Nothing unusual in the title of the seminar that The Hauser Center at Harvard University put together just over a year ago. Everyone from academics to NGOs, government officials and even rock stars seem to have something to say on the topic. The innovation here was the choice of the lead panelist: Ndiogou Fall of Senegal, an authoritative and articulate representative of the burgeoning movement of Africa small producers who, in his words, “are both the prime victims of and the solutions to the problem of hunger”. Listening to the views of the actors most directly concerned by the problem sounds like common sense. But how often have you seen peasant leaders on stage at Harvard when food and development issues are under discussion.

Ending Hunger in Africa panel discussion, November 8. 2010, Harvard Kennedy School

The leap into uncharted dialogic territory paid off. Ndiogou Fall gave us the gift of a lucid, convincing and combative analysis of how African food security has deteriorated over the years and what is required for the continent to feed itself. The policies applied during and following the colonial period, from export-oriented specialization to structural adjustment and liberalization, have drastically dampened food production, barred small producers’ access to their own domestic markets, and reduced them to de-capitalized subsistence farming. The 2007-2008 food crisis and the attendant uprisings have had the salutary effect of dramatically exposing the failure of past approaches. What to put in their place? For Fall the horse to bet on can only be the small-scale family farmers who today provide food, employment and incomes for the majority of Africa’s population despite the neglect from which they have suffered for decades. With supportive policies and programs, and applying environment-friendly agro-ecological methods, it is possible to significantly increase smallholder productivity while helping to cool the planet and defend biodiversity.

But this requires a change of paradigm, Fall explains. African governments have to prioritize local and regional markets over the world market through trade policies that protect local producers, regulate supply, and build intra-regional exchanges. Agricultural policies formulated with the participation of all stakeholders are required. Infrastructure and communications need to be extended in rural areas and the rural economies strengthened by supporting producers to develop value chains that can generate employment and revenues. Small-scale producers need to access credit at reasonable terms – not the 25% interest rates they now have to contend with as compared with 5% in Europe. Land policies have to defend the right of rural people to the territories on which they live and from which they draw their livelihoods, blocking the galloping phenomenon of speculation and land grabs.

Ndiogou Fall passed away, prematurely and deeply mourned, on May 5, 2011. We pay tribute to his memory by making available the video recording of the Hauser Center seminar in which he participated. His message is an important one for Harvardians in a moment in which other voices advocate biotechnology as key to preventing hunger and news reports unveil the possible involvement of the Harvard endowment fund in land grabbing in Africa (The Guardian – June 9, 2011).

Nora McKeon was formerly responsible for civil society relations at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). She is the author of several publications on small farmers and food policies. Harvard Class of ’62.

Paul Farmer’s compelling new book, “Haiti: After the Earthquake,” suggests that international aid to Haiti, while providing relief from suffering during the worst of times, including in the aftermath of the January 12, 2010, earthquake, has for the most part failed to help Haiti build capacity in its own public institutions, including its public health and education sectors.

A capable, responsive and accountable public sector is essential to helping Haiti become a healthy, productive and ultimately resilient society—one better able to cope with the destructive forces of inevitable natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes. Moreover, Farmer argues that meddling by the West in Haiti’s internal politics has contributed to the country’s chronic political instability. Periodic withholding by the U.S. of direct assistance to the Haitian governments—including democratically elected but leftist governments—and U.S. vetoes of initiatives by international organizations to channel aid directly through the Haitian government, have steadily eroded the capacity of the Haitian public sector to provide basic social services.

In testimony to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2003, Farmer called for an end to the de facto prohibitions of development aid to the government of Haiti that the US promoted in forums in which it held influence, including the Inter-American Development Bank. “At the time [of the testimony], influential American institutions were effectively blocking four loans to Haiti from the Inter-American Development Bank—for primary health care, education, potable water, and road improvement—because they didn’t condone the outcome of Haiti’s 2000 elections, which brought the left-leaning Aristide back to power.” (p. 97)

U.S. aid did flow to Haiti during times when Washington was displeased with the country’s political leadership, but not to the Haitian government. Instead of aiding Haitian government organizations such as the ministries of health and education, aid was channeled to international non-governmental organizations (INGOs). INGOs set up their own health, water, education and agricultural programs, with little reference to Haitian government oversight, needs or priorities. Funding channeled through international NGOs failed to help build the capacity of Haitian public institutions that must provide health, education and other essential public services to poor Haitians over the long term. “Without real and sustained commitment to strengthening the public sector—including its capacity to monitor and coordinate services offered by NGOs—who would make sure development funds were being used efficiently.” (p. 97.) At the time of the January 2010 earthquake, 80 percent of all aid to Haiti and 90 percent of all U.S. aid was channeled through NGOs and contractors.

