April 2012 GMS Meeting Communique

The GMS Meeting is an important element of our annual Business Heartbeat. The Executive Leadership Team and Directors from all Divisions are convened twice yearly in order to engage in establishing and understanding organizational strategy and vision, deliberate how vision and strategy translate into concrete operational plans and budgets, and to engage in systematic reflection on our progress towards achieving impact in our programming . Each GMS meeting will also ensure time to discuss and deliberate the changing context in which we operate.

GMS April 2012

Global Management Strategy Meeting

Bridget Snell & Jacob Kasell

The April 2012 GMS meeting took place at Oxfam America headquarters on 25 – 26 April, 2012 and provided an opportunity for the senior leadership team, including regional leadership, to come together over the course of a day and a half to deliberate both operational and strategic issues of the agency. The first GMS session kicked off Oxfam America’s 2013 fiscal year, with Adrian DeDomenico presenting the Boardapproved budget, as well as cross-divisional planning and budgeting commitments. The remaining time was devoted to the Oxfam America Strategic Planning process, with participants engaging directly with OA’s President, Ray Offenheiser, at this critical point in determining what the strategic goals we should be committing ourselves to up to 2019.

Overall theme: Help poor rural communities gain more secure access to food, land, water, and energy resources in the face of climate change and other pressures on their natural environment.

4 program areas: Agriculture and trade; Climate change; Humanitarian response and Extractive industries 2 special initiatives: Aid effectiveness: US aid reform and Gender equality: internal goal Internal Change goals: Commitment to make strategic plan for constituency-building and branding and rounding the skills of program officers and more flexible campaigners.

The planning and budgeting processes are complete for all divisions, offices and units. At this GMS, the senior leadership team reviewed the commitments and deliverables to be achieved in the coming year and prepared to fulfill operational commitments.

Revenues

Didier Jacobs and Jim Daniell set up the session by reviewing the last OASP (2008 – 2012) and the subsequent operational plans documented in the Beachhead process. They produced a powerful summary of accomplishments made related to our last strategic plans.

Expenses: $72m – right on target $52m in 2012 (actual: $39m – largely flat) $13m restricted (actual: $30m vs. $21m) Test Trailwalker, Direct TV, cause marketing, canvassing

Adrian DeDomenico, Director of Business Planning and Analysis, reviewed the organizational budget that has been approved by the OA Board of Directors, and went into particular detail on Inter-Divisional Crosswalks, what budgetary commitments were made, and what will be happening with any unfunded budget areas.

Operations Online training (Oxfam University); Volunteer program, Intranet (Padare) and Systems upgrades in Finance, HR, IT (BI Project/Oracle)

Adrian DeDomenico’s presentation to the GMS can be found on Padare.

Things Happen: Financial crisis (impact on revenues + program opportunity); Food price crisis; Haiti earthquake; Obama election; Arab Spring

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Request to Mike Delaney (HRD) to document and share with the GMS participants what is necessary to achieve a 3.5 ranking for OI Humanitarian Response.

Clarification: unbudgeted FY’13 items are either cut or parked.

April 2012 is approximately mid-way through the OA Strategic Planning period, and a critical point for senior leadership, especially senior regional leadership, to engage directly in the process. During the last GMS retreat in October 2011, Ray Offenheiser presented his Vision Paper to the GMS participants for feedback and commentary. Since then, the Executive Office (Didier Jacobs, advising) with the support of the Consensus Building Institute (David Fairman, Lead Consult-

 Cut items will not receive funding in FY ’13.

They are dropped from plans.  Parked items will only receive funding contingent upon unspent funds from other units/areas or receipt of restricted funding in the coming fiscal year Action to be taken: GMS Managers must communicate to staff what has been cut; cut items will not be worked on; parked items may be worked on if funding becomes available.

The participants had a number of requests for next steps in the budgeting process that are meant to clarify various processes and to guide future decisions.

Request to Adrian DeDomenico and Mark Krupp in Finance to update the financial trend analyses done in previous years to clarify shifts in budget and expenditures.

ant) have conducted a global staff consultation on the Vision Paper, which will guide Oxfam America’s strategic direction over the next five years.

Note: The GMS participants are interested in continuing to monitor shifts in the investment balance between longterm programs and campaigns, regional vs. HQ, Boston vs.

DC, executive as a percentage of operations, etc.

In addition, an OASP Steering Committee has worked over the past few months to draft eight priority goal areas for consideration by the President.

