Role of NGOs in development process

Role of NGOs in development process

Meaning, Concept and Origin of NGOs

·         The term NGO is considered as an organization which is independent of government. It is not controlled by a government entity nor is it established by an inter-government agreement.

·         The term originates from the United Nations in 1945 and normally refers to organizations that is not part of a government and are not conventional for profit business.

·         World Bank “A non-governmental organization that pursues activities to relieve suffering, promote the interest of the poor, protect the environment, provide basic social services or undertake community development.

·         In other words, NGO are legally constituted organization, operate independently from the government and are generally considered to be non-state, non-profit oriented groups who pursue purpose of public interest.

Voluntary organization v. NGO

·         Often voluntary organization and NGOs are used interchangeably, but there is a subtle difference.

NGOs are part of voluntary action	NGOs are not the only form of voluntary action. NGO could be part of voluntary organization
Voluntary organization are spontaneous in their origin & sometimes oriented towards a specific situation	The activity of NGOs is only one among the many aspects of voluntary action
	NGOs may be state sponsored & last as long they receive support/ finances

NGO & Development

·         Development does not mean only economic development but also include promoting social equality, gender quality improving quality of life etc.

·         It is not possible for govt. alone to effectively undertaking such complex development activities, so there is essentiality of other groups or organization to support the government on various fronts.

·         This essentiality paved the way for the emergence of CSO. NGOs being major arm of CS thus have a crucial role in the country’s development process.

NGO Role in Development

1.       The good governance model is the new face of development where state either with private sector or with voluntary organization/ CSO work in collaboration and cooperate wins each other to further common goals of market driven growth oriented agenda.

2.       India has had a long history of voluntary action and its existence can be traced to the functioning of social institution from ancient time. Since then CSO are striving for the development of marginalized section of the society.

3.       During post-independence period the governments at all level have acknowledged the reality and role of NGOs in the development process.

4.       In a democratic society, it is the state that has the ultimate responsibility for ushering development to its citizen. In India, through the progressive interpretation of the constitution and its laws & policies the scope of development has been significantly broadened to include not just economic progress for citizen, but also promotion of social justice, gender equity, inclusive growth, citizen’s awareness empowerment & improved quality of life.

5.       It is now widely recognized that the state & voluntary organization need to form a strong relationship for better development process and build stronger civil society.

6.       To achieve this holistic vision of development, the state requires the constructive & collaborative enragement of civil society in its various developmental activities & programs.

7.       Such cooperation should not be based on replication or replacement of state activities and obligation, but on the adoption of complementary roles predicated on each other’s unique characteristics.

India & NGOs

                In order to have strong networking of institution, GOI formulated national policy on voluntary sector 2007.

Policy objectives are:

a)       Creating an enabling environment for NGOs/voluntary organizations that not also protects their identity & safeguards their autonomy.

b)       Enabling NGOs/ voluntary organizations to legitimately mobilize the necessary financial resources from India & Abroad.

c)       Identifying system by which the government may work together with the voluntary organization.

d)       Encouraging NGO/ voluntary organization adopt transparent & accountable systems of governance & management.

e)       It recognizes the difficulty faces by voluntary sector in accessing government schemes & suggest ways to tackle this.

f)        The main objective is to identify system by which the government may work together with voluntary organization on the basis of the principles of mutual trust, respect & shared responsibility.

g)       The policy outlines instruments of partnership. They are: consultation, strategic, formal, collaboration, project funding & establishment of joint consultative groups with representative from NGOs & the government.

h)       The policy aims at to encourage the voluntary organization to improve governance, accountability.

NGOs in the development process can broadly be categorized as:

1.       Sacrificial NGOs: The NGOs have clear vision, commitment to the work & needy people & aiming at social transformation. Account for less than 10% of total NGOs.

2.       Professional & development NGOs based on:

a)       Professional competence & commitment of the employees

b)       Undertake work based on people & processes

c)       Priority to mass mobilization

d)       Concentrate on the capacity building up the people

e)       Focus on facilitator role

·         Account for 10-15% NGOs

3.       Xerox copy of NGOs: The role of NGOs is unclear & copies other NGOs. They view that doing anything for others is development & function as worker.

