PARADIGM SHIFTS IN DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION AND NGO'S
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DRAFT REPORT
VOL.ENTEM FATA DUCUNT, NOLENTEM TRAHUNT
PARADIGM SHIFTS IN DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION AND NGOs:
OPPORTUNITIES, CONSTRAINTS AND RESPONSES
STUDY PARTNERS:
Misereor - Germany
Indian Social Institute - Bangalore
Agricultural Development and Training Society - Bagepalli
Association for Voluntary Action and Service - Bangalore
Organisation for the Development of People - Mysore
STUDY TEAM:
Rev. Jose Muricken SJ - Coordinator
R. Mohanraj - Member
Kurian K. Katticaren - Member
INDIAN SOCIAL INSTITUTE
BANGALORE
25 OCTOBER 1998
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
BACKGROUND
The Genesis of the Study:
1.
This study evolved from an initiative of Misereor to share
with its partners the concerns that figured prominently in
the International Round Table on Poverty Alleviation in
South Asia, convened by the German Federal Ministry of
Economic Cooperation and Development (May 1995).
Starting from the 90's, northern governments and multi
lateral agencies seem to be "discovering" southern NGOs
(SNGOs). Particularly in India, this increasing "official"
attention could significantly impact the much older partner
relationships between:
*
Southern Governments and SNGOs
Northern NGOs (NNGOs), SNGOs and organisations of the
poor (CBOs) .
Misereor wanted to trigger a shared reflection on the
nature and directions of these "development cooperation"
trends and on their consequences (positive as well as
negative) for NNGOs and SNGOs so that they prepared and
equipped or at the very least forewarned.
The feedback showed that quite some SNGOs did not share the
optimism of the Round Table regarding "collaboration" with
official aid as the opening of a "window of opportunities".
However, all agreed that funds have the power to shape
relations
and
dictate
agendas.
Hence
the
increased
attention SNGOs will receive from official aid could have
significant implications for:
*
*
*
NGO options for the poor
the structuring, organisation and ethos of NGOs
the (partner)
relationships which have thus
nurtured and sustained NGO options for the poor.
far
This feedback convinced Misereor of the need for a more
systematic study of the phenomenon based on information
gathered from the ground regarding:
*
how
SNGOs
actually
experienced
the
development
cooperation
shifts
and
their
implications
for
themselves,
for
their
traditional
partnership
relations and for the poor
how they coped (or did not cope) with these changes
and with what consequences.
The insights gained could serve as:
learning points for SNGOS and NNGOs for planning their
own organisation and institution development
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
*
informing
lobbying
for
influencing
development
cooperation policies and institutions in favour of the
poor
and
the
partnerships
committed
to
their
empowerment.
In early 1997, Misereor invited ISI's collaboration in:
*
*
*
the documentation and analysis of concrete experiences
of 3 NGOs in Karnataka (ADATS, AVAS and ODP) with
special reference to relationship with the other
stakeholders in development
drawing conclusions that could have cross-NGO validity
identifying actionable agenda through which NNGOs and
SNGOs could strategise responses.
Between June 1997 and June 1998, the study team was
constituted, the TOR finalised and the willingness of
ADATS, AVAS and ODP to co-partner the study ascertained.
The study was formally launched in July 1998.
2.
Study Objectives:
a)
to comprehend the nature, magnitude and motives for
changes
in Development Cooperation policies and
instruments (Paradigm Shifts)
document experiences and perspectives of the
three (Misereor identified) NGOs
ii) analyse and critique the emerging micro-picture
against the macro-frame of development thought
iii) validate the micro-macro perspectives with a
larger NGO representation
i)
b)
to identify the opportunities
paradigm shifts hold out for:
and
threats
these
the
poor,
the
marginalised
and
their
organisations
ii)
NNGOs, SNGOs, intermediary agencies (engaged in
resource support services, advocacy, lobbying,
interfacing and leveraging) and consultants
iii) for
the
partnership
relationships
and
solidarities
among
various
development
practitioners
i)
c)
to restrategise NGO responses:
to legitimise, safeguard and expand NGO spaces
to improve their access to (official) development
funds, minimising the risks involved
iii) to
identify
areas
for
organisation
and
institution
development
and
to
decide
on
desirable outcome of such interventions
i)
ii)
d)
to generate data that could:
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
i)
ii)
3.
inform lobbying for influencing development
cooperation policies and instruments to more
adequately respond to the larger and deeper
development questions
provide a theoretical framework for strategising
NGO re-positioning vis a vis the paradigm shifts.
Study Design and Methodology:
The study adopted an empirical and exploratory design while
facilitating the grass root experiences of ADATS, AVAS and
ODP to interrogate development cooperation concepts,
policies and institutions.
The study objectives and
methodology were first discussed with them. They played an
active part in collecting and analysing information, in
drawing conclusions and in building the larger frame for
understanding and strategising NGO responses.
During the next stage the study team facilitated the key
personnel of the three NGOs to place themselves within an
"NGO TYPOLOGY" matrix, constructed by Alan Fowler
Fowler proposes that development cooperation - prima
facie - is determined by the correlation between two
sets of variables: the (real) agenda of aid and the
development
ideology/praxis
of
the
NGO.
By
implication, funds will force subservience of the
agenda of the giver.
However the framework is more sophisticated than
"subserve, get coopted or be pushed out". The reality
of development cooperation is much more complex
because of the operation of several intervening
variables that provide NGOs with options, even within
an "subservience" postulate. Such variables include:
strategic
thinking,
organisational
competencies,
institutional
linkages,
negotiating
skills,
visibility, profile, etc. Further, aid polices and
instruments are not themselves monolithic. Aid is
pulled in different directions by various concerns,
compulsions and human agency.
NGOs committed to development perspectives different
from those of the aid givers could still find/create/
expand spaces in development cooperation if they are
adept
in
managing
these
intervening
variables.
However, Fowler warns NGOs that they require high
levels of skills, competencies and institutional
strengths to work with such variables.
The key personnel of the three NGOs categorised and
positioned their own organisations within the typology
matrix and tried to understand why, how and to what extent
their options were limited and conditioned by their own
ideology/praxis vis a vis the development agenda of donors.
They identified those variables (internal and external)
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
4
They identified those variables (internal and external)
that gave them spaces and even new opportunities within
development cooperation frames.
This use of typology matrix to externalise, standardise and
and analyse the experiences and perceptions of a very small
sample of 3 NGOs enabled the study to go from case studies
and to make statements regarding development cooperation
that could be generally valid for any NGO within a typology
and with specific strategic management competencies. The
micro study served not only to develop a model but also to
nuance them pointing to deviations from central tendencies.
During this final stage, the study is facilitating a state
level
consultation
involving
senior
development
practitioners. The findings and conclusions emerging from
the interactive processes is to be presented there for
critique and validation.
The consultation will, apart from whetting the study
report, also identify the learning points for the various
actors. It will also recommend OD and ID processes through
which such learnings can be internalised and converted into
strategic responses - by Misereor, its partners and more
generally by the SNGO/NNGO community.
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
S'
THE
B-
STUDY
The "Discovery" of NGOs:
4.
After decades of "parallel" development interventions on
the fringes of development cooperation (by and large the
preserve of southern governments and bilateral/multilateral
agencies), NGOs are now being pulled to the central stage
by bilateral, multilateral and UN agencies, business and
industry and their bastions such as the World Bank and WTO,
academia
and
researchers,
technical
and
management
professionals, post-Marxists, neo-liberals , citizen groups,
feminists, human rights groups and greens.
Under pressure from structural adjustment programmes of
IMF/World Bank, the resource poor southern governments are
(reluctantly) ceding to NGOs many more of their social
welfare/development functions. This emerging scenario is
quite different from the earlier picture of southern
governments contracting to SNGOs certain aspects of
programme implementation like community management. The
programmes themselves were designed and managed by the
state, with token NGO participation.
The NGO community, despite its heterogeneity,
severe
limitations and internal contradictions - a divided house
in terms of hues, identities, development theories and
practices,
sizes,
locations,
competencies,
access to
resources - is thus gaining legitimacy as the lead agency
of the "third sector" in development - the civil society.
5.
Overexposure Risks to NGO Best Practices:
NGOs are not any more endangered by the opposition/
cynicism of official and business sectors as by the variety
and frequency of their embraces. The million dollar
question is: what are the terms of collaboration and the
returns. The eagerness to "utilise" NGOs and the NGO
enthusiasm to latch on to new opportunities, may push NGOs
into modes/scales of operation that compromise the NGO
identity.
The NGO signature on development has always been
professed identification with the poor and hence
capacity as an institution to:
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
its
its
internalise the aspirations and struggles of the poor
serve as the their interface with the state/market
give them visibility/voice
equip them for responsible development and management
of their livelihood resources
support their organisations with linkages
lobby for them as their representatives
demonstrate development alternates.
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
CHNvn&l
;
tH S o ? P L c HfNTARy
Its praxis has been the critique of development policies
and institutions from a "worm's view" with the poor at the
"grass roots" - going beyond what is and envisaging/
demonstrating what might be. It pressures the state/market
to act differently. It mobilises "public action" for stake
assertion, defend and expand their stakes in the political
economy.
Collaboration, for most NGOs, was never an end in itself.
It was only an instrumentality to subserve the interests of
the poor and sustainable development. NGOs retained the
right to critique, to dissent and to countervail. If now
collaboration becomes a contractual obligation, NGOs may
get domesticated and lose their real value - particularly
when there are no clear signals that NGO overtures are
motivated by a change of heart of the state and the market.
Besides, growing opportunities may attract unscrupulous
operators and opportunists. On the other hand, those
excited by the ideological alternatives articulated by the
NGOs may become blind to or apologetic about their
inadequacies to deliver goods, to go beyond aid-speak and
the gap between rhetoric and practice.
6.
New Opportunities:
Yet, if NGOs have the organisational and institutional
strengths, a culture of transparency and accountability to
its
constituency,
partners
and
peers
(particularly
horizontal accountability to the NGO Community), are clear
sighted as well as level headed about their ideals and
above all willing to outgrow their fiefdoms (however
beautiful and different they be) and build alliances and
strategic collaborations - certainly these trends do open
up also exciting new vistas and larger possibilities for
NGOs - and that too on a larger canvass and with more
resources and accesses at their command.
