoke to the ministers myself, on the spot. I could tell what we were doing. I meet them all in one week. You had to lay the foundation there [at international level] then you spoke to the minister of [country]. You would have lunch with him and chat with his advisers and they would get enthusiastic. Then you had to follow up and cash in on that in the country, otherwise it wouldn’t work.Footnote 16

The close involvement of Global Office advocates in national-level advocacy was appreciated by country-based interviewees, but at least some would rather see this happen with country-based actors in leading roles, and Global Office advocates more in accompanying, advising, and facilitating roles, at least at the national level, or at most through a joint effort. As a staff member of a Country Office said, speaking of the contribution a Global Office advocate can make in their country:

The embassies, the international organizations. The people at these organizations have quite a bit to say about how the resources are going to be utilized, where are the priorities, and, of course, it is important that we do lobby and advocacy engagement with them. If for instance [a Global Office advocate] is visiting us, it will help us then to bring that person to the embassies [...], who can make decisions and help them to change their minds. So, that is the actual lobby and advocacy, but with the internationals. Not active lobby and advocacy with the nationals. That is where the person needs to capacitate our staff, capacitate staff of our local partners as organizations, how to be effective lobbyists and how to advocate effectively.Footnote 17

A prime reason for this accompaniment is the enhanced credibility in the eyes of advocacy targets that interviewees assumed to come with the Global Office advocate’s association with the national-level effort, in particular bringing in thematic expertise. The same Country Office staff member explained how this enhancement of credibility can help his office gain contracts:

We have to be smarter in bringing those Global Office advocates closer to where the action is. Now, having a [Global Office advocate] on our team, even if that person is not 100% working for [country], it is really helping us. In the sense that we are considered to be a stronger organization, a high-quality organization. It opens doors for us, to donors, to partners, to clients. Like OK, you guys really know what you are doing, maybe you can do more, maybe we can give you some resources, maybe we can give you more projects or programmes to work on.Footnote 18

A staff member of a regional partner elaborated on a second “instrumental” usage: association with international advocates offers a form of protection in contexts where civic space is constricted:

It provides protection for those who are speaking and we’re trying to provide the voices. In this work that we do governments sometimes are not happy when you speak the truth. Civil society speaks the truth. And civil society has the information. So, if the [people] we are working with are saying, people are being killed in [country] and they have the statistics because they have listened to the voices of people. And you go somewhere in a meeting, and you present and say, the government is killing. You can be attacked then [...] But if [the INGO] talks about it, there's nothing anybody is going to do. [the INGO] is not based in Africa. [Global Office advocate] does not work there. And they don't know where [Global Office advocate] is getting [the] information. That'd be a kind of protection. [The INGO] works in so many countries. Nobody knows where they get their information. It also makes a difference because an international organization is an international organization. If an international organization take interest in an issue, it means it wants to pay attention to it. And it’s also because [the INGO] is an old organization, it’s more than 100 years. So, they also have credibility, they will be listened to. So, working with them kind of authenticates this other work.Footnote 19

The expertise of Global Office advocates is highly valued by interviewees at country level. Based on this expertise, they can analyze how developments and possibilities at different levels are linked and share strategic information based on this analysis with country-based actors. A country-based actor praised the strategic value of information a Global Office advocate for their country-based organization’s work:

For me, the added value was [Global Office advocate] was sharing the strategic information on time and we were acting upon that, and it was immediate, so this was the added value. That [Global Office advocate] was always [...] giving input for our activities. Information that is not available at country level, for example, at [policy process], what will be the position of [country’]? What are the ministries thinking? And what is [multilateral institution]’s position? And when we should step up our lobby and when we should share informal and formal lobby documents with other relevant stakeholders? This was the strategic information that [Global Office advocate] was sharing with us.Footnote 20

Some country-based actors saw a role for collaboration with Global Office advocates in broadening their perspective, from an awareness of multilevel dimensions of the issue involved and advocacy on it:

