OECD’s netFWD: an emergent global policy actor for new philanthropy reasoning in global education governance

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Emerging Landscape of Philanthropy and Education

Proposal

This presentation focuses on the creation of new spaces of policy regarding new philanthropy in global education governance. To this end, it takes the Network of Foundations Working for Development (netFWD) as an example of the rising of new transnational policy networks in global education governance. Created by the OECD in 2012, netFWD gathers some of the world's most important private philanthropy for development providers “with policymakers and OECD experts to address the world's most pressing development challenges” (netFWD, 2021). Aiming to present some light on an understudied empiric object, the netFWD, the presentation draws on the literature of education governance, policy networks and new philanthropy.
In the last decades, education governance became an interactive, multiscale, and multi-actor space, shaped by and through knowledge circulation (Lawn & Lingard, 2002). Global policy actors, such as UNESCO, World Bank, UN, EU, FMI, OECD and other non-state actors, such as non-governmental organisations, think tanks, private and philanthropic foundations turned key players in education policy, looking after policy advocacy, mobilizing ideas, data and technical assistance as sources of legitimacy and influence (soft power) in education policy (Verger, 2016). As consequence, the new interdependencies between national public authorities, supranational organisations, and other non-state actors result “in complex global networks that are redistributing power and influence across political spaces in new ways reshaping the forms of evidence, expertise and influence that shape education policies” (Savage et al. 2021, p. 311-312).
Private foundations and philanthropic organizations have grown their visibility and influence in these networks, promoting new cognitive and social operations for the education systems. Furthermore, moving from a 'charity for development' to a 'new philanthropy' or 'philanthropy 3.0' (Ball & Olmedo, 2011), private foundations became more business-aligned and concerned with measurable impacts of its action, more committed to capacity building, training and skills development, consulting, and entrepreneurial innovation, adopting a hands-on approach (see, e.g., Adhikary, 2019; Ball 2012; Ball & Junemann, 2011; Hogan, Sellar & Lingard, 2015; Reckhow & Snyder, 2014; Thompson, Savage & Lingard, 2016). This reconfiguration of philanthropy calls for more data and knowledge-based interventions, which, in its turn, assures their legitimacy to influence the public sphere, promoting new cognitive operations in global education governance. Therefore, within these new policy networks, private foundations gain access to expertise, knowledge, and influence, allowing them to act as important nodes in these policy networks (Ball, 2008; Ball & Olmedo, 2011; Exley, 2014),
In this theoretical framework, my interest is to describe netFWD as an emergent transnational network of global policy actors, that seeks to bring together private foundations, public authorities, and the OECD, pursuing new philanthropy reasoning for education in global education governance. The paper focus on netFWD intermediary agency (Nay & Smith, 2002; Viseu & Carvalho, 2021) regarding its: a) social dimension, mapping its collective and individual actors, to show how this transnational network brings together philanthropist, policymakers, and OECD experts; b) cognitive dimension, to illustrate how, within this network, expert knowledge on new philanthropy in education is produced and disseminated.
The exploratory study was focused on netFWD’ actors and their interdependencies, its activities (who and how), to describe netFWD social dimension; netFWD objectives and their self-justification (why), to understand netFWD cognitive dimension. The research design was inspired by recent policy studies in education that resort to network ethnography (see, for instance, Hogan, 2016; Baek et al., 2018; Ball, 2016; Olmedo et al., 2013; Avelar & Ball, 2019), using document analysis, social network analysis and an interview.
Through document analysis, based on internet searches on the OECD and netFWD websites, I’ve gathered a collection of reports, press clipping and flyers. This procedure allowed to map the collective actors engaged in netFWD activities and, using social network analysis (SNA) (Scott, 2000) to create a sociogram for the visualization of the network and UCINET 6.0 software (idem) to calculate the organizations’ centrality degree. To understand netFWD actors’ interdependencies and what holds them, as well as to go deep in comprehend netFWD reasons to act, I interviewed a netFWD manager. The interview allowed to gather new information and to get an inside picture about netFWD, providing data to explain actors’ role and engagement in netFWD, as well as its agenda for philanthropy and education.
The preliminary data analyses point to the description of netFWD as a global policy actor, on its intertwined social and cognitive dimensions. Regarding its social dimension, OECD plays a central role within the network, followed by some of the world's most important private philanthropy for development providers that have a long-established presence in global education scenario. OECD centrality stems from by the displaying of a certain modus operandi adopted by OECD in global governance, acting as a place of production of knowledge and social order. Regarding the cognitive dimension, netFWD is building an education agenda, focused on access to schooling, skills development and evaluation of learning outcomes based on standardised data.

Author

• Sofia Viseu, Instituto de Educação, Universidade de Lisboa