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.

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.

It is easier to listen than to act on what you hear. That is one of the lessons drawn by many of the groups pushing to give beneficiaries a greater say in the design of humanitarian programs.

Why then is progress so limited and what can be done to bridge the gap between listening to beneficiaries and acting on what they say?

There is a tremendous amount of work already under way—by the agencies themselves and the humanitarian standard setters like HAP and SPHERE, through ALNAP’s work in coalition building and knowledge-sharing, and thanks to an increasingly robust quality and accountability community. 

There has also been a lot of excellent thinking and writing on how to do better, notably the work of CDA’s Listening Project and the 2011 Humanitarian Emergency Response Review chaired by Paddy Ashdown.

So what more could be done to get traction?

We believe there are a couple of innovations that would make a big difference.

First, we need to ask beneficiaries the right questions—or rather ask them in ways that work in the fog of humanitarian programs, and formulate them so that they give aid agencies answers they can act upon.

This methodology must meet the litmus test of speed and simplicity while eliciting accurate data on beneficiaries’ needs, the relevance of the assistance they are getting, its effectiveness, and their trust in those providing aid.

Such a data stream would provide the basis for aid organizations to plan their operations and manage their performance in a way that includes the views of those they want to help. That is an important step forward.  But it is not enough.

Behavioral economics and the customer satisfaction industry have taught us that the power of comparing the performance of different actors is key in getting them to improve their game.

In other words, without the right structural incentives, aid providers are unlikely to heed beneficiary feedback. Thus, in addition to a new methodology for asking questions—and getting more useful answers—we need to make the data publicly available, tracking and ranking the relative performance of different humanitarian organizations across programs and over time. 

Such an index would act as a guide to donor support and an encouragement to aid agencies to take-up beneficiary feedback, so they score better in future.

This week the British government released its new humanitarian policy.  It talks about the importance of raising the quality of humanitarian support and ensuring better accountability, both to those served by humanitarian programs and to donors.

These goals are the right ones but they can only be achieved if we complete the cycle of accountability by making sure that the perceptions and insights of people in need figure prominently in the design and management of humanitarian programs. For this to happen, we need to give their views greater weight by collecting them systematically and publishing them in a form that allows ranking and comparison.

David Bonbright is the founder and director of Keystone Accountability. Nicholas van Praag is the director of Ground Truth, a Keystone project focused on accountability in humanitarian operations.

Rahim Kanani recently sat down with Sophie Delaunay, Executive Director of the U.S. section of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), to discuss the intersection of innovative mechanisms in global health financing, advocacy, accountability, and civil society.

Rahim Kanani: Explain a little bit about the intersection of global health financing and health priorities, and from there we can move into new ways or new mechanisms that are being explored to address this enormous gap.

Sophie Delaunay: Let’s start with malnutrition, for example.  Malnutrition is affecting millions of children worldwide.  A study conducted by the World Bank last year estimates that $12 billion a year is necessary to address childhood malnutrition. At the moment, the overall spending on malnutrition is 350 million dollars a year. MSF is actually one of the five largest contributors. We alone cannot respond to all the needs.

In terms of HIV/AIDS, the gap is so abysmal that it’s hard to provide detailed data, but the fact is that there are only 5 million people on treatment today when 15 million need to be on treatment. Among those who are on treatment today, the vast majority resides in sub-Saharan Africa, and they can only access a less expensive stavudine based first line regimen that we now know has numerous side effects and is no longer recommended by the World Health Organization for this reason. So the gap is not just about the amount of additional treatments needed, but also about reducing the double standard and making new, more effective treatments accessible to these countries.  The Global Fund estimated that they needed 20 billion dollars in order to be able to scale up their commitments to the countries for the next 3 years and move forward with an aggressive response; they needed $13 billion just to keep their doors open with their existing commitments. However, the recent Global Fund Replenishment Conference ended up with less than 12 billion of pledges from the countries, so this is very disappointing to see that these needs won’t be covered.

And here we have just described the needs for malnutrition and HIV/AIDS, but there are many other global health issues like neglected tropical diseases, mother and child healthcare, etc that receive insufficient resources.  It’s quite ironic that on one hand there has never been such strong mobilization and acknowledgement of global health needs, and still, the funding and policies do not proportionately match the momentum or awareness.

RK: The trend line for global health funding has drastically increased over the last decade, so is the issue one of awareness or budgetary constraints of foreign aid?

SD: It used to be a problem of awareness and now it’s less a problem of awareness and more a problem of concrete mobilization, and it’s also closely related to political agendas.  Most of the funding mechanisms that we’ve put in place over the past few decades are in fact dependent on other agendas, making the recipient vulnerable and at the mercy of political climates. For example, the economic crisis has definitely been used as a reason to retract from previous commitments. For many years, this kind of volatility has actually been dominant in the area of global health financing.