Haiti by the time of the earthquake had become known in humanitarian aid circles as “the Republic of NGOs,” with more NGOs per capita than any developing country apart from India, according to Farmer (p. 99). The U.S. reliance on INGO-managed assistance was to a considerable degree a direct consequence of U.S. laws that prohibited direct U.S. aid to Haiti’s public sector. “Post-earthquake Haiti needed many of the foreign contractors and NGOs because its [public sector] implementation capacity has long been weakened.” (p. 99). Ultimately, only 0.3 percent of all Haitian quake relief was channeled through Haiti’s public sector. (p. 102)

Farmer was back at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on January 27, 2010, less than two weeks after the earthquake. Six months previously he had been appointed UN deputy special envoy for Haiti under the special envoy, President Clinton. Tasked with mobilizing international relief support for Haiti and recognizing that it is poverty that makes people most vulnerable to natural disasters, he argued that greater amounts of aid for reconstruction be channeled through Haiti’s public sector. Better education and public health care systems would over the long term bring greater prosperity, and in turn would reduce the loss of life and destruction of property and livelihoods in the aftermath of natural disasters.

There is an opportunity not only to build Haiti back better, but to build a more functional and ultimately beneficial arrangement for aid delivery. Over the past two decades, U.S. aid policies have seesawed between embargoes and efforts to bypass governments, including elected ones not to Washington’s taste. Neither the international community nor the United States provided credible, long-term, financial investment in Haiti. Restructuring foreign aid and forgiving Haiti’s crippling debts are essential to helping the country recover. U.S. laws, including the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and its later revisions, prevent direct investment in the public sector; we will need to revisit these policies.

Jehane Sedsky, a colleague of Farmer’s at the UN special envoy’s office, in a concluding chapter entitled “Building Back Better, provides a thoughtful discussion of why the efforts of not-for-profit community in Haiti before the earthquake often did not contribute to lasting change in Haiti or, in many cases, to even help Haitians.

• The work of not-for profits was uncoordinated and did little to reinforce the priorities of the Haitian government.

• International NGOs expended great effort determining ways to address problems they saw, but often they did not include Haitians in meaningful ways as they developed their plans.

• International NGOs are accountable to their international donors—not to the disenfranchised communities they are trying to serve.

• Often they deliver goods and services but less often pay local salaries; creating a culture of dependency rather than self-sufficiency.

• Many years of effort by NGOs has served to only weaken the already weak government, which did not, even before the earthquake, have the resources to pay its employees.

• As a result, public health and education officials are paid intermittently, hospitals lack basic medicines and supplies, and schools are 90 percent privately owned and unregulated. (p. 357)

International humanitarian NGOs do not deploy their resources or staff to work within national institutional frameworks as partners—as part of the fabric of Haitian health and education organizations. Many find it inconvenient to do so, but many of their objections to working as authentic partners, dedicated to rebuilding Haitian capacity at its core, must be answered and overcome.

Farmer and his co-authors offer a persuasive critique of the failures of international aid to engage with Haitian public sector institutions in ways that would better serve Haiti over the long term. But they don’t in my view offer enough in the way of concrete proposals for forging a new kind of relationship between donors, international NGOs, and the Haitian government. I want to offer below a few ideas, principles really, for a new kind of aid relationship.

• A considerable portion of international development and humanitarian funding should be directed to building the capacity of the public health, public education and water sectors, sectors essential to poverty alleviation and economic growth. What’s an appropriate portion of all aid? I don’t know, but for purposes of discussion, let’s consider what it would take to get 50 percent of all aid disbursements channeled through the Haitian government as general budgetary support or through projects that are administered jointly by the Haitian government and INGOs and/or contractors by 2015.

• International technical advisors and professionals—health care workers, teachers, health and education administrators, civil engineers—should in much greater number than is currently the case be seconded from aid agencies, including from the staffs of International NGOs, to Haitian ministries and agencies, filling established posts. This would mean, for instance, that Haitian health care not be augmented by building new non-profit hospitals, staffed at the top by foreigners, and drawing talented Haitian away from public institutions with better, but ultimately uncompetitive salaries. Rather, funds should be directed to building better Haitian public hospitals, and international medical staff would take up positions at the side of their Haitian colleagues.

• In addition to providing technical assistance in their respective fields, international staff will be expected to provide management expertise, including skills in financial management, reporting and program auditing. (I’ve written in a previous blog about how Botswana’s insistence that all international advisors hold established Botswana government positions left a template of good management practice that endures long after the departure of expatriates).

• Effective public service delivery in Haiti will ultimately be provided by a growing Haitian economy, capable of financing to a much greater degree than is the case today its own public services. Considerable financial aid and technical assistance should be directed toward sectors of the government and the economy responsible for promoting joint public-private investment projects, generating employment growth, and better managing public finances. Partnerships between U.S. and Haitian universities and the Haitian ministry of finance supporting training in public finance and administration of top Haitian graduates should be designed and generously funded.

• The US should consider Haiti as a partner for Millennium Challenge Corporation funding for key sectors, such as health, education and agriculture, and provide aggressive support for USAID management development projects that would help Haiti meet the pre-conditions for MCC sector funding (as is currently being done for Liberia).

Haitians deserve a better deal from their own government and from international aid organizations. The current aid system does not help deliver the kind of systemic improvements in Haiti’s public service sectors for which it is capable. It’s past time to leave behind the litany of excuses that stand in the way of helping Haiti build back better.

Steven Lawry is a Senior Research Fellow at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Oganizations at Harvard University.

What if grantmaking were revolutionalized to be a much more participatory, transparent and democratic process, where there was little to no distinction between grant recipients and grant makers? What would that look like and how would it work?

