Committee for Conflict Transformation Support |
CCTS
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The Role of NGOs, Local and International, in Post-war PeacebuildingWhy do we want to work with local NGOs and INGOs?Why is there such interest in whether and how to work with NGOs in post-war peacebuilding? Scanning earlier papers and work by other writers provides extensive evidence and experience of effectiveness of some NGOs in contributing to peace. There are fewer published stories of NGOs contributing to a worsening situation, other than anecdotal hints and notes in epilogues about successful NGOs going off the rails after initial successes. No one would claim that NGOs always succeed, but perhaps these stories do not get written because they do not make happy reading, and few people want to or are welcomed to scrutinise and report on failures. Attention is focused on how to repeat successes. NGOs at times may also simply be better than nothing, a structure for local action, communication, and dispensing resources when no other structures exist. They provide a mechanism that might work where Government has failed. International organisations want to work with NGOs because they want to work with local people. There is a search for a mechanism that can support grass roots initiatives and that recognises and responds to local people's realities. But large bodies or outside funders are not able to work with individuals, or with the complex and socially diverse mass of a population and need a 'proxy client' (Donnison 1993) which NGOs can provide. Working with NGOs is an alternative to setting up and running mass access structures. It is an alternative to creating a system of bureaucratic categories where diverse people can be identified as being entitled to support because they meet specific criteria (eg. living below a pre-set poverty line measured by annual income). Such bureaucratic access systems are designed to facilitate rationing (Wood 1985) but are extremely costly, cumbersome and unreliable. They are difficult for international bodies who are much constrained in what they can do, the number of staff they can provide and the nature of relationships they can build on the ground. Large INGOs face similar problems. These bureaucratic systems are prone to the failings of blueprint approaches as described by Judith Large earlier in this series (2001). INGOs and funders also see NGOs as alternative structures that can be supported as a deliberate alternative, in opposition to Governments. NGOs appear to offer new structures, outside old and failed systems, an alternative channel for bypassing corrupt or entrenched interests in existing Government organisations. Funders may need NGOs as supposedly neutral bodies in politically sensitive times, though as I have noted, NGOs are as much interested parties in a situation as any other group. Another reason that funders explore work with NGOs is without doubt the effective image-building that NGOs and the INGO community have done over the past twenty years. The constant flow of good news from NGO writers sits well with the essential optimism of policy. A key journal issue in 1987 (Drabek, World Development) summarised distinct 'comparative advantages' that NGOs had over Governmental and bi-lateral organisations, listing voluntarism, values and ethical motivation of staff, cheapness and flexibility, neutral or apolitical operations that stopped NGOs being threatening to Government. NGOs were seen as catalysts for snowballing local development, particularly by avoiding bureaucracy and remaining flexible in their activities and relationships with local people. NGOs were seen as facilitators for local people, more able to listen and respond, more able to facilitate, enable and support than larger, unwieldy bureaucracies. In addition NGOs were supposed to be raising 'new' money from the public that was untied to political aid agendas, and to be mobilising a constituency in the country of origin to support policy lobbying and awareness of development issues. At this time David Korten introduced the notion of '4 Generations' of NGO, from 'Relief and Welfare' to 'Community Development' (participation), 'Sustainable Systems Development' (advocacy), and 'People's Movements' (people-centred development). He wrote with a strong moral agenda, emphasising that NGOs should be moving towards being third or fourth 'generation' organisations. The arguments in favour of working with and through NGOs have changed since the 1980s. By the late 1990s NGOs writers were writing less about voluntarism and more about professionalism. Values were still important and NGO supporters claimed that an ideological and ethical basis for their work gives NGOs an advantage over Government in two ways. First, an ideological motivation improves the quality and honesty of an NGO's activities and thus increases the improvement they can bring to local people's lives. Second, it enables NGOs to be a watchdog on other bodies, acting as part of a system of checks and balances on local or Governmental parties. But ideological commitment does not ensure justice - after all, the KKK has an ideological commitment underlying its activities. As voluntarism was replaced with professionalism, NGO management was becoming more rational and efficient, and often more tightly controlled from the centre. Development interventions increasingly focussed on project-based management, 'scaling up', and exit strategies. This shift was closely related to rapid expansion of available funding for INGOs from neo-liberal Government purses from 1992 onwards, where funds had previously passed largely from Government to Government. The increase in funds available for NGOs saw a massive increase in the number and size of INGOs (Wallace et al 1997). NGOs increasingly adopted logical framework analysis and similar highly structured rational planning tools under encouragement from funders. Funder priorities and agendas are clearly evident in many NGOs' policies, procedures and programme priorities. Hulme and Edwards, amongst others, question whether donors and NGOs have become 'too close for comfort' (Hulme and Edwards 1997). I was taken aback when one of my new Masters students this year described 'meeting donors targets' as an ethical obligation in development work. INGOs, working increasingly with and through local NGO partners, still claimed an advantage over Government and multi-lateral operations in being able to protect innovation, listen and respond to local people's priorities and create participatory processes in their work. Participation was a key concept and innovations in participatory methods for applied research drove many debates. NGOs adopted and promoted applied participatory methods such as Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and its many related schools for planning. They attempted to lobby other organisations working locally, such as local Government, to adopt more participatory approaches in their work. NGOs writers also lobbied hard for multi-lateral agencies, such as the World Bank, to adopt such approaches, but lost control of the agenda when the World Bank and others did just that, incorporating participatory research methods and 'participation of civil society' into Poverty Reduction Strategy Processes that are now being presented to many impoverished countries as a new condition for continued aid. The attention to distinguishing NGOs from Government organisations has tailed off, and now greater emphasis is given to distinguishing between what NGOs should be from amongst the growing range of formal organisations involved in aid work, including private companies, or organisations that would describe themselves as NGOs, and concentrate mainly on delivering relief or services under contract ('public service contractors' eg. see Robinson 1997) with little priority given to alternative or innovative visions of the future. It is in this continuing debate that INGO writers, who had held the high ground when arguing for the comparative advantage of NGOs as the best alternative to government aid work, find themselves in the valleys and having to argue for NGO legitimacy in comparison to the newly elevated notion of 'civil society organisations'. I note that comments in earlier papers and seminar reports in this series refer to NGOs as having particular potential with regard to cultural sensitivities and to coping with difficult, destroyed and traumatised relationships at the local level, even negotiating between individuals. Hopes and examples are given where NGOs have sought to increase harmony and tolerance between previously warring parties and, in doing so, are creating space to rebuild relationships. NGOs are also seen as able to ask unpopular questions. NGOs are seen as having potential to be creative and innovative in activities to tackle conflict, insecurity and trauma. They are able to draw from existing local cultural and institutional bases to do this in ways that non-local bodies (such as central government or INGOs) cannot. Another feature of the comments about NGOs is that they have potential to build and rebuild communication amongst people, and also between local people and national or international structures if necessary. A crucial element in this communication role is the potential to act as a channel for resources that might not otherwise reach local areas. Another is the role of witness, monitor and reporter, to provide access to international agencies for protecting those who are vulnerable, where local protection fails. NGOs are also reported as able to remain active at times and places when other organisations and parties cannot act, during ceasefires etc. There are comments about the value of NGOs where their intentions are good, where they can be friends to other, non-local parties, who seek peace.
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