By the late 60s, everybody
realized that empowerment was a more desirable goal
than relief. In other words, teaching a man to catch a fish was better than
catching a fish and giving it to him to eat. A person who could catch a fish was
considered as empowered since his dependence on others was reduced and he could
survive with his own efforts. Thus, the word ‘development’ was coined as
something distinctly different from ‘relief’, as it involved introduction of
the concept of empowerment. Gradually, these institutions developed further
specialization and evolved into organizations that were contributing to
development. It is in this context that specialization and evolution of roles
and responsibilities resulted in the creation of different stakeholders,
co-operating with each other for promoting development.The stage has come when clearly distinct entities can be identified as role players or stakeholders in the process of development. These include the elected representatives of the people forming the Central and State Governments, responsible wings of the Government involved in implementation of development policies and measures decided by elected representatives of people such as Government departments, civil servants, state officials, the Planning Commission etc.
Foreign donor agencies and banks also started playing a significant role in raising and making available financial resources and specialized technical expertise for promoting the well-being of people in developing countries. It must be realized that it is not merely the funds available with donor agencies that trigger off the development process. They also, like NGOs and others in the developing world, are involved in fund raising both directly from citizens of the North and from funds collected by the Governments by way of taxes imposed on its citizens. Thus, donor agencies also play a critical role in fund raising for promoting developmental interventions.
There are different types of foreign development organizations including multilateral and bilateral ones, foundations, trusts and individual members of society. In addition, there are registered (not-for-profit) societies in the North who not only raise funds for their activities and funding projects in development countries but are increasingly playing the role of being conscience keepers. They are making the leaders of business and individual citizens aware of their moral responsibility to maintain the quality of the environment and save the planet Earth.
In the developing world, the other players in this game include registered societies, charitable trusts, foundations and community based organizations such as Mahila Mandals (or women groups), and Credit and Thrifts Societies. Research and academic institutions are also playing a vital role by addressing the issue of developing environment-friendly hardware and software technologies for human welfare or modifying and adapting existing technologies for their application in development. The business sector is also increasingly realizing the responsibility of ensuring the welfare of the common man, especially those affected by the environmental costs of industry or those working for the corporate houses. Last but not the least important are the target communities, the deprived or the marginalized, forming the most important stakeholder in the process of development.
The organizational characteristics and roles played by bilateral donor and funding organizations include providing finances to NGOs for carrying out developmental activities and funding Government Departments and Ministries responsible for developmental initiatives in the third world. The roles also include identifying strategic priorities and thematic areas for providing financial support; assessing feasibility of proposals or developmental plans; selecting promising developmental proposals for funding support; organizing assessments and conducting impact assessment studies.
The multilateral organizations are distinctly different from the bilateral ones as they usually provide soft loans to developing country Governments / State Governments with larger project budgets unlike the bilateral organizations who give outright grants. Otherwise, both the bilateral and multilateral organizations play a similar role in selecting promising financial developmental proposals for funding support, organizing assessments and evaluations and conducting impact assessment studies. Curiously enough, in the recent decades, even the multilateral organizations are increasingly demanding that the concerned Governments involve NGOs in specific aspects of project implementation.
Overseas NGOs, foundations and trusts also raise financial resources for development funding. However, they are more into providing manpower from the developed world interested in third world countries as also supporting NGO functionaries from third world nations for higher learning and exposure in the developed countries. They usually have a greater flexibility with regard to funding institutional infrastructure development of NGOs in third world countries.
Apart from development programme / project funding, overseas agencies are known to fund the setting up of buildings, creating corpus funds etc. for NGOs. They are also involved in advocacy efforts i.e. raising their voice when actions of private business or governments result in environmental problems, specially radioactive contamination and such issues as global warming, ozone layer depletion, urban pollution or infringement of human rights. From the perspective of developing countries, the greatest importance of NGOs from the North lies in meeting the co-financing requirements for projects with agencies like the European Commission.
These sources are augmented by National / State Government depart-ments and agencies like CAPART, DRDA etc. in India, who also support NGO initiatives by providing financial resources. The distinction being that in the case of national sources of funding there is no need for NGOs to fulfill statutory requirements under the foreign contribution regulation act.
Foundations and charitable trusts setup within the country by individuals or private business houses usually have a greater flexibility with regard to infrastructure development funding of NGOs in addition to project / programme funding. This category of institutions is known to have a specific focus in so far as they significantly concentrate on funding activities, including welfare measures for the benefit of the families of their employees. They are also known for funding projects to mitigate the adverse environmental impacts due to their industrial activities. They support academic pursuits of young people in foreign countries, especially for education in frontier areas of science and technology.
NGOs in developing countries can be categorized as support organizations, policy analysis and advocacy organizations or grassroots implementing institutions. These three different distinct categories of NGOs can further be sub-divided on the basis of the thematic areas addressed by specific NGOs such as those working on health, education, environment, economic or agrarian developmental sectors. Support organizations are usually larger city based organizations more often than not with 50 or more regular employees. They are well-equipped with technical manpower and equipment and are able to access the latest technical and financial information from donors, especially foreign funding institutions. They usually have a high level of expertise and skills in organizational development, training, documentation, communication, technical skills etc.