RK: And, as you very well know, a very, very small percentage of a country’s GDP is spent on foreign aid, let alone global health in specific.

SD: Right, so what we are trying to look at is if, in addition to government’s ODA (that should be maintained), we could support some innovative ways to develop more sustained funding, a mechanism that makes the funding stream and the resources more predictable. This type of mechanism would be welcome in the field of global health if we could rely for the next 10 years on a steady influx of resources to support these needs that we know, will not eradicated over night.

RK: And how did MSF get in the business of looking for and evaluating new mechanisms for global health financing, given the core expertise of the organization falls in the realm of emergency medical assistance?

SD: You are right that we are not experts in health financing, and our core activities will always remain the provision of medical care. So we have to rely on others’ expertise for the choice of the best possible instrument. However, we can definitely support this effort by documenting the needs and advocating for more appropriate resources. 10 years ago, when we created the Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines, we did not have much knowledge about the whole system of intellectual property and licencing rights but we could see the practical consequences that this system had on access to much needed drugs in the field. Again, we feel that we need to challenge the current paradigm and push for innovative solutions.

RK: And what are some examples of new and innovative ways to finance global health priorities, which have been proven to be effective or are the most promising moving forward?

SD: Some innovative funding mechanisms already exist in the form of UNITAID, which takes its resources from a tax on airfares. This is a facility that has been totally devoted to health, and the added value of these kinds of mechanisms is that you take a very, very tiny percentage of a large volume of transactions, so it has a very minimal impact for those who pay, but maximum impact for those who receive. For us, a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT), if properly constructed and directing significant resources towards health needs, would meet these goals. With a minuscule levy on financial transactions, and given the volume of financial transactions worldwide, it would provide a substantial revenue stream for global health needs, among other priorities.

RK: And how would the funding be dispersed through these new mechanisms?

SD: This has to be decided upon.  In the case of UNITAID, they first created a secretariat to manage the fund and the secretariat initially was even hosted by the World Health Organization. They now have a very structured governance and management body supervising their activity. UNITAID has also recently created the Patent Pool Foundation that is in charge of developing and administering the medicine patent pool initiative. So, just to say that you can either decide to form a new entity that is in-charge of collecting this funding or you can also give the mandate to one existing agency to administer it.

RK: It seems as though there are two issues here: one is how much money is raised, and the other is through what channels it is being spent. I can imagine a lot of the criticism of a new system would be the potential waste in administrative costs before the funds reach the field.
 
SD: There is always a need for accountability and making sure that this money is spent in the most cost effective way.

RK: What are some of the barriers to adopting these new mechanisms within the international system?

SD: The first barrier is the political willingness of countries to adopt it. And the second is a necessary “critical mass” of participants. For example, given the significant role of the US in the global financial system, the US engagement in the financial transaction tax would help to make it a more useful and substantial mechanism.

RK: So before any others get involved, you would definitely need the support of the U.S.?

SD: The U.S. is not critical, but it would be beneficial for the U.S. to be onboard.  More importantly, the U.S. should share in the global responsibility to respond to the health needs of poor populations with a sustainable and sufficient mechanism.  You need to use platforms like G20 and the G8 to push for it, and at least make sure countries take a position on the issue.
 
RK: Do you sense a willingness to move forward in this direction?

SD: We have felt a sense of willingness in Europe in recent months.  There was a move from France and Germany, along with public support for this kind of mechanism.  We hope that this will be followed by the U.S., but I haven’t heard too much support as of yet.

RK: How long, for example, has UNITAID been operating, and has the model proved effective?

SD: UNITAID was created in 2004, so it’s been six years already.  I think that is a very, very promising kind of mechanism, even though you will face other challenges like fund allocations, and which areas to support in priority. The management of these kinds of funds are certainly complex but we are in a context where the needs are huge, there is a strong sense of solidarity around the world, but at the time resources are limited. It’s a very promising way to fill some gaps.

RK: And are you aligning with more partners in the same sector to have a collective voice about this issue?

SD: There are lots of civil society members who are advocating for this, with a hope that such mechanism could be allocated to their area of interest.  I think that we need to act responsibly and acknowledge that a wide range of concerns are equally important for the public good. Imagine that there is a strong divide between environmental advocates, health, education and development organizations, this would be extremely counterproductive if the civil society was divided on this issue. That’s why our message in MSF is more to say that we welcome such a mechanism and we would hope that one portion would be devoted to health.

RK: How do you align civil society before speaking collectively?

SD: This is not simple at all. I think you have to take a responsible stance on this and acknowledge that there are health needs, but there aren’t just health needs. And this one first step is really to push for the recognition and the acknowledgement of this kind of mechanism and then a second step is to gauge the feasibility. But the first step is acknowledgement and making sure that the needs we are talking about will benefit from the initiative.

