Dr Elizabeth Lira, Director of the Instituto Latinoamericano de Salud Mental y Derechos Humanos (the Latin American Institute for Mental Health and Human Rights) responds to articles by Linda Agerbak and Derek Summerfield, drawing on her extensive experience of working with the victims of trauma and political repression.
Volume 2
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In English only
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Many NGOs around the world are moving beyond conventional project work with its emphasis on `doing' and are attempting to enhance their impact through `influencing'. There are four inter-connected approaches: project replication, grassroots mobilisation, influencing policy reform and international advocacy. Each of these calls for a more strategic relationship between NGOs and governments. For NGOs to move to an effective `influencing' mode requires new skills and a new relationship between Northern and Southern NGOs. The Technological Age, with its emphasis on physical projects, must give way to an Information Age whose `software' comprises access to official information, decision makers and networks; and to skills in communication, lobbying and research. Northern NGOs must be aware that these requirements are becoming more important to their Southern counterparts than funds. If they do not, they will find their relationships will become out-dated, and their erstwhile counterparts will seek new, more appropriate allies - for example, amongst pressure groups in the North.
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Population-control programmes can violate basic human rights and be a form of violence against women. The author presents her views on family planning as a form of social control arising from a neo-Malthusian world view which blames poverty and environmental degradation on population growth while obscuring the real causes: the increasing control of economic, political and environmental resources by a growing international elite. This article also appears in the Development in Practice Reader Development for Health.
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This article examines the growth in relations that have occurred between Multilateral Agencies and Non-Governmental Organisations during the past decade. It identifies three substantive debates in the MLAs on participatory development, value for money and the role of the public sector in social service delivery that have served to promote greater interest in NGOs for efficiency reasons. The article reviews the experience of NGOs in the Bolivian Emergency Social Fund and the first attempt to create a Social Investment Fund in Guatemala. It concludes by identifying some of the obstacles that prevent the full integration of NGOs into MLA projects, even when good will exists to do so.
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This article is written from the perspective of a health activist engaged in research on women's health. It lays out a methodological framework for studying issues concerning women's health, and goes on to describe a range of tools for collection of qualitative and quantitative information from the field. The article ends with a call for activist involvement in research to generate information that genuinely reflects women's needs and concerns, and could facilitate women's informed involvement in changing the circumstances that contribute to their poor health status. This article also appears in the Development in Practice Reader Development for Health.
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The implementation of health programmes by external health professionals (`givers') in disadvantaged communities (`receivers') faces a variety of interactional barriers, some of which can be appreciated within the framework of the doctor-patient relationship. This paper identifies the problems of cultural dissonance, unrealistic expectations, hostility, and non-Cupertino that sometimes arise within the giver-receiver relationship and outlines strategies to deal with them. The recognition and resolution of these issues are important to ensure the success of health programmes.
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Literacy gives people a framework for critical thinking and informed action. A number of peasant farmers' organisations have developed in the wake of economic restructuring in Honduras, Central America. The authors describe and assess the Literacy Programme of the National Office of Agricultural Workers (Central Nacional de Trabajadores del Campo, CNTC), which aims to provide farmers with the tools to have a say in their own futures in the changing social and economic climate of the country.
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The UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) took place in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992. This report covers the main areas of international agreement and also discusses what was not achieved, from the point of view of development NGOs in attendance. There was evidence, among the 107 heads of State and Government present, of increased concern and awareness of the links between the environment and development. Failures to agree on certain issues were treated optimistically by participants since it was felt the `road from Rio' - what happens next - is what is important.
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The author reports on a conference organised by Intermediate Technology and The New Economics Foundation held in London, England in April 1992. The conference was convened in response to concerns over the decrease in worldwide biodiversity, to examine the threat to food security and develop strategies for NGOs to contribute to solutions. Participants were primarily concerned with trade, from the perspective of international politics and at the community level.
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Outside Europe and North America, the Caribbean region has the highest percentage of elderly people in its population, yet few policy makers there cater for the elderly in their development strategies. In February 1992, HelpAge International's Caribbean Regional Office and the Barbados National Council on Ageing convened a workshop on ageing and development. The author highlights the recommendations resulting from the workshop, oriented towards enabling older people to continue to be productive members of society.
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The 1992 International Workshop on the Evaluation of Social Development took place in Amersfoorst, the Netherlands. Representatives from international NGOs, academics, and planners sought clearer guidelines on methods NGOs can use to evaluate programmes and their impact. The first half of the workshop was based on case-studies, the second on drawing up guidelines based upon these concrete experiences. Customised methods of evaluation are needed for development NGOs to ensure the interests of the organisations, their `clients' and their donors are all considered.
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In English only
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Despite their increasing numbers and size, the impact of NGO activity on development is usually localised and often transitory. In consequence, NGOs need to analyse the strategies by which they may be able to `scale up' their contribution to development. This article summarises the proceedings of a recent Workshop at the University of Manchester which explored such strategies through a large number of case studies. While it is not feasible to produce prescriptions from these materials a number of lessons and key issues can be identified and are highlighted in the paper. This article is freely available as a chapter in Development NGOs and Civil Society.
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This paper describes the evolution of WaterAid's programme of work in Nepal, based on the author's experiences while working as WaterAid's Representative Engineer in Nepal from January 1987 to April 1991. It examines how WaterAid's philosophy of working in partnership with local organisations was actually put into practice. Various problems and constraints are identified and discussed, and certain points are highlighted which may be of general interest to other external support agencies working in similar ways in other countries and sectors. The overall conclusion is that this programme represents a viable methodology for an international NGO to achieve useful results in supporting local NGOs working in development.