The Young Feminist Fund – FRIDA has set out to do just that. FRIDA was launched earlier this month with the aim to cultivate and support a community of young feminists and people who support women’s rights worldwide.  FRIDA was born out of collective calls by feminists globally at the 2008 AWID Forum to close the significant gap in funding available for feminist organizations, particularly those led by young feminists.

Calls for action were spurred on by the rise of youth-led groups and movements and the higher demand for funding support in addition to the need to advance sustainable solutions to the rights violations, violence, inequalities and discriminations that girls and young women face daily. Three years later, we fast-forward to the Fund’s realization and articulation of its mission and unique funding model.

FRIDA aims to provide accessible, strategic and responsive funding for young feminist-led initiatives. We aim to strengthen the capacity of young feminist organizations to leverage resources for their work and to increase donors’ and allies’ commitments to resourcing young feminist activism.

FRIDA works toward a future where, among other things, young women and girls live their lives free from violence and poverty, can obtain an education and control decisions about their bodies. FRIDA believes that not only is supporting young women-led initiatives important in itself but also that no lasting solutions to the world’s major challenges can be effective if young women are left out. To this end, we envision progressive, multi-generational women’s movements that are strong, effective, well-resourced and that reflect the diversity of women’s rights organizing globally.

FRIDA’s model is a participatory “donor +” model, not only focusing on giving small, flexible funding to feminist groups, primarily led by women under 30, but also aiming to strengthen organizational capacities and facilitate networking between groups. The focus on flexible, core funding is central to its values and its commitment to strengthen organizational capacity by respecting the analysis, strategies, and actions as defined by grassroots groups themselves. Externally, the Fund aims to develop stronger interest and broaden the support of traditional donors, as well as to encourage greater involvement of non-traditional donors, particularly young philanthropists and entrepreneurs.

The resource mobilization aspect of the Fund moves beyond the traditional model, which only seeks fundraising for its own projects/programs to a collective model. In the collective resource mobilization model, the aim is to raise more money for young feminist activists and the gender equality sector overall, as well as to influence other donors’ practices. That means that FRIDA is most concerned with building up demand and support in donor communities to channel funds to youth programs that use a rights and empowerment perspective and that are led by the opinions and leadership of young people.

In many ways, FRIDA challenges current donor and grantmaking paradigms and processes. Young feminist groups that apply to FRIDA are not seeking funds to only support their work, but they are also entering a process where they will become the decision-makers, selecting which groups will actually get funded. This dual role honors young feminists’ prioritizations of which issues and groups should and should not be funded.

FRIDA expects to launch its first call for proposals before the end of the year. The call will be open for a period of 6 weeks for groups based in 5 regions: Africa, Asia and the Pacific, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean and Central and Eastern Europe and Commonwealth of Independent States). Once potential grantees have submitted their applications, FRIDA staff and advisors will conduct an initial screening process to ensure that the applications received match FRIDA’s funding criteria and priority issues.

The selection criteria for the initial screening include: groups must be led/founded by young women or transgender youth under 30, they must be groups with limited access to resources, and they must explicitly be working to advance women’s human rights. Applications that do not meet these criteria are automatically excluded. Once the applications have been screened, the online voting process begins.

Potential grantees are given access to short summaries of the screened applications and are asked to vote for their top ten choices for groups to fund within their specific region. The summaries mention the title of the projects and the location of the groups, but do not include any names to ensure some anonymity and fairness in the process. When voting, groups are asked to bear in mind what they think is important for the promotion and defense of the rights of young women in their regions, as well as FRIDA’s funding priorities.

Groups are also expected to provide comments along with their decisions. The only restriction is that groups are not permitted to vote for their own proposals. From these votes, FRIDA gets a popular ranking of the top grantees in each region. For the first round of funding, only 10 grants will be given. So the top 2 ranked applicants per region will be selected for funding—for a total of 10 grantees. Once the groups have been selected, in addition to receiving general support funding, they participate in various capacity building and networking activities coordinated by FRIDA.

Using this participatory grantmaking model, FRIDA is democratizing the funding process and re-conceptualizing the role of grant maker and grant recipient. As such, the distinctions between ‘grantee’ and ‘grantor’ begin to disappear. The funding model further aims to break down power and expertise barriers that commonly arise in grantmaking, which are often exacerbated by identities and alignments, such as North and South, expert vs. practitioner, professionalization vs. activism, young vs. experienced, traditional grant makers and institutional donors vs. emerging young philanthropists and individuals.

Groups are also empowered in the collective decision-making process, learn from each other, and build their knowledge of existing issues and approaches in the field. This broadens their awareness of the landscape and critical strategies that feminist groups are using to combat discriminations, rights violations, and inequalities around the world (perhaps even feeding back and strengthening their own organizations and future joint initiatives). It also assists groups in understanding what the decision-making process for grantmaking looks like and in thinking critically about how they made decisions on their top ten. This can help build their capacities in the future when it comes to positioning themselves and perhaps writing and applying for funds.