An added value [of a Global Office advocate] was that, first, I’m not the [thematic expertise] person, so someone with a background in [theme] is very useful. And also, because [Global Office advocate] has a wider perspective on [trajectory] processes because [Global Office advocate] followed the other processes in other countries and therefore was able to give some perspective of what was going on in other countries. So that’s why it was helpful.Footnote 21

While country-based interviewees emphasized facilitating and supporting roles for Global Office advocates, some also spoke of joint advocacy and international advocacy by Global Office advocates themselves, stressing the legitimacy and importance of this work. As discussed earlier on, references to such roles in international advocacy as such were not elaborated much as compared to the facilitating and supporting roles. This limited elaboration may reflect the limits in collective strategizing and involvement discussed above.

Conclusion: Collaboration on New Terms

For interviewees from the Global South, quality of process is of key importance in linking international and national advocacy while starting out from the aim of local ownership. A good process builds shared understandings and agendas, from a foundation of mutual respect and engagement, while starting out from country-based actors’ priorities and perspectives. This creates direction in the form of shared understandings and agendas as well as the relational infrastructure for collaboration that “starts from the South” (see van Wessel et al. 2023) while still according high importance and multiple roles to Global Office advocates. For the interviewees from the Global South, the relevance of relating depends on the potential contribution to effective national-level advocacy, and they spoke with confidence about various possibilities they identified here. For the most part, these roles were understood in terms of capacitation, facilitation, and support. Joint advocacy was brought up, but was hardly elaborated. And, in line with domestic focus and limited opportunities of involvement with advocacy in international arenas, there appeared to be overall limited engagement with the fundamental question how international advocacy, coupled with national-level advocacy, could help to bring about desired changes. “Local ownership,” largely instrumentalizing Global Office advocates from domestic perspectives, does not seem to offer the whole answer on how to restructure transcalar advocacy collaborations. However, the same country-based actors’ perspectives provide room to develop this relevance further, as country-based interviewees commonly spoke of hopes and ambitions for more involvement of Global Office advocates in their work and more roles at international level for themselves, in collaboration with Global Office advocates. These interviewees also appreciated Global Office advocates’ contributions to broadening the perspectives of country-based actors, helping them explore how transcalar advocacy can be relevant and how it can be done—implicitly illustrating this need and the potential for more transcalar advocacy collaboration to happen.

With this focus on transcalar advocacy from the perspective of local ownership, this article innovates upon existing literature on transnational and transcalar advocacy networks, which tends to revolve around the coming together of organizations on values, strategies, and goals, in networks. Power relations, differences in understandings, and diversity in relations and approaches increasingly come in, but in research, the collaboration studied maintains the aim to work towards shared objectives. Also, the campaign remains the unit of analysis. This paper opens up the domain of research of transcalar advocacy in contractual relations. In this case of such collaboration, we see that shared aims, solidarity, and fruitful collaborations do come about, and they can emerge in the process of collaboration, but not necessarily. While in networks, collaborations can dissipate when an agreement cannot be reached, in the case of contractual collaborations like these, they may flounder rather than end, leading to waste of funds, energy, and opportunities. Arguably, shared aims do need to be built. As discussed in the “Introduction” section, in the field of development, there is increasing space for the idea that this will have to happen while taking heed of Southern CSOs’ agency, and this article seeks to offer starting points for that in transcalar advocacy programming. And as seen in other recent studies of transcalar advocacy, staff of Southern CSOs in this study commonly place themselves in the role of significant, knowledgeable actors in their own context who are able to take up leading roles and build collaborations from that perspective. However, and this is something not shown elsewhere yet, in this study, we also see that the expertise of international advocates can be highly sought after, appreciated for various forms of added value, complementary to Southern actors’ own expertise, and important for strengthening their own roles at national as well as international level.

