Foreign funding of NGOs is a topic that never seems to lose currency. The Economist of September 19 reported that from Hungary to Azerbaijan; from Egypt to Mexico, Pakistan, Russia, Sudan and Venezuela, authoritarian governments have declared a war against civil society groups that use foreign money, allegedly to promote a “Western” vision of liberal democracy and human rights. Some have had their offices raided or funds confiscated. Ironically, even America has not been free of a bias against foreign funding and think tanks which receive foreign funds have faced official scrutiny. Still America has not banned foreign funds, but only requires recipients to be transparent. So Indian NGOs who have been at the receiving end of governmental wrath over receipt of foreign funds can take cold comfort from the fact that they are not alone.
While America does not really receive or need foreign funds on any scale, the other countries named, including India, do. Banning aid or harassing NGOs who receive it is no solution, because aid to NGOs has played a useful role in the development of many countries, despite some adverse effects. It is time therefore to weigh the benefits against the costs.
To take the good news first: Aid has brought more resources to the NGO sector than it could possibly have mobilised from within the country, enabling it to expand and diversify. It created a two-way channel for new ideas, methods and technologies from abroad, while simultaneously enabling Indian achievements to find their way into international development discourse. This international engagement has helped Indian NGOs mature and gain self-confidence. Aid has also supported research and its dissemination, alliance building and policy advocacy, which hardly any Indian donors support.
Importantly, it brought a much-needed focus, both in policy and practice, on equity issues, under-served sections of society such as women, the scheduled castes and adivasis and a focus on the environment. Many donor organisations work with constituencies like MNCs in their own countries and educate them about responsible corporate practices like education of exploited children, fair trade practices and the like.
But it is also true that aid to NGOs has had some adverse impact on the voluntary sector as well as on Indian society as a whole. But these are not necessarily to do with bringing in Western liberal ideas, conversion, contributing to delays in development projects, or with destabilising political regimes, as the government alleges.
In India and elsewhere, aid, especially in the initial years, led to diversions from a chosen development pattern. For instance, early aid with its emphasis on Western technological solutions sidelined the Gandhian approach of self-reliance, low-cost local technology and decentralised development as well as the more political social change model adopted by peasant and other social movements of the early Sixties and Seventies. Now the pendulum has swung to the other extreme, and donors are espousing decentralisation, small check dams and low cost irrigation while it is the government which is continuing to favour large dams.
Aid to NGOs also increased disparities among NGOs, between the smaller, more rural and less well-funded which depend on local charity, and the more prosperous, sophisticated and metro-based ones, many of them funded by foreign donors. This divide can be said to parallel the divide between Bharat and India. The funded organisations are modern organisations talking the language of projects, appraisals, core funding, monitoring and evaluation and with formal systems and procedures while the vast bulk of the NGOs continue to function in an ad hoc, informal manner. Moreover, the salary structure of foreign-funded NGOs distorted the local reward structure in the sector and is also unsustainable in the long run. But clearly the solution is to bring up Bharat to the level of India and the reverse, especially since with mandatory corporate social responsibility, these better organised NGOs are proving to be a boon to companies.
Perhaps the most tellingly adverse effect of aid on the voluntary sector has been the loss of political and social activism by NGOs due to “institutionalisation”. This received a fillip when, after the 1980s, donors increasingly preferred partnerships with NGOs over sending expensive expatriate experts to the field and setting up field offices. By itself institutionalisation is not bad. When NGOs move from being informal popular movements to adopting formal legal and organisational structures, it leads to greater permanence. But as they grow, there is a tendency for NGOs to become more flabby and less innovative. They settle into a “zone of comfort” doing routine work, and internal interests overshadow their critical role. Most importantly, as they become more organised they become more pragmatic, less fluid and less radical as social activists, in fact the very reverse of what government finds objectionable.
Another adverse effect is that NGOs become upwardly accountable to donors, rather than maintain a downward and lateral accountability to their beneficiary constituencies and peer organisations. Accountability has come to be equated with “accountancy” and legal compliance, because of tighter donor controls on use of funds.
Donor pressure has also led to privileging certain issues like HIV-AIDS of concern to Western nations, rather than the eradication of malaria or malnutrition, far more urgent national problems for India. However, with pressure from experts and NGOs, donors have begun to adopt Indian agendas.
In the initial years, it is undeniable that political agendas were at play. However, NGOs are more confident and less vulnerable to foreign pressures today. The sheer size of the country, the insignificance of external assistance relative to this size and need, government vigilance, strong indigenous roots of the voluntary sector in either the Gandhian or Leftist traditions, all ensure that the adverse effects of external political or religious agendas are not deeply felt.