FRIDA’s re-conceptualization of power in grantmaking addresses critical feminist principles of participatory action and the radical re-shifting of institutional practices towards greater equality and democracy. In this quest, the FRIDA team is learning much from the experiences of Fundo CentroAmericano de Mujeres (Central American Women’s Fund) (FCAM) in Nicaragua and AWID’s collective resource mobilization strategies. The Fund is replicating FCAM’s model on a global scale. Other organizations are using similar models, including RSF Social Finance, a US-based organization that promotes shared giving to reduce competition and encourage collaboration between organizations by putting decisions in the hands of grantees themselves. Insights from these participatory funding models could have profound implications on grantmaking and future trends.

Alexandra Pittman is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations and a Research Associate at the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID). She has in-depth experience writing, conducting, and designing research and evaluations for NGOs and donors.

In a time when NGO leaders are increasingly looking at engaging with grassroots movements, it is crucial that they spend the time necessary to build relationships based on mutual trust, respect and understanding.

This is particularly important when engaging with indigenous peoples movements. “’Red-washing’ is not uncommon”, says Carol Kalafatic, Associate Director of the American Indian Program at Cornell University who spoke at the Hauser Center yesterday. “It has become profitable to look “indigenous peoples friendly” but many NGOs only pay lip service to the priorities and rights of indigenous peoples, especially if they don’t fit into the NGO’s organizational goals and culture”.

Kalafatic proposed four principles for engagement, which all NGOs wanting to partner with indigenous communities need to embrace:
1. An honest examination of power relationships. NGOs are often the ones initiating cooperation with indigenous communities. Most of them already have a set agenda, which may not correspond to indigenous peoples’ needs and priorities. It is important that indigenous peoples are able to enter the relationship on their own terms and at their own pace, in keeping with the principle of self-determination.
2. A readiness to question assumptions. NGOs and indigenous peoples have different ways of setting and achieving goals, different paradigms, knowledge systems, governance institutions, worldviews, working cultures, etc. It is important that the transfer of knowledge is bidirectional with all parties willing to truly listen and learn.
3. A shift from viewing indigenous peoples as stakeholders to rights holders. Some NGOs view indigenous communities as victims, recipients of social services or one group among others to be consulted during a project. Others idealize them without understanding the complex nature of indigenous peoples’ unique history, culture and socio-political heritage. This too often leads to cooptation and a breakdown in the relationship. Indigenous peoples have universal human rights and collective rights based primarily on the special relationship they have with their traditional lands and territories. A rights-based approach is key to a successful collaboration between indigenous peoples and their partners.
4. A long-term commitment to trust and relationship building. Many indigenous communities may be distrustful of the purpose of collaboration. NGOs may get frustrated by the need to follow the decision making protocols of indigenous peoples’ customary governance systems, which does not nicely fit into the NGOs’ and their donors’ logical frameworks, timetables and deadlines. But sacrificing relationship building in the name of efficiency often leads to more mistrust and a failed collaboration in the long run. NGOs need to allocate the time necessary to meet indigenous peoples on their own terms. This may involve a fundamental shift in the NGO organizational culture.

These principles may seem aspirational but there are simple tools that could make them become reality:

- Foster human-to-human contact away from board-rooms and conference centers. If invited, NGO leaders should consider bringing their families to spend time with indigenous communities and establish personal relationships. This could go a much longer way in building trust than to send glossy annual reports with financial statements and a foreword from the Director stating his/her commitment to cooperation with indigenous
communities.

- Get donors on board. Deadlines are often donor-driven and the need for financial resources is very real both among indigenous communities and NGOs. That creates pressure to please the donors and meet the deadlines at all costs. But donors can be convinced to be flexible on their timeline. In 1996, several delegates attending a UN meeting on sustainable forest management in Leticia, Colombia, extended the duration of their stay, following advice from indigenous peoples’ groups.

- Read the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and hire staff who are committed to genuine relationship building with indigenous peoples.

Both indigenous movements and NGOs have much to gain in working more closely together. Indigenous peoples also have much to loose. The success of the relationships they establish with partners will greatly depend on the ability of these partners to truly listen, as I already wrote on this blog a couple of weeks ago.

Elisa Peter is a mid-career fellow at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University. She is currently pursuing a masters degree in public administration at Harvard Kennedy School.

Achieving development goals in conflict affected and fragile contexts remains one of the biggest challenges for development actors worldwide.  Consider this fact: not a single low income, fragile state will achieve any of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.  Weak governance and political instability continue to thwart meaningful progress and cause deeper divisions within society leading to violent conflict.  Many actors engaged in supporting development, statebuilding and peacebuilding in these societies find the lack of progress unsettling and recognize the need to elevate conflict and fragility issues in the ongoing development and aid effectiveness discussions. 

Earlier this year representatives from over 40 countries, international organizations and civil society groups called for a “New Deal for international development co-operation in conflict affected and fragile countries.”  The New Deal calls for progress in five key areas: fostering inclusive political settlements and conflict resolution; establishing and strengthening people’s security; addressing injustices and increase people’s access to justice; generating employment and improved livelihoods; and enhanced revenue management and capacity for accountable and fair service delivery. 

But aid effectiveness in these difficult contexts remains a moving target.  Assessments of past aid efforts have shown, however, that much more can be done to improve results when it comes to aid planning, programming, delivery and measurement toward urgent development, statebuilding and peacebuilding objectives. 