Circumstances overpower the feeble and the rash. Nor will
idealism and commitment substitute professionalism.
7.
NGO Interrogation and Problematisation:
The NGO community (both in the north and in the south) must
take stock of the new developments and re-vision, re
position, re-strategise, re-equip themselves, to take on
the challenges and to maximally avail the opportunities
while minimising the risks.
Interrogation is required on two fronts:
a)
Scanning the Horizon:
a shared reading of the current paradigm shifts in
development and development cooperation, and in this
context an analysis of the interests that power this
this moving closer to the NGOs - going beyond stated
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
7
reasons to their real and latent motives. This is
necessary for the NGOs to have a total comprehension
of the consequences for themselves and for the poor
b)
an internal critiquing:
A SWOT of the capabilities and inadequacies of the NGO
institutions (conceptual, strategic, value-linked,
pragmatic) and a validation of their claims to
performance/impact/relevance .
NGOs,
for
sound
strategic reasons at the very least, would do well to
come down from their high moral grounds, give up some
of their claims to be the holy cows of development,
and not get overwhelmed by their own acclamations
about commitment and contributions. Such
pragmatic
realism and willingness to take a hard look at
themselves are required of NGOs if they are to shift
their own paradigms to respond better to the larger
paradigm shifts.
8
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
SCANN I NC
THE
HOR^rZON
7
DEVELOPMENT AGENDA - THE THIRD WAY
PARADIGM SHIFTS IN AGENCY ROLES
(STATE, MARKET AND CIVIL SOCIETY)
INDIA (SOUTHERN STATES)
development theme: social opportunites for_ths-undexglasses
STATE
(beginning to shrink
from provisioning to regulating
and facilitating)
JWNUjNdf
REGULATED MARKET
(expanding - market
led growth: trickle
down theories)
IL SOCIETY /
nding from mere
ectoral democracy to
goverance/representational
politics and accountability
stake assertion of Subalterns)
ekPfrwpr
Lead Agency: NGO
nd
CBOs of the poo
ntegst/Watroups
Citizens
NORTHERN STATES (DEVELOPED NATIONS)
development theme: responsible growth (sustianable/equitable)
STATE
(beginning to be more
proactive in
in setting public
criteria on the Market
and in social securi
•s.
FREE MARKET
(being made more
socialy and
environemtnally
responsible)
CIVIL SOCIETY
(vibrant, articulate, alert and able to exe
pressure on state/market to respond to social
criteria and to be transparent)
beginning to move in
the direction of
GLOBAL GOVERNANCE
ExPhNVfMc
Lea
cies: Citizen
Interest~Groups, Watch Groups
Lobbying/Advocacy Groups
the views of the old left have become obsolete
those of the new right are inadequate and contradictory
- Anthony Giddens (the Third Way)
10
AND
9.
NGOS
The Trends:
Significant changes are taking place in the allocation and
management of official bilateral and multilateral aid.
*
overall rate of growth of aid is slowing/stagnating,
even as demands on it are increasing.. A larger
percentage is being spent on emergency/relief. Aid to
Eastern
Europe
is
often
a
reallocation
from
commitments to the South.
*
the public in the developed countries are aid
fatigued. They do not feel as guilty and responsible
as the older generations did for the poverty in their
former colonies. They think that these countries have
only themselves to blame - given the magnitude of
corruption, mismanagement and inefficiency
*
a disinclination to get engaged in ideological debates
on development and in understanding or addressing the
structural underpinning of poverty to exploitative
market
exchange
and
political
relations
internationally
*
public support for structural and long-term assistance
is on the decrease. Even the ability of NNGOs to raise
money from the public for long-term development is
being determined by their level of activity and
profile in emergency and relief work - a sign that the
social morality underpinning long term support is
weakening.
*
a disenchantment that even after fifty decades of
development support, the situations of the poor have
not changed much. Many are no more convinced that
poverty can be eradicated - certainly not through aid.
Hence, much as one feels bad about it, the best one
can do is to mitigate the negative impacts. Even NGOs
cannot quite reach the poorest of the poor. Ideology
and development rhetoric to which SNGOs are so much
addicted are frowned upon
*
perception that most "political" NGOs do not seem have
any clear idea on what next after awareness building
and organisation. They have neither the internal
competence nor are they able to hire them so that they
take on serious livelihood interventions
*
the demand that development assistance to be more
closely tied to short term measurable results in the
areas of health, education and livelihood than in
abstract concepts such as awareness generation,
organisation, movement building, etc.
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
Add to these, the economic recession in Europe and the more
porous national borders after the dismantling of the iron
curtain and the collapse of the Berlin Wall. There is a
growing demand for allocation of more resources for social
security and welfare of the underclasses within northern
countries and closer home in eastern Europe.
These shifts in northern public perceptions on the why and
how of aid is very much reflected in the aid policies of
most right of centre political formations/governments. Even
social/democratic
governments
cannot
ignore
these
perceptions. Most of official aid will therefore flow to
targeted poverty alleviation programmes whose results can
be planned for and the outcome measured, through control
instruments such as the logical framework.
10.
Positioning Towards NGOs:
In spite of - or rather because of these considerations very basic shifts in attitude towards and relationship with
NGOs (especially SNGOs) are taking place in the domain of
official aid. Since the mid-eighties, a growing percentage
of official aid is being channelled to NGOs. By the year
2000, this is likely to constitute more than 50% of total
NGO
disbursements
(about
US
$
10
billion/
year),
outstripping private giving by the public of developed
countries. Through the instrumentality of direct funding
(by passing both NNGOs and southern governments) this will
significantly increase SNGO access to funds.
11.
The Motives:
Increased official funding of NGOs have also other less
altruistic and more political reasons. With both functional
and strategic implications for NGOs.
Manifestly, increased allocation to the NGOs flows from
the belief - reinforced by NGOs themselves - that they are
different and that they can make a difference vis a vis the
state. That they are more cost-effective than southern
governments, that they have better reach to and credibility
with the poor, that by financing them, the civil society
and governance will be strengthened.
The more serious reasons for growing official interest in
NGOs stems from the political ideology of northern states:
*
western style of democracy and social stability are a
necessary environment for advancement of the market
*
state role is minimalist:- regulatory and facilitative.
The least government is the best governance.
*
Democracy
must
be
more
broad
based
and
that
necessarily means that the state should not be the
sole agent of development
13.
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
*
more of development and social welfare must be based
on the principle of self-help. The state is not the
provider. It is called upon to merely facilitate and
regulate the development and welfare activities
initiated and maintained by the civil society - in
which the NGO community is a major actor.
It is not that northern governments and multi-lateral
agencies
have
suddenly
discovered
the
development
incompetence and vested political interests of southern
ruling elite. The core justification for official aid
earlier was
the halt the march of communism
into
economically underdeveloped and therefore socially volatile
countries of the third world. The spheres of influence of
western capitalism (and liberal democracy) had to be
protected and expanded. The southern states and their
ruling elite were both necessary and convenient.
But, in the present unipolar globalised market where the
cooption of the elite into market is a fait accompli, what
is important is to invest in social stability, to keep the
underclasses quiet. Complementing commercial transfers and
softening the negative externalities of the market,
official aid functions as part of a global social welfare
system for the poor - as a "global soup kitchen" - for
those who do not have the minimum competencies/resources
(are too poor) to access the market and have to await the
trickle down to happen.
Without the East-West rivalry, Northern governments (hard
pressed by economic recession and consequent demands on
social security systems at home) can more easily justify
allocating tax revenues for aid if it is seen as
facilitating the market and protecting investments by
serving as an instrumentality of global stability and for
discouraging migration. A price to be paid for safeguarding
the life styles of "contented" northern public. Since
markets
cannot
be
concerned
with
financing
social
stability, this function is assigned to the state and
therefore the legitimate rationale for official aid. In
other words,
despite declarations about humanitarian
values, democracy and universal rights, the agenda of
capacity building, growth with equity, democratisation,
environmental sustainability, etc. are most often only
means to a deeper end.
Entrusting the soup kitchens to the southern states is seen
as vitiating the very purpose of investing in social
security. NGOs are the most cost-effective as well as
efficient
instruments
for managing
safety
nets
and
containing social tensions and destabilisation. That this
approach is in line with the northern civil society
commitment
to
democratisation
and
accountable/good
governance - is a convenient and added legitimisation for
moving away from the state to NGOs at least as far as
poverty questions are concerned.
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
/3
Implications:
12.
*
generally speaking promoting civic life and political
reforms along northern liberal democracy lines - is
unlikely to be a significant agenda in terms of
allocations of funds from official aid
*
only an inconsequential and incidental
official aid will flow into this area
portion
of
even as market transfers concentrate on infrastructure
development, official aid will be directed at tangible
improvements in social security and social welfare,
managed professionally and on scale by the larger,
more competent and professionally equipped NGOs.
Most of the existing and emerging opportunistic SNGOs will
be are wary of opting for civic action as an overt
objective in collaboration with official aid. It goes
against the grain of real/dominant interests of the ruling
elite and hence is fraught with risks. They also know that
northern governments are disinclined to provide public
finance for NGOs intent on mobilising public pressure
against policies often dictated by the market through the
agency of BWI/WTO and delivered via bi-lateral and multi
lateral development support packages. In the long term such
efforts may discredit these policies and debunk the real
intentions of official aid!
13.
An Overview:
We sum up, quoting Alan Fowler:
"The new post cold war rationale for international aid
is to maintain local, national and international
stability in furtherance of a globalising market
economy.
Aid does not cause development. Far larger forces are
in play. (Therefore) Complementing commercial resource
flows, aid enables markets to expand effectively by
ameliorating
negative
socio-economic
impacts,
mollifying those with the most to lose".
However, along with Fowler we would like to qualify this
generally valid summing up of the trend. There are
contradictions and hence the seeds of change within the
dominant market paradigm itself - pointing to the "third
way" we discussed earlier:
*
there is a growing perception that markets are not
necessarily beneficial
*
that it need to be regulated, controlled, made
responsive and accountable to "social development"
demands
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
*
14.
that such demands and controls are best exerted on the
market by the civil society and global governance than
by nation states.
