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European Centre for Development Policy ManagementCentre européen de gestion des politiques de développement

John SaxbyPretoria, South Africa

COEP - Comitê de Entidades noCombate à Fome e pela VidaMobilising against hunger and for life:An analysis of capacity and change in aBrazilian network

John Saxby

A case study prepared for the project ‘Capacity, Change and Performance’

Discussion Paper No 57COctober 2004

Analysis

The lack of capacity in low-income countries is one of the mainconstraints to achieving the Millennium Development Goals.Even practitioners confess to having only a limitedunderstanding of how capacity actually develops. In 2002, thechair of Govnet, the Network on Governance and CapacityDevelopment of the OECD, asked the European Centre forDevelopment Policy Management (ECDPM) in Maastricht, theNetherlands to undertake a study of how organisations andsystems, mainly in developing countries, have succeeded inbuilding their capacity and improving performance. Theresulting study focuses on the endogenous process of capacitydevelopment - the process of change from the perspective ofthose undergoing the change. The study examines the factorsthat encourage it, how it differs from one context to another,and why efforts to develop capacity have been more successfulin some contexts than in others.

The study consists of about 20 field cases carried out accordingto a methodological framework with seven components, asfollows:• Capabilities: How do the capabilities of a group,

organisation or network feed into organisational capacity?• Endogenous change and adaptation: How do processes of

change take place within an organisation or system? • Performance: What has the organisation or system

accomplished or is it now able to deliver? The focus here ison assessing the effectiveness of the process of capacitydevelopment rather than on impact, which will beapparent only in the long term.

External context Stakeholders

Internal features andresources

External intervention

The simplified analytical framework

Co r e va r i a b l e s

Capabilities

EndogenousChange andadaptation

Performance

Study of Capacity, Change and PerformanceNotes on the methodology

• External context: How has the external context - thehistorical, cultural, political and institutional environment,and the constraints and opportunities they create - influenced the capacity and performance of theorganisation or system?

• Stakeholders: What has been the influence of stakeholderssuch as beneficiaries, suppliers and supporters, and theirdifferent interests, expectations, modes of behaviour,resources, interrelationships and intensity of involvement?

• External interventions: How have outsiders influenced theprocess of change?

• Internal features and key resources: What are the patternsof internal features such as formal and informal roles,structures, resources, culture, strategies and values, andwhat influence have they had at both the organisationaland multi-organisational levels?

The outputs of the study will include about 20 case studyreports, an annotated review of the literature, a set ofassessment tools, and various thematic papers to stimulatenew thinking and practices about capacity development. Thesynthesis report summarising the results of the case studies willbe published in 2005.

The results of the study, interim reports and an elaboratedmethodology can be consulted at www.capacity.org orwww.ecdpm.org. For further information, please contactMs Heather Baser ([email protected]).

COEP - Comitê de Entidades no Combate à Fome e pela Vida

Mobilising against hunger and for life:An analysis of capacity and change in a Brazilian network

John Saxby

A case study prepared for the project 'Capacity, Change and Performance'

October 2004

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ContentsPreface ivAcronyms ivSummary v

1 Introduction 1

2 Ten years in the life of a development network 22.1 Audacious beginnings: seizing the moment 22.2 Responding to the environment of the early 1990s 32.3 A decade of growth, decentralisation and

diversification 4

3 Performance: What has COEP accomplished? 83.1 COEP's role as 'influencer' and catalyst 83.2 What has COEP achieved? 103.3 Assessing impact 12

4 Capabilities and capacity: What makes COEP work? 134.1 Success factors 134.2 Capacity as a product of supply or demand? 164.3 Capacity and paradox 174.4 Relevant elsewhere, or a special case? 18

5 Looking ahead 19

Annex I: Notes on method 21Annex II: Financing COEP 23Annex III: List of signatories to COEP, 1993 24

References 24

The European Centre forDevelopment Policy ManagementOnze Lieve Vrouweplein 21NL-6211 HE Maastricht, The Netherlands Tel +31 (0)43 350 29 00Fax +31 (0)43 350 29 [email protected] www.ecdpm.org

COEPComitê de Entidades no Combate à Fome e pela VidaRede Nacional de Mobilização Social RIO, Brazil Tel + 55 21 25284381 / +55 21 25283351 [email protected] www.coepbrasil.org.br

Discussion Paper No. 57C Capacity Study Analysis

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PrefaceThis study rests on the hard work, ideas and support of a group of people spread across several continents.I wish to thank first those who set the table for this report. Heather Baser and her colleagues at the EuropeanCentre for Development Policy Management in Maastricht, The Netherlands, took an active interest in, andsupported an analysis of COEP's experience in Brazil. The funders of ECDPM's multi-country study of capacity,notably the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the Canadian International DevelopmentAgency (CIDA), and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of The Netherlands provided the core budget for thisresearch. Peter Morgan, research coordinator of the ECDPM study, set out the broader conceptual frameworkand offered helpful comments on the drafts of this paper.

I am especially grateful to André Spitz and Gleyse Peiter of COEP, for inviting me to work with them on thisproject. COEP has funded a major part of this research, co-financed my expenses in Brazil and engaged PatriciaBaldarelli as research officer for the project. Patricia's contribution has been invaluable. She has translated documents, conducted interviews and prepared summaries, and assembled secondary data, all with enthusi-asm and good humour. Leila Vogel dos Santos has patiently handled the innumerable administrative details ofmy work with COEP over the last two years. Renato Cabral has been a generous interlocutor, introducing me topeople in different parts of COEP and to Brazil more generally. Valerie Jones has been a most patient and capa-ble editor.

Finally, my thanks go to everyone in COEP who took part in this research, for their interest, thoughtfulness andgood sense. Many people have put a lot of their lives into COEP over the last decade, and it is very dear tothem. Their evident commitment to the network and its values, the people it serves, and to Brazil as a whole,has not compromised their readiness to step back and take a careful look at the organisation. I hope that thecommentary here will be useful to them as they move COEP forward to the next phase of its remarkable life.

AcronymsCOEP Comitê de Entidades no Combate à Fome e pela Vida

(Committee of Entities in the Struggle against Hunger and for a Full Life)CONSEA Council on Food Security ECDPM European Centre for Development Policy ManagementIPEA Institute for Research on Applied Economics PRONINC National Programme of Popular Cooperative Incubators

Capacity Study Analysis Discussion Paper No. 57C

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SummaryThis paper examines a Brazilian social solidarity network, COEP - o Comitê de Entidades no Combate àFome e pela Vida (the Committee of Entities in theStruggle against Hunger and for a Full Life) - throughthe lens of organisational and social capacity andchange. COEP is committed to building a just andinclusive society for all Brazilians, one withouthunger and poverty. Its members include govern-ment agencies, parastatals, and organisations fromthe private sector and civil society. COEP is in fact anetwork of networks, active federally, in all of Brazil's27 states, and now also at the municipal level. Itsstrategies include encouraging its members to sup-port and participate in development projects to com-bat poverty, organising campaigns to mobilise publicand institutional resources to end poverty, and promoting cooperation among its affiliates in theirdevelopment work and campaigns.

The analysis of COEP is one of several case studieswithin a multi-country study, Capacity, Change andPerformance, organised by the European Centre forDevelopment Policy Management (ECDPM). Thestudy seeks to understand better what 'capacity' is,what strategies are effective in developing capacity,and what 'performance' looks like from the perspec-tive of capacity.

COEP attracted the interest of the organisers of thewider study for several reasons.• It is uniquely Brazilian, part of that country's

renewed democracy and of the broad socialmovement against hunger. Created by Brazilianinitiative, COEP has been sustained by Brazilianresources.

• It is an intriguing hybrid - a voluntary nationwidenetwork that embodies many aspects of a civilsociety organisation, but which operates in theborder area between the state, the parastatal sector, private business and civil society.

• It is engaged with the paramount developmentissues of the day, mobilising citizens and organi-sations to work to end poverty and for socialjustice. It commands legitimacy as a developmentactor, legitimacy that helps to keep these issueson the public agenda.

The case study examines three broad areas of COEP'sorganisational life: its origins, growth and changeover a decade; its performance; and the factors thatexplain its capacity.

Growth and performanceCOEP's performance has been remarkable. Since 30national enterprises declared their affiliation inAugust 1993, the network has grown and diversified,and now counts more than 800 member organisa-tions (including 46 at the national level) active innetworks in all 27 states, and recently created its firstmunicipal networks. Originally limited to public entities, COEP's membership has become much morediverse, including government departments, privatefirms, labour unions, NGOs and other civil societyorganisations. Because membership in COEP is volun-tary, sustained growth of this kind is itself a sign ofsuccess - ever-growing numbers of people are votingwith their feet and are participating in the organisa-tion.

The network has drawn upon its considerable inter-nal resources to manage this growth. It has adaptedits governance and management structures tochanging circumstances while preserving consisten-cy with its original principles. Its leadership has nurtured COEP's legitimacy as an actor in public lifeby maintaining a politically nonpartisan stance whileretaining its original values and purpose.

COEP's programme provides other indicators of suc-cess. Through its national and state-level networks,COEP has conducted vigorous campaigns to mobiliseinstitutions and the public to support the fightagainst poverty and misery, and to encourage 'activecitizenship' (cidadania). COEP participates in govern-ment campaigns such as Fome Zero (Zero Hunger),and carries out its own activities. The latter include aWeek of Mobilisation against hunger, held each yearto mark the death in 1977 of Herbert de Souza,'Betinho', the visionary founder of COEP. By engagingthe public entities in its campaigns, COEP has helpedto change the public discourse, and to keep povertyon the national agenda. Since establishing its firststate-level networks in 1995, COEP has encouragedits affiliates to support community development ini-tiatives in all parts of the country. COEP's secretariat,


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Our research suggests another level of analysis thatmight extend this assessment. The network showsnumerous paradoxes in its style, dynamics and struc-ture. For example:• COEP is not formally registered, and its non-hier-

archical design is intended to make space fordiversity, creativity and energy, and to encourageparticipation. In its daily and strategic workingsthe network relies heavily on informal power -the chemistry among its people, their knowledgeand contacts. Yet it is not a loose or simple orga-nisation. Its guiding principles are clear and itsstatutes detailed. It is tightly organised andincreasingly complex. Its governance structuresare consistent across networks at national, stateand municipal levels, and as COEP has grown, ithas elaborated its administrative and operationalcapabilities.

• Politically, COEP is consciously non-partisan, yetmust be politically astute because it operates in acharged institutional milieu. It is engaged withthe big development issues - poverty and socialjustice - which are inescapably political.

• COEP is both a network of organisations and anetwork of people. Its membership is institutio-nal, yet the quality of the organisation's contribu-tions depends very much on the individualsinvolved. It is the people who take part in COEPwho make it work, with their commitment,passion and competence.

• COEP's activists feel strongly about the organi-sation and its work, and there are strong perso-nalities within the network, yet it has largelybeen free of divisive conflict, and has not beencaptured by personal, political or commercialagendas.

• Intangibles like leadership, creativity, confidenceand legitimacy give COEP its energy, and attractnew participants, yet it can only do what it doesbecause institutional members make sizeablefinancial contributions, and donate an even largerpool of in-kind resources, in particular the paidtime of their employees. Planned or fortuitous,this symbiosis is powerful. The whole underta-king, moreover, works on a national scale in sucha large country partly because of Brazil's reliablecommunications infrastructure.

Oficina Social, maintains a database of almost 850such projects and programmes, many of which aredocumented in its publications (cadernos) and aseries of videos. In its campaigns and developmentprojects, COEP promotes cooperation and partner-ships among its affiliates, and has persuaded themto commit substantial resources to social responsibi-lity and action.

The broader results of COEP's work are less clear,both in its affiliates' development initiatives withcommunities, and in its public and institutionalmobilisation campaigns. COEP and those it workswith could benefit from systematic assessment of itswork to address the question: what difference do wemake? The network clearly has the capability toorganise the research and reflection this questionrequires. Such an assessment of the impact of itswork could prove invaluable to COEP in its nextphase, as it extends its networks to municipalities,and moves to create closer links with communitiesand their organisations.

