Strategic Alliances for Development
Alok B Guha

The history of Indian institutions working for improvement in the quality of life of people in general (and providing religious solace and strengthening cultural identity in particular) could be traced to the 19th century in India. The post independence era, however, is characterized by the mushrooming of organizations working specifically for the welfare of the poor. In the initial stages, a majority of these organizations were essentially acting as relief providers. Their basic purpose was to feed the hungry and provide shelter to the shelterless. They also worked to provide relief during epidemics and natural calamities like floods, droughts, earthquakes and cyclones.
 
By the late 60s, everybody NGOs working in partnership towards a better society 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.

The different roles played by support organizations are as follows:-

n
Capacity building through training
n Information dissemination (technical/non-technical for grassroots implementing NGOs through newsletters, information technology, other published materials such as manuals, etc.)
n Planning – both technical and social aspects of projects
n Fund raising (conducting PRA & LFAs, proposal preparation)
n Demonstration of technology and / or R & D for application of technology for development purposes
n Technical support for implementation and project cycle management
n Monitoring progress of projects being implemented by grassroots NGOs
n Capacity building and facilitating strategic planning for grassroots NGOs
n Documentation/Process documentation for information sharing / analysis with other NGOs / Donor Organizations
n Impact Assessment Studies
n Developing network projects / programmes involving a number of grassroots NGOs for wider impact (country or region wise)
n Involvement in policy analysis and advocacy programmes

Of recent vintage and a distinctly different kettle of fish are the policy analysts of advocacy NGOs. These organizations are essentially playing the role of Government and large actors (like the World Bank) watching, analysing and critiquing from the stand point of the interests of the common man. Some of these organizations are small but have created significant impacts simply by analysing and providing critical insights on the policies and strategies of government programmes or World Bank initiated projects. Their relative success is based on the premise that without Government policies reflecting the aspirations of the people nothing much can be achieved.
 
Their strategies often involve public awareness and education for mass mobilsation on issues of public importance. They also relate to the issues of social mobilisation for policy changes and making the Government more accountable to the people, demanding transparency and access to information etc. Significantly, some of these organizations are often motivated by one or the other political ideology/ies. At times, these organizations have distinct linkages with political parties and are even sponsored by politically motivated groups.
 
Grassroots implementing NGOs are characterised by the following general parameters:
 
n
Usually small in size and employing few regular staff members
n
Usually based in urban slums or rural areas
n Usually interacting at close quarters with target communities
n Usually manned by people with apparently lesser education or lack of training
n Usually handicapped by lower fund raising capacities
n Usually impacting or involved in the development of restricted communities or backward areas
n Usually dependent on technical support from outside to implement technology based interventions

The roles played by these NGOs usually include the following :-

n Social awareness among target communities at the micro level
n Organize communities into CBOs, (credit and thrift societies, mahila mandals etc.)
n Implement developmental projects including:

health care services;
primary and adult education;
sustainable management of natural
resources;
income generation / micro-entrepreneurship development;
promote social change such as reduction of untouchability, women development and their empowerment; and
mainstreaming of the marginalised including indigenous people.

n
Promotion of religion or organising religious activities.

Having considered the nature of different organisations working in the development sector, the potential and need for strategic alliances springs from the distinct nature and roles of these organizations and can be briefly summarized as below :-

n
Decentralized programme / project management is possible
n Impact at the grassroots level is possible
n Networking impacts the complementing / supplementing advantages of different stakeholders
n Mutual sharing and learning is also possible. Introduction of newer technologies or environment-friendly technologies at the grassroots level made possible
n Possible to keep the size of organizations within reasonable and manageable limits with regard to infrastructure, financial budgets and personnel, thus avoiding bureau-cratization

While, any specific NGO can normally be categorized as belonging to one or the other of the above indicated groups, a significant number of NGOs are working across cutting boundaries where such distinctive categorization is not possible e.g. Development Alternatives.
 
Small Organisations Support Programme
The vision and mission of Development Alternatives is the promotion of sustainable livelihoods in large numbers, concentrating on promoting entrepreneurship or cottage industries development through market mechanisms. The premise is that we cannot remain dependent on the Government or foreign funding forever, and must necessarily attempt to produce and sell for survival. Thus, Development Alternatives has thought through the process of assisting small grassroots NGOs to promote its concept of entrepreneurship and cottage industries for development.

In addition, Development Alternatives is in the process of organizing support services for grassroots NGOs. The package of services under this programme comprises the following:

n
Fund raising support
n Technical support - technical backstopping for technology absorption at the grassroots level and implementation of projects/programmes requiring technical expertise
n Skills and knowledge upgradation of grassroots NGOs through participatory training
n Networking amongst grassroots NGOs for sharing of experiences and learnings - enabling them to take up joint action as a group of NGOs as a package or network programme for promoting development in a specified thematic area, using specific concepts, software and hardware technologies
n Providing documentation and audio-visual preparation support for information dissemination, publicity and public relations
n Providing support for strategic planning and organizational development.
n Coordinating and managing network/package programmes
n Monitoring the progress of projects being implemented by grassroots NGOs
n Conducing impact assessment studies and process documentation
n Assisting in participatory research and planning for initiating developmental work at the grassroots level
 
This package of measures which Development Alternatives wishes to provide to small grassroots organization has been christened as Small Organizations Support programme or SOS programme and is likely to be a key critical interactive process of work for Development Alternatives in the near future. 

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