Request by Stephanie Kurzina (RD) to Muthoni Muriu (RPD) and Maliha Khan (LEAD) to document for the ELT/GMS the 6 programs that have met 3-year benchmarks (per the Beachhead Goal)

The session began with a review of the OASP planning process, and an acknowledgement that this process has been the most inclusive and consultative of all the previous strategic planning efforts. Ray also referenced the importance of such strategic planning processes as being pivotal in moving the organization forward and focusing us on concrete achievements such as building a campaign operation, and the launching of PSD and LEAD. He expected no less from this plan.

Request by Ray Offenheiser to Jim Daniell (COO) to address the process by which we can manage appropriate limits of governance in making agency commitments to OI on underfunded mandates.

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At the April 2012 GMS, participants were given a hot-off-thepress memorandum from Ray outlining a refined vision for OA’s strategic direction up to 2019. Within the memo, Ray reiterates Oxfam America’s commitment to a rights-based approach along with recommending a focus on three strategic goals for the FY 2013-2019 period:   

Cross-divisional/functional groups were asked to discuss the following questions:  What is the essence of Ray’s comments in the first 4 pages?  What is the proposition behind each priority goal?

Stepping up our Humanitarian Capacity Advancing Rural Resilience and Food Security Active Citizenship in Pursuit of Effective Development Investments

 What is in the prioritized Internal Goal: Becoming a 21st Century NGO?  What is the recommended approach to addressing other strategic?

In addition to the three strategic areas of focus mentioned above, Ray also added an internal goal: 

Becoming a 21st Century Networked Organization

A very dynamic case study session ensued for half a day during which the senior leadership groups debated the meaning of sections of the memo and Ray’s ultimate intent. The groups also had direct access to Ray and the other ELT members and therefore were able to gain clarification on different elements of Ray’s proposition paper. Finally, the crossdivisional groups were asked to specifically address Ray’s upfront questions to the group:

Participants were tasked with first making sense of Ray’s proposition paper in cross-divisional groups.

Participants were asked to form groups depending on their interest in a particular goal area and the initial level of senior leadership excitement and interest in a goal area was deduced by which groups had the most adherents.

Later on during the session, each of the goals was ranked in terms of both energy around the goal and readiness of the goal.

[Please note that ‘readiness’ was determined solely on the basis of the goal itself, without looking at organizational, budgetary or other constraints.]

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Are the [three strategic goals] coherent as a set?

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Are they the most judicious [relevant and impactful] goals to take on to pursue our mission in the next six years?

All groups agreed generally to Ray’s choice of the three strategic goal areas, and considered them coherent, potentially impactful and relevant to our mission, and allowing us an opportunity to set vision and align with OI. At the same time, some groups identified that not all the goals respond to some of the key trends identified in the earlier OA Working Group process, including addressing the youth boom and shifting demographics/face of poverty to the urban and peri-urban areas.

In addition to the three strategic goal areas, many participants felt that the strategic plan was not giving the issue of gender and women’s empowerment sufficient weight and consideration in the memo. It was strongly felt that unless a much greater emphasis was given through an explicit internal change goal around gender, the strategic plan would not reflect the values or the mission of the organization. A sub group of the GMS met and made the following proposition.

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Clearly state gender justice and women’s rights as our meta-goal, at the top of our plan, stating clearly that unless we address gender issues in all our programs, we will never achieve our mission

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Within each of the three external goals explicitly state gender justice, and the implications of that in terms of the measures of success in each of the goals related to gendered impact stated explicitly

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Include as an internal goal, an explicit statement that our internal processes and staff competencies will reflect our external ambitions on promoting gender justice. We must walk the talk and hold ourselves accountable against this goal at all levels.

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Create an investment fund, as suggested, that will be used towards supporting the gender internal change goal and gendered impacts.

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period? Why is it the winning goal?

Following the plenary session, during which participants discussed the goals, a set of modifications were created and presented to the entire group. The next three pages summarize the refined goal statements and articulated success indicators.

Ray led a spirited discussion on how best to incorporate this request into the OA-SP. He discussed similar initiates he led while at Ford Foundation and lessoned learned from his decades of experience working with women’s groups around the world.

You can also watch the four video presentations that capture the agency’s senior leaders expressing their excitement around the strategic goal areas and their interest in owning the final strategic goals as a whole agency and not just within specific units.

One issue he repeatedly stressed is that this effort must not become a broad-based and administrative “check the box” effort but that we make a clear commitment to real and achievable goals with metrics in each program. While we all support this effort, the proof will come if we continue to build on the GMALI initiative and reinforce our program designs with greater gender-lensed training and support.

Enjoy.

Next, GMS participants were asked to refine the goal statements Ray had presented in his memo to make winning and winnable goals that can rally the organization to achieve concrete results by 2019. Specifically, they were asked to address the following questions in their process: Why is this goal the most important in the upcoming strategic

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We will transform the way NGOs, the private sector, the UN, and governments respond to humanitarian crises, moving toward prevention instead of response by building up local communities and governments so that they are the first and best actors in prevention, preparedness and response.

INVEST NOW, SAVE LIVES, SAVE MONEY

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Meet Oxfam International standards in fully local response to all Cat 3 emergencies

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National governments, where we are managing affiliate, achieve high scores on Hyogo framework (preparedness)

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Growing network of learning and practice among Oxfam humanitarian partners

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10% of US ODA global expenditures directed at Disaster Risk Reduction

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5 Fortune 500 companies institute global policies and investments for prevention, preparedness and response in countries where they are active

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Positive changes in national level policy and investment to prevention, preparedness and direct response for Cat 3 emergencies.

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Specific changes in UN system, redirecting Humanitarian Response and funding flows toward local investment and response.

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Gendered analysis built into program and policy development

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Need to bring out gender more

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Need to bring out conflict agenda more, including women, peace, and security

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Need to figure out how to “sell” this approach

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Would require big scale-up of advocacy and capacity at country level

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Women food producers and workers contribute significantly to national and global food security in just, resilient, innovative, and transparent food systems by realizing their right to control resources, by gaining greater value from their participation in a market economy, and by having voice and influence in national policy.

Material Well Being Changes: 

Farmers and workers receive higher prices, wages, and other conditions improve.

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Producing more in a risk reduced environment

Opportunity Structure Changes: 

Improve the practices of major agri-business actors in targeted countries to the benefit of small food producers and workers

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National government practices (both oversight and investment for small holders) is improved

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Increased international and national investment in small holder agriculture

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A stronger enabling environment and increased investment and support for women-led enterprises in targeted markets

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Access to weather insurance

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Access to financial services, affordable inputs and appropriate and innovative technical assistance

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Easy access to timely and accurate market information

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Improved laws on association.

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Enhanced water and land rights

Social Relations Changes: 

Measurable reduction in barriers to market participation

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Large input producers experiment with sustainable input products/markets

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Investment in Ag is targeted to rural woman producers

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Aligned to support in-country food security executives (not just big ag for export)

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Cultural practices shift in measurable ways to enhance women’s access and ownership of land and water resources.

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Increase in number of women in leadership positions, elected and non-elected

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National political platforms reflect small holder interests

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What is OA connection to the overall OI strategy related to agriculture

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What is OA’s strength vs. other affiliate’s strength?

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Women at the center or as an indicator?

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The extent to which we focus on production and yield or political economy and shifting the balance of rights

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How to drill down from what is an overarching goal statement into a country specific level conversation

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We support Oxfam’s aim to create a global movement for change to create and solidify the space for active citizens to engage effective states and the private sector to secure and ensure their rights. In this space, citizens routinely redress injustices on their terms and within their national context.

In the countries where we work, we will have supported the creation of 3 established, institutionalized spaces that have directly shaped the national resource utilization and specific legislation on both non-renewable (EI) and renewable resources (food, water, etc.) to address the rights of the most marginalized citizens, particularly women. 

That at least 10% of EI royalty payments are directed to agricultural initiatives for the most marginalized, particularly women (target: $10B in the aggregate)

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EI royalty payments be considered to fund climate change adaption for women farmers (target $1B)

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10% of external aid flows are redirected towards renewable resource development for the most marginalized, particularly women (target $5B)

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Right to Know, Right to Decide legislation establishes legally binding fora in 3 LAC countries, 3 ECOWAS, and 1 East African country

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Even within closed or closing civil society space we are the go-to actor that focused on social and economic rights. [What does this say about the political rights space?]

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Partnered or developed much stronger budget monitoring systems and capability at the national level

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We have to invest in stronger national level advocacy

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We have to invest in activist diplomatic skills particularly in private sector (economic) and gender (gender policy analysis)

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We have to be better at partnering with the right organizations

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Marginalized citizens are able to direct their governments’ use of 5 major revenue flows in development: extractives revenues, foreign aid, agricultural investments, corporate fines, and adaptation financing. Investment in pro-poor development in 4 countries increases by 30% and are making progress towards new MDG goals.

      

In selected countries: Marginalized citizens, especially women, have influenced local and national investment decisions in development.

All major oil and mining companies will fully disclose revenues and contracts for their projects, as required by the SEC. all bilateral aid agencies will make their operations conform to agreed aid effectiveness principles. investments in agriculture by state and corporations support the viability of female farmers, entrepreneurs and workers. (see rural poor goal) Adaptation funding has increased, and government have made targeted investments in the resilience of vulnerable communities.