Capabilities and capacity: what makes COEP work?The report seeks to explain why COEP has been successful. The critical forces are to be found withinCOEP's substantial internal resources, both intangibleand material. There are three principal factors atwork, which reinforce each other. First, COEP has benefited from creative, even inspired, leadership atnational and state levels, which enjoys substantiallegitimacy within the network and beyond. Thatlegitimacy, moreover, has been recognised and care-fully maintained. Second, the network has shown aconsiderable and sustained capability for strategicthinking and change, continuously renewing itselfwhile maintaining its character and principles. Noneof this would be possible without the evident com-mitment of its institutional members, and even morethe passion, ideas and energy that the people inCOEP bring to their work.

Complementing these intangibles are two significantmaterial factors. COEP has been sustained by majorfinancial and in-kind contributions from its affiliates.Also, the network relies on an effective web of elec-tronic communications, and is able to draw upon thesubstantial technical resources and national reach ofits member entities.


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These paradoxes, and others, could be focal points forfurther reflection within COEP. They appear to besources of creative tension within the network, andas such suggest another set of social forces at work,still to be articulated and understood.

Looking aheadThree additional strategic issues are likely to challenge COEP's capacity in the future.• Organisational identity. A long-standing question

remains relevant: how is COEP to preserve itsorganisational autonomy, and its nonpartisan rolein public life, while remaining engaged with thecritical issues of social justice in Brazil?

• Programme development: engaging with commu-nity development initiatives. COEP is likely to placemore emphasis on supporting local developmentinitiatives by communities and their organisa-tions. Its state networks and their new municipalcounterparts will play the major part in thischange. If COEP becomes more prominent in localdevelopment, it will face an important issue ofgovernance: what accountability does it have tolocal communities, and how is this to be exer-cised?

• Continuous learning. Participants in the networkcontinue to place priority on increasing theirknowledge of community development and on access to technical support when they need it. COEP has an opportunity to continue tostrengthen individual skills, and to systematise its own knowledge and experience. The question now is how the network will meet this challenge as it continues to grow and to increaseits engagement with community developmentinitiatives.


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1 Introduction This paper examines the history and current circum-stances of a Brazilian social solidarity network,COEP - o Comitê de Entidades no Combate à Fome epela Vida (the Committee of Entities in the Struggleagainst Hunger and for a Full Life) through the lensof organisational and social capacity and change.COEP is committed to building a just and inclusivesociety for all Brazilians, one without hunger andpoverty. Its members include government agencies,parastatals, private sector firms and civil societyorganisations. COEP is in fact a network of networks,active nationally, in all of Brazil's 27 states, and nowalso at the municipal level. Its strategies includeencouraging its members to support and participatein development projects; organising and participat-ing in campaigns to mobilise public and institutionalsupport; and promoting cooperation among its affili-ates in their work and campaigns.

The analysis of COEP's experience is one of severalcase studies within a larger study, Capacity, Changeand Performance, organised by the European Centrefor Development Policy Management (ECDPM). Thestudy seeks to understand better what 'capacity' is;what strategies are effective in developing it; andwhat 'performance' looks like from the perspective ofcapacity. ECDPM intends that the participants willreap practical benefits for their future development,in that they can use the case studies to reflect ontheir achievements and challenges.

COEP attracted the interest of the organisers of thewider study for several reasons. First, it is a Braziliancreation, born in the early years of that country'srenewed democracy, and very much a part of thebroad social movement against hunger. Created in1993, COEP recently celebrated a decade of work asan autonomous organisation, sustained by Brazilianinitiative, energy and resources. In the last two yearsCOEP has begun to reach out to international organi-sations, hoping to exchange ideas on issues of common interest. The ECDPM project offers one wayof doing so. Second, the network has grown toinclude more than 800 member organisations - ithas become a large and complex organisation in alarge and complex country. Third, it is an intriguinghybrid - a voluntary association that embodiesaspects of civil society, but which operates in the

border area between the state, the parastatal sector,private business and civil society. Finally, COEP isaddressing the paramount development issues,mobilising citizens and organisations to work forsocial justice. Its legitimacy as a development actorhas enabled it to address these issues, and to keepthem on the public agenda.

The analytical framework of the ECDPM study andthe approach used to analyse COEP's experience are explained in Annex I. The three core variables -capacity, change and performance - are in turnshaped by four intervening variables: the external(here, Brazilian) context; internal features andresources; relations with stakeholders; and externalintervention by actors such as donors or multilateralagencies. The structure of this report reflects the primacy of the core variables. Section 2 examinesCOEP's origins, growth and development, focusingon the organisational capacity within the network.Section 3 examines COEP's performance - its effec-tiveness in realising its aims of helping to endpoverty, and of engaging its member entities in thattask. Section 4 draws on the preceding two toexplain the capacities COEP has used in its organisa-tional trajectory and in its programme of work.Finally, section 5 highlights several probable challenges to COEP's capacity in the future.

In keeping with its multinational origins, this casestudy is intended for at least three audiences. First,this report is addressed to COEP, to be used in thecontinuing discussion of its future shape and pro-gramme. It also has an international audience - theECDPM team itself, the counterparts of COEP whotook part in other case studies, researchers, and thestaff of donor agencies. A third, broader audience,not directly connected to the study, includes peoplein Brazil and elsewhere interested in capacity, organi-sational development and social change.


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2 Ten years in the life of a developmentnetwork

COEP's trajectory over its first decade was remark-able by any standards. From improbable beginningsin 1993, it has grown to include more than 800organisations, and is active throughout Brazil. Atcritical junctures along the way, it has shown consi-derable resourcefulness and creativity, drawing on itssubstantial internal resources to respond to thedynamics of a changing environment and its ownmembership. Four elements stand out:• COEP's strong self-definition: the core values,

principles and purposes of the network were clearfrom the beginning, and have remained constant.

• The network has had creative leadership withstrong legitimacy and a capability for strategicthinking.

• The network has created effective structures forgovernance and management, well suited to itschanging circumstances and profile.

• COEP has managed a dramatic growth in num-bers and geographic scope to become a nation-wide organisation.

Success apparently breeds success. COEP's perform-ance has attracted more organisations as members,and has retained their energy and resources throughits effective governance and management. Thesequalities have enabled COEP to adapt its structuresand processes to suit changing circumstances, whilepreserving its original values.

2.1 Audacious beginnings: seizing the moment

From a distance, COEP's very existence may seem puzzling, even anomalous. It started as a social soli-darity committee dedicated to ending poverty andmisery, rooted in a group of powerful public enterpris-es in one of the world's richest and most unequalsocieties. Its creation, purpose and character warrantexplanation not only because the circumstances of itsbirth are intrinsically interesting, but also because itsguiding principles remain intact after a decade ofgrowth and change, as is the core of its original mem-bership.

COEP was created by a small group of activist intel-lectuals possessed of audacity and vision and led bysociologist Herbert de Souza, 'Betinho'. They met asympathetic response from leaders of Brazil's publicentities. The synergy of their encounter, at a particu-lar historical moment, enabled them to create COEP,and to nurture it through its early years. According toone COEP activist, Betinho was 'a heroic figure' whohelped shape a remarkable period in Brazil's history.

The 1980s and early 1990s saw the growth of popu-lar movements for democracy and social justice, suchas the Ação da Cidadania no Combate à Fome e pelaVida and the Movimento pela Ética na Política.1 Theend of the military dictatorship and the restorationof electoral politics in 1984/85 was prompted by, andin turn unleashed, extraordinary popular energy.A new generation of democratic leaders, Betinhoamong them, drew upon this energy to helpBrazilians define 'active citizenship' (cidadania) as an essential part of the new era. The power of thesesocial forces became evident in 1992, with theimpeachment of the then President Fernando Colloron grounds of corruption. It was a special conjunc-ture, with the boundaries and workings of new andrecreated institutions still being defined, and with amobilised and articulate civil society helping toshape the political agenda.

Betinho and his friends saw in Brazil's public entitiesan opportunity and a challenge: to harness their hugeorganisational and material resources for the campaign to end hunger, and at the same time togive new content to the idea of a state-owned enter-prise, one that would be genuinely public, serving theinterests of all Brazilians. This sector had expandedsignificantly during the dictatorship. In the early1990s it was still substantial, if threatened by privati-sation, a key part of the policy orthodoxy of the day.Together with Luis Pinguelli Rosa of the FederalUniversity of Rio de Janeiro, and André Spitz of Furnas,the electricity utility, Betinho invited the presidents ofthe major public entities to meet to discuss theirintegration into the Struggle against Hunger andMisery. On 28 May 1993, 33 of them established oComitê das Empresas Públicas no Combate à Fome epela Vida - the Committee of Public Enterprises inthe Struggle against Hunger and for a Full Life. Twomonths later 30 enterprises, representing sectorssuch as banking, energy, telecommunications, health,agriculture and education, declared their member-ship (see Annex III). Acknowledging the 'absolute


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Notes1 Citizens' Action in the Struggle against Hunger and for Life,

and the Movement for Ethics in Politics, respectively. Fortwo Brazilian accounts of COEP's origins, see Fleury et al.(2002) and Miranda (1994).

priority' of the campaign against hunger for the federal government, and the power of a nationwidecitizens' movement, they promised their 'active andtotal' participation in the campaign. They haveremained active in COEP's national and state net-works ever since.

2.2 Responding to the environment of the early 1990s

We can see here a remarkable confluence of broadsocial forces and personal initiative. The result, COEP,was no accident, but it may well have been one of akind. Ten years on, one of COEP's founders would say,'Perhaps we could not have created COEP in anothercountry, or even at another time in Brazil'. How thendid it happen?

President Itamar Franco had created political space inresponse to the popular mobilisation against hungerby affirming the priority of the issue.2 The key actorsin COEP used that space creatively, inviting - in effect,challenging - the public entities to engage with theissues of social justice and development. Their challenge reflected strategic considerations. The enti-ties commanded not just substantial financial andphysical resources, but critically, national reach aswell, since their subsidiary structures extended intoall regions of the country. This reach, or capiliridade('capillarity'), was later to prove invaluable, an essen-tial condition for the creation of COEP's state-levelnetworks. The initiative rested on more than intelli-gent use of political space, however. COEP's foundershad earned widespread public legitimacy, especiallyBetinho, whose integrity and humanity evoked admi-ration and affection from people in all walks of life.

Not that Betinho and his friends were speaking to ahostile audience. Senior executives responded positively to the invitation to commit their organisa-tional resources and moral support to the campaign.Indeed, the proposal to form a social action commit-tee came from Marcello Siqueira, then president ofFurnas. Furnas also absorbed COEP's secretariat func-tion, committing the time of a senior manager, AndréSpitz, to that role.3 In addition, companies such asBanco do Brasil had been active in the AçãoCidadania for some time, with over 2000 branchcommittees participating in the movement. Ofcourse, many public enterprises also stood to benefit

- those in need of political support could gain credi-bility by affirming their social responsibility.

The creation of COEP can be seen as an example oforganisational capability, adept strategic thinking andaction, although the founders seem not to have had aformal and detailed plan. Rather, they worked with acoherent set of assumptions and principles that wereand still are explicit. The choice of a network with itsnon-hierarchical structure reflected the intent toencourage organisational flexibility, and participationand creativity from its members. Betinho's colleaguesacknowledge his influence, particularly his belief thatan open organisational form would enable people touse their imagination to change themselves and society. It was also assumed that the committee couldand should grow, with the entities' capiliridade a keyasset in this process, even though it was unclear whatCOEP's future profile would be.

Beyond these organisational issues, clear principlesof social purpose shaped COEP. According to AndréSpitz, Executive Secretary between 1993 and 2003,COEP sought to engage the wealthier and more powerful sectors of society in the campaign againsthunger. It was founded as a committee to mobilisepeople and organisations, and to challenge the cul-ture of indifference. Public enterprises could not beislands of excellence building walls to keep out thesurrounding social reality. Poverty was a problem foreveryone, and ending it would require a concertednational effort. With their invitation to the entities,COEP's founders were challenging them to changetheir culture and methods as well - to break withnarrow sectoral and competitive logic, to cooperatewith each other and with other organisations, and tobecome truly public bodies.