This week, the spotlight is on these challenges as government officials from donor and recipient countries, civil society organization (CSO) and private sector representatives are gathered at the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, South Korea.  Amidst the discouraging news about unattained objectives and the shifting goal posts for aid effectiveness overall, development actors in donor and recipient countries must not lose sight of what has already been learned and documented after years of experience providing aid in unstable environments.   Donor governments in particular can take immediate action to improve their aid efforts in contexts affected by conflict:

• ALL aid efforts have to be informed by an analysis of conflict factors in order to avoid doing harm.  International aid is still provided and utilized in ways that continue to reinforce divisions and which miss opportunities to help promote peace and sustainable development.   Conflict sensitive aid requires a thorough understanding of the key actors and factors driving conflicts in local contexts. 
• ALL aid efforts have to support both peace and development. A deliberate link between poverty reduction and conflict prevention goals is essential for aid to effectively contribute to lasting results.  Aid providers need to monitor and measure the impacts of aid on conflict and fragility not just on development outcomes. 
• Statebuilding and peacebuilding objectives are not always mutually reinforcing; they can and often do undermine each other.  Governments in conflict-affected states are often simultaneously development actors and parties to conflict.  Aid providers in these contexts should ensure that aid is not manipulated for political advantage, and that it is contributing towards a more peaceful society. 
• Long-term commitments are required to achieve peace and development.  Too often, rapidly shifting political agendas and funding priorities can result in fragmented and incomplete peacebuilding and development efforts or leave ‘aid orphans’, i.e. countries ignored by the international donor community.  Rapid swings in funding reveal a strategic failure as donor governments react to new fashions in aid or assume that changes in the phase of conflict represents progress on addressing fundamental conflict drivers and sources of violence.  As a staff member at a Lebanese NGO aptly put it, “We need strategic, long-term partnerships with donors. The impact doesn’t come overnight. We need to know that we can rely on their support not only tomorrow. If they want to make a change that lasts, they need to start taking longer breaths.” 

As many donor governments are re-examining their foreign aid investments, CDA Collaborative Learning Projects brings together nearly two decades of learning across its programs to offer some practical guidance to policy-makers and practitioners wrestling with these dilemmas in Busan.   To read more on aid effectiveness in conflict affected and fragile environments, please read our policy briefs linked below:

Making Aid More Effective for People Affected by Conflict and Fragility – November 2011

Local Perceptions of International Engagement in Fragile States and Situations - July 2011

Listening Project and Aid Effectiveness: Aid Recipient Perspectives on the Paris Declaration - June 2011

Isabella Jean is a Field Associate at CDA Collaborative Learning Projects.

In my new role as BSR’s Director of Stakeholder Collaboration, I am focused on building relationships with NGO colleagues globally to bring their insights to our member companies and develop next-generation stakeholder engagement approaches that are outcome based and take into account trends in the field. BSR created this position to deepen relationships with civil society and foster collaboration between stakeholders and business.

Over the past decade, NGO activity has been shaped by the spread of democracy and the rise of the internet opening up societies. This spurred a flowering of all types of NGOs that enjoyed support from northern governments and unfettered trust from the public. In particular, we saw the rise of western-based international NGOs (or “INGOs”) that now form a key bridge between business, government, and society.

To get a sense of what’s in store for the next 10 years, I spoke with 15 NGO leaders from around the world (with a particular focus on Brazil, India, and China) as well as BSR’s senior management team in the United States, Europe, and Asia. My aim was to get their candid perspectives on how business-NGO relations will evolve over the next decade.
Based on these conversations, what follows are five trends shaping the NGO sector, and an analysis of what these trends will mean for business and NGO engagement in the next 10 years:

1. Decline in northern government influence: The economic stagnation and relative loss of political influence among countries whose governments supported and helped build the INGO sector of today (the United States, United Kingdom, and other OECD countries) has these countries looking inward to address their own economic woes. As a result, they no longer have the same ability to support INGOs by providing core funding and influence to tackle global sustainability issues.

This loss of support will result in some INGOs becoming more open to collaborating with business on sustainability solutions. It’s also likely that more grassroots-funded advocacy groups fueled by social networks will bring issues to the table much more quickly with limited funds. INGOs also risk losing their legitimacy, as resource-rich emerging countries become obsessed with growth at all costs and curtail INGO activity on the ground. Finally, economic stagnation in the West may mean INGOs need to focus on economic justice issues at home.

2. Rise of the global South: Countries in the global South, particularly China, are gaining economic and political influence, which is changing the landscape of all NGO types in crucially important ways. The pessimists argue that this marks a black period for NGOs, with China in particular repressing NGO activity, especially on human rights, and the BRICS not making up for the funding deficit left by the OECD countries.

The optimists, however, say that the changing geopolitical stage will pave the way for more locally relevant southern NGOs to emerge and mobilize people using bottom-up approaches, just as we saw during the Arab Spring. It appears unlikely that these southern NGOs will mirror their northern counterparts when it comes to brand power, size, or operating structure. Instead, the South is starting to see the birth of social ventures and technology-enabled advocacy groups such as the Awaz Foundation in India and IBASE in Brazil.

3. The social network effect: Following the Arab Spring, there is growing interest in using social networks to generate funds and grassroots support for NGOs, particularly in the wake of institutional funding drying up. However, opinions are mixed about whether social networks will amplify or erode the power of NGOs.

