Evaluation of Green Movement of Sri Lanka

Background

GMSL today appears to be partly a network of members, and partly a movement of like-minded individuals who have shared a common political background, or who are inspired by the current vision of GMSL. It is not led by its structure, but by a larger vision, and organizes in ways that make best use of those who are prepared to work in favor of environmental issues. It draws its strength and identity through a series of interconnecting political, development and religious networks, developed since the 1980s.

GMSL clearly has a political agenda and seeks to effect social change. It has developed some solid basic principles. It is committed to sustainable development for all, and in particular takes its agenda from "development refugees". It takes its work as a 'watchdog' very seriously, and believes campaigns against bad development decisions can be won, a belief which brings results.

Purpose/objective

The evaluation aimed to assess the impacts of past activities covering the period 1998-2002 and to give useful guidance for future strengthening of GMSL's work and organization growth.
Specific areas examined:
-Policy advocacy work, and to what extent GMSL has managed to achieve the general intentions and objectives in its policy advocacy work in environment and consumer education, promotion of sustainable development, and its role as watchdog.
-Institutional strengths and weaknesses

Methodology

Institutional strengths and weaknesses
The team used a framework for guiding their thinking and approach to looking at the institutional performance of the GMSL. While this was designed to evaluate international social change networks, the framework permits them to also assess a network that works primarily at a national level.

Policy and Advocacy
In order to look holistically at the way in which GMSL does its policy and advocacy work, the evaluators decided to think about it as four interlinked strategies: lobbying and advocacy, campaigns and protests, networking and building alliances, and education and awareness-raising. The GMSL uses all four ways of working to further their aims, and many of its activities contribute to more than one. The interlinked nature of the work means that it makes most sense not to waste time attempting to decide which activity contributes to which strategy, but to imagine a pool of activities that can be undertaken.

Key findings

- GMSL's structure reflects its hybrid nature, as both a movement and a network. While it has some democratic organizing principles, it relies heavily on the Chief Organizer (CO) and staff to guide it, and to recommend strategies and activities.
- Participation levels by members in the work of GMSL indicate GMSL is a dynamic and creative network. Activity is generated by interest of members, and fluctuates depending on the issues.
- The over-riding impression is that the CO is the key to GMSL. He clearly leads the movement and is the person most look to for direction, knowledge, analysis and strategy. As such he holds power, and is very aware of it, and seeks to make sure that he is accountable to those who he feels the GMSL has a moral responsibility to advocate for.
- Policy modifications have been achieved and awareness raised on aspects of government policy that will affect national assets, such as the Water Policy, and Forestry Sector Management. Protests and campaigns started or supported by GMSL have been effective in stalling the progress of some large infrastructure projects, on the grounds of unsustainability or negative social or environmental impact. Public agencies readily acknowledge that organizations such as GMSL are essential as 'watch-dogs' on the environment, to draw attention to the environmental consequences of policies and programmes.
- The main criticism made by multi-lateral agencies and the state of GMSL, and NGOs in general, is that they do not produce alternatives. They criticize the oppositional stand of NGOs, but maintain that they are keen to work 'in partnership' with NGOs. However, the rhetoric of partnership and consultation is poorly translated into practice, and may well be impossible given the conflicting paradigms of development that separate them.
- It appears that GMSL makes the best use it can of its limited resources in regards to awareness-raising and education.

Recommendations

- Political purpose and strategies: The office staff and the Executive Committee are sufficiently aware of the need to develop a membership more in line with the principles of the 'networked movement'. GMSL needs some kind of community development strategy.
- Structure: The curious gap in membership, where the active local people in CBOs are not 'members', is one that may need addressing, if people feel that they want a greater stake in the decision-making of the GMSL.
- Participation: More resources need to be dedicated to improving communication and information exchange across the network. District level information and feedback is limited, and maybe a newsletter could help. Better links might need to be developed between districts near to one another, and encourage them to use each other as resource persons, work together on activities, and discuss and share in successes.
- Leadership: The GMSL needs a strategy to minimize the 'Knowledge gap' between the CO and the GMSL staff and members.
- Policy work: GMSL could usefully think about how it can dovetail more policy-proposal work into its lobbying and advocacy strategy.
- Campaigns and Protests: As a way of increasing their learning in this area, the GMSL might need to think through more carefully its criteria about local leadership capacity, the relationship between local impact and policy level work, and follow-up.
- Awareness-raising and education: More attention could be paid to developing practical demonstration projects, and experimentation, through programmes that bring new knowledge and experience to members.
- Networking: One of the main challenges is knowing how to make best use of national and international opportunities, and yet not get caught up in spending too much time attending others' meetings as a resource person.

Comments from the organisation

Any evaluation is produced within a very limited framework with regards to the composition of the evaluation team, its time available, its access to information and how it analyses the information received. Furthermore, any social reality can be analyzed and presented in many different ways, among which an evaluation represents only one. Hence while this evaluation report may be useful as a tool for general learning, it has limited value as a source of information about the particular projects and partners in question. We urge any reader to consult the partners involved or Development Fund before applying this information in a way that may affect the partners and the project.