COEP invited the entities to use their organisationaland technical competence to support a social move-ment. The network simply asked them to do whatthey knew, but to do it differently, for differentpeople, and to work with and for poor and margin-alised communities. They were challenged to think ofdifferent uses for existing resources - to allow fishfarms in the reservoirs of hydro-electric dams, forexample, or community gardens on their landhol-dings. Banks were challenged to open branches inpoor communities, and to establish microcredit andfinancial management schemes for street vendors.Rural and agricultural development organisationswere encouraged to work with small farmers and


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Notes2 President Franco accepted a proposal from Lula da Silva

(then leader of the Partido dos Trabalhadores, the Workers'Party, now President) to create the Council on Food Security(CONSEA) as the strategic body to guide the campaign.COEP has worked with CONSEA from the inception of thenetwork. Bishop Mauro Morelli, president of CONSEA, wasalso president of COEP's first Deliberative Council.

3 Several respondents emphasised the importance of Furnas'initiative, which encouraged others to join the committee.

cooperatives. To their employees, COEP's messagewas similar: your professional competence is needed,and you can contribute to a better society by adapt-ing your expertise to new circumstances.

Governance and responsible citizenship have alwaysbeen an integral part of COEP's agenda, yet theorganisation has consciously avoided taking partisanpolitical positions. This stance has been rigorouslymaintained at all levels to preserve the network'sautonomy. Respondents in this research firmlybelieve that it has been critical to COEP's legitimacyand acceptance by different political actors. This prin-ciple makes for a diverse and inclusive 'church', whichhas made the task of building and maintaining consensus all the more demanding, but it has alsoprotected COEP from shifting political winds, andfrom capture by narrow agendas.4

The decision to engage the public entities in COEPwas inspired, audacious and, until the invitation wasaccepted, perhaps improbable as well. Without ques-tion, it has had a lasting impact in that it haschanged the institutional terrain on which Braziliansrespond to the problem of hunger and poverty.Politically, the public enterprises are now 'within thetent', an established part of the public discourse onthe issue. Their early engagement also set a prece-dent, opening the door for other organisations tojoin COEP. Although the public entities are no longerthe sole members of COEP, they remain important.Their annual financial subventions enable the net-work to function, and their capiliridade makes theirsubsidiaries the core of COEP's state networks.

2.3 A decade of growth, decentralisation and diversification

First principles - identity, purpose and structureSeveral key components of COEP show a clear pat-tern of continuity in substance and change in form.The early leaders established its governance andmanagement structures, which have been main-tained, even though the architecture has becomemore elaborate. The founding members created aninterim structure in May-August 1993, and a yearlater the network adopted its statutes, signed by 34entities, which established the basic elements ofCOEP's organisational architecture:5• COEP described itself as a collegial body, a (volun-

tary) association and a non-profit entity. Its purpose was to link together and to encourage

actions by its affiliated entities, and those ofother public and private bodies, in support of theCampaign against Hunger and Misery. It wouldadvance the fundamental objectives of theRepublic 'to build a free, just and solidary society',and 'to eradicate poverty and reduce social andregional inequalities'.6

• Its proposed actions were cast in terms of projects and programmes to meet these objec-tives, but also mentioned CONSEA (Council onFood Security), the Ação da Cidadania, and theCampaign against Hunger and Misery.

• The words describing COEP's role were carefullychosen. It would act as a catalyst to 'promote andencourage' the actions of its affiliates. It would'disseminate information' about its own actions,and 'encourage and publicise' those of its affili-ates through 'technical and promotional docu-ments'. Members retained their autonomy,choosing how to participate in COEP. The networkcould encourage but not command.

• The network had three parts. A DeliberativeCouncil, made up of the President of COEP andchief executives of member entities, decided onstrategy. An Executive Committee, with representa-tives of each member, was responsible for manage-ment. The first Executive Secretary was André Spitzof Furnas.7 The statutes also provided for technicalcommittees to encourage affiliates' actions.

• Member entities' commitment was voluntary, butnonetheless formalised. All signed a protocolacknowledging the struggle against hunger as apoint where the priorities of government and thepower of society converge, and reaffirmed their'active and complete participation' in the campaign.8 They also agreed to allow their staffto perform COEP duties on company time - amajor in-kind subsidy to the network.

Decentralisation: the growth of state-level COEPs(estaduais)With the growing membership and spread of COEP,the leadership decided to decentralise the networkby encouraging the formation of state-level net-


Notes4 Betinho was known to be on the left of the political

spectrum, but made the case for the priority of thecampaign by describing poverty as morally unacceptableand socially unsustainable.

5 The 1993 statutes provided the basis for the creation ofstate-level networks in 1995. The most recent version,adopted in 2001, made provision for municipal COEPs.

6 Quoted in Fleury (2002: 259), from Article 3 of the 1988Constitution.

7 This voluntary (unpaid) position, held by an employee ofFurnas, is the most prominent example of the contributionsin kind made by COEP's members. See Annex II.

8 Although COEP is not a registered society under Brazilianlaw, legal opinion holds that this protocol is binding on itssignatories.

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works (estaduais). In 1995 the Deliberative Councilamended COEP's statutes to provide for these net-works, which would be governed by the same princi-ples as the national body, with the same governanceand management structures. Their committees werenot subsidiary to the national network, but joinedCOEP as autonomous bodies. Indeed, as moreappeared they transformed the membership ofCOEP's national Deliberative Council and itsExecutive Committee. In 2001, COEP amended thesebodies to include representatives of state commit-tees. This was a deft adjustment: the network accom-modated a radical expansion of its membershipwithout adding another layer of hierarchy to its governance and operating structures.

Strategic considerations lay behind the decision todecentralise. The leadership saw state-level networksas a way of bringing COEP closer to the regional reali-ties, and particularly to the different faces and dyna-mics of poverty,9 allowing it to support community

development initiatives across the country.Engagement of this kind requires local knowledge,presence and credibility - it cannot be done from afar.Decentralisation was also seen as a way of broadeningand diversifying the base of COEP. Expanding the num-ber of people and organisations with a stake in thenetwork would strengthen its autonomy and integrity.

These judgments proved to be accurate. Decentra-lisation was slow at first, but within eight years therewere networks in all 27 states (see Figure 1). This dramatic growth can be seen as a response amongpeople and organisations at the state level to theopening offered by the leadership at the nationallevel. Decentralisation has also brought about a seachange in the organisation, in that its capacity to sup-port community development initiatives now liesprincipally with the state-level COEPs.

Decentralisation is continuing as well - in 2003, COEPaccepted its first municipal networks, and more will


5

Notes9 The diverse nature of poverty had long been acknowledged.

In Betinho's words, 'Hunger has a name and an address'.COEP drew on The Map of Hunger, a 1993 policy documenton food security prepared by Anna Peliano of the Institutefor Research on Applied Economics (IPEA).

Figure 1. Creation of the COEP state-level networks, 1995-2003.

follow in the years ahead. COEP's statutes affirm thatthese networks will have the same form and functionas their counterparts at national and state levels.

Administration and managementCOEP also reworked its administration and manage-ment in order to sustain a larger and more complexnetwork. By 1997, as the growth of the network threa-tened to overwhelm the management capacity of theorganisation, the Executive Secretary recommendedestablishing an operational arm. As the secretariat forCOEP, this would have an operating budget and staffto support the growing volume of meetings and elec-tronic interactions, and to monitor an expanding port-folio of local development projects implemented byCOEP members, especially in the state networks.

The proposal sparked a vigorous debate within COEP.For the first time the network would have to managemoney, specifically to meet the costs of its operation.One faction believed that introducing money into asolidarity committee would destroy it; another,including the Executive Secretary, felt that without adedicated secretariat the organisation would collapse. COEP opted for the latter, and in 1998 set upOficina Social (Social Workshop) within the FederalUniversity of Rio de Janeiro. Oficina is financedthrough annual subventions provided by 18 nationalentities - a clear statement of their commitment tothe work of COEP as a whole (see Annex II).

Setting up a secretariat may not seem like a specta-cular achievement, but one respondent argues thatthe creation of Oficina was the critical event inCOEP's development. Operationally, its budget hasallowed COEP members to meet regularly, and tobuild the interpersonal trust essential to COEP'sworkings. Politically, through their financial andother material contributions, the 18 national mem-bers have made a vital statement of their commit-ment. They have also taken a huge administrativeburden off the shoulders of COEP's leadership,allowing them to devote more time to maintainingcommunications, resolving differences among mem-bers, and supporting the state networks.

In some ways the most visible part of COEP, Oficinaprovides logistical support, organises and financesmeetings, and arranges the teleconferences thathave been a regular part of the network's internalcommunications since 1999. It is actively involved indevelopment projects supported by affiliates, assists

in monitoring, and administers the pool of projectseed money for state-level COEPs. Oficina is alsoresponsible for sharing knowledge and experiences.It maintains a database of projects - almost 850 ofthese are accessible on COEP's website.10 It publi-shes a series of cadernos ('notebooks') containinginformation on COEP's projects and programmes,and commentaries on development issues.11 It hasalso produced a series of more than 30 videos,'Imagens da Oficina Social', providing a lively andaccessible audio-visual record of COEP's work. Thesedatabase, print and audio-visual resources have alsocontributed to raising COEP's public profile.12

Creative paradoxes: people and institutions, changeand continuityThese changes in COEP's organisational profile showan intriguing interplay between the institutional andthe personal dimensions of the network. It was created by individuals using their acumen and goodpublic standing to seize a political moment. Itsgrowth at the state level reflected both the goodjudgment of the leadership and the commitment ofparticipants. But COEP could only survive and prosperwhen these personal qualities were joined withmaterial contributions of its member entities.

COEP's current governance structures and statutes13show the recurring balance between adaptation andpreservation of basic principles:• In March 2000 COEP changed its name from the

Committee of Public Entities to the Committee ofEntities, reflecting the growing number of mem-bers from the private sector and civil society. Thisdiversification resulted from the decision todecentralise, and is expected to continue as COEPbuilds municipal networks.14

• Several key operating principles, previously wellunderstood but not codified, are now spelled out


6

Notes10 www.coepbrasil.org.br/mobilizacao, accessed 28 June 2004.

As part of its contribution to the government's Fome Zeroprogramme, COEP opened its project database to otherorganisations, encouraging them to contribute to and todraw upon it.

11 By 2004 Oficina had published 13 cadernos. One COEPmember takes care of the graphic design and printing of thecadernos - another example of an in-kind contribution tothe network.

12 Although this profile may be more commonly understoodas that of Oficina. One of the challenges for COEP is tocreate a clearly identifiable public image for the network,distinct from its members and from support bodies likeOficina.

13 See COEP (2001).In August 2003, out of a membership of 762 organisations,256 ( just over one-third) were non-state entities. Of these256, 100 were private firms, and the remainder civil societyorganisations - NGOs, professional and businessassociations, religious bodies, non-profit educationalinstitutions, cooperative associations, and labour unions.

in the statutes. Article 6 confirms that participa-tion in COEP is voluntary. Article 8 forbids discri-mination on the basis of religious creed, colour,race, gender or political and philosophical belief.It also prohibits entities or their representativesfrom seeking personal gain from COEP activities,or promoting or discriminating against politicalparties.

• A new governance and management body, theAdministrative Council, is charged with monito-ring and ensuring compliance with COEP'sstatutes, and may recommend the exclusion of amember that fails to observe them.

• Complementing the statutes is a 'RegimentoInterno', a code of conduct that sets out principlesand procedures for the conduct of meetings andthe overall functioning of the network.

In 2003 COEP's leadership added another componentto its operational infrastructure. 'Rede Mobiliza'('Mobilisation Network') is an independent registeredNGO whose purpose is to support the work of COEP,and the campaign against poverty in general. WhereasOficina is financed by COEP's national entities, Redewill enable people and organisations to participate in

or support COEP and its work. Its members will beindividuals, it may engage volunteers who may not belinked to one of COEP's affiliates, it may receive dona-tions, and it may negotiate and administer externalgrants and contracts. Its link to COEP is effected by anoverlap of elected officials (see Figure 2).

With hindsight, it is evident that consistency of formand function has been a key principle for COEP sincethe first state networks were created. As the organisa-tion grew, its principles have been codified and anoversight body established. As the membership hasincreased, an apparently paradoxical link betweenparticipation and a tight structure has become

evident: to realise its design potential for agility andparticipation, the network has had to define moresharply the constitutional principles encouraging that.It has had to set up an oversight body to ensure theseprinciples are observed, as well as secretariat/supportbodies with the necessary budgets.