The best way to deal with the excesses is when they occur, on a case-by-case basis, rather than banning aid or making it difficult for all NGOs to use foreign funds.
The writer is the author of Foreign Aid for Indian NGOs: Problem or Solution
Source: http://www.asianage.com/columnists/aid-headache-153
While America does not really receive or need foreign funds on any scale, the other countries named, including India, do. Banning aid or harassing NGOs who receive it is no solution, because aid to NGOs has played a useful role in the development of many countries, despite some adverse effects. It is time therefore to weigh the benefits against the costs.
To take the good news first: Aid has brought more resources to the NGO sector than it could possibly have mobilised from within the country, enabling it to expand and diversify. It created a two-way channel for new ideas, methods and technologies from abroad, while simultaneously enabling Indian achievements to find their way into international development discourse. This international engagement has helped Indian NGOs mature and gain self-confidence. Aid has also supported research and its dissemination, alliance building and policy advocacy, which hardly any Indian donors support.
Importantly, it brought a much-needed focus, both in policy and practice, on equity issues, under-served sections of society such as women, the scheduled castes and adivasis and a focus on the environment. Many donor organisations work with constituencies like MNCs in their own countries and educate them about responsible corporate practices like education of exploited children, fair trade practices and the like.
But it is also true that aid to NGOs has had some adverse impact on the voluntary sector as well as on Indian society as a whole. But these are not necessarily to do with bringing in Western liberal ideas, conversion, contributing to delays in development projects, or with destabilising political regimes, as the government alleges.
In India and elsewhere, aid, especially in the initial years, led to diversions from a chosen development pattern. For instance, early aid with its emphasis on Western technological solutions sidelined the Gandhian approach of self-reliance, low-cost local technology and decentralised development as well as the more political social change model adopted by peasant and other social movements of the early Sixties and Seventies. Now the pendulum has swung to the other extreme, and donors are espousing decentralisation, small check dams and low cost irrigation while it is the government which is continuing to favour large dams.
Aid to NGOs also increased disparities among NGOs, between the smaller, more rural and less well-funded which depend on local charity, and the more prosperous, sophisticated and metro-based ones, many of them funded by foreign donors. This divide can be said to parallel the divide between Bharat and India. The funded organisations are modern organisations talking the language of projects, appraisals, core funding, monitoring and evaluation and with formal systems and procedures while the vast bulk of the NGOs continue to function in an ad hoc, informal manner. Moreover, the salary structure of foreign-funded NGOs distorted the local reward structure in the sector and is also unsustainable in the long run. But clearly the solution is to bring up Bharat to the level of India and the reverse, especially since with mandatory corporate social responsibility, these better organised NGOs are proving to be a boon to companies.
Perhaps the most tellingly adverse effect of aid on the voluntary sector has been the loss of political and social activism by NGOs due to “institutionalisation”. This received a fillip when, after the 1980s, donors increasingly preferred partnerships with NGOs over sending expensive expatriate experts to the field and setting up field offices. By itself institutionalisation is not bad. When NGOs move from being informal popular movements to adopting formal legal and organisational structures, it leads to greater permanence. But as they grow, there is a tendency for NGOs to become more flabby and less innovative. They settle into a “zone of comfort” doing routine work, and internal interests overshadow their critical role. Most importantly, as they become more organised they become more pragmatic, less fluid and less radical as social activists, in fact the very reverse of what government finds objectionable.
Another adverse effect is that NGOs become upwardly accountable to donors, rather than maintain a downward and lateral accountability to their beneficiary constituencies and peer organisations. Accountability has come to be equated with “accountancy” and legal compliance, because of tighter donor controls on use of funds.
Donor pressure has also led to privileging certain issues like HIV-AIDS of concern to Western nations, rather than the eradication of malaria or malnutrition, far more urgent national problems for India. However, with pressure from experts and NGOs, donors have begun to adopt Indian agendas.
In the initial years, it is undeniable that political agendas were at play. However, NGOs are more confident and less vulnerable to foreign pressures today. The sheer size of the country, the insignificance of external assistance relative to this size and need, government vigilance, strong indigenous roots of the voluntary sector in either the Gandhian or Leftist traditions, all ensure that the adverse effects of external political or religious agendas are not deeply felt.
The best way to deal with the excesses is when they occur, on a case-by-case basis, rather than banning aid or making it difficult for all NGOs to use foreign funds.
The writer is the author of Foreign Aid for Indian NGOs: Problem or Solution
Source: http://www.asianage.com/columnists/aid-headache-153