One school of thought believes that loosely organized groups may compete with NGOs by using tools like Facebook and Twitter to organize people. Indeed, WikiLeaks today breaks stories in a way that was traditionally done by NGOs.
Others view social networks as effective tools for NGOs to deepen their connection with the public. This group believes social networks will play a greater role in the South, in particular, as a way for smaller, leaner campaigning groups to mobilize resources and people quickly and cheaply.

4. The era of hypertransparency: Over the next decade, universal data accessand the emergence of new reporting standards (such as the Global Reporting Initiative for NGOs) will force INGOs to achieve parity with business and the public sector on transparency standards.

The rise of companies embracing hypertransparency—with more businesses reporting publicly on ESG data and sustainability issues due to pressure from investors and others—also competes with NGOs’ traditional role as watchdogs reporting on company activities.

5. The convergence of wicked problems: In the next 10 years, the links between climate events, growing population, and unsustainable consumption patterns will be made clearer and give rise to food shortages, water wars, mounting land-use concerns, and growing inequality between the haves and have-nots. Given the magnitude of these problems, NGOs will be forced to work together on systemic solutions.
The Next Generation of NGO-Business Strategies

In the wake of these trends, NGO strategies with business will change in several important ways:

• A move from confrontation to collaboration: The most successful NGOs already recognize that real change requires campaigning against and collaborating with companies—and this hybrid approach is likely to intensify.
In terms of confrontation, companies can expect social networks to support more radical groups, bring more Southern voices into the mix, and foster greater collaboration among campaigning organizations. To remain credible, businesses and NGOs that are working together should be prepared to demonstrate measurable impact from their partnerships.

• More selectivity around partnerships: In general, both businesses and NGOs are expressing fatigue about gathering for the sake of a conversation, and many INGOs have been skeptical about the overall impact of NGO-company partnerships to date. Going forward, successful NGO-corporate engagements are likely to be time bound and focused on specific outcomes, and partnerships in general are likely to be scrutinized more.

• An increase in social ventures: In the South, particularly in India, China, and Brazil, the increasing number of social ventures funded by newly emerging, high net worth individuals and social entrepreneurs will spur innovative solutions (such as the ones we have already seen in clean tech) that also demonstrate a clear return on investment.

• More pressure on multistakeholder initiatives: The impasse on climate change and ongoing challenges with human and labor rights have created a sense that some multistakeholder initiatives need to sunset, while others need to develop a greater clarity of purpose and accountability, including a tie-in to regulation or other hard instruments.

• More collaboration between NGOs: Historically, NGOs have operated in silos based on their programmatic or priority issue areas. Given the complexity and interconnectedness of sustainability issues, however, savvy NGOs will increasingly collaborate with one another to, for instance, bring the human dimension and the cost of displacement into climate conversations.

• Rise in virtual campaigns: To date, most NGOs have used social networks as a communications tool. In the next decade, business should expect to see savvy NGOs moving from communication to mobilizing the public with viral and compelling campaigns that break human stories on the ground in a faster, more connected way.

Ayesha Barenblat is the Director of Stakeholder Collaboration at BSR. This post was originally posted on BSR’s blog. For more information about Ayesha Barenblat, click here.

The reason there are 9 “Major Groups” of stakeholders as part of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development is because these groups are the ones who are pushy and vocal.

Felix Dodds (Executive Director of Stakeholder Forum), shared his tips during a talk at the Harvard Kennedy School on November 10 2011: “By getting involved early, you can have a huge impact on influencing the policy agenda”.

Even when governments are not ready to engage and we want to keep up momentum, there are lots of ways conversations can be kept moving – from coffee chats in capital corridors to more formal discussion with officials on their priorities, constant engagement leads to a strong trust-based bond.

Naturally, the desire to get involved early must be complemented with enough substance in order to get the attention of international organizations. Some ways to do that include a) writing background papers – promoting ideas, workshops, information leading up to a major event b) providing policy recommendations for instance on how to reshape financial markets (indices, governance, incentives, state owned investment vehicles) c) building alliances with key players in industry, for instance on the issue of corporate accountability for sustainability.

While this makes sense as a broad strategy, an audience member raised a question that is likely to be an obstacle to actionable progress: How do we make sure governments collaborate, agree, and execute?

Dodds suggested that the main way had to be by instituting review mechanisms that reward delivery. “NGOs play a role in holding accountability: we have done that very badly over the years – one of the missing links is parliaments. Parliaments could be part of as an annual review mechanism. There is no reason why parliaments can’t hold the executive branch of the government accountable.”

Another useful question was understanding whether this process is replicable outside the sustainable development arena (e.g. health, human rights, etc). Dodds was unambiguous in his response – Yes. In the fields of HIV/Aids and human rights, NGOs had demonstrated that they could set the agenda.

One of the things that Dodds wants to see is more UN summits taking place away from New York. It would be particularly important to have the 2015 MDG Summit hosted by a developing country. “Once we have a pooled expertise, then we get to have a more coherent input to the process”. This winds back to his earlier point – the beginning is the most important bit – if you get things right in agenda setting, governments trust you since you’ve been working with them over a period of time, so they take your ideas.