·         They are directed mostly by others particularly donor agencies and do not have independent thinking.

·         Account for 20 to 25%.

4.       Ventilator NGOs: The elite undertake welfare activities like organizing health comps, supply of medicine to the needy people etc. to ventilate their urban stress & also for advancement of their business activities.

·         Ad hock in nature (their work)

·         Depends more on media coverage (activities).

5.       Survival NGOs: Such NGOs voluntary work is primarily based winning protecting and their activities are undertaken more for their own existence than poor and the needy. They are selfish and do not have professional competence.

6.       Pseudo NGOs: The NGOs believe that doing voluntary service is easiest way to earn money. The educated and unemployed youth, retired employees, expelled staff, politicians & others who are interested in money making, start NGOs and treat them as money making institutions. Their activities are mostly confined to paper work and are known as letter pad NGOs.

Role of NGOs in Development:

·         NGOs have immense role in bringing about social change and development and it is being experienced from different parts of the country.

·         Development, as we have read earlier, is a multi- faceted process, which essentially involves the aggressive participation of the people that would not be possible unless they are educated, awakened and motivated.

·          NGOs are taking up this job sportingly and successfully.

·         NGOs contributed to improve the self-representation of the marginalized sections of the society to act as watchdog of the government, to protect the rights & entitlements to create strong civil society & they have legitimized NGOs activities in the development process during last several decades.

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The areas in which we witness active and appreciative role of NGOs are as follows:

1. The NGOs are active to promote education, particularly among that section of population, which has remained un-benefited or less benefited by the measures adopted by the government. The education of girls, and other deprived people, particularly the SCs and STs, has been their target objective.

2. Women are the other vulnerable section of society. Gender discrimination is a ubiquitous cultural reality. Girls are discriminated in the upbringing pattern in the family. Larger numbers of the undernourished are from amongst the girls. Retention of girls in schools is much less as compared to boys. Women are forced to work as housewife and denied participation in gainful economic activities outside homes. About three-fourths of the work done by women is un-monetized.

       •       Since the second half of the preceding century started the change in the status of women with their active partici­pation in political, social and economic activities, which gained acceleration since the last quarter of the preceding century. More and more women started moving out of the four walls of their houses and involving themselves actively in the social sphere outside their homes.

     •         Important in this process has been the role of academicians and NGOs. The book Women’s Role in Economic Development by Easter Boserup (1970) is the pioneering work in this direction. After a gap of few years, by 1978, a large number of works were published, particularly on the status of women in the Third World – where their position has been more vulnerable.

   •           The role of women voluntary organizations towards this cause has been marvelous. Sewa, Sathin, Eklavya, Disha, Environmental Action Group and Agrani Foundation etc. are some of the thousands of NGOs known for their role in development by creating awareness among people and interventions, if required.

3. The approach to development has been almost uniform world over at least in terms of the use of technology, magnitude of production, pattern of consumption and achievement of wealth. Both state and people were unaware or lackadaisical about the backwash of the nature of development pursued.

    •          The threat to the human life developed due to environmental pollution and imbalance and the depletion of natural resources as a consequence of the nature of devel­opment.

   •           Here, the role of NGOs is really noticeable and praiseworthy. Thousands of voluntary organizations are at work to awaken people and governments against environmental degradation and depletion of resources.

4. It is not that the development process has unleashed only environmental threats to the human existence but also many people are displaced due to developmental projects and are quite often not properly compensated and rehabilitated.

       •       The NGOs have a major role to play towards the cause of people’s resettlement and are also performing commendable job in this direction.

       •       The projects like the construction of dams, road highways and railways have often made some sections of people, particularly in rural areas, vulnerable and are displaced without being properly compensated.

5. NGOs are also rendering great service in restoring dignity to the deprived and discriminated sections of the people in the society like women suffering from gender discrimination, lower caste people suffering from caste segregation and the status of untouchable, racial and religious discriminations.

       •       Voluntary organizations, working at both national and international levels, have earned praise for their services in societal development.