One other force has shaped the network. Asked toidentify key events in COEP's history, several respon-dents mentioned the spread of the Internet in themid-1990s. A fortuitous symbiosis developed between


7

COEP: network, active at national, state and municipal levels. State structures replicate

national structure.

Deliberative Council Administrative Council Executive Committee

Rede Mobiliza: an independent, NGO, supported by individuals, whose mandate is to support the work of COEP. Rede staff work

with COEP and Oficina Social. Rede receives and administers donations,

grants and contracts.

Oficina Social supports the work of COEP, monitors projects and

disseminates information about its work. Oficina is financed by

COEP’s member entities, and is hosted by a faculty of the Federal University of Rio, a member of

COEP.

Figure 2. Organisational chart: COEP, Oficina Social and Rede Mobiliza. Several leaders of COEP are members of the administrative bodies of all three organisations.

Notes14 In August 2003, out of a membership of 762 organisations,

256 ( just over one-third) were non-state entities. Of these256, 100 were private firms, and the remainder civil societyorganisations - NGOs, professional and businessassociations, religious bodies, non-profit educationalinstitutions, cooperative associations, and labour unions.

two critical enabling factors, one constitutional andone technological. The decision to decentralise COEP'sstructure by creating state networks, occurred as themembers' capiliridade (‘capillarity’/reach) acquiredelectronic form. The use of the Internet required, ofcourse, investments in hardware, software and train-ing, but once these were in place, COEP had a rapid,inexpensive and pervasive communications infra-structure. On a smaller scale, but important neverthe-less, members such as SEBRAE (the agency that sup-ports small enterprises) have provided television con-ferencing facilities to the network. As the state-levelnetworks mushroomed in the late 1990s, televisionconferences provided an effective complement toface-to-face meetings and email.

Growth of this nature in a voluntary organisation represents solid institutional performance. No one isobliged or paid to take part in COEP's forums and itswork, yet people continue to 'vote with their feet' andparticipate in large numbers. A consideration of 'per-formance' in a development organisation should alsotake account of what it does, however. Let us there-fore now look at how effective COEP's work has been.

3 Performance:What has COEP accomplished?

The survival of COEP and the growth in its member-ship and national reach in its first decade are no smallachievements. Successive governments have recog-nised its mobilising capacity and have drawn the net-work into their councils - CONSEA under PresidentItamar, Comunidade Solidária under PresidentCardoso, and CONSEA once more under President Lula.Acknowledging this, we now extend the discussion ofperformance to the ensemble of its activities and ask:how effective has COEP been in realising its mission?

There is compelling evidence - both informed opinionand quantitative data - that COEP has created and pur-sued its strategies effectively, and has played its cho-sen role adeptly. COEP can point to real achievements:• It has used its influence well, persuading hun-

dreds of entities to commit themselves to the

campaign. In doing so it has maintained its legiti-macy as a development actor and has succeededin creating a public space where its members andparticipants can speak to the major issues ofdevelopment and social justice.

• In a decade of public and institutional mobilisa-tion it has both encouraged and drawn upon theactive participation of people from all levels of itsmember entities.

• It has supported hundreds of development proj-ects, which have helped to create and consolidatethe links between COEP's members, communitiesand their organisations.

• Finally, COEP can reasonably claim to have appliedits influence effectively to its own sphere, helpingto change the culture of its members to becomemore socially active and responsible organisations.

There is less clear evidence, however, about the socialeffectiveness of the development initiatives COEP hassupported. Nor does it have a base of information andanalysis from which to assess the longer-term impactof its work, whether at the level of communities or ofnational discourse. This is not to suggest that anysuch assessment would be negative - on the contrary,the signals that do exist are positive. Rather, theanalysis remains to be done, and this is both chal-lenge and opportunity for COEP. This section recapsassumptions relevant to COEP's effectiveness, andreviews the evidence available, as well as the gaps.We conclude that COEP could use its considerablecapabilities to gain a better understanding of its realachievements. It has an opportunity to analyse theimpact of its work more systematically, so as to guideand support the next phase of its development.

3.1 COEP's role as 'influencer' and catalystIn examining COEP's programme to combat poverty,it is important to be clear about its role in this under-taking, and about the type of power it commands.These factors shape our understanding of its effec-tiveness. COEP offered a definition of its role in itsplan of action to support the government's FomeZero (Zero Hunger) programme, presented toPresident Lula in April 2003. 'To accomplish its mission, COEP mobilises organisations and people,promotes partnerships, encourages the practice ofinnovative projects, builds capacity for social action,and disseminates knowledge and information on ini-tiatives to combat hunger and misery'.15 By its owndescription, COEP is a catalyst for innovation andmobilisation, encouraging, cajoling, documenting and


8

Notes15 O COEP no mutirão contra a fome, vols I and II, Rio de

Janeiro, April 2003. This statement is clearly consistent withthe description of COEP's role in its 1994 statutes.

celebrating work well done. It provides guidelines forits affiliates on what they could do to advance FomeZero - but the affiliates retain the prerogative ofchoice. COEP aims to enhance their initiatives, encour-aging joint action whenever possible and using theknowledge and experience of the network to supportthe people doing the work. By presenting its affiliates'proposals, COEP is asserting that this is a collectiveeffort. By joining COEP, the entities have affirmed thatthey are in this together, and for the long haul.

The power COEP uses to discharge this role is strong-ly informal, best understood as influence. A sympa-thetic observer neatly described the network as 'aninfluencer'. Neither its leadership nor its membershipcan prescribe what individual affiliates should do.Because the affiliates retain the prerogative ofchoice, they are also accountable for their ownactions, and they have the operational capacity forimplementing the projects and campaigns. COEP hasclear principles, procedures and structures for itsmembership and programme (including a formalaffiliation process) but it has no jurisdiction over itsaffiliates and their resources. Whether and how theyact depends on the use of informal power withinCOEP, and on their readiness to accept that power aslegitimate. In practice, this power looks like influence- individual persuasion, collective pressure, serendipi-tous negotiation of diverse positions, clever use ofopportunities, personal trust and chemistry amongcolleagues and friends, communication of ideas andstrategies, and so on. This is not unusual - power isoften exercised in this way in civil society, for exam-ple. It is present in COEP by design - this is how thenetwork is intended to operate. Power of this kindmeans, however, that COEP often functions best asan indirect or behind-the-scenes presence in its affili-ates' development work. It may play an importantrole, but it may not always visible or understood,even by members of the communities involved.

Why then does it matter that we get a reading of theeffectiveness of COEP's programme? The leadershipenjoys the confidence of its growing membership,and its mobilising capacity continues to attract theattention of government. Surely these are goodproxy measures of an effective organisation? Theanswer is that they are good indicators, but anaccount of the performance of a development orga-nisation must surely address its success in realisingits mission. COEP, to its credit, has resolutely engagedwith the big development issues of the day - poverty,

inequality and social transformation. It follows thatthose with an interest in COEP - its members, sup-porters and the communities affected by its actions -have the right, even the obligation, to find out whatdifference it makes to those issues.16

Two respondents, founders of the network, under-lined the importance of this issue. COEP's leadershipalso needs to be able to speak convincingly aboutthe network's relevance and the effectiveness of itswork, particularly to communities and their organi-sations. COEP is on the threshold of another wave ofdecentralisation, and is a prominent supporter of theFome Zero initiative. Questions about the effective-ness of its programme thus bear on its strategicdirections: how can an assessment of the effects ofCOEP's work help to inform its choices about itsshort- and medium-term future?

The leadership expects the network to continue todecentralise and to place more emphasis on commu-nity-level work in the future. This more local focuswould rely primarily on COEP's existing state net-works, its nascent municipal networks, and the infra-structural support of Rede Mobiliza. Such a changewould make the network still more locally grounded.Closer links to communities and their organisationswould enable state and municipal COEPs to partici-pate in local development initiatives, and to mountsupport campaigns both to sensitise the public andmobilise financial resources.

A shift of this kind points to a higher profile for COEPitself as an actor in local development, with a moredirect and public role. This role is still to be definedbut could include COEP participants becoming moreactive development agents, especially as interlocutorsbetween communities and COEP members. This func-tion is particularly important, since the quality ofthese relationships is a key factor in effective projects.One respondent noted that communities that areorganised and clear about their agendas are usually better able to negotiate. Sympathetic andknowledgeable people within the entities, such asCOEP participants, can play an important complemen-tary role, not in organising communities or speakingon their behalf, but in hearing and understanding theissues they face and what they hope to achieve, andin encouraging creative responses by the entities.It is thus important that COEP and those it workswith know where it has succeeded in its develop-ment agenda and where it has not. All involved stand


9

Notes16 According to one respondent, COEP has an activist culture,

and its participants use their time to act on social issues.Evaluating projects would probably be a low priority formost people in the network. As argued in section 4, thisactivism is precisely one of the reasons why COEP iseffective.

to gain from an assessment of who has benefitedand who has not, and why; what role(s) COEP hasplayed, why, and how well. Accordingly, we asked ourrespondents what, in their view, COEP has achieved.

3.2 What has COEP achieved? This section summarises the respondents' judgmentsand other relevant information. The data provide clearand positive messages; they also set the stage formore systematic examination of the evidence and theissues.

(1) COEP has persuaded 800-plus entities at the national, state and municipal levels to committhemselves to the campaign against poverty.The network has used its influence well. It hasmobilised substantial resources - expertise,money, services, matériel, and people's energyand time - to support public campaigns and prac-tical development initiatives in all parts of thecountry. The plan of action in support of FomeZero is a good indicator of the scale of action thatCOEP is now capable of mounting. Its aggregateweight is formidable. Two examples show thescale of organisational commitments. One COEPmember, an electrical utility, estimates its 2003expenditures on COEP projects at R$10.5 million(€2.75 million). The projects are carried out in concert with municipalities, so that the utility'sresources have a multiplier effect in several sectors: health, education, urban horticulture andintegrated development schemes. Another mem-ber, a financial institution, provides training infinancial management for small enterprises.It aimed to reach 50,000 people in 2003, a num-ber that will rise to 600,000 by the end of 2006.

COEP is not a funding agency, but has leveraged theresources of its members by encouraging them towork together and with other development organi-sations. Although it has not achieved its successovernight, it can justifiably claim real progress. Itsmembers have indeed committed substantialresources to the mandate of the network.

(2) COEP has encouraged, supported and participatedin hundreds of development initiatives undertakenby its affiliates. By June 2004, COEP had supportedno less than 841 projects,17 including emergencyrelief operations and 'structural projects' (projetosestruturais) to address the underlying causes ofdevelopment problems. While acknowledging that

COEP has not usually played an operational role inthese projects, respondents argued that the net-work has nonetheless significantly improved them.In some cases COEP took the initiative in bringingoperational bodies together and challenging themto take on an innovative project (see box). In oth-ers, it has encouraged people to bring forwardgood ideas, and has publicised innovative prac-tices. Respondents cited COEP's introduction of ref-erence projects as a key intervention, in whichexamples of innovation were made available toboth members and other development organisa-tions. Respondents also appreciate Oficina's effortsto disseminate information through the onlineproject database and the cadernos.

COEP's support for development projects: cottongrowers' cooperatives in the northeastIn the late 1990s, communities of small farmers in the northeast acquired title to larger farmsthrough Brazil's land redistribution programme.One of these was the Margarida Alves CommunityAssociation in Paraiba State, whose membersformed a cooperative to grow cotton. COEP encou-raged Brazil's agricultural research corporation toprovide technical support to the new cooperative,persuaded the regional electricity utility to install a power line, and helped secure project financingfrom the public agency that supports small busi-nesses. For some organisations, this was the firsttime they had worked with small farmers.Although still young, the cooperative has had realsuccess, more than doubling its marketed produc-tion and its members' incomes. Based on its success, there is now a network of six similar cooperatives in the region, established with COEP'sencouragement. COEP has continued its assistance,with staff of Oficina Social helping to monitor projects and disseminate information among thecooperatives and their support organisations.

A complementary initiative, the NationalProgramme of Popular Cooperative Incubators(PRONINC), was launched in 1997 by several fede-ral universities to offer technical, managementand legal support to the cooperatives, with funding and technical assistance from COEP members.