In my own experience setting up the Office of Climate Change and Development for the Government of Papua New Guinea, I found a lot of these principles to be valid. We appreciated the expertise of NGOs understanding how to get things done on the ground, and by engaging them early, developed a comprehensive, prioritized set of stakeholder interactions in different formats for various provinces. Furthermore, the indigenous people we spoke to felt much more comfortable pursuing ambitious initiatives knowing that NGOs, international organizations and the government together agreed that it was the best course of action.

Rahul Daswani is a pursuing a Masters in Public Policy Degree at the Harvard Kennedy School.

The 17th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP17) is coming up, and no one harbors great hopes that the South African hosts will manage to cajole all major polluters into signing a legally-binding agreement to cut emissions. Civil society is rightly flummoxed at the glacial progress of negotiations, which never respected the pace set out by the Bali Action Plan of 2007. Failure to find common grounds on the future of the Kyoto Protocol killed off COP15, and the matter was essentially circumvented in Cancun.

In the meantime, 2012 is only a month away, and – doomsday previsions made by Hollywood blockbusters aside – calamity is about to strike. The Kyoto Protocol – flawed, limited, but also the only treaty to have ever committed countries to stabilize GHG emissions – is set to expire, and the political will among key players to sign an agreement at least as strong is nowhere to be seen.

Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) will struggle to decide which advocacy strategy to undertake. In Copenhagen, the massive effort of mobilization raised awareness (and expectations), yet by CSOs’ own reckoning, probably helped the talks collapse. In Cancun a year later, the quieter effort to help build consensus so as to sow the ground for a comprehensive agreement in Durban didn’t quite work out as expected – consensus was reached, but only because most sensitive topics were deferred to COP17.

CSOs did score some successes in Cancun. Most were on questions of principle (for example on youth and gender involvement) or on technical matters: the Climate Action Network (CAN – a coalition of like minded NGOs) worked hard to prevent the agreement on Land-use land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) from being worded so as to provide loopholes for polluting countries. Civil society also embarrassed Japan into not vetoing references to a second commitment period (albeit failed to make that a durable position). It is however evident that CSOs were most influential over matters where political controversy was low.

Unfortunately, Durban needs to resolve the most politically sensitive issues:
1- what enforceable mitigation efforts countries should take,
2- and how to include in such a process big developing countries (and the USA).

Civil society can influence the process through three different channels: by appealing directly to public opinion, by lobbying negotiators, and by setting the discourse on an issue.

In the short run, work must be done on the first two. Mobilizing public opinion will be difficult in rich economies, where economic instability has long displaced environmental sustainability in the minds of most. Nevertheless, environmental NGOs could very well link up with the ‘Indignant’ movements across the world, whose broad discontent with the excesses of finance-driven capitalism is not incompatible with the environmentalist message of combating unnecessary consumption.

Whilst lobbying negotiators is probably the most direct way to influence the final agreement, this isn’t usually the channel for fundamental change. Either CSOs also act on domestic policy-makers, or else influencing negotiators with strict marching orders from capital will not achieve anything politically radical. Lobbying must be innovative to be successful: witness WEDO (Women’s Environment and Development Organization)’s capacity to insert 8 references to gender issues in the Cancun Agreements thanks to its financing and training women negotiators from low-capacity delegations.

What these two channels may achieve in Durban is unclear. Yet beyond COP17, CSOs must keep working on discourse. CSOs are a source of new ideas, and ideas can bring about change in politics. The formal adoption of REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries) in Cancun is but one example of CSOs helping craft a concept that becomes the backdrop for a UN decision. We are in dire need to think our way out of the impasse on a post-Kyoto framework, and CSOs are best placed to do just that.

As Durban approaches, should CSOs be ‘making more noise’? And what are the possible alternative scenarios that do not entail a second commitment period for Kyoto?

Alexios Mantzarlis is a Junior Analyst at The European House-Ambrosetti. He obtained a Double Master’s from the universities of Bocconi (Milan) and SciencesPo (Paris) with a thesis entitled: “Civil Society and the UN: developing a framework to measure influence in the intergovernmental decision-making process”.

The women are sitting in a circle on the ground under a tree. They were brought together by an international development NGO. An NGO staffer is facilitating the discussion and drawing lines on a large sheet of paper.

This could be in Bangladesh, Mali or Peru. All of us working in international development have participated in or seen photos of such meetings. They are a key element of what is called “participatory programs” and have become a popular tool in development processes. Arguably, the knowledge shared through these bottom-up processes informs development policies and practices that are better adapted to the local context and targeted to the specific needs of local people.

Two weeks ago, David Bonbright and Nicholas van Praag wrote on this blog, “it is easier to listen than to act on what you hear”. The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) has come to the same conclusion.

In its latest issue of “Participatory Learning and Action” (How wide are the ripples? From local participation to international organizational learning), IIED looks at grassroots participatory learning programs led by international NGOs (INGOs). The report looks at the impact of such processes on INGOs’ decision-making and strategic planning. It asks the following questions:

1. How do INGOs use and manage local, traditional knowledge?
2. Is this knowledge translated into wider organizational learning, and if so how – or why not?
3. Does local knowledge inform INGOs priorities and policies?

IIED found that most, if not all, INGOs do want to hear and respond to the voices of the poorest and most marginalized. They strive to contextualise their priorities with strong local input. That is why they initiate and fund participatory learning programs.