      •        These organizations are busy in creating awareness and zeal for participation in development projects.

     •         Ensuring humanism by fighting against human rights violations, social exclusions, domestic violence and others have been common objectives of the NGOs.

    •          Of late, these organizations are also entering the sector of economic well-being and standard of living.

Argument against Participation of NGOs in development process

1.       According to annual report 2012 (MHA) there are about 20 lakhs NGOs, of which 43523 receive contribution from different foreign countries. Every year on an average these institution are receiving Rs. 11500 crores from donor countries.

·         The above contributions are made by HCL holdings, marissas international, action aid, Bill & Melinda Gate Foundation & so on.

·         The country wise analysis reveals that agencies representing USA contributed more followed by Britain, Germany.

·         The state wise analysis indicates that Delhi received the highest amount followed TN, Andhra Pradesh & so on.

·         Foreign Contribution Regulation Act 2010 the Ministry of Home Affairs referred 24 cases to CBI & 10 cases referred to state police for investigation.

·         21493 associations have not submitted annual report.

·         Addresses were wrong of many NGOs.

2.       Alan Folwer (1997) in his book striking a balance utilized a collection of NGO acronyms to identify various NGOs pretenders such:

BRINGO (Brief case NGO)

CONGO (Commercial NGO)

FANGO (Fake NGO)

CRINGO (Criminal NGO)

GONGO (Government-owned NGO)

MANGO (Mafia NGO)

PNGO (Party NGO)

3.       Many NGOs do not even understand the standards that they should be applying to their activities and governance.

4.       The virtues of the NGOs like human touch, dedication, flexibility, nearness to community, accountability & transparency, to a large extent eroded when they started getting funds from government & assistance from donor agencies.

5.       The crisis of NGOs is that they do not have autonomy in undertaking the activities as they are guided by donor agencies.

6.       The NGOs autonomy is tied to conditions imposed by the donor agencies and there is always top down approach from donors to NGOs in the implementation of the activities.

7.       The NGOs are not voluntary any more, as the availability of funds & objectives, priorities, design and action programmes are determined by the sponsoring agencies.

8.       Indian states uses their power to regulate domestic & foreign funding as means to restrict, control funding as means to restrict, control & depoliticize the voluntary sector.

9.       The government funding is mostly project based, time bound & result based management. In this regard NGOs have little freedom in implementing the programmes, as the programmes are centrally devised.

10.    The governance of NGOs is rarely democratic & with autocratic leaders often ruling over the NGOs operation.

11.    NGOs are often dominated by middle class educated people who dominate NGOs & civil society who are not better equipped to understand the poor.

Suggestions to further improve NGOs role in development

1.       NGOs are under-regulated, political and recipients of large government & international donor funds. There is a pressing need to regulate this group while not curtailing their unique role as supplement to government services. E.g. Lokpal & Lokayuka Act 2013 more than 10 lakh if any CSO receiving then fall under the ambit of lokpal.

2.       NGOs should ideally undertake activities that add value to state efforts, or perform roles for which the state’s size & bureaucratic processes make it difficult.

3.       NGOs to takes roles based on their comparative advantage rather than supplementing or substituting the state or other agencies in the development process.

4.       There is need for a strong relationship between the state and NGOs for better development process and bring inclusive growth in the society.

Arguments in favour NGOs participation in development process -

1.       NGOs as representatives of civil society are a convenient medium through which official agencies can promote pluralism.

2.       The factors like proximity to people far & near, flexibility, innovativeness, human touch, spirit of self-service, democratic interpretation of the needs & desire of the poor, implementation of interventions that are relevant to people, de bureaucratization etc. have enabled the NGOs to play an important role in the development process.

3.       The terms & condition stipulated in the development projects sponsored by the international organization like, WB, ADB etc. in which NGOs participation is essential in the implementation of the project.

4.       NGOs have strong & committed workforce approximately 2 crore with potential to affect many people.

5.       NGOs have close rapport with the local elite, CSO, SHG which would ensure active participation of the people in the implementation of development projects.

