The GPE Secretariat has been hard at work to develop the blueprint for the design of the Advocacy and Social Accountability (ASA) funding mechanism. On June 12, the GPE Secretariat held a webinar consultation with civil society organizations to elicit their feedback and input on four key challenges for the ASA mechanism.

The discussion was dynamic, and GPE heard the views of a wide range of advocacy actors and social accountability practitioners on how to approach grant-making for ASA. Among topics discussed were the issue of fragmentation of civil society representation, ensuring diversity in CSO voices and bolstering networks and coalitions to undertake strategy action for education.

Participants were also encouraged to send in written feedback. Below is a summary of some of the valuable advice that civil society provided to GPE to help inform the ASA design:

1. How can ASA improve accountability so it’s more contextual and results-based? How can ASA ensure that it supports proposals that are demand-driven and are responsive to the diversity of contextual realities?

As GPE is a multi-stakeholder partnership, CSO partners underlined the importance that under the ASA mechanism, GPE should continue investing in strengthening autonomous civil society movements that advocate for the right to education at the local, national, regional and global levels. Additionally, GPE was encouraged to:

• Work with organizations that have long-term experience in the education sector and with good track records on multi-level and 'ecosystemic' engagement.
• Make sure that ASA grant proposals build on past work and advance it in a way that strategically address gaps and explore new opportunities.
• Identify — within the ASA theory of change—opportunities to engage with domestic actors and collaborate closely with them to address challenges as they are identified.
• Tap organizations that have worked on different parts of the 'eco-system' of education accountability and are present at different levels from schools to international.
• Provide time for organizations selected to improve and further develop the contextual/ situation analysis of their projects. 
• Ensure proposals are demand-driven by allowing for time, resources and by providing a discursive platform for domestic actors to lay out the challenges they see as important.
• For the sake of transparency and accountability, government approval or endorsement of a project should not be a condition.
2. How can ASA put an emphasis on capacity building? What kinds of capacity support does civil society need to fulfill the ASA goal, in what areas? What are some of the good practices used to drive adaptation and learning in advocacy and social accountability work?

The ASA mechanism will put a strong emphasis on adaptation and learning and its primary goals is to enhance civil society capacity. CSO partners remarked on the need to support the autonomy of civil society to build capacity and foster shared learning within the education social movement.

There was a general sense that grants and funding are not sufficient to develop capacity but that we need to explore good practices and innovative approaches to capacity development such as regular national learning exchanges among partners and leaders from different localities. Research and data were mentioned as the key components to ensuring evidence-based advocacy work. The following recommendations were made:

• Adaptive learning should consist of structured experimentation, facilitation of key skills and encouragement to implement ideas.
• Explore a creative capacity building approach that goes beyond solving an existing problem.
• Adopt an iterative approach to capacity building. This empowers actors to try, reflect, adapt and course-correct throughout the lifetime of a given project.
• Build capacity for future problem solving. Enable a deep engagement with the techniques needed to cultivate problem-solving skills.
• Capacity development needs to be responsive to evolving needs in the education sector based on evidence sourced through constant and rigorous assessment.
3. Which are the most effective ways for ASA to invest in multi-level monitoring?  How can ASA ensure that its investments in different levels of monitoring have synergy and are well coordinated?

Before beginning any monitoring process, it was suggested that the theory of change be consulted closely to identify within its framework existing opportunities that can be used to tackle specific challenges in the M&E process. Additionally, participants made the following recommendations:

• Encourage ASA-funded actors to produce theories of changes that situate how/where their efforts are intended to make a difference in their systems.
• Based on context-centered theories of change, identify how monitoring activities can help both local actors and GPE identify how, where and when necessary course corrections might have to be applied to make the ASA program as effective as possible.
• Establish a clear change agenda with actions and strategies designed across levels.
• Research and share good practices that the ASA mechanism can learn from.
• Guarantee inter-connectedness between CSOs at the local and global levels and between grantees and grant agents throughout the project cycle to ensure ASA’s investments in different levels of monitoring have synergy and are well-coordinated.
• Monitoring is successful when coalitions and networks have ownership of the process. Monitoring and evaluation should be integrated and apply a bottom-up, grassroots approach.
• Ensure monitoring is not just for the sake of monitoring. It must generate clear, verifiable results showing change and improvements in specific aspects of the education sector.
4. What are the best strategies for ensuring citizens are at the center of accountability? How can ASA integrate in its design the centrality of citizens’ participation in social accountability mechanisms?

It is important that the mechanisms for civil society participation are inclusive and diverse and have an adequate balance of voices. Each country has its own mechanisms for civil society participation with different levels of inclusion, and each proposal must reflect the reality of these diverse contexts.

Participants suggested that ASA also prompt its grantees to find out about existing social accountability mechanisms in their respective countries and reflect on those experiences to infer what level of citizen participation and civic engagement may be appropriate. It was agreed that partnerships with diverse groups are much needed, especially at this moment when the civil society space is shrinking.

During the discussion, participants encouraged GPE to prioritize youth organizations, women's groups and disabled persons’ organizations. It was suggested that people working in media, start-ups, industry and social innovation groups be engaged in accountability discussions.

Several participants encouraged the language to be changed from 'citizens' to ‘people’ to engage marginalized individuals who may be without a formal immigration status but are stakeholders in this mechanism. Stateless, migrant workers, and refugees, among other marginalized groups, also have the right to participate in advocacy and accountability and to access the right to education. To achieve this ‘human’ approach to accountability, the following recommendations were made:

• Embed the role of community organizers and facilitators
• Community actors especially those marginalized must be involved from the onset, especially in agenda-setting and designing. 
• Seek out organizations that look at inclusiveness and empowerment of poorer and marginalized actors as central to their vision. Work with these organizations to ensure a crosscutting inclusion of grassroots and marginalized sectors. 
• Pursue an agenda that is relatable to and inclusive of ordinary people who may not have a technical grounding in policy, programming, grant-writing and monitoring processes.
• Create a robust communications strategy to package information that will create public awareness and bring in broader participation. 
• Embed into the criteria for grant making that proposals should put citizens at the center of any project. Priority should go to proposals that bolster citizen participation in the monitoring of learning outcomes.

As the GPE Strategy and Impact Committee deliberates on the ASA funding mechanism design on July 18 and 19, this advice from civil society will be an important backdrop to the discussion. 

The final blueprint is expected to be finalized this summer, so that the Board can consider a proposal from the selected grant agent in December on how it will operationalize ASA. The aim is to launch the first call for proposals in early 2019, resourcing a new generation of experimentation and learning in advocacy and social accountability for education.