Yet, it is difficult. There are practical knowledge management issues to systematic sharing of knowledge from local to national and international levels. It is challenging to move information across national and cultural borders, and to interpret and use that information outside of its original context. The report argues that this is not only a practical, technical issue: it is also one of culture, accountability and power. It is not just a question of whose voices can be heard, but of whose knowledge and opinion counts.

IIED identifies two clear trends in the development sector, which effectively create divided loyalties and accountability for INGOs:

1. The trend toward stronger, top-down management and greater professionalization of the development NGO sector, where staff are recruited and valued for their technical management abilities more than their personal commitment to social justice. Development is increasingly seen as a technical, rather than political, process. This culture avoids discussion of the politics of poverty or power and powerlessness and presents development as straightforward, linear and predictable.

2. For those organizations analyzing the distribution and impact of power structures on poverty through a rights-based approach, the difficulty lies in linking grassroots participation and policy advocacy. While participatory processes require slow and long-term relationships on the ground, policy advocacy tends to be carried out using complex, technical language, focusing on fast-moving and highly technical policy processes. Especially in large INGOs, where these two areas of work may be carried out by different teams in different countries, listening to the grassroots – from where INGOs derive their legitimacy as the ‘voice’ of civil society – and engaging in the global development dialogue can be difficult to balance.

I think that at the heart of the problem lies the tension some see between the relevance of traditional knowledge and the prerequisites of economic growth and poverty eradication. How much do policy makers truly trust the holders of traditional knowledge to provide solutions for the development of their communities?

The insight and analysis, evidence and stories generated during participatory processes are just the kind of information which good development policy and planning should be based on. International and local NGOs as well as international development agencies have a responsibility to bring grassroots knowledge and information to bear at the international level. The logistical and ethical issues in making such information available and letting people know that it is there are great. This is why tools are being developed to help INGOs in this endeavor.

Stay tuned for more on the issues of participation, listening and learning on this blog.

Elisa Peter is pursuing a Masters Degree in Public Administration at the Harvard Kennedy School. She is a mid-career
fellow at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations.

In April 2011, the Indian middle class started to wake up. Development activist Dr. R. Balasubramaniam (Balu) (HKS Mason Fellow, 2009-10) shared the story in a talk at the Hauser Center on October 31, 2011. India’s “dying democracy,” he explained, was revived by a convergence of factors – the Arab Spring uprisings “suddenly made change possible,” patriotism surged after India won the World Cup in cricket, and growth in the young middle class created a demographic with energy and money, restless for a noble cause.

That cause came in April when Dr. Balu and others, including their symbolic leader Anna Hazare, embarked on hunger strikes in opposition to corruption. Their immediate raison d’être was the superficiality of the feeble anti-corruption bill proposed by the ruling party, but the fight was one that Dr. Balu had pursued devotedly for decades. Since then, the movement has taken on a life of its own, with hundreds of thousands participating in anti-corruption protests across the country.

While the movement’s key demands are still pending in Parliament, the movement has faced two main critiques, addressed insightfully by Dr. Balu during his talk.

First, Indian activists and outside observers have raised concerns about the use of hunger striking as a tactic. Is it a form of moral blackmail? An attempt to bypass the process of parliamentary deliberation?

Dr. Balu, who fasted along with hundreds of others, responded by acknowledging that he is not a Gandhian, fasting for spiritual purification. Instead, he and the other leaders saw fasting as a tool to pressure the government to take urgent action on corruption. “We have been fighting corruption for 25 years,” Dr. Balu explained. “When I get beaten up, nobody writes about it. So I did not have ethical dilemmas about fasting. It’s now or never.”

Still, Dr. Balu expressed concern about the “serious danger” of the hunger strike tool being misused or over applied in the future. What if Hindus hunger strike until a mosque is torn down, or Muslims threaten death until a temple is destroyed?

Furthermore, Dr. Balu admits that “fasting has lost its magic” now that dubious political figures are hunger striking against corruption. For instance, the former Chief Minister of the state of Karnataka expressed interest in fasting against corruption, but he is in jail right now along with many of his cabinet colleagues — on charges of corruption.
Thus Dr. Balu leaves us with valuable criteria for the appropriate use of hunger strikes: when other tactics have been exhausted, when the cause is grave, and when the strikers are acting with integrity. Perhaps most importantly, the intent of the hunger strike should not be to circumvent the legislative process but to spur it to action. On this front, Dr. Balu reports that “Democracy won,” illustrated by the surge in public engagement and the thoughtful parliamentary debate inspired by anti-corruption protests.

A second common critique is that the organizing committee has become corroded by its own corruption scandals and competing agendas among the leadership, episodes detailed on Dr. Balu’s blog. He expresses no sympathy for hypocritical or media-hungry leaders within the movement. “All social movements are burdened with human egos,” he reflected during his talk. When the goal transitions from fighting corruption to being seen fighting corruption, the movement has lost its moral center.

And if Team Anna strays too far? In that case, Dr. Balu says he will continue fighting corruption at the local level. Meanwhile, he is hoping the national movement can produce an effective anti-corruption bill in partnership with the government. India needs it. And the world could learn from it.

Abby Bellows is a Masters in Public Policy candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University.