Why am I at the Skoll World Forum?
In the 1930s:
U.S. President Roosevelt was approached by groups of labor leaders who
asked him to enact certain progressive, pro-labor policies. President
Roosevelt already agreed with what those labor leaders were asking him
to do, but told them that it wasn't politically possible for him to
enact those changes yet. He said "Your job is to go out there, and MAKE
me do it." So they did, and thousands of labor actions later, President
Roosevelt was able to enact those policies which he already wanted to support.
Today:
Every political leader in the world wants to prioritize basic
education, health, water/sanitation, land rights, gender equity for
his/her constituents. How can we make it possible for those political
leaders to do what they already want to do?
I am at Skoll looking for social innovations that will help us
minimize the risk that political leaders all over the world must take to
prioritize what they would already like to do (i.e. provide basic
social goods).
I run WASH Advocates, an
advocacy and lobbying group in Washington DC entirely dedicated to the
world safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene challenge. I have
chosen to work there, because, to misquote Al Gore, "You can't just
change lightbulbs. You have to change the laws." The real accelerators
of longterm, systemic change are upstream. This convening at Oxford is
particularly interesting to me, because this event is less about direct
service provision (water, ARVs, schoolbooks, laptops), and more about
the type of systemic, empowering change for which we all strive.
Upstream activity at the political level leads to important,
sustainable changes in service delivery, e.g. changing building codes in
Brazil to allow group sanitation facilities, or passing legislation in
India to allow (or mandate!) rainwater harvesting in Indian cities to
adapt to climate change and urbanization.
Over the coming days I hope to attend the most relevant sessions, and
meet delegates interested in strengthening political will country by
country. Basically, I'd like to meet with folks at SWF who think that
politicians are actually part of the solution, not just part of the
problem.
Posts