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The Peace Agreement signed between the Government and FMLN guerrillas in El Salvador marks the end of a decade of civil war. As both sides of the conflict and the international donor community begin to add up the costs of reconstruction, the human, social, and psychological costs are carried mainly by the poor of El Salvador. Social organisations and NGOs who became strategists of survival today face the challenge of transforming their accumulated experience into alternative proposals for the building of a more just society and a prosperous nation. This article explores the practical complexities of transition from war to peace; and from emergency aid to sustainable development based on the participation of communities, social organisations, NGOs and international agencies and building on their experience.
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This article describes the need for non-governmental development organisations (NGDOs) to examine and so enhance their role if they are to take an active part in the shaping of a structurally different society - a silent revolution. It is argued that mainstream NGDOs belong to a broader alternative movement (see Appendix) which is involved in the search for equitable and sustainable forms of social organisation. In understanding development as a process of empowerment, NGDOs are bound to encounter both internal and external resistance. However, to be effective and to have credibility, it is argued that Northern NGDOs must challenge inequality in their own societies as well as internationally and through the work they support in developing countries.
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The work of international non-profit-making NGOs challenges them to adopt a decentralised structure. We know little, however, about how this decentralisation is organised, and even less about its impacts on NGO performance. Based on studies southern Africa, this article identifies the gains and loses associated with the choice to decentralise. It goes on to pose questions about decentralisation as a critical variable for the organisational design of NGOs which need to be answered by more systematic comparative study.
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These Notes provide a brief report of the early stages of a project providing open and distance training to people working with children in residential-care institutions; the Child Care Open Learning Programme in Uganda, developed by the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare and Save the Children Fund (UK). The author discusses the outcomes and lessons learned. The Programme demonstrates that distance learning can be a cost-effective way of building skills among those traditionally disadvantaged in this respect, and hence improve child-care.
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In the Dindigul district of Tamil Nadir, southern India, the number of leather tanneries is increasing. Effluent from existing tanneries has polluted water supplies used for agriculture and drinking, contributing to drought, crop failure, and illness and birthing problems in the local population. The author argues that no more licences should be granted for new tanneries, and that those already running be forced to adhere to pollution-control regulations. This article also appears in the Development in Practice Reader Development and Patronage.
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In English only
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It is now two years since the Government of President Fernando Collor de Mello took office in Brazil. This article assesses its effectiveness in implementing its environmental policies and resolving social conflicts in the Amazon in the run-up to the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development. It examines some of the political and economic problems which have beset the new environmental programme, and gives an account of the response of Brazilian NGOs to some of the Government's main initiatives.
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A growing debate about gender and the environment highlights women's roles in the use and management of natural resources, opening up important opportunities for development analysis and action. But there are traps in conceiving of women's roles in relation to the environment in a partial, narrow or static way; of isolating them from men's roles; and of assuming a close link between women and `nature'. An alternative approach examines dynamic gender-differentiated activities, rights and responsibilities in the processes of natural resource management. A case study from the Gola forest, Sierra Leone shows how this can assist aspects of both sustainability and equity in the design of projects concerned with the environment.
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Evaluation is now recognised as an essential component in planning and implementing projects, and is one important means by which recipients can participate in the design process. In Vietnam, the liberalisation of the economic and social life of the country in the last few years has allowed Oxfam the scope to consider long-term development plans. As a first stage, a review was undertaken of the impact of an Oxfam project on the community, paying particular attention to the situation of women. Parts of the findings are explored in this paper to show that one infrastructural input, in this case a pumping station, will have a broad range of consequences for the community concerned. Contrary to expectations, increased production is tending to encourage co-operation between men and women, out of shared interest in strengthening the stability of the household, now recognised, in place of the collective, as the prime economic unit in Vietnam.
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Mozambique during the 1980s and 1990s has provided a challenging context for non-governmental organisations seeking to collaborate with its government in national development. One British NGO, Save the Children Fund, has set out to work in partnership with the government on a range of programmes at central level and in Zambezia province. Longer-term and emergency inputs form part of a conscious strategy aimed at securing sustainability. Institutional and practical constraints however make the achievement of this goal difficult, particularly in relief and rehabilitation projects. Changes in donor policies and in the Mozamibican government's own evolving political priorities make it imperative to review this strategy on a regular basis. Lessons are drawn from Save the Children Fund's practical experience of development in Mozambique during the last eight years.
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The Fundacion El Taller organised a third Think Tank in November 1991, held in a village near Santiago, Chile, and attended by representatives of over 50 development NGOs from around the globe. It was agreed that NGOs should maintain their autonomy from governments but work closely with civil society to best further NGOs' aims. Strong South-South dialogue is vital, and North-South relations should be founded on equality in the process of development.
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The author reports on the Latin America and Caribbean Women and Health Network of Isis International's working meeting in October 1991, held in Santiago, Chile. The meeting produced guidelines for the women's health movement on abortion, AIDS, teenage pregnancy, birth planning, and population policies.
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A brief report of a conference held in Kenya in July 1991 bringing together specialists from a UNRISD research programme examining the national and regional implications of deforestation for the livelihood and living conditions of the poor in rural and urban areas. The preliminary findings include identifying the major role that public policies have played in the deforestation, the way weaker sections of the population have been disproportionately affected, and how official measures to rectify the spiralling situation have been inadequate.
