NGO and Development:

The term NGO is really a catchword for an enormous

variety of structures, pursuing diverse strategies, of
widely differing sizes, aims or missions, and defies
definition because of this diversity.

It is a term used rather loosely to refer to any

organisation that is not a direct division of a national
government [Weisgrau 1997].
NGOs vary in numerous ways including their:

(1) Composition,

(2) Size,

(3) Mission or purpose,

(4) Sources of funding,

(5) History,

(6) Whether or not they focus on a particular arena

such as agriculture or craft production,

(7) Whether they provide innovative models in

“technology, research methods, or institutional
arrangements” which can potentially be scaled up,
and

(8) Their manner of day-to-day functioning, including

decision-making.
There is not always a clear dividing line between
types of NGOs, and some do more than one
thing well.

Furthermore, there is no question that a

man or woman who has become literate, or who
has managed to develop a small business or to
become free from a local moneylender, is
empowered.
 The net effect of activities of an NGO might be to strengthen
the status quo, indeed some traditional NGOs have seen this
as their main function, i e, making some improvements while
at the same time not altering power relations.

Sometimes an NGO that was only concerned with economic

issues, suddenly finds its members talking about social
action.

Or some NGOs that were only focusing on advocacy find

themselves having to help members get microcredit loans.
One example of the latter is providing free or subsidised food
for victims of political oppression or war, or helping people
(either through microcredit or micro-enterprise development)
to steady their sources of income.
 NGOs also provide a source of employment for
numerous people including:

(1) Middle class, educated men and women who

often though not always have a sense of
dedication;

(2) Some retired people who have a great deal of

energy and expertise to offer;

(3) Some of the slightly better educated villagers,

especially some from the lower castes; as well as
people from a number of other categories
SIZE
• Organisation size: NGOs can be as small as a
single village, as large as CARE or OXFAM
England;
(2) Number of countries and people involved in
the organisation: Most tend to be country-
based, but not all. Sometimes they involve
one 'developed country' and numerous
developing countries;
 (3)Geographical
(3) scope: if rural, number of villages (in the case of south Asia, number of Panchayats, districts,
states; if urban, number and spread of urban centres or cities as well as number of diverse neighbourhoods

ORGANISATIONAL PATTERN

(1)To what degree is the organisation hierarchical? If hierarchical,

how is it organised and how much autonomy do different people or
cells within the organisation have? (Is it bottom up, top down, or
some combination? To what extent does the organisation give power
to those at the top, i.e, how hierarchical is it, etc? How
paternalistic/materialistic is the NGO in relation to its supposed
beneficiary? What is the class background of those higher in the
organisation compared to the beneficiaries? What kind of an attempt
is being made to bring in beneficiaries in important positions within
the organisation?
2) To what extent does the NGO's membership consist of
non-local people? How many are highly educated or from the
outside and how much power do they have?

(3) If the organisation is not very hierarchical, or the

hierarchy rotates, then how do they get things done? What is
the focal point for decision-making? How are decisions made
and who brings up the topics to be discussed?

(4) How centralised is the organisation, or is each branch

more-or-less independent?

(5) How much decision-making power do minorities or

women have?
FOCUS:

(1) Administrative processes: Are the people involved paid or

unpaid or a mixture of both? In the latter case, is there tension
between the paid and the unpaid people in the organisation?

(2) Functional processes: Who makes decisions, under which

circumstances, who decides if funding is needed and how to go
about obtaining it, etc?

(3) Goals or 'purpose': all inclusive; health; employment generation

and/or income generation and/or marketing of produce; loan
programmes; agricultural programmes; child care; providing
sustenance for people in distress (abused women, orphan
children, etc); training (skills training, conscientization, in
organisational and accounting skills and training for roles in
local government); advocacy.
HISTORY
(1) How did the NGO come into existence? For example: did
the NGO start as a co-operative, formed by the members
themselves to help sell products they all make or provide
for things they all need? If so, has it ventured into other
activities?

(2) Did the NGO come into being as a grass roots movement,
or was it started by outsiders (often well-intentioned
dedicated educated people)?

(3) What about NGOs like SEWA-Ahmedabad, that came out of

the labour union movement and still works as a quasi-
labour union, yet at the same time provides credit and
banking services to the 'unbankable'?
Source of Funding

Some small NGOs work only with volunteers, use participant

donated space and equipment and do not need (or sometimes
want) any funding for their activities. However, most NGOs,
whether in a developed or developing country, need to raise
funds for their very existence (to pay full-time staff, for rent, etc),
and for projects or activities. Some try to manage with very
limited funding, but most require some degree of outside funding.
The classification thus distinguishes between:

NGOs receiving foreign funds from the developed world, including

bilateral funds, international agencies, NGOs in the developed
world such as OXFAM, or various church groups, marketing
organisations such as Pueblo to People; or from individuals,
foundations, special funds, etc;
(2) NGOs only or also receiving partial funding from their
respective national governments;

(3) In the case of south Asia, NGOs receiving funds from

state governments or even local district governments;

(4) NGOs using only or primarily funds raised

through group members' donations or small monthly
fees, etc;

(5) Varied combinations of the above 4.

