Business Advocacy Fund, Kenya (2006-2020)

The Business Advocacy Fund was an initiative funded by DANIDA to support business member organisations (BMOs) to engage in private public dialogue and advocate an improved business environment in Kenya. As fund manager, we (a partnership of IGA and Coffey International (now Tetra Tech) Development were responsible for every aspect of marketing the fund, assisting BMOs to prepare compelling policy proposals, taking recommendations to the board, providing capacity building support and offering implementation assistance. We commenced work on Phase 1 (described as BAF1) in September 2006 and the Fund was formally launched in November 2006. BAF1 ended at the end of 2010 and BAF2 was launched towards the end of 2011. In turn, this lasted until mid-2016. BAF3 was launched to coincide with the end of BAF2 and continued until mid-2020.

Successes

During its 15 years, BAF

awarded 295 advocacy grants totalling more than $7m to 90 BMOs to finance advocacy activities resulting in the publication of 187 research reports and 304 policy position papers, more than 2,500 dialogues and consultations with government, the raising of more than 1,000 issues with government and 426 reforms of public policy;
trained more than 3,500 participants from 580 BMOs in advocacy skills and techniques;
piloted a range of approaches to support business membership organisations including offering sustainability support, recruiting dedicated research and policy advisers, offering dedicated communications and public relations support to business membership organisations, and set up an issues, information and guidance portal; and
encouraged journalists to write more deeply and more knowledgeably about the business enabling environment.

What people say about BAF and my involvement

A key pillar for economic transformation agenda for the government is improving business environment in Kenya. BAF has been a strong partner in advancing this agenda through support to BMOs in virtually all sectors advocating policy, legal and regulatory reforms. It has greatly contributed to improving our ranking in [the World Bank’s] Doing Business from 101 in 2008 to 61 in 2019.

Dr Geoffery Mwau, Director General, Accounting Services & Quality Assurance, National Treasury

We really had a great time at BAF and its really sad to see it come to an end and the team scatter. Although I was scared sometimes, knowing that you were there to support me gave me real confidence. I learnt so much from you.

Kariuki Waweru, Fund Manager 2019-2020, 28 November 2020

Michael Arum, SUCAM, on the gazetting of the Crops (Sugar)(General)Regulations 2020, June 2020

on behalf of SUCAM team and sugarcane farmers in general, I wish to sincerely thank you in particular and entire BAF family for the support you provided

One of the innovations in BAF3 was the introduction of Research & Policy Advisers. The RPAs worked closely with BMOs supporting them to undertake research and develop coherent and well argued policy positions. This made a considerable difference to the quality of the documents prepared by BMOs.

I would like to take this opportunity to simply thank you for giving me the opportunity to learn and grow under your guidance. For the past two years have helped shaped my career and professional life and showed me how to transform my mistakes into skills. I am forever grateful for the support and hope to work with you in the near future.

Faith Mariera, Research & Policy Adviser, 2017-2019, 29 November 2019

Thank you for your great support always. You have been a great mentor and I look forward learning more from you. You are that person who has made working at BAF very enjoyable… We have made fun of difficult situations and this made everything a lot more enjoyable. Thank you for your patience and for holding my hand through the journey… I am confident I will do something meaningful out there and make a difference.

Mercy Kyande, Research & Policy Adviser, 2017-2019, 29 November 2019

More information, including impact assessments, cost benefit analyses and annual reports is available at the Business Advocacy Network website

Papers covering aspects of learning from BAF's work are available at Publications & papers

ILO evaluation of support for Employers' Organisations (2016)

For the period 2014-2015, ACT/EMP received additional financial support from the Governments of Norway and Sweden to support some of their global products and to provide specific support to employers' organisations in Zambia, Botswana, Malawi, Swaziland, Vanuatu, Honduras, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Lao PDR. Sadly I did not get to visit all of them, but I was asked to undertake the evaluation of ACT/EMPs support - which broadly had made a huge difference to the supported organisations. The summary is available from the ILO (click on the back of the image).

It is with great pleasure that I inform you that the Final Evaluation Report - "Independent evaluation of Norway & Sweden funded programmes for Outcome 9: Employers have strong, independent & representative organisations" has been approved by the ILO. I am also happy to inform you that our ILO EVAL Unit indicated that they found the Report exceptionally well done. So, congratulations for a job well done.

Andres Yuren, Especialista Principal en Actividades con Empleadores (ACT/EMP)

BEST Advocacy Component, Tanzania (2006-2018)

Business Environment Strengthening for Tanzania was a major programme to promote regulatory and other reform within Government. The Advocacy Component, managed outside of government, existed to support private sector organisations (PSOs) to engage in private public dialogue and to advocate an improved business environment in Tanzania. To refelct more closely the emphasis on dialogue and its desire to promote a collaborate approach, rather than advocacy which is often seen to be more adversarial, in about 2016, BEST-AC renamed itself BEST-Dialogue. BEST-AC was created in 2005 with support from four donors (Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden and UK). It coninued until the end of 2019.