Notes17 Banco de projetos mobilização,

www.coepbrasil.org.br/mobilizacao/, accessed 28 June2004.10

COEP has also promoted professional developmentfor its participants. When it became apparent in thelate 1990s that members' project work neededimprovement, Oficina engaged university affiliates tooffer courses in project design. These actions point toa readiness to invest in organisational learning, andto enable COEP's participants to strengthen theirdevelopment knowledge.

(3) COEP has organised many campaigns to mobiliseopinion within its affiliates, and among the public.COEP describes itself as a network that mobilisespeople and organisations. It has both relied uponand encouraged the spirit and practice of activecitizenship of people from all levels of its memberentities.

The creation of the state-level networks has dramati-cally broadened the spread of COEP's messages. Toshow the effects of COEP's institutional mobilisation,respondents noted that in 2003 it took less than amonth for national institutions and state networksto prepare COEP's plan of action to support FomeZero. A decade of effort had obviously succeeded, andboth were ready to respond. This change is farenough advanced, some respondents argued, thatCOEP's challenge vis-à-vis the entities is now to con-solidate the effects of this mobilisation by makingthe commitment to social action and cooperationone of their core values.

Respondents also pointed to COEP's success in mobi-lising the public, although the indicators are less specific. COEP regularly makes its collective publicpresence known, both through its contribution tocampaigns such as Natal pela Vida (Christmas forLife), and its own efforts, such as the annual Week ofMobilisation to commemorate Betinho and his work.Respondents are convinced that efforts such as thishave helped to keep poverty and hunger on thenational agenda. Such campaigns are not only direc-ted at the public. Working with civil society organisa-tions, COEP has campaigned for a national law desig-nating 9 August (the date of Betinho's death) as aNational Day of Mobilisation for Life. This wouldrequire all branches of government annually toreview and publicise their efforts to combat hungerand promote active citizenship. An electronic petitionon the COEP website continues to accumulate signa-tures, and the network is seeking the endorsementof a majority of deputies in the National Congress.

One final aspect of COEP's work in mobilising publicopinion holds considerable potential for the future.As suggested earlier, by engaging hundreds of orga-nisations in the campaign against hunger and pover-ty, COEP has changed the texture of public discourseon these issues. By establishing and maintaining its credentials as a legitimate actor in public life, thenetwork has created a public space for debate aboutrelevant policy and practice. Its commitment andnon-partisanship are not in doubt. It can legitimatelyconvene different actors for public discussion of theissues, both from within its own membership andbeyond. This record may enable COEP to participatein future policy discourse, without becoming dedica-ted to policy advocacy.

(4) Through these initiatives, COEP has changed theculture of its member entities. COEP's membersare now substantially more responsive and proac-tive on issues of social justice, and their corporatesocial responsibility, than they were a decade ago.COEP has used its influencing capability not onlyin public life, but within its own internal sphere aswell. Gradually, respondents argued, the entitieshave become integral to public debate and actionon poverty, and that experience has changedthem. Betinho's original judgment has been vindi-cated, and his vision at least partially realised.Respondents cited a number of examples. Severalentities now have policies on social responsibilityand staff units responsible for corporate action.One agency now has 1200 volunteers available forwork on social responsibility; less than ten yearsago there was a committee of ten or twelve peo-ple. By financing Oficina's budget, 18 entities areinvesting in COEP's capacity to attract and sup-port people, and have themselves benefited, inso-far as their employees have acquired new skills,knowledge and contacts. Collectively, the mem-bers have allowed or encouraged specific COEPinitiatives, for example by agreeing to launchinnovative projects that individual agencies hadbeen reluctant to support. In these instances theentities are accepting the exercise of COEP's infor-mal power. Finally, both members and externalobservers point to the widespread cooperationand partnerships among the entities as COEP'smajor achievements. Gradually, the practice ofworking together has become a habit, and haseroded both internal bureaucratic constraints andthe boundaries between organisations.18


11

Notes18 Miranda (1994), p.34, and interviews.

3.3 Assessing impactBeyond these considerable achievements, it is diffi-cult to assess the broader, longer-term effects ofCOEP's work on the big issues. Indeed, two respon-dents identified this as a serious gap in the network'sknowledge, and a continuing challenge. In effect, thechallenge is to assess systematically the validity ofone of the core strategic assumptions of COEP'sfounders - that the substantial resources of Brazil'sentities could be harnessed in the campaign to endpoverty, and that they could make a substantial difference. It is clear that significant resources havebeen mobilised. The complementary questionremains: to what effect?

There are problems to be overcome if COEP wishesto answer this question. First, there exists no sys-tematic analysis of the overall results of the projectsand campaigns with which COEP has been associa-ted. There is substantial information on individual projects. Many of the 800 or so project summariesin the database, for example, refer to proposals andreports, and some have been the subject of detailedexamination.19 Yet any synthesis, such as a scan ofproject reports, is lacking. In these circumstances,even establishing the parameters of an impactassessment would be a major task. The breadth anddiversity of the activities would make it conceptual-ly difficult as well. Second, COEP's role in these activities is often indirect and intermediate. It hastypically been a contributor, rather than the primemover or operational agency, and sometimes hasnot even been visible to people on the ground.20Thus any assessment of COEP's role is intrinsicallydifficult, because its responsibility is typically diffuseor indirect, its resources and 'value-added' oftenintangible, and its power and authority usuallyinformal.

Nevertheless, there are at least two ways in whichCOEP could use its capabilities to begin a systematicassessment of its impact. First, it could conduct adesk study of issues related to impact, using a sam-ple of the projects and programmes in the database.This would allow a scan of opportunities, problemsand available data, and could be useful in setting theparameters for a more detailed analysis. It wouldgive COEP an overall sense, for example, of how well-conceived and effective are the projects undertakenor supported by its affiliates. Such an analysis wouldcomplement Oficina's work in documenting, moni-toring and assembling project data. The capability to

do this work surely exists within COEP's membereducational and research institutions.21A second option would be to organise a moredetailed, community-based participatory researchprogramme to examine the impacts of several initia-tives across the country, including an analysis of theroles of COEP and other actors. This analysis could bedone to inform future development work by thecommunities themselves, and to guide COEP in itsefforts to build closer working links with local com-munities. Such an undertaking would have to benegotiated with communities and their organisa-tions, perhaps including pilot studies to test theapproach, spread over several months. Indeed, if itworks, it might become a continuing part of COEP'spractice of reflection and systematisation of know-ledge. Although the capability to do this probablyexists within COEP's networks, it may also be helpfulto engage Brazilians from outside COEP who haveexperience in participatory research.

Both of these initiatives would use applied researchto strengthen COEP's programme. They would alsoaugment COEP's ongoing efforts to disseminateexamples of effective development practice amongits participants, in order to improve their knowledgeand skills.


Notes19 Krutman (2004). Oficina staff also monitor projects

supported by COEP, such as those of the cotton-growers'cooperatives in the northeast.

20 Some of COEP's leaders thought that COEP had erred inpromoting Oficina as it had - not that Oficina's role wasunimportant, but rather that in emphasising Oficina'scontributions, COEP underplayed its own significance andunwittingly diminished its own profile.

21 One approach would be to build on the research by IPEA,COEP and Oficina Social for 'Pesquisa Ação Social' in 1999.This summarises the organisational makeup of the networkat the time, the type of activities undertaken, and anassessment of the achievements and challenges.12

4 Capabilities and capacity: What makes COEP work?

This section assesses COEP's capabilities, the key factors in its capacity and performance. The hypothe-ses guiding this research identified several successfactors:1. a creative and legitimate leadership that has used

available political space well;2. a capability for strategic thinking and action,

nurtured by its leadership;3. solid commitment from institutional members

and individual participants;4. a clear role, mandate and values for the network;5. a substantial pool of skilled, educated people with

professional competencies, and technical, materialand organisational resources, both within COEP'smember entities and in society at large.

Our research showed these hypotheses to be essen-tially correct. They identify resources that are largelyinternal to COEP, and which are also largely intangi-ble. According to most respondents, it is the firstthree that matter, yet closer examination suggests amore complex picture of the influence of each of thefive factors. The analysis of capacity also throwsother issues to the surface. These success factors canindeed help to explain capacity in COEP. There is,however, a quality to the network that merits furtherscrutiny. In addition, the interplay between thecapacity of the network and the circumstances inwhich it emerged, generates other questions. Towhat extent is capacity in COEP a response to socialdemand, or a product of organisational supply? IsCOEP's remarkable experience relevant to social justice activists elsewhere, or is it a 'special case'?

4.1 Success factorsWe begin by examining the factors that may explainCOEP's capacity, and their interaction. First and fore-most are the intangibles.

1. A creative and legitimate leadershipOur account of the founding and growth of COEP hashighlighted the public legitimacy of the small groupthat created it, and the influence of Betinho's perso-nal charisma and imagination. Betinho may have

been the motive force - there is no substitute forgenius, and he was especially gifted - but he did notwork alone. The creativity and audacity of thefounders bore fruit because complementary institu-tional processes were also at work. Inspiration worksbest in the company of perspiration. Betinho hadoperational capacity in the person of André Spitz, asenior manager with Furnas. Furnas' managementsupported his work with COEP, and continues to doso. Furnas' commitment to the initiative provided animportant example to other entities, and the proposalfrom Betinho's group found a receptive audience.

Since 1993 COEP has benefited from its non-hierar-chical structure and its open, participatory style,retaining imaginative leadership at the nationallevel, and nurturing creative leaders among its statenetworks. After Betinho's death in August 1997 COEPstruggled to compensate for the loss of his personaland symbolic presence, but appears to have pre-served the legitimacy of its leadership, and of thenetwork as a whole. In this respect, all respondentsargued that COEP's non-partisan political stance hasbeen of fundamental importance. It gives the net-work a distance from immediate political agendas,national and local, and has sustained COEP's autono-my and integrity. At the same time, the network is inno sense neutral on Brazil's big development issues.Poverty and social justice are profoundly political,because they touch on deep-seated patterns ofpower, interests and the use of organisational andsocial resources. Hence, the network operates in apolitically charged environment, and it does so withconsiderable political savvy. One respondent neatlysummarised these inherent tensions: 'COEP is notpolitical but it acts politically'.

Other characteristics of COEP's leadership should benoted as well. Respondents noted with pride thatCOEP has had no major problems of misappropria-tion of funds or abuse of power. The network hasalways held ethical behaviour and transparency ascore values, which have been codified in its statuesand reinforced by an oversight body. The network stillrelies on informal power to get things done and tomove its strategic discussions forward. This takes theform of personal friendships and contacts, influence,knowledge and status. At the same time, the leader-ship has to account for its decisions - informal powerin this context is not unaccountable power. The system seems to work: all respondents spoke well ofCOEP's leadership, both the individuals involved


13

(especially but not only at the national level) and thestyle of leadership.

2. A capability for strategic thinking and action COEP seems well able to analyse and adapt to chang-ing circumstances. Hence, we treat strategic thinkingas a distinct capability, rather than as, say, an aspectof creative leadership. The leadership has in turnencouraged this quality. This capability is importantfor any organisation, but several respondents consi-dered it to be the critical one for COEP, because thenetwork must constantly navigate tricky politicalwaters. COEP is not and has never been static - it hasconstantly changed its organisational form in orderto maintain its essential qualities.22 It is notable thatthe profound changes in COEP over the years havecome about as things have been added to the net-work, to respond to new challenges and circum-stances. Its basic principles and original raison d'êtrehave remained intact, and established structureshave not been dismantled. One respondent summedup the major changes as 'diversidade, decentralizar,projetos e municipalizar'.23

The measure of this capability is not so much themagnitude of the changes, as the fact that the net-work continues to reflect on its condition and itsposition. It evidently has the will to act when itbelieves changes are necessary, and a capability toidentify and respond to challenges before theybecome crises. Examples include the establishmentof Oficina Social in 1998, even though it was contro-versial at the time, to ensure that COEP's growth didnot unbalance the network, and of Rede Mobiliza in2003 to enable individuals to assist COEP. Finally, theanticipated shift in COEP's programming, to forgecloser practical links with communities, is deliberate.According to one respondent, the decision 'recognis-es COEP's dualistic nature. We are strengthening ournon-governmental side within our public setting'.One participant sees COEP becoming more systema-tic in its approach to change. In the early years, therewas a strongly reactive quality to its organisationalevolution; more recently, the network has taken amore considered approach, although there is noblueprint in evidence.

