In 2000, the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC) initiated a 3-year research and advocacy programme aimed at promoting national development alternatives principally in Ghana and to some extent in the West Africa sub-region. This programme, which came to be referred to as the Rights-based Advocacy Programme (2000-2003) (RBA1) sought to: confront the neoliberal policy measures promoted largely by the international donor community; promote accountability by the state to its citizens; instill civil activism through rights awareness, rights promotion and defence and through economic literacy; and to promote social equity through the responsible use of public resources.
These objectives gave birth to specific institutional and programmatic initiatives including the establishment of the Centre for Public Interest Law (CEPIL) and the Centre for Budget Advocacy (CBA). CEPIL remains the leading public interest litigating and human rights body in the sub-region. The Centre for Budget Advocacy is a pioneer in pro-poor budgeting and research in the sub-region and in active demand across the region.
Over this period, a partnership was also entered into with two organisations: the Centre for Public Private Co-operation (CPPC) in Nigeria, providing a link with the most populated country in ECOWAS, and in Burkina Faso, Organization Pour Le Renforcement Des Capacités De Developpment (ORCADE), a bridge to the Francophone countries of the region. ISODEC works in an integrated and multidisciplinary manner linking the grassroots to the national and global to effectively implement its programme. At the national, ECOWAS and Global levels the organisation undertakes policy research and advocacy on a wide range of social and economic rights issues through the following specialized departments and affiliate organizations:
Over the last three years ISODEC has worked with others to initiate very successful campaigns as the fight against water privatisation through the National Coalition Against the Privatisation of Water (NCAP), as well as the fight against the privatisation of the Ghana Commercial Bank through the 'Free the Eagle Campaign' with support from the staff of the GCB and other stakeholders. ISODEC was very instrumental in the formation of the Northern Network for Education Development (NNED) and the Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC), which is leading the campaign for Education for All and currently pushing for fee-free universal basic in Ghana. The Alliance for Reproductive Health Rights (ARHRs) and the Market Access Promotion Network (MAPRONET) are also being facilitated and or supported by ISODEC and its partners to campaign for reproductive rights and promote market access for poor producers.
The successful campaign against privatisation of urban water in Ghana and the coalition that it engendered (NCAP), has become a worldwide inspiration in the struggle against corporate take-over of essential public services, and the coalition itself a unique movement of a wide variety of civil society organisations with the trade union movement being a leading voice. The success of this campaign triggered off similar campaigns in many countries in the sub-region and against other privatisations in Ghana such as a campaign to stop the privatisation of Ghana's leading commercial bank, the Ghana Commercial Bank GCB).
At the grassroots level ISODEC has continued to :

The RBA II builds on the achievements of RBA1 by seeking to consolidate and expand the social spaces opened up for ISODEC and its constituencies. RBA II seeks to do better in the areas in which ISODEC has shown to do well and to scale these initiatives up to the sub-regional level.
The Rights Based Advocacy 2 (2004-2006)
Our goal in this phase is to act as an active catalyst in the ECOWAS region to promote people's fundamental rights through poverty oriented and equity driven public policies and practices as the basis of sovereign democratic decision-making and regional integration.
In line with this the RBA2 have 4 main objectives: