Introduction

This report summarizes several key aspects of internationally-oriented non governmental organizations’ (NGOs) advocacy campaigns targeting International Financial Institutions (IFIs) (World Bank Group, International Monetary Fund, African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, European Investment Bank, and Inter-American Development Bank). It provides an overview of the issues at hand and how they are approached strategically with case studies. To do this, it relies mainly on English-language, publicly available information offered by NGOs.

The report is divided into three sections. First, it sets out the main items on the NGOs’ agenda. Next, it focuses on NGO operational strategies, discussing instruments and processes and making use of illustrative examples. Thirdly, it presents two case studies in which strategies unfold within ongoing campaigns: (1) the IFI disclosure policy campaign by the Global Transparency Initiative and the campaign targeting the Inter-American Development Bank’s Camisea natural gas pipeline in Peru.

Issues at Hand

NGO strategies focus on either internal or external reforms. Internal reforms involve IFI governance, whereas external ones address the impact of IFIs on the broader political and environmental landscape. Fundamentally, internal reforms may either lay the groundwork for external reforms or themselves be a result of successful external campaigns. A number of NGOs combine internal and external strategies. However, often groups focus on one category or a sub-category. This section briefly sets forth the main areas of reform.

Internal reforms focus on the governance of IFIs. The issues include transparency, accountability and democracy/participation. Each of these issues bleeds into one another in practice, e.g. meaningful accountability depends upon transparency. Further related themes include, gender of staff, board reform, complaint response system, and disclosure of payments to governments.

NGOs identify wide-ranging external reforms. These are either policy and project-specific, alternatively they encompass a cross-section. Three common areas are (1) projects, (2) debt relief, and structural adjustment.

Projects encompass extractive industries (oil, gas, mining), power, dams, and transportation. NGOs aim to ensure that projects respect concerns such as displacement, environment, human rights, participation, indiginous rights, dispute resolution, and information disclosure. Important NGO success stories involve the establishment of the World Commission on Dams and the World Bank’s Inspection Panel. An important distinction exists between public and privatized projects. The trend has been towards privatized ones and the distinction has important implications for the nature of NGO strategies.

Many individual NGOs and networks of NGOs focus on debt. They have succeeded in capturing high profile media attention and in influencing government action at the highest levels. Most organizations aim for complete debt write-off. Campaigns are ongoing.

NGOs also focus on structural adjustment programs initiated in the aftermath of financial crises. NGOs mobilize media coverage of, among other things, the impact of conditionalities placed upon IFI financial packages premised in part on the so-called Washington Consensus. Conditionalities include mandates to privatize, cuts in social spending and a host of other specific programs.

Importantly, these external campaigns do not occur in isolation from one another. For example, privatization conditionalities overlap with the shift towards privatized projects. This then leads to a series of additional externally-oriented campaigns, many of which are transversal.

Given space constraints, this report cannot summarize all campaigns. Instead, a list follows: aid, citizen involvement, currency speculation, democratization, environment (global warming, renewable energy), forestry, gender, health and education, HIV/AIDS, human rights, IMF poverty impact assessment, indigenous rights, information disclosure, knowledge bank (World Bank), land rights, lending priority, NGO dialogue, pesticide use, post-conflict resolution, poverty reduction, sectors, and use of experts. The importance of these issues should be obvious. Moreover, these campaigns infuse other internal and external campaigns. One success has been to bring issues into the mainstream, e.g. gender.

As we turn to how NGOs approach these issues strategically, it is important to keep in mind that each campaign has, thematically, different goals which necessarily engender distinct strategies. At the same time, commonalities exist. For example, targets of debt campaigns differ from project to project. Although common actors exist, each campaign involves unique ones. Also, campaigns adopt distinct stances towards governments, sometimes focusing on different institutions within the state.

Approaches to Issues

NGOs use a range of strategies. Many cut across campaigns, while others are tailored to the needs of specific ones. This section provides an overview of strategic issues, relating to tactics and processes. These issues are:

• the extent to which movements are internationally-constituted or nationally-oriented;

• the level of action, i.e. regional, local, or grassroots;

• the actors and targets;

• the role of public opinion and its degree of mobilization;

• how remote issues are made relevant to the public;

• extent to which government is a legitimate and effective target capable of addressing reforms;

• how IFIs are approached, i.e. direct to officials (lobbying), collaboration, etc.;

• tools used, i.e. ‘name and shame’ versus ‘quiet diplomacy’.