Spaces for "Activist NGOs":
The task as well as spaces within official aid for NGOs who
do not subscribe to the paradigm of "There Is No
Alternative" (TINA) and believe in human agency - lie in:
*
working with the poor to capacitate them for stake
assertion
*
collaborating
with
those
human
agencies
and
institutions that believe in the need and feasibility
of the third way.
These could include most of the UN Organisation, the
governments formed by left of centre liberal social
democrats,
neo-Marxists,
economists
and
social
scientists who do not subscribe to the view of markets
best left alone since they have, inbuilt self
correcting
capacities,
civil
society
movements,
environmentalists, feminists, human rights groups. All
of them countervail the market paradigm and force
governments
and
hence
official
aid
away
from
subserving markets to regulating it through sound,
transparent and accountable governance.
However, one thing is quite obvious. There will hardly be
any space in development cooperation with official aid for
the
radical
revolutionaries.
Those
who
consider
an
engagement with the market as reformist, will have to beat
another path - mostly in solidarity with like-minded
private givers and communities of the oppressed and the
marginalised.
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
K
15.
SNGOS
ANO
SOUTHERN
STATES
The Issue:
In India, the love-hate relationship between the state and
the NGOs is at least half-century old. The actual character
of the relationship is crucially depend on the social
positioning, ideology and history of the NGOs.
Given the history of an inclusive (nationalist) freedom
struggle and the socialist character of the constitution at least in its preambles/directive principles - the
development relation of NGOs with the state is particularly
problematic.
The rhetoric and the pseudo-modernity of the nation
conceals the real interests of the ruling elite, the feudal
nature of the predominantly rural agrarian economy and the
exclusion (nation without nationality!) of nearly one third
of the nation - the adivasis, dalits, lower segments of
backward communities, the minorities and women among them from the structures of opportunity.
NGO Options:
16.
*
some activist groups (NGOs?) a priori reject the
possibility of collaboration with the state. Its
class/caste nature and interests are seen not only as
not supportive of the people's aspirations
but
essentially as anti-people. They espouse a radical revolutionary paradigm.
*
a few NGOs (known derogatively as GONGOs - Government
NGOs) are uncritical agents of the ruling elite, with
an eye on the vote banks or to line their own pockets
*
under the present reduced flow of development funds
from NNGOs, many of the mushrooming small NGOs are
forced to contract "piece works" from the state for
their own survival
*
with the increased delegation/ceding of development to
the NGO sector, opportunists - retired bureaucrats,
academics,
professionals
(without
implying
that
opportunism is limited to them or that all of them are
so!) - are also entering development and functioning
uncritically in the area of development cooperation
with the state. They have hardly any development
understanding or concern and want to merely latch on
to the opportunities for their own advantages, without
necessarily intending to defraud the poor. They
appropriate for themselves large pieces of the
development cake
*
the vast majority of SNGOs adopt a middle of the road
approach to the state. Their central concern is the
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperate on and NGOs
people. They operate basically within a critical
collaboration framework and within the provisions of
law. They extensively use human agency (concerned,
socially
conscious
and
politically
committed
administrators,
police,
political
leadership,
judiciary) to access state resources
17.
Critical Collaboration:
Collaborative interface with the state, even with the right
to dissent and to engage in adversarial action, can be
categorised as welfarism dr political economy focused.
NGOs with a welfare mindset are mainly concerned with
poverty
alleviation
and
mainstreaming
without
problematising mainstreaming itself and the nature of the
state. They adopt essentially a functionalist approach to
understanding and addressing problems of poverty and
deprivation.
Efficiency and quality are their major
concerns.
NGOs with political economy perspectives rely heavily on
public action. They understand the nature and magnitude of
poverty as indicative of structural inadequacies and
sytemic failures. System correction and changes require of
the dispossessed that they articulate and assert themselves
within representational politics. Of course, de facto also
these NGOs extensively work with human agency for accessing
welfare provisions and entitlements under the law. But
these are not seen as ends in themselves. They are
perceived as essential part of a right assertion. Such NGOs
place great premium on processes: consciousness raising,
leadership development, participation.
Issues of representational politics and affirmative action,
especially from caste and gender perspectives, take on
added dimensions and give "nationality" overtones to
collaboration-conflict with the state for NGOs rooted in
subaltern communities of dalits, adivasis, minorities and
women.
18.
The Dilemmas in Confronting the State:
Most of the NGO approaches to the state have one underlying
assumption - that the state is the "provider". The task of
the NGO is to enable and facilitate access and control whether the path chosen is one of collaboration or of
adversarial action or a mix of both. However, under the
onslaught of structural adjustment programmes, the state is
under pressure to withdraw from social sectors and divest
itself of its social security tasks.
This creates further dilemmas for NGOs and complicates
their interface with the state. Despite their even radical
differences with the state, NGOs have to maintain their
relation with the state at the level of non-antagonistic
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
confrontation. In the face of larger intrusions into the
lives of the poor by powerful vested interests that operate
globally, the state is still the best bulwark of the poor.
NGOs cannot afford to be naive, insular and tunnel-visioned
in their development perspectives and concerns. They need
to also develop holistic and integrated perspectives
especially today in the face of rapid opening of the state
economy to the global market. NGOs should not get trapped
into situations where willy nelly they are used by agencies
like the WTO to weaken the state or to legitimise their own
double standards. The market is free only notionally!
19.
The Path Forward:
Despite the several problems political-economy oriented
NGOs do have in collaborating with the state, larger
compulsions and strategic sense should dictate the actual
relationship. Also, it is not desirable from the stand
point of the poor, nor is it likely that the state
abdicates or is divested of its social functions.
In the long term we are all dead. In the meantime, the road
ahead for SNGOs is still the one of collaboration,
Certainly critical and adversarial, but certainly not one
of total antagonism.
NGOs committed to the marginalised - and hence rightly
perceive peripheralisation as legitimised and sanctioned by
the state and its institutions - must therefore develop
greater skills in political action within the framework of
democracy, panchayat raj institutions, responsible and
accountable governance,
electoral politics and civil
society processes. There is both scope and good sense in
maintaining critical collaboration with the state.
20.
State Responses:
Generally speaking,
and despite the rhetoric,
state
partnership with NGOs will continue to be a mixed bag. In
some areas state institutions will be eager to cooperate especially when targets are to be met within time schedules
or when donors/lending agencies prescribe NGO participation
- provided NGOs concerned do not take their involvement too
seriously. But when it comes to dilution of power and loss
financial gains, the state agencies will be generally
unwilling and reluctant to cooperate with the NGOs.
21.
State and the Civil Society:
The crux of the matter when it comes to relation with the
state is that of defending and strengthening democratic
processes and institutions. The level and degree of
critical cooperation between the state and the NGOs is
indicative of the ability of the civil society to hold the
state accountable.
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
We can anticipate that in the coming years, both bilateral
and multilateral agencies will get much more openly and
explicitly committed to civil society processes and
democratisation. This will be realised through a two
pronged strategy of squeezing the state out of social
welfare functions as part of the conditionalities for
IMF/World Bank support and by channelling more and more of
social welfare/security tasks to the NGOs. Apart from this
pressure
from
above,
rising
articulation
of
the
underclasses and of the subaltern groups will force the
state to be more and more accountable and transparent.
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
SNGO-NNGO
22.
JPARTNERSH UPS
The Partnership Tradition:
During the decades when SNGOs where on the
development
cooperation,
they
were
kept
"partnership support" from northern NGOs.
margins
afloat
of
by
These NNGOs have provided funding support to southern NGOs
- motivated primarily by moral and ethical values of
concerned individuals, organisations and institutions. They
could in turn motivate private giving (as an additionality
to contributing to official aid through taxes). Some of
these NNGOs were able to negotiate also official aid - in
this process indirectly legitimising SNGO interventions.
Most of them (though not all) strengthened their initial
motivations with theoretical understanding of the nature
and causes of poverty. Such NNGOs were able to supplement
funds with proactive interest in the development thinking,
strategies and programmes of their southern partners,
sharing their concerns, living their dilemmas and providing
solidarity to their struggles through personal involvement
and advocacy/lobbying with the northern public, governments
and UN organisations.
23.
The Constraints on Continued Partnerships:
Such strong partnership relations are likely to continue,
perhaps under more adverse conditions.
On the one hand, NNGOs will find it harder to raise long
term development funds from private sources. Their ability
to supplement dwindling funds through leveraging official
aid - over and above committed funds in the case of joint
financing agencies - is likely to get reduced. Since
official aid agencies now can and would prefer to deal with
SNGOs directly through their own specialised south based
development cooperation agencies or embassies, rather than
through north based NGOs.
NNGOs have to invest at least part of their time and energy
in relief and emergency, if they are to be able to mobilise
money for long term organisation development support to
their valued southern partners. More time and greater
professional skills will be required to mobilise funds and
to be accountable for utilisation to both the public and to
the state (wherever NNGOs are also accessing state funds).
Reduced ability to provide long term organisational support
(rather than short term programme supports), the additional
costs and time involved in raising funds and meeting
accountability requirements, growing professionalisation in
response to all these pressures, lower budgets for meeting
overheads, etc. could have serious implications for NNGO
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
c2.<D
partnership relationship with SNGOs.
Particularly at a time when several partnership relations
are decades old and need to be interrogated/problematised
regarding impact on the poor, sustainability, scaling up
and
the
consequent
OD/OD
demands
such
as
role
transformations,
phased
withdrawal,
acquiring
new
competencies and professional skills, etc.
24-.
NNGO Response Strategies:
NNGOs need to both cope and creatively manage these
transitional stress. Mere good will and commitment will not
do. Nor will cold and detached professionalism work with
often
emotionally
high
strung
and
defensive
SNGOs
themselves caught up in a vortex of change.
In the final analysis only empathetic/concerned
and yet
informed/thoroughgoing professionalism will sustain and
carry forward partnership relations. The need is for
greater creativity,
in-depth understanding of complex
development
issues/NGO
positioning
and
to
holistic
responses rather than get trapped in simplistic solutions
and knee-jerk reactions. Intermediaries such as project
officers, evaluators, OD/ID experts, accompaniers, subject
experts,
financial
auditors,
will
make
or
wreck
partnerships. Hence, ideally the identification, mandating
and follow up of such intermediaries themselves should be
done
with
great
sensitively
and
through
mutual
consultations.