Creative leadership and strategic thinking areenhanced by, and augment an evident readiness tolearn. The national entities have financed the docu-mentation of COEP's development projects and trai-ning programmes, such as the university course on

project methodology. Respondents repeatedly spokeof their need for a better grounding in the theoryand practice of social development, as well as fortechnical support. As the network grows, this issuewill surely remain a priority for participants. COEPhas invested in a range of educational activities, but -perhaps because of its scope and diversity - it has notyet established a coherent strategy.

3. Solid individual and organisational commitmentThis interest in learning leads us to motivation andcommitment, both institutional and personal. COEP'smembership is institutional, but what an entity does,and what it contributes to COEP, depends very muchon the energy, interest, commitment and imagina-tion of the person(s) representing it. This holds truein both national and state networks. So much so,that respondents who know COEP well said withouthesitation that it is the commitment of the peoplewithin COEP that holds the network together andmakes it work. Nevertheless, personal commitment,the most intangible element of capacity, comes intoplay only within an institutional context, in concertwith the financial/material resources and organisa-tional processes of COEP's affiliates, not to mentionthe constitutional principles and structures of thenetwork itself. These institutional features comprisethe enabling operational conditions in which COEP'speople apply the energies and passion that theybring to their work.

In terms of commitment and motivation, COEP lookslike a voluntary organisation. Its institutional mem-bers decide what they will contribute, and the waythat works out in practice depends on how the indi-vidual participants from the entity carry it out. Fromthis perspective, COEP is a part of civil society, despitethe fact that most of its members are public andparastatal organisations and a minority are privatefirms and NGOs. This voluntary association, and astructure that encourages participation, gives it spe-cial qualities. COEP's participants want to work in thenetwork - no-one compels them to do so. At thesame time, the leadership has been welcoming andencouraging, a quality that respondents praisedhighly.

The growth of state-level COEPs provides a goodexample of the ethos of the network. The nationalentities encouraged the creation of these networksin the mid-1990s, aware that employees of their


Notes22 In the words of one activist, 'Evoluir para continuar o

mesmo' ('Evolving in order to remain constant'). Manyrespondents said that there is not 'one' COEP. The network'sreality changes according to who is speaking about it.

23 A loose translation would be: 'diversity, decentralisation,projects and municipalisation'.

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state subsidiaries would play key roles. Theirendorsement created an opportunity for activists insmaller cities to act on social issues in their owncommunities. The rapid growth of the state networksshows how energetically people and organisationsseized that opportunity. The leadership has also pro-vided experienced advisers as backup where needed.Through the Oficina Social budget, the national enti-ties have also ensured that the state networks canparticipate in COEP's planning meetings. Oficina'scadernos and videos describing innovations in deve-lopment work, as well as the training programmes,are examples of COEP's commitment to participantsthroughout the network.

Participants in COEP have usually been ready to worktowards consensus so that the network functionseffectively. Respondents say that COEP's social andgeographic diversity, combined with a non-hierarchi-cal structure, make consensus difficult to achieve.Equally, once established, that consensus is durablebecause it is based on will, not compulsion. There arestrong personalities in the network, but there hasbeen remarkably little internal conflict. Respondentsoffered several explanations: the apparent wide-spread agreement on COEP's purposes and core values; its structure (there are 'no bosses and noemployees'); the rewards for taking part are non-financial; and the primary principle is solidarity, notegotism. Others praised the style of individual lea-ders, especially at the national level. The structuresand culture of the network require a particular typeof leadership: non-authoritarian, accessible, ready tolisten, ready to encourage people and accept diversi-ty, willing to work towards consensus while main-taining the integrity of the network's mission, ensu-ring that people have the space to voice their ideas,and sufficient autonomy to get things done, withinCOEP's broad programme guidelines. One respondentobserved that 'We don't have an articulated strategy,but we do have results'.

Several respondents spoke of COEP's activist culture -people take part because they want to get thingsdone. Regular face-to-face and electronic meetingsare important, but there seems little interest in pro-longed organisational wrangles. The material base ofthis voluntary association, derived from its institu-tional membership, plays a part, although it is notimmediately obvious. Individual participants are paidemployees of their entities, which are also the vehi-cles by which they contribute to COEP's programme.

Programme discussions thus do not involve alloca-ting funds to one issue or another, because COEP hasno programme funds in this sense. Hence, pro-gramme decisions do not impinge on the jobs andsalaries of its participants. In a similar vein, COEP'sparticipants are not constantly raising funds to 'feedthe machine' and arguing about their use. The leadership has secured annual subventions forOficina, to be sure, which are critical to the network'soperations, but this is a periodic rather than continu-ous undertaking, and one that the leadershipattends to. Important as it is, it appears to be a side-bar to COEP's discussion of programme directionsand organisational development.

Finally, COEP's design rests on a link between volun-tary commitment and organisational and professio-nal competence. When COEP's founders invited theentities to join a social action committee to combathunger, they asked them to do what they knew, butto do it differently, for different people, and to workwith and for poor and marginalised communities.The decision to make training and other forms ofprofessional development available to networkmembers was wise, and participants have welcomedit and have benefited from new skills. COEP's openculture has given many people a chance to use theirknowledge outside the bureaucracies where theywork.

Our respondents' comments on COEP's capabilitiesfocused on these first three qualities - creative andlegitimate leadership, an evident capability forstrategic thinking and action, and individuals' moti-vation and commitment. The two remaining factorswere usually regarded as residual influences. We nowexamine COEP's values and mandate, and its techni-cal, financial and professional resources.

4. Values, mission and roleWe hypothesised that COEP's values, mission androle were a unifying ethical reference point for theorganisation. Our respondents gave this factor littleattention as a distinct element in COEP's success - itseemed tacitly accepted as part of its identity.Nevertheless, references to COEP's principles, and tothe values guiding the participants, were diffusedthroughout the respondents' comments, especially inthe discussion of commitment, and of the creation ofthe network, its principles and the legitimacy of itsfounders. Our respondents embraced the ethicalframework of the organisation. Indeed, this is what


15

attracted many of them to COEP. Several of themattributed the relative absence of conflicts withinCOEP to explicit agreement on its aims and purposes,and to a less overt but still influential understandingof the rules of appropriate behaviour and interactionamong participants. Several respondents also notedthat as COEP has grown, the leadership has properlydecided to codify its principles in the 'RegimentoInterno', and to establish an oversight body, theAdministrative Council. They saw this formalisationof principles as entirely reasonable. Because respon-dents share a broad consensus on COEP's values,their influence in the examples above appears unex-ceptional.

5. Technical, material and organisational resourcesLast on the list are the more tangible factors at workwithin COEP. Respondents' views on the resourcesavailable to COEP were more contradictory. When weasked them to rank the importance of the five success factors in shaping capacity, this one invari-ably came last. However, respondents made twoarguments that assign it much more significance.When we asked about key events in the life of COEP,several argued that the rapid adoption of theInternet in the mid-1990s was the critical technicalcondition that allowed the creation and growth ofthe state-level networks. Electronic communicationwas an essential link in the organisational chain.Oficina Social has relied on the Internet to makeCOEP's project database widely accessible. One ofmost acclaimed projects in COEP's ambit, CanalSaudé, the health education channel, offers electro-nic distance education.

Respondents made a similar point about the appea-rance of Oficina Social at a critical stage in COEP'sevolution. The growing network needed a supportiveinfrastructure that could finance meetings and communication, and assist in the development ofindividual competencies. The scale of COEP requireda substantial response, and the national entities haveprovided it, in the form of their subventions toOficina, as well as in-kind support, namely the paidtime of their employees. As our discussion of com-mitment suggests, this defining quality of a volun-tary organisation owes its influence in COEP preciselyto its combination with the less glamorous institu-tional resources of the member entities. From yetanother perspective, COEP's very dependence onthese material subsidies is an indicator of its successin institutional mobilisation.

Our respondents' lack of emphasis on this factordoes not fit well with one of the strategic assump-tions guiding COEP's creation: that the substantialresources of the parastatals should and could be har-nessed in the campaign against poverty. Moreover,they argued that COEP could claim major achieve-ments in this field. From the perspective of its initiallogic, then, as well as its track record, COEP could wellbe described as a capacity utilisation organisation.The clarity with which respondents analysed COEP'soriginal premises, and the conviction with whichthey argued the case for its effectiveness, thus seemat odds with the marginal weight they assigned tothis success factor.

One additional point should be added to this discus-sion, drawn from the author's observations overmore than two years of work with COEP. A visitor canonly be impressed by the presence of highly qualifiedpeople working within COEP's networks in far cor-ners of Brazil. Their presence and the quality of theirwork are testimony to their commitment, but also asignal of the depth of Brazil's reservoir of qualifiedpeople, and of the organisational strength of theentities that employ them. This also verifies thevalidity of another assumption about the value ofthe entities' capiliridade.

Placing this factor in comparative perspective showsits importance. Let us hold constant the special politi-cal or cultural qualities of Brazil that may haveallowed COEP and sustained it, as well as the influ-ence of inspired individuals. It is hard to imagineCOEP working as it does without its affiliates' sub-stantial material contributions, or without the deeppool of professional competence within the network.The test surely is to look elsewhere in countries ofthe South, and ask where similar enabling capabili-ties may be found. The list would be a short one.

4.2 Capacity as a product of supply or demand?

To make a final observation about the interrelation-ship between COEP's capabilities and its broaderenvironment: capacity in COEP cannot be neatly cate-gorised as a response to social demand, or as a pro-duct of organisational supply. It appears that therehas been a more complex interplay among socialneed, a strategic opportunity seen and seized, and awidespread response to an organisational vehicleonce it was created. There is no doubt that COEP isacting upon a social priority in Brazil, the fact of


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poverty and injustice. Clearly, in the early 1990s citi-zens' movements exerted pressure for public actionon these issues. Yet, supply factors also played a role.Creating COEP required the initiative of imaginativepeople who made a compelling case for a particulartype of public action. The subsequent developmentof the network has required sustained strategic andoperational competence within its leadership. COEPwas established as a means of engaging organisa-tional resources and enlisting individuals' commit-ment in the campaign against poverty. Once thatvehicle existed, organisational supply created its owndemand: people and organisations across Brazil haveresponded to the opportunity that COEP's presenceand record offered them. They have enlarged the net-work dramatically, thus deepening and broadeningits capacity to act. Finally, if we view their commit-ment as an aspect of social demand, their obviouspersonal engagement is all the more effective pre-cisely because they can call upon a substantial insti-tutional supply of material and technical resources.

4.3 Capacity and paradoxThis discussion of success factors provides a plausi-ble explanation of capacity within COEP, but thismay not be the whole story. We set out here someadditional observations on capacity that may beuseful to the network. Our research identifiednumerous paradoxes within COEP's culture, struc-tures and dynamics, which may be nodes of creativetension within the network. For example:• COEP is not a formal organisation in the conven-

tional sense, yet its members have formally affili-ated themselves to the network, and its princi-ples, structures and procedures have clear consti-tutional expression.

• Informal power is the 'current' that makes theseformal structures work. It is evident in the style ofleadership, and in the energy the participantsbring to the network.

• The membership of the network is institutional,but it is the commitment and competence of thepeople involved that make it go.

• COEP's structure is non-hierarchical, intended torecognise diversity, give space for participationand promote organisational agility. It is nonethe-less tightly structured, with deliberately consis-tent form and function among its national, stateand nascent municipal networks.

• COEP's original ethical principles and purposeshave been preserved, as have its basic structuralpremises, yet its organisational profile has been

radically reworked. There remains a constant ten-sion between preservation and renewal.

• Intangibles like leadership, creativity, confidenceand legitimacy give COEP its energy, and attractnew participants. Yet, it can only do what it doesbecause institutional members make sizeablefinancial and other in-kind contributions, in par-ticular the paid time of their employees.

• COEP is a voluntary organisation whose membersretain their institutional autonomy in program-ming. Similarly, the people who participate inCOEP choose to do so. Yet COEP's capabilities existbecause its participants hold salaried positionssecure enough to let them 'get on with the job'.They do not have to scramble for funds to feed anadministrative machine, or to dance with donorsabout programme directions.

• COEP does not accumulate or dispose of its ownmaterial or financial resources. Yet, it guides theapplication of substantial organisationalresources towards national campaigns and com-munity development initiatives and touches hun-dreds of thousands of people. For all this, it maynot be known or seen by many of the communi-ties involved.

• Politically, COEP is consciously nonpartisan. Yet itoperates with evidently good political judgmentin a charged institutional milieu, and is engagedwith the big development issues - poverty andsocial justice - which are inescapably political.

• COEP's ability to maintain a nonpartisan stancecontributes substantially to its legitimacy andindependence. These qualities continue to attractthe attention of political actors, so that thepreservation of organisational autonomy is a constant challenge.

• Guided by its mission and values, COEP works forthe betterment of communities throughoutBrazil. Collectively, it does not work with them. Itis COEP's member entities, including the individu-als active in COEP, who do so. Hence, there is astructural disconnection between COEP as anorganisation, and the people it is trying to assist.Its affiliates may be COEP's means of working tocombat poverty, but their prominence obscuresthe presence and role of the network. COEP per seis thus not directly accountable to the people inwhose interest it works.

COEP's objectives - its 'project' - are the eradication ofpoverty and the construction of social justice. Theseare its nominal and real purposes, and they motivate


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its people. Something else is also at stake, however:governance and democracy. The success or failure ofCOEP's efforts to harness the entities to its cause willtell us whether these important institutions canbecome accessible and responsive to all Brazil's citi-zens and communities, and whether they canadvance the public interest. In this sense, COEP'slong-term success or failure will be a partial barome-ter of the quality of Brazilian democracy, and of thelimits and possibilities of active citizenship, cidada-nia. It is, of course, to the everlasting credit of Braziland COEP that this issue is even on the public agen-da. 'Mature democracies' such as Canada would dowell to watch, learn and emulate.

This list of paradoxes could probably be extended.COEP's leaders and participants generally seem com-fortable with these tensions and manage them well.These tensions, and the way they are acknowledgedand managed, suggest another set of social process-es at work, possibly forces within social and organi-sational cultures that are not evident to an outsideobserver. If these and other creative tensions areindeed present in the network, their workings andimplications require another level of analysis beyondthe preliminaries here. It may be, for example, thatthese paradoxes are in fact the source of COEP's evident collective energy. Their presence thus offersCOEP participants an opportunity for further reflec-tion on why and how their network works.

4.4 Relevant elsewhere, or a special case?Readers may ask whether COEP's experience is rele-vant to activists working for social justice in othercountries. To open this discussion is not to suggestthat COEP's form and content are replicable else-where. On the contrary - as one of COEP's founderscommented, creating COEP might not have been possible in any country other than Brazil, or at anyother time in Brazil's history. Moreover, the materialbase of the network - the wide capiliridade of themember entities, augmented by the electronic webof communications and the substantial pool of tech-nical and professional resources - signals a one-of-a-kind quality, especially for the South. Nevertheless, atleast three aspects of COEP's experience seem rele-vant to other settings:• COEP's founders 'seized the moment', and made a

creative political and social intervention to useavailable political space. They proposed an organi-sation with a purpose and form evidently wellsuited to the cultural and institutional conditions

of Brazil at the time. A different society wouldrequire a different response to harness and buildon popular energies and the desire for change;and of course the political space and terrain maybe quite different from those that existed inBrazil in the early 1990s.

• COEP's formation reflected a specific strategy toaddress poverty. It was clearly understood as aproblem for the entire society, not only for peopleliving in poverty. It was integral to the publicinterest, and thus warranted mobilising resourcesfrom all parts of Brazilian society. More wealthyand powerful economic actors could and shouldmake an important contribution to a broad socialproject. The vehicle created - COEP - also offeredan opportunity for individuals to act on their owncommitment to cidadania, enabling them toadvance the public interest by applying their professional skills to issues of social justice.

• Democratic governance and active citizenshiphave been key themes in COEP since its inception.One of its founders' purposes was to change theculture of Brazil's public entities - to make themmore genuinely public institutions, serving theinterests of all citizens, transparent and accessiblein their operations. The same intent now extendsto the private corporations within COEP's mem-bership

These issues are not uniquely Brazilian. Brazilian citizens and organisations have addressed them intheir own way. COEP's experience may be relevantless for its specific contours than as an implicitfriendly challenge: how would the citizens of anothercountry respond?


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5 Looking aheadTo be useful, this analysis should also point to itemson the strategic menu that may challenge the net-work's capacity to remain relevant and true to itspurposes. Three issues emerge from respondents'comments about COEP's particular qualities andaccomplishments. They speak to the way COEPapproaches broad development questions.

How is the network to preserve its organisationalautonomy and integrity as a nonpartisan entity? Thisfirst issue is political, and apparently a permanentfact of COEP's life. The network understands thischallenge well: How can it best participate in andsupport government programmes to counter pover-ty, without becoming a part of government?Whether the network is a part of government, or acreature of civil society, is of course partly a matter ofperception. Different observers have located COEP atdifferent points on society's institutional terrain. Thechallenge today is cast in a slightly different light.Senior members of the government have encouragedCOEP's work and have formally recognised its support for the government's programmes, notablyFome Zero. Such official endorsement is surely wel-come. COEP's challenge now is to sustain its support,while maintaining enough structural distance fromgovernment to preserve its existence as an inde-pendent organisation.

From another perspective, this challenge is also anopportunity. Precisely because COEP has maintainedits stance as a nonpartisan actor in public life, it canoffer Brazilians a respected public space dedicated tothe anti-poverty campaign. COEP can exercise a con-vening role, providing a forum in which different viewsand actors may debate and be debated. By adroit useof this space, COEP may, if it chooses, engage withpublic policy without adopting overtly partisan posi-tions or becoming a specialised 'policy shop'.

COEP's leadership anticipates building closer workingrelationships with communities and their organisa-tions. This second issue arises from the community-oriented programme strategies COEP will likely pur-sue in the near future as it continues to support thegovernment's Fome Zero programme. These relationships will be based on COEP's support forlocal development projects and programmes.

Besides being valuable in themselves, such projectsmay offer COEP a focus for campaigns to mobiliselocal financial resources and to promote publicunderstanding of development issues. The municipalnetworks now appearing will be especially importantin this shift, because they hold the promise of beingone step 'closer to the ground' than the state-levelnetworks.

There are potential difficulties in this reconfiguration,however, some obvious, others less so. The intention isthat COEP as COEP will adopt a higher-profile role inthe interaction with communities, with its partici-pants acting as interlocutors between communitiesand the entities. Questions arise immediately: howdoes one describe or understand COEP as a develop-ment actor? Banco do Brasil, say, is well enoughknown as a bank, or Furnas as an electricity utility, orEmbrapa as an agricultural research and extensionagency. What identity, role or métier does COEP bringto the process? Individual employees of a bank or autility, moreover, have internal guidelines for theirwork with the public and their responsibility. Whospeaks for COEP? How is COEP to present itself tocommunities, and how is it to be accountable tothem? How can COEP assure consistency in style andcontent across its different networks? These ques-tions do not arise at the moment, because COEP as anorganisation plays a different role behind the scenes.The issue is important because it touches on thequality of entities' interactions with communities, butalso it opens up an important governance questionfor COEP. How can it overcome the current disconnectbetween the network and the people it works for, bystrengthening its work with them? Just as COEP'slarger 'project' holds implications for the quality ofgovernance in Brazil as a whole, so the impendingrefocusing of the network's attention on its commu-nity-level activities will illuminate its own publicaccountability.

COEP's historical legitimacy may help it to workeffectively at local levels, easing the construction ofnew accountabilities. At the same time, it cannotassume that legitimacy earned in national or statecontexts will readily transfer to community settings.This will have to be earned and preserved by the people on the spot. In a different milieu, an historical asset may be a vulnerability. These areuncharted waters for COEP, demanding careful navi-gation. A programme of participatory research withcommunities to examine the impact of COEP's work


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(see section 3.3) may be a means of exploring theissues deliberately and in depth, and of building trustand knowledge among the people involved.

Together, these first two strategic issues generateanother question about COEP's positioning: what isthe appropriate balance among COEP's communityorientation-in-the-making, its potential role in influ-encing policy, and its historical focus on mobilisingmember institutions and strengthening their capaci-ty as actors in social development?

Participants in COEP are seeking to improve theircompetencies in areas relevant to the new pro-gramme directions. This third strategic issue arisesdirectly from respondents' descriptions of the chal-lenges they face as development workers - theirdesire for more knowledge about community deve-lopment practice, as well as technical backup forspecific activities. COEP's investments in learninghave sharpened people's sensitivity to this issue.As participants have immersed themselves in practi-cal development work, and as they have benefitedfrom training programmes and the examples of reference projects, their demand for professionaldevelopment has increased. This is a good sign, nota problem, although it does create more demandson COEP's leadership at all levels, and on the net-work's support structures. The prospective changeof emphasis towards municipal networks will bringdemands for new skills as well. If COEP embarks onmobilising financial resources to be applied to localcommunity development projects, for example, thiswill require a whole new array of skills in manage-ment and communication. These are not difficult inthemselves, but they would require a major depar-ture from past practice and probably a cultural shiftas well. Until now, the network has not been afundraising and grant-making body.

To its credit, COEP's leadership has been thinkingabout ways to handle such challenges, and is reaching out to similar organisations in other coun-tries for a dialogue on issues of common interest.This case study is one result of that initiative. Thisreport is intended as a modest contribution to aremarkable organisation.


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Annex I: Notes on method Work began on this case study in June 2003. ECDPMand COEP agreed to undertake a case study as part ofECDPM's multi-country study, with John Saxby as theprincipal researcher and author. The author submitteda proposal to ECDPM, and developed the hypothesesand research plan between September and November2003 in discussion with both organisations. Most ofthe field research took place in December 2003.Between January and June 2004, the author prepareda first draft of the paper, revised it after receiving com-ments from ECDPM and COEP, presented a seconddraft to an international conference organised byCOEP in March 2004. After the conference, the reportwas revised again for publication.

The analytical framework The ECDPM project uses a seven-part analyticalframework (see inside front cover). Its three core variables are capacity, endogenous change and adap-tation, and performance. Interacting with these aresocial and organisational processes and relationshipsgrouped as four intervening variables: internal features and resources, stakeholders, the externalcontext and external intervention. A recent ECDPMOccasional Paper complements this overall frame-work by elaborating the notion of 'capacity'.24

We adapted this framework to COEP's circumstancesas follows. First, we took the three core variables as

the principal reference points. These are, in the wordsof the ECDPM paper, 'the heart of the framework'.25The dynamic between change and capacity is mostcritical, with COEP's (presumed) capacity enabling thenetwork to change and adapt over the years. Hence,in our hypotheses (summarised below), we identifiedfive success factors, or aspects of COEP's capacity, toexplain the network's apparent effectiveness. Thisanalysis of capacity requires a prior account of COEP'shistorical evolution - its improbable beginnings andits remarkable growth and diversification - presentedin the first part of this report.

The discussion of performance complements that ofchange and capacity. In essence, 'performance' is evi-dence of purposive change and adaptation, and ofcapacity at work. The case of COEP blurs the bound-ary between 'change' and 'performance' somewhat.As explained in the text, growth and adaptation in avoluntary organisation, especially on the scale experi-enced by COEP, are themselves indicators of veryeffective performance.

We have also used an interpretation of 'performance'that is slightly different from that in the ECDPM frame-work. There, performance is understood in terms of'execution, implementation, accomplishment, function-ing and delivery of value'.26 This definition seems moresuited to an operational agency than to COEP, whichwe understand as a mobilising and influencing organi-sation (with operational capacity and responsibility inthe hands of its individual member entities). Hence, wefocused our inquiry on accomplishment.

Within this triad of core variables, the key notion of'capacity' warrants further explanation. We found theECDPM Occasional Paper, One More Time, especiallyuseful in the way it broke down 'capacity' into sub-concepts, which we used in framing the discussion ofCOEP's 'capabilities and capacity' in section 4. Thepaper identifies five 'Cs': commitment, competencies,components, capabilities and capacity:27• Commitment - the loyalty, ownership, motivation

and confidence that energise people. From this per-spective, efforts at developing capacity are success-ful when they release people's creative energies andskills that are often dormant, underutilised or sup-pressed. No amount of technical expertise or organ-isational engineering can replace commitment.

• Competencies - the personal and professional skillsof individuals. These have often been the focus ofpeople and organisations working to build capaci-ty. Training programmes are the classic route.