In southeast US, BP oil spill fines are directed to restoration of poor coastal communities.

Pre-requisites:  Investment in acquiring new competencies in fiscal transparency and monitoring (even if done through partners) 

Crafting appealing stories, putting human face, on this work

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Building partnerships at global and national levels in transparency and accountability and for broader social investments (health, education, etc)

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Building expertise in corporate engagement at the regional and national levelResearch on major revenue flows and current budget allocations by country, if feasible

Caveats and Reservations:  How to get our constituencies fired up about this? 

What is our niche in a relatively crowded transparency/accountability field?

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Funding? How much will it take and from where do we get it?

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Important to continue to work on global norms because they are a critical tool

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Beware of tough local politics

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How does this work relate to Essential Services Campaign? Would new MDGs be the new measures?

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The GMS participants registered their energy around each goal twice in the OASP session. First they registered energy by gravitating to the goal statements that they wished to work on and improve. By the end of the session, all participants were asked to rate the 3 strategic goal areas in terms of their energy around the issue and their sense of the goal readiness (was it a winnable goal in terms of focus and clarity of what success would be in 2019). The cross-divisional and functional ranking results of the ranking were as follows:

1. Active Citizenship

1. Humanitarian

2. Humanitarian

2. Active Citizenship

3. Rural Resiliency

3. Rural Resiliency

There was a high-level of energy in the group around Active Citizenship with 3 groups forming around the goal area/proposition in the first afternoon. By the next day, some participants migrated to work on other goals, but the energy level remained quite high throughout.

In terms of both energy and overall readiness of the goal statement and success indicators, humanitarian capacity rated quite high.

It was acknowledged that while rural resiliency was not rated as high as the others there may be strong potential to define a winning goal during the next strategic period.

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which indicates people understand it and are ready to move on it.

There will be a final meeting(s) of the OASP steering committee to make recommendations to Ray around goal statements in May 2012.

Ray will hand the process over to Jim who will initiate the operational planning process around the goals to define concrete multi-year plans, budgets, organizational capacity, and so forth.

This will further engage staff in the OASP process. Ray and Jim want to remind us that the goals will be refined over the summer using staff input, and taking into consideration also the following four inputs: 

GMS participants’ input as summarized above

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OI’s goals, which are being developed in parallel to ours

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The fundraising campaign’s feasibility study, which should provide data as to the fundability of both individual goals and the whole set

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Competitive analyses: for this strategic planning cycle, we decided not to make an overall competitive analysis of OA as an organization as we did during the beachhead exercise, but rather to analyze the competition and define our niche more specifically for each of our goals.

Ray acknowledged upfront that the Humanitarian goal seems pretty clear. Rationale and comparative advantages are there, even with the caveats mentioned. There is the widest consensus that it is time for Oxfam to step up here.

It is the neatest, tightest and briefest of goal statements –

In terms of the Rural Resiliency goal, Ray identified that we still have work to do in this area. We do have competencies, experience and some innovative programs in this area. But we have to ask if our real competency is building yields and productivity, or if the real opportunity is in the area of Ag, Climate Change and Food Security and how to leverage these spaces more effectively for small scale farmers and rural women. What is the Food Security and resilience challenge in different contexts from Peru – with a high bounty but unequal access versus Ethiopia where we have low yields and broad hunger? What are the real issues at play and how can we leverage development resources to move on this issue. We have a lot of goals on this issue, which indicates a lack of clarity on what we should work on. We could work on any of this – what is our place. Do we continue to work mainly with small scale producers or do we work in a more complex, political space around how benefit is distributed in an agricultural economy and move key leverage points. This may require some new competencies.

Ray finished by pointing out that there is some real creative energy around the concept of Active Citizenship. It seems to fit us and the comparative advantages here are clear. We will need to continue to refine and bring clarity to what we are delivering in the next period, and ensure that we are leveraging the lessons from some great work in Extractive Industries and expand it to other areas and other development investment flows. He also sees that there remains a clear space for us to work within the U.S. on overall Aid Reform and the ability to leverage more effectively aid flows out of the U.S. as part of this effort.

In summary, Ray reiterated the value of strategic planning.

This is the moment in our organizational life where we can reinvent ourselves for this contemporary moment.

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Program Theory of Change

$1

$16

“Investing in nurturing a happy goat costs you US$ 1 dollar. If you wait, and don’t address [a potential crisis] with early warning systems you have a dead goat, which costs you US$16 dollars.”

-Mike Delaney as translated by Ken Mallette

Note: No Animals were harmed in the making of this communiqué.

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