Whether southern and northern NGOs can marshall the type of
high quality human resources to manage these processes is
the crux of the question, current practices and experiences
in re-examining and re-defining partnerships and in re
structuring them need to be examined carefully to serve as
important learning points.
25.
Options before NNGOs:
For the NNGOs the range of options
for continued
partnership and the required re-structuring will be more or
less open depending on their identity and character, niche
positions and profile with the northern public, their level
of dependency on northern bilateral and multilateral
agencies, current perceptions regarding their development
management competencies, perceptions regarding their added
value in areas such as expertise in specific areas of
development,
advocacy and lobbying functions,
policy
development and influencing capacities, support, etc.
NNGOs who are unable convincingly add value to development
cooperation with SNGOs, may even find it difficult to
access private funds and supplementary official funds. The
challenge before them would be to make this qualitative
difference - to do things differently and better than
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
■J/1
embassies and specialised development cooperation bodies of
bi-lateral
and
multi-lateral
agencies
even
while
straddled with reduced administrative budgets and the high
cost of professionals.
26-
Options before SNGOs:
For the SNGOs, on the other hand, partnership relations
with NNGOs will be particularly crucial if they wish to
involve themselves particularly in the civil society
guestions where total dependence on official aid agencies
is suicidal, and if they are unable to mobilise locally the
resources needed
for social mobilisation,
campaigns,
struggles, connected net working, research/documentation,
advocacy and lobbying and policy influencing - an almost
impossible task!
Civil society issues such as equity,
participation,
democracy,
human
rights,
accountable
governance
and
responsible use of the commons call for more than localised
action. Geo-political arena is nothing less than globalised
civil society and global governance. Hence the support of
NNGOs, particularly their lobbying capacity with the
northern civil society and with international bodies could
make a difference.
To Conclude:
Paradigm shifts in development cooperation throw up more
formidable challenges before NNGOs than they do before the
SNGOs.
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
2^
NGOs
27.
AND
CIVIL
SOCIETY =
The Expanding Domain of Civil Society:
In the context of the "third way" to development as a
balance between unfettered markets and state managed
socialism, the civil society has two important roles:
*
to make the state more transparent/accountable in its
governance, and responsible for the security and well
being of the vulnerable segments
*
to set the "public criteria" to which the market must
be made sensitive (regulated market).
Development is not only about growth but also about
equipping people with knowledge and power to decide why and
how they want to develop, manage and enjoy resources and
that too in their own democratic spaces.
The key function of the civil society is the deepening of
democracy and the widening of inclusiveness. The interplay
of concerns, interests and aspirations of all groups and
peoples must determine the character of the state and of
the market. The civil society creates an environment of
profound respect for the rights of individuals, communities
and nature.
28.
NGOs and Civil Society:
Vibrant, informed, sensitive, responsible, ethical and
vigilant citizen groups constitute the core of a civil
society. Such citizen groups must emerge from the entire
spectrum of interests and concerns of people. They must
enjoy representative legitimacy. They must also have the
skills and competencies for public action.
In developed countries, interest groups, citizen groups
that specialist advocacy groups play key roles in the civil
society - to make markets socially responsible and to
ensure that the state represents the interests of the civil
society. In the developing countries, since such civil
society action is still in its nascent form, NGOs have been
playing the lead role in civil society.
The contradiction is that civil society action is funded
externally. Externally funded actions by NGOs are therfore
transtitional in nature. Citizen groups must eventully
mobilise resource internally for civil society action. Of
course they could pool resources from external civil
society agents when issues addressed and action invloved
include international and global civil societies.
Most NGOs in India are concerned with articulating the
problems of local communities of the poor. Than with
generalised problems of equity, sustainable development,
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
a.3
gender equity. But we do see NGOs that are exclusively
involved
in
providing
specialist
functions,
without
directly working with grass root communities. The nature of
the linkage between these two types of NGOs is going to
become critically important.
On the one hand grassroot organisations do not have the
skills for significantly influencing the civil society particularly in the context of globalisation, where many
issues have to be addressed at the global level. On the
other hand, networking and advocacy organisations that do
not have grassroot links may increasingly find themselves
challenged regarding their legitimacy and mandate. Rooting
in the ground reality of people is absolutely essential if
NGOS are to seen as representing the concerns of the
people, as civil society agencies.
29.
NGOs and CBOs:
In India, the equivalent of citizen groups are the CBOs.
However, most local communities of the poor and the
marginalised are
unable
to
develop
themselves
into
effective CBOs without external facilitation. Several self
mandated groups
(NGOs)
therefore play the
role
of
energising the emergence of CBOs from the people of
concern.
The critical question before the NGO is its own continued
role and relevance post CBO emergence. The options are:
role transformation or withdrawal. The NGO ability and
willingness to address these options creatively will decide
its continued relevance.
Despite all the rhetoric of direct support to CBOs, most
community based organisations - particularly of the poor
and the marginalised - do not enjoy the visibility,
competence and negotiating power to directly access state
and external resources. Either NGO personnel must work
within the CBOs as their paid employees (providing several
services for less than their market value), or NGOs must
stay outside and provide several vital support functions.
In either case the community managment question needs to be
seen and addressed realistically without any romanticising.
It is quite unrealitic to talk of CBOs totally in
isoltation from NGOs.
Exception would be the gram panchayats. But then, they
operate largely within the framework of the state. It is
quite well-known that the poor and the marginalised do not
feel confident that their rights and entitlements will be
protected by the gram panchayats as they really exist now.
The feudal, patriarchal and casteist nature of our society
creates deep polarisations. The civil society is still to
emerge - at least from the perspective of the dalits, the
tribals and women!!!
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
NGOs committed to those marginalised from rights and
entitlements then have two options: to directly work on
capacitating the poor to participate in the panchayat raj
systems and/or to differentially equip them through their
own organisations, so that they are progressively enabled
to participate in self-governance institutions. Deep caste
and gender cleavages seem to make out a case for continued
NGO-led affirmative action with the marginalised.
As such, it may not be quite realistic to overly emphasise
the role of panchayati raj institutions as "the" civil
society forum. Yet since these are democratic institution
provided under the law, NGO will need to consciously work
for strengthening the capacity of the poor to participate,
access and control these institutions. But certainly the
choice is not to leave everything to the self-governance
institutions - at least not in the short term.
This having been said, the nature of NGO relation to the
CBOs they energise is critically important. Since CBOs are
mandated by the people and managed by them, certainly they
have representational legitimacy. In fact several NGOs may
persist beyond the CBOs because withdrawal is not a
feasible option for them. In such cases, the NGOs may end
up doing what the CBOs can and should do, reducing them to
mere
programmes
of
the
NGOs,
creating
perpetual
dependencies and insulating them from mainstreaming into
the larger political-economy/democratisation processes.
This danger of patronage on the one hand and on the other
hand the real needs of emerging CBOs for complementary
supports through specialist skills raise several questions
regarding the nature and identity of NGOs who claim to
resource support grass root community managed initiatives
and build their capacities.
NGOs that provide such supports will have to begin to
consciously address at some point of time the nature of
their identity with the social class and ethnicity of the
people and communities they seek to support. This may be
done through the NGOs themselves emerging from these
classes and ethnic groups or at least by building,
federating and equipping the community groups to function
on terms mutuality of inter-dependence with the NGOs that
promoted them in the first place.
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
II
30.
NGOs
a ri<3
the
Mii r ket: z
The Reality of the Market:
Though this may sound cynical, the general course of global
development
is
really
determined
through
commercial
transfers. The gift economy is only a very small part of
the global capital outflows.
Developing countries need an inflow of about US$600
billion/year to wipe out worst forms of poverty and to
increase per capita income by 2%. This resource requirement
is about 10 times more than current official aid. It would
be a self-delusion to think that aid can, will or has made
the difference to the levels of well being in the world.
Powerful dialectical forces are at work as the world
economy undergoes structural transformations. One promises
hope and opportunity. The present win-lose market paradigm
could be a transitional phase to cooperation (win-win
strategies) which will expand opportunities for all. The
GNP based trickle-down growth models could give way to
decentralised trickle up sustainable development, which
restores incentives to mutual aid and the development of
agreements and models for managing global commons.
The second scenario threatens a future of despair: debt
overhang, vitiating poverty and deepening ecology crisis all
interlinked.
While
globalisation
brings
global
increases in income on the aggregate, it also threatens to
leave much of humankind in conditions of absolute poverty
and to widen the gap. These trends are likely to be
accentuated with the advent of information/ knowledge
economy, the increasing power of the multi-nationals and
the growing severity of environmental constraints. Most
developing countries fall further back unable to keep pace
with technologies that are opening the way to new modes of
production, distribution and economic/social life.
300 of the largest TNCs control about 1/4 of the of the
world's
$20
trillion
productive
assets.
Private
international capital flows is nearly 150 billion dollars.
The giants who make these investments are not merely
economic agents seeking profit making opportunities. They
wield enormous power. National governments act as if they
are fully sovereign within their own borders on economic
policy, while stateless corporations actually shape the
national climates, by offering technology, capital and jobs
and splitting the spoils with the national elite.
31.
System Failures:
The unwelcome trends in the present global economy point to
system failures and call for measurers that go beyond
restoration of debtor nations to creditworthiness. We need
to use resources in a different way and for a different
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
=26
purpose, we need changes that are more systemic in nature
and scope: a more productive global economy in which there
is much greater fairness and sensitivity to the maintenance
and enhancement of social/cultural/ environmental quality/
equity. There are structural blocks to global growth with
equity. There are no level playing grounds. The rules of
the game are tilted against developing nations.
The market alone will not lead the way to prosperity,
unless steadied by other factors: people, democracy,
transparency, inclusiveness, participation, accountability,
politics of decision making. The "hands off, leave it to
the market" approach will not work.
At the same time the gravity and extent of poverty and
unemployment the world over is so overwhelming and its
causative factors so complex that traditional responses and
delivery vehicles simply will not do. NGO collectives and
governments are in no position to respond to the legitimate
aspirations of the marginalised and of the poor. As noted
earlier, present resources available is only one-tenth of
that required to enure satisfactory living conditions to
the worlds poor. In short, scale and seriousness of
contemporary social, economic and ecological problems can
be solved only through a new paradigm of interaction and
collaboration between NGOs,
state and market forces
(business and industry).