IGA undertook many assignments for BEST-AC including:

providing technical assistance to the University of Dar Entrepreneurship Centre (UDEC), who were providing most of BEST-AC's traiining for PSOs, to support them in their aspiration to become a centre of excellence for private sector advocacy (2007);
preparing the redesign for phase II following recommendations in the 2007 evaluation that BEST-AC should be extended for a further five years;
providing advice & support as required including, inter alia, assisting with survey instruments to assess member and target audience views of private sector organisations and assisting with annual Business Leader Perception surveys

Successess

In November, 2007, it was announced that Dr Donath Olomi, Director of the University of Dar Entrepreneurship Centre, had been selected as the Tanzania country prize winner of the 1st Pan-African Prize for Entrepreneurial Teachers.

More information

There is more information, especially about impact, available at Business Advocacy Network.

BEST-Dialogue helpfully created an archive which is available online and contains a wealth of information about its activities, performance and impact.

Fundo para Ambiente de Negocios, Mozambique (2011-2016)

This programme, originally described by DANIDA as the Advocacy & Business Research programme but which instead called itself Fundo para Ambiente de Negocios (FAN) was intended to support research insitutions (RI) and business member organisations (BMO) to undertake effective research and to engage in private public dialogue in order to advocate an improved business environment in Mozambique.

Working in a consortium of IGA with Coffey International (now Tetra Tech) Development and Process Consultoria through a director, Orlando Conceicao, we were responsible for every aspect of marketing the fund, assisting RIs and BMOs to prepare compelling proposals, taking recommendations to the board, providing capacity building support etc.

FAN today

FAN has changed its name to Fundação para a Melhoria do Ambiente de Negócios (Foundation for the improvemenent of the business environment) with a mission to build the capacity of private sector organisations to improve services to their members, to engage more effectively in public private dialogue and to facilitate national and international partnerships to deleiver added value to both public and private sectors.

ILO Symposium on Future of Employer and Business Organizations: Adaptations and Transformations (2015)

For decades, employers’ and business membership organizations (EBMOs) played a significant role in representing labour and product market interests of business. Today [ie, 2015] profound economic, political, social and technological changes are challenging traditional EBMOs functions and organisational design as a bargaining agent. Increasing membership diversification, newly-emerging policy fields and new policy actors, new ways of doing business and managing production and employment relationships, new pressures and opportunities of transparency age, among others, are compelling EBMOs to adapt and transform their roles and organisational models to meet new expectations of members. The debate on their future as a social partner, key labour market institution and governance actor is also an important element of the ILO’s Future of Work centenary conversation. Despite these significant changes, EBMOs remain largely neglected in academic research, leaving major gaps in knowledge on business interest organisation and representation, especially in Asia and Africa. To fill this gap and to share research generated on the subject, the Bureau for Employers’ Activities (ACTEMP) of the International Labour Office in collaboration with the Department of Politics and Public Administration of University of Konstanz and the International Training Centre of the ILO organised a symposium to bring together leading researchers and practitioners to explore and present recent data and analysis including regional perspectives. I was invited to participate and to make a presentation on business associations ans public policy in East Africa.

International trade and regulatory reform, Zimbabwe (2014-2015)

IGA has undertaken several assignments in Zimbabwe for the International Trade Centre including working with the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce, the Business Council of Zimbabwe, the Women's Alliance of Business Associations in Zimbabwe and cross-border traders. Support typically embraced training and mentoring in support of the preparation of policy position statements but also included research to understand better the cosntraints facing international traders.

I write to express gratitude on behalf of WABAZ ... in particular the advocacy training workshop. It equipped us with advocacy skills and helped us identify the main barriers to women's success in business. The top one identified at the workshop was access to finance. Thus equipped, WABAZ commissioned research on the topic, reaching 180 WABAZ business women across the country... Armed with the results, we convened a multi stake holder Call To Action, and we are grateful for your support ...

Irene Mukarakate, Chairperson, Women's Alliance of Business Associations in Zimbabwe (WABAZ)

The advocacy was one good training which WABAZ has propelled to reach bigger numbers

Sithabile Mangwengwende, PROWEB Executive Director

African Business Advocacy Network, Conference (2012)

By 2012, there were several projects operating across Africa intended to support business and trade associations engage in dialogue with government and advocate reforms that might lead to improvements in the business enabling environment. Programmes has been launched in Ghana (initially with DANIDA funding and then with additional funding frm DFID and USAID), in Tanzania (with funding frm DANIDA, DFID, SIDA and the Netherlands), in Kenya (funded by DANIDA), in Nigeria (funded by DFID) and in Mozambique (funded by DANIDA). DANIDA agreed to fund the first (and only) conference of these advocacy funds - as a first step in engaging in benchmarking, to share lessons, to identify areas where there may be scope for collaboration and to hear from visiting speakers. The conference was organised by IGA in partnership with Annabel Jackson

