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Editorial, volume 3, number 3, 1993
All over the world, as the state retreats from its role as protagonist of social and economic development, so the non-governmental sector has entered a phase of unprecedented expansion. NGOs have become a major 'growth industry' in developed and developing countries alike, attributed with almost limitless potential both to fill the policy vacuum and to provide practical and efficient alternatives in the fields of development and social welfare -- in other words, to mediate between governments, donors, and people. Many NGOs are concerned to avoid being co-opted into the gradual -- and not so gradual -- privatisation of the public sector. They rightly fear that they might cease to be non-governmental in anything but name. However, the new recognition of their importance in debate about social policy does represent a welcome opportunity for experienced NGOs to contribute to shaping local, national, and global development agendas. Furthermore, if an NGO believes that it has something valuable to offer -- and something significant to say -- it cannot shirk this responsibility.
What is at stake, however, is not simply a question of political or economic ideology. It is also one of moral authority. Development NGOs cannot derive a mandate from the supposed virtues for which they are currently in vogue -- efficiency, cost-effectiveness, slim-line bureaucracies, and operational flexibility. An NGO's authority comes from its founding principles and the ways which it gives practical meaning to its commitment, through its day-to-day work. It is ultimately the people whom the NGO aims to serve -- rather than the donors -- who have the right to determine the outer limits of acceptable compromise. Accountability to its constituency is the cornerstone of an NGO's legitimacy.
Moreover, for many long-standing NGOs, their involvement in development is intimately bound up with their wish to represent the interests of the people they serve. As Jenny Pearce warns us in this issue, the forms this representation have taken are often flawed and sometimes spurious. But if they are serious about championing people's empowerment, it has never been more vital for NGOs to scrutinise and reinforce the mechanisms of accountability to the women and men on whose behalf they work. These should be the basis for negotiation -- regardless of whether the NGO is assuming the discarded functions of the state, accepting new kinds of conditions from official donors, or voicing criticism of official development policy and practice. Accountability is the only way to ensure that a line remains drawn between transparent compromise and blind co-option.
These concerns are at the heart of Mrs Karunawathie Menike's powerful challenge: `If you want to empower the Poor, please first trust the Poor'. She shows, with dignity and wit, how easy it is for the best-intentioned development agencies to undermine and disempower the very people at the grassroots whom they hope to assist. Mustafa Barghouthi echoes this theme in considering the broader issues of the North-South aid relationship -- and the role of development NGOs within this -- in a context of unequal power, uncertain accountability, and unclear levels of representative authority. Similarly, the Brazilian Movimento de Organizacao Comunitaria reflects critically on the dynamics of North-South NGO partnership in practice, questioning whose values predominate when judgements are called. B. R. Dwaraki and N. Narayanasamy provide a practical illustration of the fact that the process of accountable development turns on the quality of trust which people are enabled to place in each other, not on what they say to outsiders.
From rather different perspectives, our other contributors also examine the workings of partnerships between donor and recipient agencies; and between these and the intended beneficiaries of development aid. Michael Edwards looks at the record of Northern NGOs in bringing their practical experience to bear on addressing the policy environment for development. He concludes that Northern NGOs should look both to their domestic constituencies, and beyond their traditional project base, in amassing support for policy change. Alan Gibson and Bruce Currey review the work of the British Overseas Development Administration (ODA) in its assistance programmes for local NGOs and local environmental training institutions respectively: their critical insights and recommendations will also interest the NGO community. Finally, Patricia Feeney, reporting on the UN World Conference on Human Rights, records significant advances in consolidating an international consensus on the universal right to development. The task ahead is to create the means to ensure that the various forces which mediate this right should become truly accountable to all women, men, and children -- and so to the world community at large. It is a challenge in which governments, NGOs, and people must surely cooperate.
As always, we welcome readers' reactions to any of the contributions in this thought-provoking issue of Development in Practice.
Deborah Eade
Oxfam (UK and Ireland)
August 1993
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