32.
Market and Public Criteria:
The major task of the civil society and hence of NGOs the
politics of alternatives - to demonstrate and campaign for
"what might be", if the world is organised in a different
way. NGOs must act locally even while aligning with the
larger civil society and the institutions of global
governance, to set standards of desirable behaviour at
local, national, global levels.
As far as our own country is concerned, NGO must act in yet
one more area. Globalisation per se is both inevitable and
not necessarily bad. it may even usher in opportunities.
The real problem is the inequalities in our own country.
This will prevent the vast majority from benefitting the
market, while a privileged few profit. This will accentuate
divisions and lead to social tensions. The NGO has the task
of public action for capacitating the poor through social
opportunities - with education, health services, economic,
political and social organisations, access to technology,
credit, infrastructure. The recognition welfare economics
(Amrtya Sen) has gained will further legitimise this NGO
task and will oblige the civil society to take on this task
of equity more seriously.
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
X -
33.
NGOS
AND
New Global Issues:
As the recent crisis in the south Asian countries
demonstrated, growing spheres of influence of global
financial markets is reducing the authority of nation
states over many areas of policy and resource allocation/
deployment. Another area of emerging concern will be the
management of
the global
commons.
"The
fundamental
political conflict in the opening decades of the new
century we believe will not be between nations or even
between
trading
blocs,
but
between
the
forms
of
globalisation and the territorially based forces of local
survival seeking to preserve/redefine the community (Global
Dreams: Imperial Corporations and the New World Order).
The project of responsible interaction between the three
systems - state, market and civil society - will have to be
pivoted and piloted by intergovernmental world bodies, more
specifically by the UN organisations.
34.
NGO Potential:
NGOs can play a more creative role, given the recognition
now accorded to it, to develop and work with networks that
link local action with global dialogue and to strengthen
the UN and its organisations. To link issues and their
causes - to globalise from below the struggles and
aspirations
of
the marginalised.
Both
problems
and
solutions are global.
Together with these UN bodies, concerned citizen groups and
responsible states, NGOs are called upon to work on
strengthening GLOBAL GOVERNANCE in a world fast turning
into a global village in terms of both opportunities and
threats, problems and possibilities.
The privileged positioning of NGOs within the domain of
civil society thus places before NGOs several options - to
act locally with communities of the poor and at the same
time to address the global challenges.
These demands place before NGOs several
option brings with it several dilemmas.
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
options.
Each
29
^1
N60 RtSPoMS’gS
NGO
35.
OPTIONS
AND
DIEEMMAS
The Scenario:
We could sum up our discussions thus far by mapping the two
broad areas of demands on/expectations from NGOs, whatever
be the motivations and the consequences:
a)
Delivery/Management
Alleviation:
of
Social
Stability/Poverty
Efficient, effective, accountable
and low cost
extensionists/social contractors to distribute and
manage
welfare,
social
security,
technology,
livelihood interventions - in lieu of or complementing
state
delivery.
But
radical
interrogation
of
underpinning rationale/concepts/basic packages will
not be encouraged. Critique is welcome if confined to
the mechanisms of packaging, delivery, accounting.
This demand will generally come from two sources:
official aid agencies who fund SNGOs directly and from
southern governments financed by IMF/WB under SAP.
b)
Empowering the Poor for Alternatives:
The concern will be with capacitating the civil
society in general and the marginalised in particular
to assert, negotiate and expand their individual,
collective and indivisible rights within a political
economy context. Political questions will be raised
regarding models and delivery systems and their scope
and anticipated results, going beyond what is stated
as motives and intentions. Programmes and strategies
will revolve around democratisation,
responsible
governance,
strengthening
the
civil
society,
capacitation of the marginalised (indigenous people/
women/peasant communities), the role of human agency.
Concepts, strategies and delivery systems will be
treated
as
equally
important
as
programmes.
"Economistic"
definition of development will be
challenged and combined with rights/entitlements
(political, economic, social, cultural).
Most northern official aid agencies will be prepared
to
support
these
programmes
as
tokens/symbols,
provided the NGOs do not obstruct the agenda of
marketisation. NGOs who are committed to these ideals,
must be very strategic, innovative and selective if
they wish to access official aid from northern and
southern governments.
The best bet for them would be NNGOs with track record
of intense involvement in questions of equity,
sustainable
development
and
poverty
combatting.
Specific agencies of the UN, human rights bodies,
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
30
feminist groups, etc. could be strong allies. Support
from them will have to be complemented with local
resource mobilisation and a lobbying capacity of a
high order.
The green lobbyists pose before NGOs some very
profound issues and challenges. These centre not only
around sustainable development,
but also around
guestions related to global commons and negative
externalities of development on the ecology of nature
and humans. NGOs committed to equity/sustainabi1ity
have great opportunities via the environmental agenda.
By establishing links between environment, people and
social development (agenda 21 and Social Summit
provide the broad directions for interventions), NGOs
can push forward a holistic agenda for development.
Collaboration is full of promises in this area between NGOs, official aid, for-profit organisations,
civil society, people whose livelihood depend on
natural resources, those concerned with the control
and use of earth/life sustaining commons and the way
its costs are being externalised to unsuspecting
people and to the future.
To some extent, also women empowerment and gender
balance could provide avenues NGOs committed to
strengthening the civil society.
36.
The NGO Dilemma:
The issue before SNGOs is not merely a question of choice
of the development path. Given their dependency on external
or state funds, choices could be forced on them. The
overall direction in development funding is to entrust
delivery of social services for the poor to NGOs in
preference to the state (for example, 50% of US non-profit
organisations receive more than 50% of their incomes from
taxes levied by different levels of government). This trend
could compel NGOs into the role of uncritical "ladles" in
the "global soup kitchen".
Though the rhetoric of official aid will be that NGOs could
promote democracy and political reforms along western
lines, it is unlikely that they will put their money where
their mouth is. Despite the high profile accorded to the
promotion of civil society, most aid will be directed at
improvements
tangible
in
peoples
living
conditions
and
livelihoods.
The confusion these trends create are confounded by the
uncertainty within the NGO community itself regarding its
roles in the post cold war geo-political economy of the
market. Ultimately, clarity of purpose and informed options
' ■' -muste^come from the NGOs themselves - what roles they choose
to ’pTay, for what reasons, with what consequences (for
themselves and for the people they work with), how they
■-
'
-
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
31
propose to manage these tasks and to live with the risks.
But one thing is guite clear. NGOs cannot hope to access
and use funds from official state aid and for-profit
sources on NGO terms alone.
37.
NGOs and NGOs - the Identity Question:
The major
difficulty
in
comprehending
NGO
response
strategies comes from the fact that the NGO label is so
inclusive that it has lost its definition. Particularly in
the present context when many more new entrants. There is
no one representative/ideal type/modal NGO whose responses/
options could be taken as generally representative of the
position/view of "NGOs".
One is therefore forced to categorise NGOs into several
modes and then try and understand how generally within each
mode/category,
NGOs
understand
shifting
development
paradigms and strategise their responses.
Within each mode, the response options and their strategies
will be critically dependent on the development ideology,
nature of relationship with its constituencies, the nature
of leadership, the nature of relationship with the donor,
levels of professional competencies, the networks and
solidarities to which they have access for resources/
contacts,
their
lobbying
and advocacy capacity
for
themselves and for the communities, their legitimacy with
their constituency and with the NGO community, risk taking
capacity, range of strategic options, management style,
work ethics, ability to scale up and broad base or
alternatively specialise, etc.
38.
Choices:
Choices about development role and related institutional
positions are far more complex than "either/or". NGOs are
often hybrids. Development is itself a mix of short and
long terms, of the micro and the macro, of the local and of
the global. And aid is many things at once. Most of
development is neither white nor black. It is invariably
grey. Pragmatic and strategic choices - real politick within a matrix of concerns, reality, perceived strengths
and willingness to take risks.
Removing from discussion the opportunists (extreme right)
and the revolutionary radicals (extreme left), most NGOs
can be ranged in the centre (critical social contractors),
right of centre (uncritical ladles) and left of centre
(collaboration in social security is a strategic measure,
a means and never the end). These positions will be the
conseguence of the NGO perception regarding several issues:
the nature and character of the state
the nature and character of the market
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
*
*
*
*
*
*
the function of civil society and of NGOs within it
the political economy
the understanding of the nature and causes of poverty
and the response to them
the role of the poor in addressing these questions
the level of dependency on funds
its own competencies to address and mange the external
environment.
Many NGOs may be willing to be uncritical ladles in the
welfare kitchen if their development understanding does not
point to other viable alternatives. It may, then, make
sense to them to build safety nets and to mitigate negative
externalities. Their concerns will then centre on the poor
benefiting from whatever redistribution of global surplus
is taking place. They may be unwilling and unable to
address questions related to a more equitable operation of
the economy and greater inclusiveness in society and
politics.
The dividing line between NGOs working with welfare and
NGOs working with political economy questions is indeed
very thin - provided their motives are not suspect. In
reality the dichotomy between both is unreal. Those working
with local communities of the poor and the marginalised
cannot afford to compartmentalise welfare, development and
political action. These are part of a continuum. Depending
on the nature of the problem, the intervention strategy
will have to range across a spectrum of collaborationcritical collaboration-adversarial action-confrontation and
conflict. Yet NGOs can be positioned on the development
ideology-praxis
matrix
based
on
their
theoretical
understanding, track record and levels of organisational
and institutional strength.
39.
The NGO Relevance:
A vast majority of the good/concerned NGOs have been trying
to straddle welfare, development and political empowerment.
On the one hand collaborating in running the soup kitchens
and on the other hand addressing the larger structural
questions of poverty, be they global or local (economic
interests,
power questions,
market realities,
caste,
patriarchy, life styles....).
An "enlightened" NGO (as also networks) will recognise the
tiny scale of its operations vis a vis the complexity and
magnitude of the problems it confronts. It will bring to
its work "learnings" that can be shared and reflected upon.
Everything said and done, the NGO "product" cannot be more
than improved well-being and power for the poor they are
committed to. However, the larger relevance of the NGO and hence its power - is the mix of knowledge and proven
practice which tit can bring to development to inform and
confront the wider economic and political systems that
maintain poverty as a global phenomenon (Fowler).