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Notes24 See 'Capacity development: the why's and how's',

Capacity.org, Issue 19, October 2003, available online atwww.capacity.org . The portal also includes summaries ofthe case studies to date. See also: One More Time: Just HowShould We Think about the Concept of Capacity? ECDPMOccasional Paper no. 1, November 2003, available online atwww.ecdpm.org.

25 ECDPM, 'Draft Background Paper on Methodology', p.4.26 'Draft Background Paper on Methodology', p. 36.27 One More Time, pp.3-4. It may be helpful to explain why the

'5 Cs' schema proved useful in organising ideas andquestions about capacity. This approach emphasisescapacity within organisations, but it has also been helpfulhere in understanding capacity among organisations. Itallows an examination of different elements and conditionsof capacity, an important asset in analysing a network oforganisations, where these features are aggregated. Inaddition, it directs attention to capacity as something morethan the sum of organisational parts - it is precisely thisquality that makes COEP noteworthy. It also focusesattention on the factor of commitment, which is evidentlycritical to COEP's capacity. COEP's particular featuressuggest that the '5 Cs' approach can be helpful as a way ofunderstanding capacity from a more systemic perspective,one that encompasses multiple organisations, or capacityon a national scale.

• Components - the features and assets of an organ-isation, including structure, leadership, mandate,strategic positioning, technical systems, internaland external communications, legitimacy, behav-iour and culture, resources of all kinds, geographicprofile, and so on. Components are not themselvescapacity, but they can be important enabling orlimiting conditions for it.

• Capabilities - the specific abilities of an organisa-tion to harness commitment, competencies andcomponents. Capabilities can be organisational,technical, human, or a mixture of all three. Theycan be focused inwards or outwards, and shouldsupport the performance requirements of theorganisation.

• Capacity - the overall ability of an organisation toperform. It brings together commitment, compe-tencies, components and capabilities in a coherentbroader system.

We then linked these core variables to the four inter-vening factors identified in the ECDPM framework: theexternal context, relations with stakeholders, internalresources and features, and external intervention. Ofthese, the fourth, 'external intervention' (by, for exam-ple, bilateral donors or multilateral agencies) is of limit-ed relevance in this case, because COEP is a whollyBrazilian creation. Only in the last two years has itacquired an international dimension, by exploring linkswith counterparts in the Americas and elsewhere. It ispossible that this aspect will become more importantin the future - in March 2004, for example, the networkhosted its first international seminar - but it had littleimpact on the organisation in its first decade.

The three other intervening factors appear not asseparate categories of information and analysis butas themes running through the account of change,capabilities, capacity and performance. We adoptedthis approach partly because of the primacy assignedto the historical account of change in the network,partly because these factors are better treatedtogether than in isolation. These variables seem easi-er to understand as aspects of an historical accountrather than as distinct processes. Thus, the influenceon COEP of the external (Brazilian) context in 1993, forexample, was very different from that in 2003. And,crucially, so is COEP itself. For this study of capacity,then, the issue is the way these two factors influenceeach other - specifically, the way COEP used its inter-nal resources to respond to a changing external envi-ronment (as well as, of course, to its internal environ-ment). Hence these factors are woven into the

account of COEP's evolution, and they reappear in theanalysis of capabilities and capacity, which offers anexplanation of that evolution.

We should note too, our adaptation of the interven-ing variable 'relations with stakeholders'. We havechosen to focus on legitimacy, i.e. the rightfulness ofCOEP's existence and its authority, as the criticalaspect of this issue. The concept of legitimacy directsattention to the moral basis of the power exercisedby COEP - especially relevant because the networkhas influencing rather than jurisdictional or evenoperational power. Three groups of stakeholders arecentral to the assessment of COEP's power and legiti-macy: government in Brazil, especially the federalgovernment; the people who participate in COEP - thesenior management of COEP's entities and theiremployees; and the people and organisations ofBrazil's communities. Hence, the research exploredthe extent and basis of COEP's legitimacy within pub-lic life, the commitment its participants bring to thenetwork, and the place of these factors in COEP's linkswith communities. 'Legitimacy' appears as a threadthroughout the report, just as do 'external context'and 'internal features and resources'.

HypothesesThe hypotheses guiding the research were framed interms of the three core variables described above.They were based on the author's knowledge of COEP,derived from an advisory and consulting relationshipsince 2000. First, COEP's positive performance as anorganisation is evident in its achievements in twoimportant areas: its remarkable growth, change andadaptation over a decade; and its effectiveness inrealising its organisational purposes. We shouldemphasise that this research did not evaluate COEP'sdevelopment impact. Assessing impact, and COEP'sown analysis of the longer-term results of its work,are part of the discussion, however.

Second, we hypothesised five success factors toexplain COEP's overall capacity, its potential to per-form. These are mostly intangible forces, primarilywithin the network:1. a creative and legitimate leadership that has used

available political space well;2. a capability for strategic thinking and action,

nurtured by its leadership;3. solid commitment from institutional members

and individual participants;4. a clear role, mandate and values for the network;5. a substantial pool of skilled and educated people


22


23

with professional competencies, and technical, mate-rial and organisational resources, within COEP'smember entities and in Brazilian society at large.

Data gatheringThe two main sources of information for this studywere interviews and documents. The latter includedpublications and documents used principally withinCOEP. The author and COEP's research assistant,Patricia Baldarelli, consulted 19 people via group andindividual interviews. Respondents included four people working within COEP's national structures, 14from the state-level networks, and one university faculty member familiar with COEP's work. The inter-views ranged in length from one hour to four and a

half hours (the latter in two sessions), with the usuallength being two hours. The interviews includedquestions seeking information about COEP, as well asthe respondents' assessment of issues within thenetwork. The interview format comprised mainlyopen-ended questions, and the interviews took placein Portuguese. We agreed before the interviews thatwe would not attribute respondents' information andopinions unless they asked us to do so. The interviewschedule is available on request.

The documents and websites consulted are listed inthe references. Staff of Rede Mobiliza kindly providedinformation on COEP's finances (see Annex II) and onCOEP's membership.

Annex II: Financing COEPCompiling a full picture of how COEP's structure and pro-gramme are financed would be a major piece of researchin itself, beyond the scope of this case study. We can pro-vide some brief but useful indicators, however.

(1) Budget of Oficina Social: As the secretariat for thenetwork, Oficina's budget shows COEP's cash oper-ating costs, including its requirements for commu-nications, meetings and publications, as well as forproject monitoring and support. The followingtable shows Oficina's budgets for 2002 and 2003(in Reais, R$100= €26.27, figures rounded):

Oficina budget, for years: 2002 2003

National exec. meetings 78,880 101,630

Week of Mobilisation 23,240 34,650

Small projects (states) 10,670 9,130

Teleconferences 6,690 1,080

Publications and videos 81,740 10,920

Community project support 138,960 251,410

Staff salaries and benefits 20,490 31,490

Total: 360,670 440,310

Related in-kind costs are considerable, but would have to be costed. Individual entities provide substantial

subsidies, in the form of (for example) graphic designand printing services, and teleconferencing facilities.

(2) In-kind personnel costs: COEP's member organisa-tions allow their employees to do COEP work oncompany time, thereby contributing salaried timeto the network. This does not account for all thetime people commit to COEP, during evenings,weekends and vacations. A respondent gave thefollowing estimate of costed time allotments forthe executive committee of a state-level COEP,acknowledging that actual figures would varywith the size of the committee, the scale of itsprogramme, individual workstyles, and so on:

Number of people: 20 (from 20 entities).Hours committed per week: average 1.5 hours perperson = 30 person-hrs/week in total.Monthly time commitment, total: 120 person-hours, or three 40-hour weeks. In-kind personnelcosts: 3 weeks at estimated average monthlysalary of RS 2500 = RS 1875, or RS 22,500 per year.

(3) Programme resources, cash and in-kind contribu-tions: These figures are also extremely difficult toestimate, either in aggregate or on a project-by-project or entity-by-entity basis. This is partlybecause much of COEP's work has historicallybeen premised on encouraging the entities tomake in-kind contributions to the campaignagainst poverty. Indicators of the scale of theseresources are noted in the text, such as the actionplan for Fome Zero. It would be useful to include amore accurate assessment of these resources inany assessment of the impact of COEP's work.


24

ReferencesCOEP. 'Estatuto do Comitê de Entidades no Combate à Fome e pela Vida - COEP', Rio de Janeiro: COEP, 2001.

COEP. 'Nove Anos Construindo Caminhos, 1993-2002'. Rio de Janeiro, mimeo, May 2002. (This document is a smallportable archive of documents from different parts of COEP's life during its first nine years.)

Comitê de Entidades Públicas no Combate à Fome e pela Vida (COEP). 'Estatuto', Rio de Janeiro, September 1994.

Caledon Institute of Social Policy. COEP: Brazilian Organizations 'Against Hunger and for Life'. Community StoriesSeries, Ottawa, March 2004 (available on the website of the Caledon Institute: www.caledoninst.org).

European Centre for Development Policy Management. One More Time: Just How Should We Think about the Conceptof Capacity? ECDPM Occasional Paper 1, ECDPM, Maastricht, The Netherlands, November 2003.

European Centre for Development Policy Management. 'Draft Background Paper on Methodology: ECDPM Study forthe DAC-OECD on Capacities, Change and Performance', ECDPM, Maastricht, The Netherlands, mimeo, May 2003.

Fleury, Sonia, Danielle Migueletto and Renata Bloch. 'Gestão de uma rede solidária: o caso do Comitê de Entidadesno Combate à Forme e pela Vida', in Cadernos da Oficina Social 11, Rio de Janeiro: Oficina Social, 2002, pp.249-276.

IPEA, COEP e Oficina Social. 'Pesquisa Ação Social', Rio de Janeiro, mimeo, 1999.

Krutman, Henriette. Fatores Críticos no Êxito de Projetos de Desenvolvimento Local Integrado e Sustentável, PhD the-sis, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, January 2004.

Miranda, Napoleão. Ação da Cidadania: Memoria. O Comitê de Entidades Públicas no Combate à Forme e pela Vida,Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, 1994.

Peliano, Anna. The Map of Hunger, Institute for Research on Applied Economics (IPEA), 1993.

Websites consulted:ECDPM: www.ecdpm.org; www.capacity.orgCOEP: www.coepbrasil.org.br/mobilizacaoBanco do Brasil: www.bb.com.brBanco do Nordeste: www.bnb.gov.brEmbratel: www.embratel.com.brFurnas: www.furnas.com.br Petrobras: www2.petrobras.com.br

Banco do BrasilBANESTESBNBBNDESCEFCEMIGCESPCHESFDATAPREVDNC

ECTEletrobrásEMBRAPAEMBRATEL FIOCRUZFINEPFURNASIBGEINCRAINT

LIGHTNUCLENPetrobrásRadiobrásRFFSASERPROSUDENETELERJUFRJVale do Rio Doce

Annex III: List of signatories to COEP, 1993

The European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) aims to improve internationalcooperation between Europe and countries in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific.

Created in 1986 as an independent foundation, the Centre’s objectives are:• to enhance the capacity of public and private actors in ACP and other low-income

countries; and • to improve cooperation between development partners in Europe and the ACP Region.

The Centre focuses on four interconnected themes:

• Actors of Partnerships• ACP-EU Trade Relations• Political Dimensions of Partnerships• Internal Donor Reform

The Centre collaborates with other organisations and has a network of contributors in the European and theACP countries. Knowledge, insight and experience gained from process facilitation, dialogue, networking,infield research and consultations are widely shared with targeted ACP and EU audiences throughinternational conferences, focussed briefing sessions, electronic media and key publications.

This study was undertaken by ECDPM in the context of the OECD/DAC study on Capacity, Change andPerformance. The Comitê de Entidades no Combate à Fome e pela Vida financed the publication of the paper inPortuguese.

The results of the study, interim reports and an elaborated methodology can be consulted at www.capacity.orgor www.ecdpm.org. For further information, please contact Ms Heather Baser ([email protected]).

ISSN 1571-7577

The European Centre forDevelopment Policy ManagementOnze Lieve Vrouweplein 21NL-6211 HE Maastricht, The Netherlands Tel.: +31 (0)43 350 29 00Fax.: +31 (0)43 350 29 [email protected] www.ecdpm.org

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