Touching points – FORB and development

• PowerPoint slide or flipchart sheet with the illustration below.
• Prepare a flipchart sheet for each group of participants by copying the illustration below.
• Print one copy of handout A for each group.
• Print one copy of handout B for each participant.

Introduce the exercise as follows:

Regardless of whether we work specifically with FORB or with development work broadly, there can be advantages to making a conscious and active link between FORB and development.

In this exercise, we are going to explore how FORB links to some of the themes that we usually work with in development work, generally and in your context specifically. The exercise will also encourage you to think about how you or your organisation could work with some of these crosscutting issues. (If relevant to your audience note that linking FORB work to other issues within the development sector is a practical way to have a right-sized approach to FORB.)

Give the following general input for each of the bubbles on the PowerPoint/flipchart to help participants get going in their thinking:

PEACE, SECURITY AND STABILITY

FORB violations often link to multiple issues related to peace, security and stability. In a corresponding manner, fulfilment of FORB has been shown to contribute to peace, security and stability.

DISCRIMINATION

FORB violations often link to numerous issues related to discrimination. In a corresponding manner, fulfilment of FORB can help to counteract discrimination in society.

INTERSECTIONALITY

FORB violations often relate to multiple types of advantage and disadvantage that people face for example based on gender, class or ethnicity. Achieving FORB for all may be impossible without tackling these intersectional elements.

DEMOCRACY

FORB violations often link to several aspects of democracy. In a corresponding manner the fulfilment of FORB contributes to a strong and healthy pluralistic democracy. The European Court of Human Rights has explicitly stated that FORB is a corner stone of a pluralistic and democratic society, a view to which other regional human rights courts concur.

PART 1

GROUPWORK 20 MIN

• Divide the participants into groups of four and hand each group a pre-prepared flipchart and a copy of handout A. Ask each group to appoint a rapporteur to briefly present their conclusions to the plenary at the end of the exercise.
• Ask the groups to study the ‘bubble’ headings on the flipchart and the list of issues/themes on handout A and to sort the issues/themes under the headings, by writing them in the different bubbles on the flipchart paper. If they can think of any additional crosscutting issues that commonly arise in the context of development work that are not listed on the handout, please ask them to write those up in the bubbles too.
• Mention that some of the issues can be written in more than one bubble. For example, intersections between FORB and gender could relate to both issues of discrimination and intersectionality in the context of FORB and development cooperation.
• Once they have sorted the issues into bubbles, ask them to discuss which development issues relating to FORB are most relevant in their context and what these linkages look like. Tell them that their presentation to the rest of the participants should focus on this last question. Encourage participants to be as concrete as possible by providing examples. (If participants all come from the same context you could ask each group to focus on one of the ‘bubbles’ e.g., Democracy.)

PLENARY FEEDBACK (30 MIN: 5-10 MIN PER GROUP)

Ask the group rapporteurs to briefly present the crosscutting FORB and development issues they thought were most relevant to their context and what concrete examples they identified to illustrate this. Allow a few minutes for questions and answers from other participants.

QUICK PLENARY DISCUSSION (10 MIN)

Hold a short plenary discussion on what participants learned and discovered about the linkages between FORB and international development work. Where there any new insights? What do they take with them from the groupwork and the presentations?

PART 2 (OPTIONAL)

GROUP DISCUSSION (20 MIN)

Explain to participants that they are now going to go back into groups to discuss the practical implications of the touching points between FORB and development for their work. If there are participants from the same organisation or institution, then let them work together in organisational groups, otherwise let the participants work together in the same groups as before.
Display the following questions on a PowerPoint or flipchart sheets:

• Which of the crosscutting issues from the sorting exercise does your organisation/institution already work with or could it work with?
• Are FORB perspectives integrated into that work and how?
• Might the work benefit from integrating FORB perspectives? In what ways?
• What would integrating FORB perspectives mean in practice, for example:
  – In problem analysis, baselines, programme design, ensuring non-discrimination in service delivery and that no one is left behind?
  – For advocacy/awareness raising messages?
  – For policy or legislative reform?
• Are there any action points you could take to begin a process of perspective integration in your organisation/institution’s work? List these.

PLENARY FEEDBACK (10 MIN)

Ask each group to share one implication for programming/policies and one action point that they came up with. (More time could be devoted to this if time allows.)

Thank everyone for participating and say you hope that the exercise helped them to reflect on how FORB and development relate to each other – on crosscutting issues broadly and in their context. Distribute handout B (illustrating the many issues relating to FORB) as a take-home resource to remind them of the issues discussed.