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
33
The Need for Shared Reflections:
40.
The new rationale for international aid will also create
new systems for achieving results intended. It is in the
interest of the NGOs to give top priority to capacity
building and institutional strengthening in relation to
their basic response option.
Ideas and strategies regarding the best "transition" into
a new pattern of aid are only in their infancy. Most NGOs
have not yet seriously reflected on this matter. In fact,
the study reveals that NGOs are hardly aware, in a
conscious manner, of the paradigm shifts that are taking
place and on their impingement on NGOs.
As a matter of urgency, practitioners and thinkers on these
issues need to get together so that current experiences can
be explicitated, compared and critiqued in the context of
macro-perspectives.
This is one way of ensuring that
resources invested in institutional and organisational
development of NGOs are effectively used. Learnings must go
beyond individual NGOs to the NGO community as a whole - at
least of NGOs who share the same ideals and concerns. This
is not the time to harp on "differences" (real and
imagined) because of which NGOs reinforces their separate
spaces (turfs! ) .
41.
Options and Implications:
The choices and their implications will be different for
each (loose) category of NGOs:
42.
*
for those who prefer to be ladles in the global soup
kitchen
*
for those
economy
*
for those who try and straddle both - as the majority
of NGOs do.
who
chose
to
operate
in
the
political
Choosing for the Soup Kitchen:
From an ID perspective, those NGOs wishing to position
themselves in social welfare opportunities, will have to:
*
develop effective linkages with northern official aid
agencies in order to both satisfy and seek to
influence the policies and practices which actually
determine what NGOs do
*
access and part-finance
government resources
their
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
work
from
southern
34
*
mobilise resources from non-conventional sources:
particularly tax/penalty reduction linked funds.from
private persons, business and industry, both national
and international.
The principal demand for organisational development will,
because of the logically-framed project approach used in
official aid, tend towards a concern for outputs rather
than processes. Stringent accounting and physical output
measures will constitute the primary instruments of
accountability.
OD
will
be
primarily
directed
at
strengthening an NGO's ability to meet targets and
administer resource flows, within formal and hierarchical
frameworks.
Social processes such as local resource
mobilisation and capacity building will take second place
unless the OD employed ensures otherwise.
The focus will
have to be on how NGOs can do differently what the
government has been thus far doing. For this, OD processes
will need to concentrate on the systems NGOs use to reach
out to and relate with people, on influencing the content
of the delivery process - issues such as reach to the
really poor, disadvantaged and marginalised, together with
their authentic participation in decision-making.
43.
Choosing For Working with the Political Economy:
The likely emphasis of institutional development for those
NGOs not wishing to function purely within the framework of
official aid systems could be:
*
to alter the way society operates economically and
politically in relation to the structurally poor, the
worlds functional underclass
*
institutional impact to be directed at the basic
principles by which a country and society operates and
regulates
*
equip itself to address the nature of governance,
(civic) right and political inclusiveness
*
concentrate on establishing a network of relationships
between NGOs with similar intent and interpretations
of
their
functions,
locally,
nationally
and
internationally
*
the integrated nature of the world economy will call
for a corresponding integration of NGO action through
civic alliances.
ID should concentrate on establishing a network of
relationships (local, national and international) with NGOs
and civil society actors (media, citizen groups, concerned
professionals, religious groups). The integrated nature of
the
world
economy
will
require
a
corresponding
globalisation from below of the concerns, issues and
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
3 5~
struggles, of the marginalised. Strengthening
organisations will be an important agenda.
of
the
UN
From an OD perspective this means that an NGO must be fullyrooted in society and economy:
progressively mix and eventually replace official aid
with other funds, especially those locally generated
improve capacity to generate and handle information,
share knowledge and maintain multiple interdependent
relationships
*
be fully rooted in its socio-cultural and political
economy milieu and in the struggles of the people and
their alliances
*
legitimacy will be determined also by the NGO's own
systems of governance and accountability. These must
receive direct attention under OD, since these are
basic to development and not mere strategies.
OD efforts must pivot around capacity to generate and
handle information, share knowledge and maintain multiple
interdependent relationships. They will require a complex
skill mix to effectively link ability to organise with
capacity to theorize, interpret and share, to lobby and
advocate for policy changes, to influence large number of
individuals and institutions in the civil society, to link
horizontally and vertically between different types of
development actors and levels of action, local n global.
They must be comfortable with collective action, working
without frontiers. They must be able to work with complex
measures for assessing performance.
44.
NGOs Straddling Social Security and Political Economy:
An "enlightened" NGO,
even while concerning themselves
with improved well-being and power for the poor they work
with, will try and mix their proven micro-practice with
macro linkages. Their legitimacy is derived from their
strong grass root presence. From within these platforms,
they try and participate in larger collaborative processes
that inform/influence/confront the economic and political
systems that maintain poverty as a global phenomenon.
Such NGOs have to also face up to the consequences: deep
structural
tensions
requiring
complex
organisational
designs and very competent management. Most NGOs do not
have the resources and the competencies to manage these
tensions and finally fall between two stools. Unfortunately
this may be the fate awaiting several small and medium
well-intentioned
NGOs,
lacking
in
both
theoretical
understanding of the sweeping changes around them and the
change management skills to cope and respond creatively.
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
3fe
T. _
45.
NGO
RE—POSITIONING
The Task Ahead:
NGOs are being called upon to
following roles:
play all
or some of
the
a)
local practitioners in the implementation process
b)
a watchdog who can be counted on to sound the alarm
when national and international authorities fail to
meet their commitments
c)
advocates
levels.
who
push
polices
and
programmes
at
all
Re-visioning and re-positioning to play all these three
roles - under differing development task/role perceptions
and in interaction with development actors who have their
own views and interests, and all these on global scale and
magnitude - call for radical changes in NGO organisations
and institutions. The broad areas and directions for
changes and for re-equipping have been already discussed.
46.
From Being Different to Making a Difference:
NGO relevance and legitimacy cannot be based any more on
their being special and different. NGOs must a make
difference - by learning to work without frontiers. This
calls for new ways of collaborating also on day to day
basis. NGOs and their leadership must rise above the
rationalisations
they
offer
for
their
differences,
exclusiveness,
the cut-throat competition for funds,
privileges and positions. All these call for radical
interrogation of the why and how of
NGOs structurations
and institutionalisation.
47.
Representational Questions:
NGOs operate at national and international levels and at
grass root level with communities of people. Both are
interdependent on each other. They must therefore be
transparent and accountable to each other in partnerships
and solidarities. NGOs must seriously address questions of
mandate, legitimacy and Representation. They become more
and more relevant as organisations of civil society gain
greater roles in governance.
Yes, it is necessary that competent organisations move
beyond to advocacy and even to help in setting public
policy agendas, identifying critical areas and providing
official policy makers with advice and assistance. But they
must have profound respect for the NGOs at the ground. It
is these organisations and their struggles that give
legitimacy and added value to advocacy/policy influencing
NGOs at regional, national and global levels. Without such
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
37-
rooting, these NGOs run the risk of cooption. Rooting
requires that the NGO community also address real questions
of. risks, adequate livelihood and security, competency
building, spaces for vertical and horizontal mobility,
sharing of "rewards and privileges", etc. These questions
cannot be wished away. Partnership and solidarity cannot be
reduced to rhetoric. A pretence of equality among inequals
only accentuates inequalities (Aristotle).
48.
Building Collaborative Skills:
NGOs committed to empowerment must also develop the
competencies, skills and organisational versatility to go
beyond
their
traditional
role
of
confrontation
and
recognise the new spaces opened up for the civil society
and the public domain. The ground situations and the nature
of struggles of the people must decide the course of action
between collaboration and confrontation. Even while engaged
in adversarial action, through other facets of their
organisation/alliances,
NGOs must still
hold to the
principle of non-antagonistic relationships and contribute
to governance through advice and even participation in
decision making and impact monitoring at micro, macro and
global levels.
Rather than limit themselves to the margins, they must
reach and influence
decision makers and decision making
fora: the UN, G-7, WTO, IMF, World Bank... They must
develop the competencies to take advantage of the new
openings. Even while working as critiques, they must also
serve also as co-creators, who bring analysis, expertise
and solutions to policy dialogues.
49.
Implications/Demands on NNGOs:
This task is very much also that of NNGOs.
Especially fraught with danger is the position of those
NGOs who wish to or de facto limit their role to that of
donors vis a vis SNGOs, down valuing "partnership" and all
that it demanded: empathy, passion, involvement, the right
to critique - and hard - but from inside. And all that it
implied for their own OD/ID: the type of professionalism
they build, their ability and willingness to lobby and
influence policies of their own governments/business; their
visibility in international fora,
their ability and
willingness to understand, development issues both from
micro and macro-perspectives; their capability to support
inter-NGO alliances and solidarity by setting an example at
their own levels.
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
39
pi-:rcl:ptj: on s
M_
50.
from
the
ground
Motivators of Change:
Change becomes necessary only when events create turbulence
within the entire or some part of the organisation and/or
its institutional linkages. This turbulence calls for
change. This change may cause uncertainties which can be
threats or opportunities. Noel. Tichy presents five modes of
decision making in response to a "triggering event":
*
unconflicted adherence: in this situation the persons
within the organisation do not feel the risk of the
triggered event
*
unconflicted change ("incrementalism"): the change is
only a slight change from pervious situation and this
does not call for serious strategic diagnosis
*
defensive avoidance: the organisation has no hope of
change as the new changes and the existing situation
show equal risks
*
hyper vigilance: same as situation in defensive
avoidance, sees possibilities of change, but no time
to act on it
*
vigilance: the organisation perceives serious risks
from the current course as well as the new, but find
time to evaluate the situation and keep stress under
control.
A deliberate attempt is made to find
solution.
When an organisation reaches the stage of '’vigilance',
stress will be a motivating force and not discourage the
participants from facing risks. Time pressure, political
process and lack of managerial experience are limitations
to vigilant change diagnosis.
51.
Triggering Event Perceptions of ADATS, AVAS and ODP:
At least two of the three organisations which participated
in the study did not perceive any noticeable change in the
external development environment. While the third did
perceive changes, but was able to take it in its stride.
