Short Abstract:

The panel will draw out and share lessons from a number of Oxfam research projects about how to address structural causes of poverty and injustice and achieve progressive change in challenging contexts.

Long Abstract:

Our world faces a number of systemic challenges such as extreme inequality, climate breakdown and gender injustice. Civil society organisations have a potentially vital role to play, as part of a wide progressive alliance, in helping tackle them. This panel will explore what we can learn from the past and present about effective influencing and how we can best respond to current challenges. It will share learning from a number of Oxfam research projects about what types and combination of influencing roles and strategies work/don't work, particularly in challenging contexts. The research projects include the history of influencing, 2 meta reviews of Oxfam and partners' citizens voice and influencing initiatives, change strategies in restricted contexts such as Myanmar, and changing social norms that perpetuate gender injustice in Sri Lanka, among others.