Each of these strategic issues raises difficult questions regarding typology, measurement, and evaluation. Given space constraints, this section offers mainly impressionistic observations. It aims to draw out points of difference and commonality among strategies. In an effort to ground the discussion, ample use is made of examples. In the hope of providing some idea of how many of these different strategic issues interact in the context of specific campaigns, the following section will provide two extended case studies.

International Movements or Series of National Movements

This report focuses mainly on international NGOs. However, such organizations join forces with other NGOs and more nationally-oriented groups to mount campaigns. NGOs partner with and lend strategic resources to local groups.

Network-based movements work across issue areas and partner with other organizations. At the same time, the designator ‘network’ for an NGO grouping may mean varying things; networks may have free-standing institutional structures with permanent staff. Three networks that cover transversal issues are: 50 Years Is Enough, Global Transparency Initiative, IFI Watchers Network, and Social Watch. Many networks are regionally-oriented, e.g. Citizens Network on Essential Services (Latin America and South Africa), CEE Bankwatch Network (Central and Eastern Europe), EURODAD (Europe), and Network on Debt and Development (Africa). Another possibility is the establishment of a federal-based structure, like Friends of the Earth (71 national groups).

An NGO might be free-standing but join with others to address specific issues. For example, Amazon Watch works with indigenous and environmental groups. Similarly, the Bank Information Center partners with other NGOs and local groups. Christian Aid takes as one of its main points the partnering with Southern organizations for the not uncommon purpose of developing local capacity. A transversal group, Gender Action, aims to work with other NGOs to incorporate gender analysis into IFI policy-making. International partnerships may take the form of publishing Southern voices, as is the case with CHOIKE.

Level of Action, i.e. Regional, Local or Grassroots

Most NGOs work at multiple levels of action, countering negative effects of decisions taken at the international level on local communities and issues. NGOs may contribute to preexisting local movements. The theme of building local capacity informs the strategies and processes of many NGOs, e.g. ActionAid, AFRODAD, Amazon Watch, Bank Information Center. NGOs offer strategic advice and institutional infrastructure, e.g. Center for International Environmental Law provides legal assistance in accessing dispute panels. In addition, campaigns may be organized on a regional level (see networks above).

Who Are the Actors and Targets?

Targets and actors are campaign-dependent. For example, a regional European grouping, like CEE Bankwatch Network, targets European institutions, e.g. European Investment Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Similarly, the NGO Forum on the ADB, as its name suggests, focuses on the Asian Development Bank. Thematically, organizations like Christian Aid and Forest Peoples Programme might, with their interest in making IFIs accountable to the UN, e.g. the Millennium Development Goals, focus on a set of UN institutions that others do not. A brief look at debt and project campaigns highlights target differences.

Debt campaigns are not solely IFI-oriented. States have many creditors, thus NGOs target multiple actors. For example, besides the specific debtor countries, actors involved include foreign governments, the G8, Paris Club, and private banks. NGOs coordinate strategies targeting multiple institutions simultaneously. This approach stems from the coordination of creditor institutions.

Project campaigns also involve the coordination of actors. However, although an overlap of actors between campaigns exists, different institutions are involved in debt to those involved in projects. For example, projects involve not only local and foreign governments generically, but specific national export credit agencies and insurance entities as well as private banks, corporations, and shareholders. Institutions vary from project to project, e.g. different IFIs and export agencies.

What is the Role of Public Opinion and to what Degree is it Mobilized for Institutional Reform

One way that NGOs contribute to campaigns is through adept use of the media. Even the most casual observer of debt and project campaigns sees the issues in part through the lens of NGO campaigns. For some, NGO websites are undoubtedly a first port of call in an attempt to understand an issue. This subsection focuses on several ways in which NGOs aim to use public opinion to influence IFI reform: (1) documentation and analysis, (2) helping local communities to influence public opinion, and (3) public events.

NGOs produce factual and analytical information on IFI issues. The presentation of this information on websites and its distribution through media channels is an important factor in framing public debates. Portals such as CHOIKE serve an important function, as do newsletters and listservs. Bretton Woods Project has a newsletter that reaches 60,000 officials, journalists, NGOs, and researchers. Another way of influencing public opinion is through newspaper letters and op-ed pieces, e.g. The Development Gap, Environmental Defense. Related radio interviews of the type given by Gender Action are worth mention. Equally significant, IFI Watchers Network cultivates ties with the media to help groups gain access to journalists. Notably, International Rivers Network explicitly aims to extend the scope of its publicity beyond mainstream media to industry and alternative sources.

Several NGOs involve local communities in influencing public opinion. Ambitiously, for instance, Amazon Watch trains indigenous groups in the use of media and communications. Training encompasses equipment use, media workshops, email, Internet, and video. It provides public relations support and even brings individuals to US media outlets to advance messages.

Additionally, NGOs use public events to influence opinion. The staging of meetings, rallies, or announcements parallel to IFI meetings is an important phenomenon here. The media regularly uses these actions as evidence of opposition to IFI policies. In realtion to this, CEE Bankwatch Network has organized a street exhibition and public poster campaign to raise public awareness.

How Remote Issues are Made Relevant to the Public

NGOs may use media campaigns to make far off issues relevant to the public in fully-industrialized countries. Document dissemination, involving project-affected persons in media campaigns, and public events are all means of bridging gaps of place and community. Sometimes it is a matter of how an issue is framed, e.g. an allusion by Amazon Watch to Hurricane Katrina. Several other strategies are worth mention: (1) art/media-based, (2) direct action-based, and (3) popular education-based efforts.

Several NGOs combine media and art to make remote issues palpable. For example, the Bank Information Center and Friends of the Earth promote films and CEE Bankwatch Network co-produced one. NGOs at times include short video clips on their websites, e.g. Amazon Watch. Links to photo exhibits is another way of using art to make the impact of policies and projects more immediate. In relation to this, Friends of the Earth Finland and CEE Bankwatch Network co-organized a poster exhibition. Another way of making events immediate is effective direct action. This encompasses not only the actions discussed in the previous section, but also letter writing campaigns, e.g Global Response.

Many NGOs use evocative and informative public education strategies. CAFOD publishes the Rough Guide to Debt. World Economy, Ecology and Development holds workshops to inform educators and the general public.

Government As Target

Most campaigns effectively target fully industrialized governments. NGOs influence governments by lobbying, testimony, and document submissions. One aim is to influence executive or legislative branch representatives to redirect the input of national IFI representatives. 50 Years Is Enough gives congressional testimony. Similarly, Christian Aid and Environmental Defense make submissions to the House of Commons. In the US, Friends of the Earth lobbies congress, while Inter Action meets with White House representatives, the National Security Council, and the Treasury Department. Similarly, Halifax Initiative influences the Canadian government in the areas of debt relief, through national oversight, working with MPs, and through bi-annual civil society consultations with foreign ministers. Campaigns directed at IFI projects target national export credit agencies and insurance arms.

The governments of developing countries are also campaign targets. For example, advocates involved in the Global Transparency Initiative see the passing of national freedom of information laws as an important goal. At times, NGOs might aim to free up developing country governments from debt burdens. Debt campaigns coordinate multiple nationally-directed efforts. Similarly, Action Aid argues that poor countries should have more voice within IFIs.

Approaching IFIs

Campaigns often directly engage IFIs through collaborative or antagonistic tactics. Events at meetings and in front of official offices may be confrontational. Likewise, ‘naming and shaming’ strategies aim for a significant critical distance. The filing of complaints within IFI dispute resolution mechanisms involves a closer engagement, as does lobbying and working directly for IFIs.

The use of dispute resolution panels has been carefully watched by academics. An important NGO in this area is the Center for International Environmental Law. NGOs have engaged the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes only through efforts to file amicus briefs. Cases have also been brought outside of these forums, perhaps adopting a more antagonistic stance. For example, Amazon Watch played a role in a class action suit in Ecuador and is also filing a complaint to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Lobbying is common and takes many forms. Groups may meet with IFIs, e.g. Amazon Watch, Forest Peoples Programme, Inter Action, Global Transparency Initiative. They might facilitate discussions between IFI representatives and project-affected people, e.g. Forest Peoples Programme. The Structural Adjustment Participatory Review brought together civil society groups and World Bank officials to review structural adjustment programs and to explore options. Organizations may make presentations at IFI meetings, e.g. Center for International Environmental Law. Submissions are another way of seeking influence, e.g. Christian Aid, Jubilee Research. Another type of engagement is to write letters to officials, e.g. Bretton Woods Project, Global Response, New Rules on Governance, NGO Forum on ADB, Probe International.

Tools

Thus far, a number of NGO tools have been discussed, e.g. networking, protests, lobbying, use of media, mounting cases. This subsection presents additional tools: (1) policy and project accountability; (2) public education and information dissemination; (3) research; (4) public mobilization; (5) local capacity building; (6) legal advocacy; (7) call for independent commissions; and (8) event organization. Each of these tools mobilizes ‘naming and shaming’ strategies and also diplomacy.