All the three organisations could be categorised as NGOs
committed to empowerment processes. They worked with
community based organisations that had their own identity
and legal status. Good relationship was being maintained.
They also had long standing partner relationship with NNGOs
and were able to mobilise adequate resources from them.
The organisational strategies for straddling both welfare
and mobilisation work were good. Accessing state funds and
taking on adversarial action were essentially the task of
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
the CBOs. The NGO itself was essentially a functional
resource organisation to the CBO. It complemented the CBO
by performing specific tasks: horizon scanning, orienting
the.CBO to understand and respond to the changes, providing
training services, facilitating planning and monitoring,
taking responsibility for reporting and documentation, etc.
In short the NGOs were the ideologues, interlocutors and
resource bases for the CBOs.
The three organisations had strong leadership - command
figures. The organisations were essentially extensions of
the NGO entrepreneur, who had control over the internal
coalition and could effectively deal/neutralise threatening
external coalitions.
In addition the leadership was
essentially charismatic and focused on a mission. All three
leaders
had
professional
competencies,
had
good
institutional linkages and were effective leaders.
It
is
therefore
not
surprising
that
these
three
organisations did not see the external environment as
rapidly changing, as threatening and as creating stress for
the organisation.
52.
Practices and Experiences
Accessing Official Aid:
of
ADATS,
AV AS
and
ODP
in
In ADATS, accessing state aid is part of the agenda of the
CBO. In AVAS, it is part of the work of the NGO.
In ODP,
possible and feasible state aid is accessed and channelled
to the CBO. The three organisations in general have been
able
to mobilise
the money needed for
their work
predominately from Northern NGOs. There is no apparent
constraint or evidence related to the paradigm shifts which
is the main context of the study.
However, ODP has received intimation from the Northern NGOs
that in future the item of staff salaries can not be
supported by them, as a beginning fifty percent of the
staff salaries has been cut in this years budget.
The state aid accessed by the CBOs is used for the planned
activities of the CBO such as watersheds, as well as for
the power of negotiation and participation. The economic
base of the CBO- the savings and credit in particular- is
used as leverage for this.
The responsibility of
mobi1isi ng the CBO resource is essentially that of the NGO.
The resources mobilised for the CBO is utilised as
technical and productive inputs, for asset creation, and as
development funds.
53.
Correlation between Development Variables:
All the three organisations
empowering people.
work
with
the
mission
of
The constituency ranges over the concept of cooly (deprived
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
40
section of the society based class, caste and gender),
programme and interest based organisation (women sanghas
and watershed committees) and
rights based humanising
processes for the urban poor (rights, securities and
livelihood of people in slums).
The development ideology is in three forms. Starting from
acknowledging the condition of deprivation and the mission
of building in means and motivation to over come. it in ODP,
it passes through issues and need based organisations of
the urban poor in AVAS,
and is seen in acknowledging the
strengths of the people- and building on it through
constructiveness and growth in a wider context of micro and
macro in ADATS.
The work style of ADATS is based on the objective of
enabling
the
CBO
for
self-reliance
and
political
participation.
Towards this the NGO adopts a combination
approach of power looking strategies and technology of
implementation based on it.
The NGO-CBO identity is
integrated through relationships at personal as well as
organisational level. ODP works on programme based working
relation with CBO.
The NGO-CBO identity is distinct, but
interlinked.
The focus is on self reliance through a
change in the role of NGO and CBO with time and growth.
AVAS work on mission of reorganising the communities in
urban areas towards their rights and basic securities. The
approach is issue and agenda based partnerships with the
CBO. AVAS adopts a key focus area approach and has working
alliances with multiple CBO identities, and affiliations to
people's movements which are larger than the work and area
of the NGO.
The ethos the three NGO is based on the concept of people's
participation and empowerment.
The organisation adopts a
balance of process and results.
All the three NGOs have
definite competencies, skills and special expertise to
continue
with
their
development
missions.
These
competencies and skills are upgraded with time and growth.
A significant factor contributing is the efficiency and
capabilities of the leaders.
54.
Access to Official Aid:
None of the three organisations handle official aid
directly - as on date. But ground work had been undertaken
to access funds from sources such as European Union (ODP)
for the main reason that existing NNGO partners may not be
able to accommodate the increased requirements over the
next 5 to 6 years.
ADATS has taken the initiative to
accessing funds from northern corporates under carbon
sequestration programme.
All the three NGO have been
successful in enabling strong CBOs who are on their planned
path for growth.
The organisation linkages of the three
NGOS and their CBOS confer that as on date the work of the
NGOS and CBOS are not likely to be disturbed by change in
Paradigm Shifts in Deveiopment Cooperation and NGOs
4-/
the sources of funds.
Understanding of the three NGOS regarding Official Aid:
55.
The increasing trends towards official aid is perceived as
part of the process of change at the macro level.
The
governments - both in the north as well as in the south are crucial players in the field of development.
This
needs to be acknowledged.
Official aid is one of the
multipliers of the larger paradigm shifts taking place at
the global level. Consequently official aid has to be seen
in its interrelatedness to other forms of aid. It needs to
be acknowledged and addressed with realism.
56.
Desirability of Official aid for NGOs
nature of the state and of the market:
critical
of
the
Official aid is one of the manifestation of change and
hence a reality to live with.
It has some advantages
(quantum, continuity etc).
There are also spaces for
negotiations to accommodate the mission of the NGO-CBO,
which is people's empowerment and political participation.
The source of funds, per se, is not a constraint for people
and their development.
The deciding factor is the
strategies adopted for the utilisation of the funds.
The
northern NGOS have to be compete with other players such as
government and corporates who are intensifying their role
in development. All three NGOs felt that southern NGO have
addressed the issue of official aid quite appropriately.
57.
Accessing possibilities for Southern NGOS:-
The three NGOS see a high degree of possibilities
accessing official aid for the following reasons:
for
a)
The northern government have not questioned the
relevance and effectiveness of the southern NGOs and
CBOs.
b)
In few instances, preconditions set by the southern
NGOs have been accommodated by the official sources.
c)
appropriate systems for professionalism are being
developed by NGOs and in case NGOs will do wel 1 to
develop its capacity to deliver goods and on schedule.
Areas' Where Official Aid Could be Made People Friendly:
*
simplification of procedures and demystification of
processes
*
elimination
of
intermediaries
exploitative
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
and
opportunist
59.
*
define and strengthen the concept
participation and partnership
*
move towards totality and comprehensiveness in terms
of OD and ID of NGOs/CBOs from
narrow and limited
programme orientation
*
strengthen gender, caste, indigenous people and other
subaltern perspectives
*
address
more
seriously
also
questions
of
representative character of NGO/CBO partners, resource
organisations and intermediaries
and
practice
of
Factors that Could Make Official Aid Interesting for SNGOs:
SNGOs could seriously look at opportunities of Official aid
for the following reasons:
60.
*
increasing availability and there is no significant
difference from accessing funds from NNGOs
*
adequacy of funds to meet growing
sustainability and scaling up
*
to offset the lack of consistency and predictability
of support from NNGOs
*
official aid is more professionally managed, more
forward looking and more adequately reflecting the
changes in the larger environment
fund
need
for
Implications for the Political Understanding of NNGOs:
Development organisations, both in the north and in the
south need to re-define their understanding of development
issues and political orientation. This redefinition itself
must
be
contextualised
in
people
orientedness
and
dovetailed with several other areas of concern of the
people. It is also necessary to consider the size of the
organisation to speak of political significance and impact.
For strategies such as linkages with larger political
processes and visibility at that level, size is important.
Small NGOs are not effective there, unless they are able to
scale up. However, small NGOs lack the competence to scale
up. As of now several networks are problematic. Given these
reasons, official aid may move in the direction of large/
mega/professional NGOs unless smaller local community based
NGOs can re-imagine themselves on larger canvass, cutting
across their boundaries. Of course this is more easily said
than done. However it is important to initiate such
experiments and document success stories.
61.
SNGO-NNGO Partnerships:
NNGOs need to reflect more seriously on the changes that
Paradigm Shifts in Dcvelopment Cooperation and NGOs
are currently taking place in their organisations and their
implications for partnership relations - which involved not
only
funding
but
also
shared
concerns,
passionate
commitment and personal identification.
Partnership norms and ethics need to be redefined once
again. Gaps that are developing need to be understood and
the reasons identified. NNGOs and SNGOs must develop a
mission approach to partnership strengthening and re
orientation in the context of rapid changes that are
tasking place in SNGOs, NNGOs and in the external
environment.
In the context and on the platform of such partnerships
alone can NNGOs play effective role in influencing official
id policies in favour of NGO ideals and best practices.
NNGOs must be able to demonstrate that they can make a
difference to development cooperation.
62.
Learning Points:
The study could identify the following best practices in
these three NGOs, which could be important learning points:
a)
NGO-CBO Relationship:
stable,
effective
and
complementing
working
relationship and organisational linkages with the CBOs
that the NGOs had promoted in the first place
CBO structures and leadership are appropriate for
self-reliance and partnership relation with the NGO
and with other CBOs
Clear role definitions existed and the NGOs had
equipped themselves for these new roles (training,
wider linkages, planning, monitoring and documentation
support...)
the CBOs had spaces
and programmes
appropriate
for
their
growth
and
sustainability.
b)
that were
potential
Action-Reflection Processes:
The NGOs had adopted an action-reflection process to
understand and respond to external and internal
changes.
The
three
organisational
leaders
were
essentially open and had discerning and learning
minds. Review and planning processes were quite
serious exercises in the organisations
c)
Growth Rate and Size:
The size of the organisation and its pace of growth
were optimal for taking advantage of the economies of
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
scale and yet retain the characteristics of small nonbureaucratic organisations
d)
Professional Competencies:
The
organisational
leaders
had
professional
competencies, institutional linkages and status to
comprehend and manage the external environment and to
provide internal leadership
Data collection, updating, retrieval and reporting
systems were good and the staff trained to handle
information technology with reasonable level of
comfort
Finance management was
leader and efficient.
e)
externalised
from
the
NGO
Leadership:
The leadership was essentially visionary and mission
oriented rather than bureaucratic. They led from the
front with their vision and dreams and not with their
their positional
advantages.