 RELATIONSHIP WITH THE STATE
The relationship between NGOs and the state have been hotly
debated at the United Nations before, during and after the six
major international conferences of the past 10 years:

The Rio Conference on the Environment, the Population

Conference in Cairo, the Social Summit in Copenhagen, the
Women's Conference in Beijing, the Habitat Conference in
Turkey and the World Food Summit in Rome.

At all of these, NGOs had a striking presence and ran parallel

or prior forum presenting other than official perspectives
and pushing governments as much as they could to take
changed stances. In the five-year follow-upsto these
conferences, NGOs again have had the opportunity to organise at
the United Nations to protest and to discuss their
disappointments with their own as well as other countries'
progress
 Farrington et al make an important point about the
relationship between NGOs and the state, namely, that
"NGOs in different countries have had constraints placed
upon their activities by the political climate created by
government regimes...[They go on to identify] NGOs working
in environments of political repression... NGOs working with
relatively non-antagonistic but bureaucratic government
agencies under stable but non-democratic conditions...and
NGOs working under conditions of relative democracy [here
they include India, Nepal and Bangladesh]" [Farrington et al
1995].

In the case of India where there is considerable power in the

hands of each state, the state government's policies also
must be taken into account. NGOs may be classified in terms
of whether they are:
Working with local governments, and if so is it through a
process of collaboration or one of co-optation?

An example of a controversial collaboration was that between

Myrada (based in Bangalore) and the Karnataka state
watershed management project. (It should be noted that a
federation of voluntary organisations for rural development in
Karnataka, FEVORD-K, has developed links with government
primarily because they have seen a government open to their
influence on policy matters).
Farrington et al list four conditions which have to be met if NGO-GO
interaction is to have any success. It is useful to list these here
[Farrington et al 1995:79-83]:

(1) Overall relations between NGOS and the state would have to be at
least neutral or if possible favourable.

(2) The need to share similar visions for the future of the poor, which in
the case of rural areas includes the GO personnel overcoming their urban
biases.

(3) The degree to which the two have different views or models of
development. "For instance, GOs may see as desirable: the buying-out of
small farmers by and large [and all that implies, whereas many
NGOs]...may be aiming at the establishment of a self-supporting class of
small farmers" (p 11).

(4) And finally they note the wider diversity of philosophies, objectives
and modes of operation of NGOs in contrast to GOs, and the fact that
they are not required to work together. In the case of NGOs that function
as advocacy groups most of these conditions are violated.
In terms of purpose, another way in which NGOs have tended
to differ from GOs has been in terms of solutions to
problems. Most sustainable agriculture projects have been
financed and developed in the NGO sector.

NGO networks: NGO networks both internationally,

nationally, and on the state and district level are extremely
important if NGOs are to have a significant impact.

As noted just above, it was the network of groups from

diverse parts of Bankura district (some 4-8 hours apart by
jungle roads), that has managed to empower the local
women and to influence the local government.
NGOS AND PUBLIC POLICY
1) At present there is a growing demand being made by NGOs at the UN
and in some countries at least, that they be given a larger role in the
formulation of national policy including fiscal policy so that the
citizenry of a country have some role in what is happening to it and in
formulating policies, programme, and projects.

Some of the new monitoring organisations set up after the Rio

Conference such as WEDO, which is based in New York but has
members all over the globe, and Women's Eyes on the World Bank,
which is based in Washington (some of the members at the Bread for
the World, a US-based worldwide NGO), have been working hard along
with others to connect women's concerns about national policy to
places and people who are in the process of making it. How large a role
these NGOS can have in the future is hard to project, but already on a
small scale they have begun to play a significant role in influencing
decisions which affect the lives of their members.
 Indeed, what is emerging is the recognition that the policy of
the past 40 years of organisations like the World Bank
relating exclusive to governments is no longer appropriate,
and even where NGOs have negative relations with their
governments, they must be recognised as legitimate national
and international actors.

Whether or not NGOs' will become eligible for World Bank

loans, or even if this would be a good thing from the NGOs
point of view, remains to be seen.
CONCLUSIONS
There are many conclusions that can be drawn from the
current status of NGOs in south Asia and elsewhere. It is
useful to summarise both some of the negatives connected
with NGOs as well as the positives.

1 They are often small and have small budgets compared to

governments and to the number of people needing help.

2 The micro-finance and micro-enterprise projects now so

much in vogue do help people but tend to stabilise them at a
very low socio-economic level. They may also be tenuous in
that if an enterprise becomes really productive or selling
well, then there is a tendency for outside business people
with many resources to come in and take over.
3 Because of their poverty and need to pay their staff,
they often have to compromise on what they consider to
be the 'right approach' and do what funders want or what
there is money available for.

4 There is a strong tendency for non-advocacy

NGOs to go along with status quo.

5 They often lack access to and any voice in the

mass media.
What continue to be some of the positive function of NGOs?

1 To educate people about laws, entitlements, etc;

2 To advocate for changes in society or in structured

inequality;

3 To monitor governments both local and national so that the

elites and multinationals are partly controlled;

4 While providing credit and helping individual members

improve themselves financially, to also empower women and
the poor to stand up for themselves, to help create an
alternative model of development;
5 Making use of participatory research and
participatory decision-making, to try out experiments
that the government bureaucracy is not capable of
doing but might be interested in spreading if it is
proven to be successful;

6 To start processes that can spread from village

to village without help of NGOs but just through
empowered people