Instruments of accountability vary. For example, the Halifax Initiative Coalition produces an annual Report Card on the Canadian Department of Finance’s Annual Report to Parliament on the Bretton Woods Institutions. Similarly, Global Transparency Initiative prepared a Transparency Scorecard against the criteria set out by the Transparency Charter and the Bank Information Center’s IFI Transparency Resource. Social Watch publishes its annual review which is a multinational-based report assessing whether IFIs have fulfilled commitments. Jubilee Research published the Jubilee Database tracking progress towards debt cancellation. The Citizens’ Network on Essential Services’ bench-marking project aims to ensure that water laws and regulations protect the public interest. Additionally, use of field missions to monitor implementation of projects and policies is common.

As discussed above, NGOs aim to educate the general public (and government representatives) about IFI impact. Examples here include CHOIKE which is a portal for Southern voices. Freedominfo.org is a network that also serves a portal function. Many NGO websites include alerts, documents, analysis, updates, reports, newsletters, magazines, and listservs. Other examples are multimedia presentations, film, videos, and photos, e.g. Amazon Watch, CEE Bank Watch, Social Justice Committee.

Linked to this is the pursuit and dissemination of independent research. Organizations conduct their own research and also sponsor others.

Information and analysis strategies facilitate public political mobilization. Opportunities to sign petitions (50 Years Is Enough) and letter-writing to ministers (Debt and Development, Global Response) are two examples. Following this theme is the use of protest as a tool in the form of days of action, meeting actions and demonstrations outside of official offices.

Many NGOs gear themselves towards building local capacity. This may take the form of advocacy assistance, e.g. Center for International Environmental Law, International Accountability Project. Amazon Watch helps affected groups make sense of project documentation. International Rivers Network publishes an action guide, Dams, Rivers and Rights: An Action Guide for Communities Affected by Dams. The Pesticide Action Network publishes its Community Guide to Mobilizing the Bank’s Pest Management Policy. Capacity-building, collaboration, and information assistance are features of many NGO campaigns.

Consequently, as discussed above, NGOs provide legal assistance to affected groups. This support ranges from articulating demands in legal parlance (e.g. Bank Information Center, Forest Peoples Programme, Indian Law Resource Center), to generic legal advice in the form of guides (International Accountability), to help with panel claims within regional development banks and also within the World Bank’s Compliance Advisor Ombudsman and Inspection Panel (e.g. NGO Forum on the ADB), working on amicus briefs for the World Bank Group’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, to assistance in bringing class action cases to national courts (e.g. Amazon Watch). Importantly, much of this legal action is possible because NGOs succeeded in establishing legal and policy accountability rules and institutions within IFIs through an earlier generation of campaigns.

Efforts at legal accountability extend to calls for independent commissions to judge IFI actions. For example, Fifty Years Is Enough called for a truth commission to investigate World Bank and IMF actions. Similarly, Social Justice Committee argues for an international tribunal on debt.

Although NGOs use many other tools, a final example is the organizing of events. NGOs may hold seminars, conferences or film screenings.

These and other tools may be used in isolation or together as a part of an ongoing movement. In an effort to understand how diverse strategic tools and targeting decisions interact in practice, we turn next to two case studies. Case studies are an important way of evaluating tools.

However, can something more general and evaluative be said about tools? A number of observations might be made. First, it is necessary to define ‘success’ for the purpose of a specific campaign or aspect thereof. Second, it is important to pay attention to both intended and unintended results of strategies. Third, both national and international lobbying strategies seem to produce notable successes. At the same time, these and other successful strategies do seem to combine a number of tools. An antagonistic strategy coupled with a collaborative one might be effective. It may be that strategies aimed at internal reform create an institutional apparatus that makes subsequent external reform strategies more effective. Likewise, an antagonistic external reform strategy may create pressure that leads to an internal reform. In issues in which multiple actors are involved alongside IFIs, strategies that target a range of actors contemporaneously are often effective. This may be because the actors behind policies or projects are themselves extensively networked and attempt to counter NGO gains through coordination. In addition to this, many strategies, such as public education and the contribution to local capacity, may themselves be an end goal.