Q: What has been the interaction and relationship between the Indian state and NGOs like?

                                         OR

                           NGO and INDIA

·         In India the state policies have significantly influenced the formation of NGOs and their activities.

·         The government sponsored and aided programmes provided financial assistance to NGOs either as grants or as matching grants to support the implementation of social development projects.

·         Social service is associated with India since ancient times.

·         It is said that even Mahatma Gandhi after attaining independence wanted Indian National congress to be transformed into a Public service organization.

·         Although such proposal was rejected, later many of staunch Gandhi followers did setup large number of voluntary orgs across various parts of the country to carry of the constructive works on Gandhian principles.

·         However, the real and identified registration and formation of NGOs emerged in India from early 1970s. Immediately after their formal inception,

·         NGOS received grater thrust form the Government in more than one ways.

·         The need for the involvement of voluntary organizations has been acknowledged by a number of official committees dealing with development.

·         Balwant Rai Mehta Committee, 1957: In the implementation of the various schemes of community development, more and more emphasis is laid on NGOs and workers and on the principle that ultimately people's own local organisations should take over the entire work Rural-Urban.

·         Rural-urban Relationship Committee, 1966: Local voluntary organizations can be very helpful in mobilizing popular support and assistance of the people in the activities of local body. It is possible to maintain constant and close contact with the people through these organizations.

·         Ashok Mehta Committee: Of the several voluntary organizations engaged in rural welfare, a few have helped the PRIs in preparation of area development plans, conduct feasibility studies and cost/benefit analysis, explore ways and means to induce local participation in planning and implementation.

·         In the Sixth Five Year Plan (1980-1985), the government identified new areas in which NGOs as new actors could participate in development.

·         The Seventh Five Year Plan (1985- 1990), envisioned a more active role for NGOs as primary actors in the efforts towards self-reliant communities.

·         This was in tune with the participatory and empowerment ideologies, which was gaining currency in the developmental discourse at that time.

·         Government support and encouragement for NGOs continued in the Eighth Five year plan, where a nation-wide network of NGOs was sought to be created.

·         The Ninth Five-year plan proposed that NGOs should play a role in development on the public-private partnership model. Also, the agricultural development policies of the government and its implementation mechanisms provided scope and space for NGOs.

·         A case in point is the watershed development program, which has led to the growth of NGOs working for rural development .

·         In March 2000, the Government declared Planning Commission as the nodal agency for GO-NGO interface. The message was clear- government has to and will work with the voluntary sector.

·         A 'Civil Society Window' was started in 2004, in the hope that it would enable people to engage with the Planning Commission and offer the benefit of their field experiences .

·         During the 11th Five Year Plan process a regional consultation was organised to get civil society feedback. Participation of Civil Society (CS) had thus already become a strong and robust element in the preparation of the Plan.

·          Consultations with citizens on the Approach Paper to the 12th Plan began on many platforms, including the intemet. Members of Planning Commission travelled across the country attending Public Meetings called by CS around various sectoral issues to gather inputs for the 12 Five Year Plan

National Policy on the Voluntary Sector, 2007: Recognizes the contribution of the voluntary sector and the need for Government- Voluntary Sector partnership and that project grants are a useful means for both the Government to promote its activities without its direct involvement and a valuable source of support to small and medium Voluntary Organizations.

·         It highlights the need for Government to encourage all Central and State Government agencies to introduce pre service and in-service training modules on constructive relations with voluntary organizations.

·         It recognizes the difficulties faced by the voluntary sector in accessing government schemes and suggests ways to tackle this.

·         The main objective of the National Policy on the Voluntary Sector is to identify systems by which the Government may work together with the Voluntary Organizations on the basis of the principles of mutual trust, respect and shared responsibility.

·         It also recognizes the importance of independence of voluntary organizations, which allows them to explore alternative models of development.

·         The National Policy on the Voluntary Sector is just the beginning of the process to evolve a new working relationship between the government and the voluntary sector without affecting its autonomy and identity.

·         There are many areas in which help of the voluntary sector is sought- for social audits, behavior change, good governance and increasingly even for better service delivery.