Support for West Africa Regional Integration Project (2010-2011)

The Support for West Africa Regional Integration Project (SWARIP) was a DFID (now FCDO) initiative to promote and support regional integration in West Africa. It worked alongside and complemented other donor initiatives also intended to support regional integration

I was asked to make suggestions for ways in which business organisations and others could become more involved in the process of regional integration, through more effective dialogue and advocacy with ECOWAS as well as through better co-operation of associations across national borders. This assignment was undertaken in partnership with Saana

TMEA: designing component of their business plan (2010)

TradeMark Africa, formerly TradeMark East Africa (TMEA) (and, before that, Regional Integration in East Africa: REAP) is a multi-donor project, originally initiated by DFID (now FCDO), to promote and support regional integration in East Africa. TMEA was planning to work across five key areas, including transport and trade facilitation. My role was to design one of the components - intended to encourage private sector organisations and civil society organisations to become more engaged in the process of regional integration and to take a stronger role in dialgue and advocacy. Following the design of the component, I provided early stage support to support a handful of business membership organisations with grtants so that they could prepare policy positions and engage with government.

Investment climate reform in China (2004-2008)

This project, which ran until 2008, was a major project with China's National Development & Reform Commssion (a super-Ministry) and the cities of Chengdu, Lanzhou and Shenzhen. There were twin objectives of developing the cities' skills to support new and growing businesses and to improve the enabling environment.

My role was to lead on the regulatory reform component, which included preparing a city 'Cost of Doing Business' scorecard, undertaking interviews and focus groups discussions with small businesses to identify barriers to growth and regulatory constraints, advising on the preparation of guidance notes for regulatory compliance, advising on the preparation of regulatory impact assessments.

In addition, I played a supporting role on the SME support component, including the preparation of a process consultancy training programme for consultants and the preparation of a diagnostic tool to assist the consultants pinpoint the priority areas for support.

This project was managed by Coffey International (now Tera Tech) Development and funded by the Department for International Development (now FCDO)

Business Sector Advocacy Challenge (BUSAC) Fund, Ghana (2004-2005)

One of the outcomes of my review of the work of the Private Enterprise Foundation was a proposal that DFID (now FCDO) might consider providing support, perhaps on a challenge basis, to business membership organisations to strengthen their capacity to undertake effective advocacy. DFID agreed that this was worth exploring so I was commissioned to undertake a design study. Instead of setting up a new project, I persuaded DFID to support BUSAC (a challenge fund with almost identical objectives which had been launched with DANIDA funding just a week before I started my study) and partially redesigned the programme to meet DFID’s objectives. I returned later in the year to negotiate the final programme and again in early 2005 to finalise the MoU.

The Kenya Chamber of Mines: a case study in public sector advocacy

Irwin, D & Waweru, K (2017), The Kenya Chamber of Mines: a case study in public sector advocacy, in The SAGE Handbook of International Corporate & Public Affairs, Eds: Phil Harris and Craig S. Fleisher Sage: London

This book chapter recounts the story of how the Kenya Chamber of Mines was able to persuade Parliament and government to accept more than 80 per cent of the proposals that they made to amend the draft text of the Mining Bill of 2014 as it wound its way through the parliamentary process to become the Mining Act of 2016. KCM was strategic in its approach; sat listening to parliamentary debates to seek insights; offered support to the parliamentary committee considering the bill; and was single-minded throughout the period from the bill being published to beconing law.

The influence of business associations on legislation: the case of Kenya

Irwin, D & Githinji, M (2017), The influence of business associations on legislation: the case of Kenya, Journal of Public Affairs, DOI 10.1002/pa.1636

Interest groups seek to influence public policy. Business associations specifically seek to influence policy related to the environment in which their members operate, with the intention of making it easier for the members, and the wider private sector, to "do business". Scholars question whether interest groups are influential and, if so, the degree to which their activity influences public policy. Even if they do influence public policy at the margins, it is questionable how effective they are in influencing legislation. As a result, there is little exploration of the factors that may determine whether business membership organizations (BMOs) are likely to be successful. This paper explores the efforts of two BMOs in Kenya to influence legislation: In one case, the BMO persuaded the government to introduce legislation to regulate an activity that had previously not been subject to legislation; in the other, a BMO sought to persuade the government to amend its own proposals to replace existing legislation with new legislation. In both cases, we find evidence that the BMO was successful, though one BMO was significantly more successful than the other. We review the factors perceived by the BMOs to have led to their success. Neither was in a position to rely on economic or other power to strong-arm the government. Both followed a predominantly insider strategy though with occasional media back-up. Both were successful on the more technical issues. Key factors include the use of a champion, engaging across government, supplying information, and providing evidence and good argumentation.