Case Studies

This section presents two case studies which address different issue areas, target different but overlapping actors and employ distinct tools. Both are ongoing campaigns that have achieved significant successes but continue to face challenges. The first campaign, an effort by the Global Transparency Initiative to influence internal disclosure of information policies of several IFIs, concerns internal IFI reform. The other, the Inter-American Development Bank’s Camisea natural gas pipeline in Peru is an external campaign. Given space constraints, an effort is made here to point to how tools discussed above are put into practice generically in the context of specific campaigns while also pointing to some of the campaign-specific strategic complexities.

Global Transparency Initiative and IFI Information Disclosure

One aim of the Global Transparency Initiative (GTI) is to reform the internal information disclosure policies of IFIs. It is a network comprised of both IFI and freedom of information advocates: Access to Information Network, Article 19, Bank Information Center, Bretton Woods Project, CEE Bankwatch Network, Institute for Democracy in South Africa, and Libertad de Informacion-Mexico AC. It has produced a Transparency Charter setting out 9 guiding principles that underpin its actions. Importantly, as with other IFI campaigns, it frames demands in the language of rights. The internal information disclosure campaign is multifaceted, involving : advocacy, the creation of the Charter, the publishing of scorecards, requests for documents through freedom of information laws and case studies. Attention is paid mainly to how these tools relate to efforts to shape IFI disclosure policies.

The GTI pursued a series of coordinated advocacy missions aimed at influencing IFI internal disclosure policies, approaching three groupings: (1) the Asian Development Bank; (2) the World Bank, International-American Development Bank, and International Monetary Fund and (3) the European Investment Bank. Approaches involved face-to-face meetings with officials and document submissions which produced diverse results.

During the period of October 2004 to January 2005, the GTI influenced the Asian Development Bank’s review of its disclosure policy. It organized missions in late October 2004 with a follow-up in January 2005. Meetings were scheduled with officers from several parts of the Asian Bank. This mission culminated in a GTI position paper. With this paper, GTI succeeded in significantly influencing the Asian Bank policies in a number of respects. The mission strategy coupled with the paper resulted in the Asian Bank’s disclosure policy reflecting recommendations and comments by GTI.

The second mission relates to the early stages of a campaign targeting D.C.-based institutions for internal reform of their disclosure policies. In February of 2005, GTI representatives met a number of officials at the three institutions, presenting key issues. What is significant about these meetings is that they represent the initiation of a dialogue between officials and advocates. The GTI has since issued a Transparency Scorecard which is an evaluation of the World Bank Group’s disclosure standards. The GTI Transparency Charter’s 9 principles are the criteria for measuring the World Bank’s standards. The scorecard is further informed by the IFI Transparency Resource, which was developed by Bank Information Center and freedominfo.org and is a baseline analysis of access to information at the IFIs, comprising almost 250 indicators.

The third mission targeted the European Investment Bank’s information policy. An advocacy mission in June 2005 involved lobbying events in Brussels during the course of the European Bank’s first ever information policy review. CEE Bank Watch coordinated a statement proposing reforms endorsed by 120 NGOs and then submitted it to the European Bank. Also, a roundtable debate was organized by GTI, CEE Bankwatch Network, and Friends of the Earth-Europe. This event was hosted by a member of the European Parliament and attended by a number of officials. It succeeded in introducing new issues into the debate and the European Bank commented on the proposals. Targeted meetings were then held with Executive Directors. As a direct result of these NGO strategies, the European Bank introduced a unexpected second consultation with a new draft policy. NGOs met with the European Bank in Brussels in November to comment on the draft. Letters and a follow-up meeting have taken place since.

This combination of advocacy missions directed at IFI officials, comment/proposal submissions, the setting out of guiding legal principles in the form of a Charter and original research represented by the IFI Transparency Resource are proving to be fruitful and led to both process reform and also influenced the content of policies. Moreover, in this internal reform movement (with important external reform implications), we see coordination among NGOs. This campaign relies on diplomacy rather than ‘naming and shaming’ strategies. It is also directed at IFI officials and national government officials from fully-industrialized states. Its impact on external reform campaigns will presumably follow this, being dependent upon the use that other NGO campaigns make of these internal reforms.

Camisea

The Camisea natural gas pipeline in Peru is financed by the Inter-American Development Bank. It involves extraction in the Nahua-Kugapakori Reserve which is home to a number of indigenous communities including: the Nahua, Kirineri, Nanti, Marhiguenga, and Yine. It is a privatized project, the largest gas project in Latin America. A number of NGOs have been involved in efforts to hold the project accountable to human rights and environmental concerns, including Amazon Watch, Bank Information Center, BankTrack, Environmental Defence, Forest Peoples Programme, Friends of the Earth International, Export Credit Agency Watch, Oxfam USA. A dense local layer of civil society actors has also been involved. Protests elicited concessions and policy changes by the Inter-American Bank and other major players, notably the US Export-Import Bank and Equator Principle banks.