This study thus underlines the importance of the transcalar approach advanced by Pallas and Bloodgood (2022). At the same time, it shows the importance of being more sensitive to the realities of contractual relations, involvement of CSOs with aims to develop themselves in transcalar advocacy, and differences in access to resources and political arenas. For example, Pallas and Bloodgood claim that in current transcalar advocacy networks, strategy development precedes partner selection, given the autonomy and capability of organizations to choose their collaborations. What we see in this case of study is a continued dependence on a well-resourced and linked INGO for building advocacy strategy and capacity. This may partly be explained by the fact that the programme involved fragile settings and many organizations struggling for survival and building up their roles rather than comfortably choosing strategy and subsequently, partners, as they see fit. This draws attention to the variety of contracted CSOs’ aims and roles in programmes, with some being in a much stronger position to claim leadership than others.

The findings of this study also point to a need to move away from the campaign as the self-evident unit of analysis in the study of transcalar advocacy. Taking, without questioning, “winning” issues and CSOs that made it into campaigns as all that matters, it easily reproduces power relations through which issues, solutions, and roles gain prominence, and blinds us to aims and needs of country-based organizations that seek to build their roles and work on issues from country-based perspectives. What is needed is openness to (also) studying how advocacy that is rooted in a specific context can become transcalar and what is needed to make that happen.

How to translate the findings of this study into a fitting approach to build transcalar advocacy from the standpoint of local ownership (i.e., increasing control of country-based actors)? This study was a first exploration into the reshaping of CSO collaborations in transcalar advocacy through contractual relations. It involved only one INGO and its partners in three fragile settings and was thematically limited. The generalizability of the findings is not clear. However, while some progressive INGOs may be actively addressing power relations, changes specifically addressing transcalar advocacy have thus far not been published. I want to conclude here with presenting five potential new starting points for transcalar advocacy collaboration in contractual relations involving INGOs and their Southern partners, for further experimentation and research.

A first starting point for relating between international and national advocacy that emerges from the data is that integration of international and national level work is the way forward. Advocacy strategies can be built from a shared understanding of whether and how the changes to be achieved demand advocacy at different levels and what advocacy to go for where, how, and by whom, foregrounding a transcalar approach that allows for emergence rather than “given” roles for advocates working at different levels, as we see in much advocacy programming in the development sector thus far.

A second starting point is a country-up approach: it is from engagement at national level and upwards that integration and local ownership can go together. This integration from the standpoint of local ownership would involve developing agendas and strategies from the country-up, while also involving international advocates who can broaden perspectives and expand expertise, skills, and relations of national actors through their collaboration. It would also mean a collective process of growing together, with communication and development of personal relations that can facilitate the development of collaborations. This is a far step from conventional understandings of transnational advocacy in terms of actors at different levels coming together from clear understandings of the potential role and relevance of advocacy at international levels and how these can serve the national. The country-up approach here gives space to discovery, learning together, and facilitation and support to help such a process.

A third starting point is diversification of the roles for advocates working with INGOs, rather than their marginalization. These advocates can have enabling as well as implementing roles, in joint, collectively developed trajectories. Given the ambition to work from country-level agendas, the collective exploration needed to develop agendas and strategies requires intense capitalization on Global Office advocates’ networks and a possible need for them to also develop that network further into new directions to meet national-level needs with international-level opportunities.

A fourth starting point is INGOs’ deeper engagement with specific countries. Building transnational advocacy country-up demands thorough understanding of the contextually shaped nature of issues and solutions and the agendas and ways of working of CSOs in countries. At the same time, the prerogative of international advocates (or the INGO as such) to have a leading role shaping international advocacy is problematized, as it preempts the possibility of shaping international advocacy from country-based perspectives.

A fifth starting point, implied by the above analysis, is that there is no “given” role for international advocacy in relation to national advocacy. International and country-based advocates together build roles for advocacy at different levels, and these roles will thus gain legitimacy and clear relevance for all involved through that collective exploration, learning, development of collective understandings, and agreement.