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Editorial, volume 9, number 3, 1999
Much ink has been spilt on the attempt to come up with a clear and simple 'one size fits all' definition of civil society, and by extension, of civil society organisations (CSOs). But no-one seems yet to have produced anything that is both memorable and analytically useful. 'Civil society' carries on being, then, a way of referring to everything outside the state (though not quite in the market), often with the implication that the more non-governmental something is, the better. Further, CSOs are commonly assumed, especially in the rhetoric of certain development agencies, to be inherently democratic and participatory: both an expression of a society's inclusionary pedigree, and a vehicle to achieving accountable state institutions while also protecting the ordinary citizen against the predations of unfettered market forces. Within this, development NGOs often then describe themselves both as supporting local CSOs which they believe represent the interests of the disenfranchised, while also claiming status as representative CSOs in their own right. In this hall of mirrors, it becomes increasingly difficult (but correspondingly critical) to distinguish between one kind of non-governmental or civil society organisation and another. For in the context of glib or demagogic appeals to 'global civil society', or 'globalisation from below', it is vital to know how best to distinguish between the various claims to 'represent the people'. Without doing so, it will never be possible to formulate serious partnerships or alliances (whether local, national, or global) around unambiguous agendas, and in support of clear beliefs and struggles.
During the Cold War era, when many significant popular struggles were cast in East-West terms, it was often quite easy for NGOs to see which side of the battle-lines they were on, and to choose their various counterparts accordingly. Whatever the complexities of the anti-Apartheid struggle, the human rights movements against military rule in Latin America, or the liberation wars in many African states, there was a fairly clear sense of who the protagonists really were - and NGOs of all ideological hues have always tended to cast themselves as being on the side of the angels. The comparative clarity of the struggles of an earlier era is demonstrated by the case of the FMLN in El Salvador who called for peace negotiations not with the country's government but with the US Administration that was orchestrating and financing the counter-insurgency war. Today, although all the indications are that poverty is deepening and widening, while more of the same in the form of economic structural adjustment seems to be the only item on the agenda, it is far less clear where to direct one's attack. Economic globalisation is the culprit of choice among NGOs and grassroots organisations, but it is also a nebulous target around which to mobilise large-scale popular struggle. In the absence of a visible 'enemy', 'there has been a tendency among some NGOs to focus on global advocacy to the exclusion of the national level processes of state - society relations that underpin the ability of any country to pursue progressive goals in an integrated economy' and to indulge in the 'easy game' of critiquing the World Bank and the IMF.(1) Certainly, some of the violent demonstrations against the WTO - and against the economic globalisation it represents - that took place on the streets of Geneva in 1998 were remarkable more for the anger and desperation they represented than for their ability to spear-head the kind of pro-poor global alliance we so urgently need.(2)
The sheer scale of the problem, and the diminished role of national governments in setting the macro-policy environment in which their citizens must live and work, has certainly made for far greater scepticism (even cynicism) about the claims of any single CSO or NGO to play a vanguard role in social transformation. Accountability, representational capacity, and responsibility are all now seen to be the proper touchstones of a CSO, and to be mutually reinforcing. The days when a trade union or farmers' organisation was assumed to represent the poor simply because of its supposed political affiliations, have long since gone; and rightly so. Similarly, NGO claims to reach the poorest sectors of society, in ways that are both sustainable and empowering, have largely proven to be statements of intent rather than descriptions of performance. Funders are today reluctant to take for granted that a popular organisation or intermediary NGO is necessarily able or truly willing to put its rhetoric about equality or participation into practice. But what has been lost in the process of this greater professionalism is a sense of the wider picture; the sense of how local action actually needs to link up with broader movements for social and economic justice. This is certainly the view of many Central American NGOs and CSOs whose roots lay in the struggles of the 1980s to build more just societies in the region. In their view, the focus on the technical aspects of project management has today displaced the potential for international cooperation to foster social movements for radical change, and to ground this cooperation in solidarity and trust.(3)
The various contributors to this issue of Development in Practice tease out the relationships between the wider picture and local action within the non-governmental arena. Smitu Kothari highlights a number of contemporary civil society efforts both to find common cause across borders and boundaries, and to draw the links between people's daily lives and the macro-economic processes in which they are immersed, arguing that such efforts must be encouraged in order to establish a more humane world order. He does not deny the immensity of the challenge, but stresses its urgency: themes poignantly picked up by Lourdes Aguilar, writing from Honduras in the wake of Hurricane Mitch, as by Grahame Russell, John Handmer and Ben Wisner in their accounts of the connections between economic globalisation, hazards, and human insecurity. In a cluster of papers focusing on southern Africa, Beacon Mbiba examines the connections between land insecurity and development policies in Zimbabwe, while Roy Love assesses the likely impact on the poorer nations of the region of shifts in international aid towards post-Apartheid South Africa , and Nicole Motteux, Tony Binns, Etienne Nel, and Kate Rowntree look at how far participatory approaches to working with impoverished communities in the former Homelands can enable such profoundly disadvantaged people to participate in wider development processes from a position of greater strength. Focusing on gender-power relations, Catherine Locke and Christine Okali seek to identify more structured ways of understanding the influences shaping behavioural and attitudinal change at a range of levels, and what impact these changes might have on development. Here, Jane Gilbert (on mental health) and Mayeh Abu Omar and Maymuna Muhidin Omar (on healthcare provision for nomadic peoples) remind us that while the goal of guaranteeing the rights of all demands that social actors (including NGOs and CSOs) build links across diverse cultures and experiences, social transformation will only come about if it respects and is rooted in people's lived realities. Which brings us back to the stubborn questions concerning accountability, responsibility, and representation; for although development agencies may like to think that these are neutral or technical measures of organisational health, these value-laden terms are understood differently across different cultures or political settings and cannot be simplistically treated as universal currency.
Deborah Eade
Oxfam GB
Notes
1 Michael Edwards, David Hulme, and Tina Wallace 'NGOs in a global future: marrying local delivery to worldwide leverage', Background Paper to NGOs in a Global Future Conference, Birmingham 10-13 January 1999.
2 This street-protest approach contrasts significantly with the achievements of the global coalition against the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), described by Miloon Kothari in his introduction to Development and Social Action, the latest in the Development in Practice Readers series (Oxfam 1999).
3 Interviews conducted by and cited in Patricia Ardón (1998) La paz y los conflictos en Centroamérica, Oxfam and Cideca: Guatemala City.
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