To appreciate fully the NGO tactical decisions, it is useful to set out some facts about the project. Camisea was not initiated by the Inter-American Bank; its history dates back to the involvement of Shell and its human rights and environmental practices many years ago. However, Shell and its policy have long since left the scene. To replace Shell, Peru eventually settled on two consortia of international companies for the project, one responsible for the upstream component and the other for the downstream component.

In an important early battle, NGOs successfully opposed a company loan request to the US Import-Export Bank. NGOs pursued ‘naming and shaming’ strategies, pointing to company connections to the present US administration and to their human rights and environmental track records. The resulting denial of funding was an important NGO success.

The project campaign next turned to the Inter-American Bank where further loans were under consideration. Two large loans were in question. Early NGO intervention resulted in a delay in the decision. Concern was raised about the Inter-American Bank’s internal governance, specifically the absence of a formal public consultation process. Here we see an overlap between internal and external campaigns. NGOs mobilized a high profile letter-writing campaign involving Hollywood celebrities and musicians. Letters were sent to three major stakeholders, the president of the Inter-American Bank, the president of the US national bank and the president of Peru’s national bank. Ultimately, it was decided to finance the project. However, importantly, the US member of the Board of Directors abstained from voting. One of the grounds for abstention was ‘doubts about the adequacy of the environmental assessment conducted on the project’. This abstention represents another important NGO success. Significantly, however, the US abstained rather than vetoed the loans. The criticism of the decision not to veto was attributed to US legislation, namely the Pelosi Amendment to the International Development Finance Act 1989.

The NGO campaign achieved another significant victory at project conception, as the Inter-American Bank conditioned its loans on the inclusion of human rights and environmental safeguards. In an unprecedented move, failure to comply with these measures was grounds for loan default. It is worth mentioning here that the loans were advanced to the upstream consortium. In another unprecedented move, a cross default provision was inserted whereby failure of the downstream consortium to respect human rights and the environment would result in the default (by the upstream consortium) on the Inter-American Bank loan. Importantly, project contracts were amended so as ‘to comply with internationally recognized social and environmental standards.’ This contractual response should be seen as a major victory of the early stages of the campaign. At the same time, its ultimate effect and precedential value will be determined by the ongoing strategic back-and-forth between NGOs and project planners.

Another significant aspect of the NGO campaign targeting the Inter-American Bank has been the implementation of the loan conditionalities and the contracts. The Bank has set up a detailed monitoring mechanism. NGOs continue to push for accountability. Community groups and NGOs issued a critical report directed at the Peruvian government. Also, representatives from Amazon Watch, the Institute for Policy Studies, CEADES, OICH, Shina, and Serjall undertook a field mission to see how commitments were being translated into practice. A critical report resulted. NGOs continue to criticize the project in part, pointing to how public and private bank commitments are not being translated into practice. Actions include letters to the Inter-American Bank president and the CEO of Hunt Oil.

Conclusively, a number of points should be highlighted. First, the NGO campaign employed diverse tactics from ‘naming and shaming’ to letter writing to reports to field missions. Also, the websites of several groups made documents, facts, updates, analysis, and reports part of the public record. Amazon Watch included photos and video clips as well as bilingual material. Second, the campaign had important successes in the form of loan conditionalities and contractual revisions. Third, campaign targets were not limited to the Inter-American Bank, involving the US government generally and its Import-Export Bank and also the Peruvian government. Further to this, despite not being discussed, the involvement of Equator Principle Banks is noteworthy. These Principles should be seen as a successful result of NGO campaigns pushing for safeguards on IFI projects that have been extended to private banks as a result of further NGO action, in part related to the Camisea project. Fourth, NGOs used different types of tactics at each stage of the campaign. In other words, ‘naming and shaming’ strategies were appropriate for influencing loan decision-making, while field missions were tailored to implementation issues. And lastly, NGOs coordinated strategies and worked with local groups.

Conclusion

To sum up, this report aimed to point to similarities and differences among NGOs in the areas of campaign issues and strategies. It also highlighted coordination among organizations. What emerges is a picture of a dense field of practice, comprised of parallel, overlapping, coordinated, and ongoing campaigns which are facing challenges and achieving noteworthy successes, despite these succeses being sometimes provisional.