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 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 levelWhile, 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.