The leadership was
creative
enough
to
see
new
opportunities
and
perceptive enough to perceive the risks and address
them
f)
Organisation Culture and Ethos:
The three NGOs had good culture of decentralisation,
delegation and clear allocation of responsibilities.
Their people orientedness within and
organisations is their clear strength.
g)
(
beyond
the
Strategic/Niche Positions:
All there NGOs occupied strategic/niche positions in
their own sectors: rural subsistence agriculture,
urban poverty and land questions, church managed
development interventions.
In their own areas, they were clear leaders and trend
setters. They had clear perceptions on what needed to
be done,
why and how:
They could demonstrate
alternatives that worked.
These niche positions have been reinforces by the
ability to market bot their positions and the
differences they are able to make to the communities
they serve.
To sum up, ADATS, AVAS and ODP clearly demonstrate that
with pragmatic/strategic skills, professional competencies,
proper positioning, networks and solidarities, NGOs can
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
find and expand spaces for their cherished ideals even
within the new paradigms of development and push it in the
direction
of
equity,
social
opportunities
for
the
marginalised, gender balance and sustainable development.
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
^6
THE
N
63.
STATE
The Context:
Concerns and interests which inform development - and shape
development cooperation - are being pulled in several
directions by the interplay of market and civil society. Of
particular significance are:
*
the changes in the motives, character and instruments
of development financing
*
their implications for (existing and new) stakeholders
in development cooperation
*
and, most important, their consequences for the
understanding of and response to marginalisation and
poverty questions.
The logic and compulsions of this market-civil society
dialectic pull-push NGOs, thus far on the margins of
development cooperation, onto the centre stage and right
into the vortex of a process which is defining the contours
of a new global order sans communism and state managed
socialism.
All
those
who
believe
in
the
criticality
of
NGO
contributions in shaping this new world order, must also
theorise and strategise why and how NGOs must re-vision,
re-equip, re-position and re-launch themselves. So that
they are enabled to continue to affirm their cherished
ideals and best practices, even while coping with the
sweeping changes.
64.
The Consultation Agenda:
Praxis will be the overriding concern of the two day
consultation.
The
consultation
could
focus
on
NGO
positioning within the market-civil society diad. Such OD
and ID strategies should help the NGOs:
*
to best avail the opportunities and minimise the risks
(for themselves)
*
to optimally contribute (along with the poor) to
strengthen forces that address issues of responsible
development
and
counter
those
that
externalise
negatives particularly on to the poor.
The consultation will develop such a conceptual and
operational response matrix for the three major NGO
stakeholders: the Northern NGOs (NNGOs), the Southern NGOs
(SNGOs) and intermediaries (consultants/resource agencies).
These are stakeholders have a long tradition of engagement
with and partnership in capacitating the marginalised
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
4?
communities with knowledge, organisations,
leadership,
skills, resources, programmes and linkages so that they
affirm, assert and expand their political,
economic,
social,
cultural identity and sustainable development
rights within the political economy.
65.
Southern NGOs:
The consultation could envisage likely consequences and
opportunities for NGOs who work with local communities on
both rights and livelihood questions.
On the one hand, to effectively address the nature,
magnitude, implications and inter-connectedness of most
development questions of subalterns and local communities
and, on the other hand, to access larger funds from
official bilateral and multi-lateral agencies and from
business, most strong NGOs will try and scale themselves up
in size, competence, expertise and coverage. They would
rightly perceive the geo-political spaces as nothing less
than global.
Medium and large sized NGOs may have the
internal
competencies and the external supports required for such
build up. But the vast majority of the NGOs working
effectively with local communities are small. They lack the
resources and the geographical spaces for scaling up. Not
only, the expansion agenda of larger NGOs have negative
externalities for them.
What are the areas in which both medium and small NGOs need
to and can syndicate their strengths? What are the
institutional arrangements for realising such synergy? What
current NGO practices are the constraints and obstacles?
Can these be addressed? How?
What are the response strategies for small NGOs? How can
they scale up? Can the more competent medium sized NGOs and
the smaller/emerging NGOs (mostly staffed and managed by
subaltern
leadership of
dalits,
tribals
and
women)
complement each other in mutually beneficial arrangements
for themselves and for the communities they work with? How
can we contain and resolve the real and potential sources
of conflict inter-NGOs? What models exist? What are their
strengths and limitations?
66.
Northern NGOs:
It is generally perceived that existing partnership
relationship between. SNGOs and NNGOS need to be further
strengthened and expanded if both are to effectively
respond to the emerging realities.
What are the existing and new areas where partnership and
complementarity will be critically important? What are the
possibilities and the specific demands on NNGOS? What are
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
4-8
the compulsions that may force NNGOs away from partnership
relationships? How can the new demands on NNGOs for
professionalism and results be balanced with the empathy,
passion and commitment that are necessary to search
together for alternatives?
67.
NGOs and the Market:
The gift economy transfers (aid) are too small and too
inadeguate to meet even minimal development requirements.
NGOs would be naive if they thought that they can take on
the
development
task
in
isolation
from
for-profit
enterprises. There is therefore a pragmatic imperative for
availing
and
expanding
the
spaces
for
critical
collaboration with the market and its agencies to influence
and countervail them to take responsibility for a win-win
relation with people and environment.
What are the human agencies, instruments and institutions
for this critical collaboration with the globalised market?
How can NGOs and their solidarities strengthen global
governance through UN institutions? Even as the market is
getting globalised, how can issues and concerns of people
be also globalised? What new strategies and institutional
vehicles are required? What are the possibilities and the
dangers? Can the market have some beneficial impact on NGOs
- for example improve their competency and vibrancy and
weed out the incompetent and the corrupt?
68.
Intermediary Organisations and Consultants:
Development
consultants
and
professional/resource
organisations who interface NNGOs and SNGOs make or mar
partnership relations. Because of their proximity to funds
and decision making they influence the directions of NGO
response to development issues. Based on their individual
idiosyncrasies and personal vested interests, they can pull
development in different directions. They can foster or
block transparency and horizontal accountability.
Within the NGO world, these persons and organisations are
a class in itself, if not for itself. Yet, they are ideally
placed and best equipped to make the concept of "NGO
Manageriate" work. They can best contribute to strategising
interventions and funding support from larger and more
holistic sectoral/thematic macro perspectives. They can
creatively
problematise
the
current
approaches
to
identification,
funding,
monitoring
and
evaluating
projects. However, this problematisation must begin with
themselves then go on to envisage how their
roles and
functions can be re-envisaged as consistent with the
present
concerns
with
transparency,
legitimacy
and
collaborative processes.
The consultation could take up a SWOT analysis of current
intermediary institutions and practices. From this analysis
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
it could go on to revision intermediary services in support
of the larger re-visioning and re-positioning task of
NNGOs, SNGOs and small NGOs. Particularly so when, in the
absence of visionary NGOs, intermediaries often set the
directions
and
decide
the
content
of
development
interventions.
Methodology of the Consultation:
69.
a)
b)
Plenary Session:
*
presentation and validation of the study report
(executive summary will be circulated earlier)
*
identifying
learning
stakeholders.
points
for
the
NGO
Working Groups:
The participants could form three working groups
(SNGOs/NNGOs/Intermediary
Organisations
and
Consultants)
to move
forward
from
problems
to
opportunities and responses:
*
using the learning for problematising current
practices
of SNGOs,
NNGOs and Intermediary
Organisations/Consultants
*
going beyond problems to the possibilities and
hence to the response strategies, using the SWOT
and/or log frames.
The output from these working groups can be further
validated in plenary sessions.
70.
End Use:
The actionable agenda for each of the three stake holders
as emanating from these sessions will be incorporated into
the study report.
Hopefully both NNGOs, SNGOs and Intermediary Organisations
will
further contextualise these recommendations and
convert them into action platforms for:
*
Organisation/Institution Development (inter and intra)
*
Advocacy/Lobbying to influence development cooperation
thoughts, policies and institutions
Perhaps, the consultation itself could make a beginning in
these two areas.
5~O
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
Not to respond creatively to the emerging issues of
development is in itself a response; one where the NGO role
will be determined for them, not by them. As Petrin Sorokin
wrote: volentem fata ducunt,
nolentem trahunt (those
willing to recognise the truth will be led by it; those who
resist stubbornly will be compelled by it).
It is before us development practitioners, to get together
so that our concerns can be reinforced and experiences
compared, distilled and shared. We must address global
questions with equally global responses.
Hopefully,
d i rect i on.
this
study
will
be
a
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
a
•u
small
step
in
this
ANNEX 1:
STUDY PARTNER ORGANISATIONS
a)
Organisation for the Development of People (ODP)
Rev. Dr. T. Becket D'Souza,
Pragathi, Bannimandap, "B" Layout,
Mysore - 570.015
b)
Agriculture Development and Training Society (ADATS)
Mr. Ram S. Steves,
ADATS Campus,
Bagepalli 561.207, Kolar District
c)
Association for Voluntary Action and Service (AVAS)
Ms. Anita Reddy,
No.11, Wood Street, Ashok Nagar,
Bangalore -
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
512,
References
Bebbington, A. and Riddell, R. with Davis, D., 1994: Developing
Country NGOs and Donor Governments,
Overseas Development
Institute, London.
Caroil, T.F., 1992: Intermediary NGOs: The supporting link in
Grassroots Development, Kumerian Press, West Hartford
Fowler, A., 1992: Distant Obligations: Speculations on NGO
Funding and the Global Market, Review of African Political
Economy, No. 55, pp. 9-29, Sheffield, November
Fowler,
A.,
1993:
Non-Governmental Organisations and the
promotion of Democracy in Kenya, doctoral thesis, Institute of
Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton.
German, T. and Randell, J., 1994: The Reality of Aid Development
Initiatives, Action Aid, London.
Hawley, K., 1993: From Grants to Contracts; A practical Guide for
voluntary Organisations, NCVO/Directory of Social Change, London.
Oakley, P., 1991: Projects with People:
The
participation in rural development, ILO, Geneva.
practice
of
Robinson M., 1991: Development NGOs in Europe and North America:
A Statistical Profile, Charity Trends, pp.154-165, Charities Aid
Foundation, Tonbridge, November.
Paradigm Shifts in Development Cooperation and NGOs
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