RK: So the first step would be to acknowledge the issue and the need to fill the gap in global health financing, and then the second step would be to align the civil society sector, and then the third step would be to engage the U.S.?

SD: I think that there are a lot of international organizations today that can play a role of looking at how to gather forces and coordinate all this.  It’s definitely not MSF who can do that, and we are not taking a lead on that, but what we are doing is using our voice to raise the issue, and highlighting the health needs – and we know from our  work on the ground what the needs consist of, then describe those needs to substantiate the call for more funding. We’re not talking about conceptual things here; we’re talking about patients who don’t have access to drugs, so this is how we see our role.

But it doesn’t mean that it is the only solution.  For example, on one hand, we are looking for more funding, but we also are looking for more accessible and more effective medical approaches because we think that a way to be cost effective is to promote access to generics and to foster competition in the pharmaceutical market. Rights on patents are a great barrier to access and a permanent concern to us. So it’s not just about generating more resources for health, but it’s also about using the money in a wiser way.

RK: And where does MSF see itself moving forward with regard to raising awareness and the Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines?

SD: Well we’re not going to expand the campaign for this specific purpose.  We have a limited capacity, but access to innovative funding for health will be among our priorities for the coming months because we think that there is momentum and that maybe we can play a role in supporting this effort.

SD: What are your thoughts on global health financing today?

RK: As I briefly mentioned earlier the trend of funding towards global health priorities has increased dramatically over the last decade, and I too believe that this is because of the growing awareness of health needs around the world. At the same time, I think this is a critical moment in global health, where as you said, there is such momentum to address the needs, but to address them by looking at deeper issues, such as the cost of drugs. And this is where I think the work of former President Clinton through his foundation on lowering the costs of drugs aligns with this movement for advancing global health priorities.

SD: This broader and deeper perspective is absolutely necessary. Actually, I remember that a few years ago, the Clinton Foundation contributed, through its negotiation skills, to lower the costs for the pediatric drugs that UNITAID provided to the Global Fund. This was an important way forward.  You need to bring the cost down and this is also true for malnutrition.  At the moment, the U.S. provides half of the world’s food aid, but the quality of this food aid doesn’t meet the nutritional requirements of children under 2 years of age. So aid is wasted as it doesn’t prevent nor treat malnutrition.  In the 1980s, food aid was more appropriate due to milk surpluses in the U.S.. When these surpluses dried up, food aid was reformulated and perpetuated throughout the past decade in a form that does not allow a proper growth development of children under 2.  The U.S. wouldn’t give this food to their own children, so we face a qualitative issue here with inappropriate food, but we are also confronted with an ethical issue, given the double standard that is applied between food aid abroad and domestic food programs in the country. Another ethical concern is the money spent in shipping food aid in kind, when aid in cash could contribute to building the capacity of countries to develop their own production of food complements. The U.S. Government Accountability Office estimates, for example, that 700 million U.S. dollars could be saved every year in transportation money.  The point is not only to generate more resources, but to limit waste through more coherent policies on trade and aid.

RK: So what you’re describing here are the roots of the issue, and the larger picture of foreign aid.

SD: Yes, we are facing a wide range of conflicting trends and policies. As another example, The U.S has put India, Thailand and Brazil on the Special 301 Report “Watch Lists” for inadequately protecting intellectual property, even though they have complied with international agreements. These countries are the champions within the global health arena because of their significance in allowing access to generic drugs. A blacklisting threat from the United States will not only limit access to less expensive formulations, but it will also mean that aid money will be wasted on more expensive ones.

RK: It seems as if the U.S. would have to reform some of its own practices before taking on an issue like the Financial Transaction Tax, or is it possible to address both areas at once?

SD: Well, I’m giving the example of the U.S., but other countries or institutions like the European Union are not any more consistent. There is a permanent tension between economic interests, political interests, and also social interests, social aspirations and so on, and so forth. The necessary tension between civil society groups and policy makers helps us challenge the inconsistency of policies and systems.

RK: With the recent and measurable success, for example, of UNITAID’s work and effectiveness, one would think this is enough proof that there are new and innovative ways of solving this problem.

SD: That’s necessary.  It is true for innovative financing, and also for other areas of our work.  We bring the evidence and experience forward, and hope that it can better inform policy change where necessary.  In the case of food aid, we’ve provided evidence that the food that was sent was not adequate and we’ve suggested some alternative approaches that had been tested and proved valid in our medical programs.  We’re applying different protocols and food products, showing how recovery is dramatically different. Major organizations like the World Food Program and UNICEF are now convinced and involved.  It took us 6 years to challenge this system.

RK: So you have certainly seen a level of progress in terms of acknowledgement, but is it translating to practice?

SD: More and more stakeholders in U.S. institutions – including some within USAID, are also supportive of introducing better quality food aid. Good intentions still need to be translated into action though.

RK: How would reforming internal U.S. policies affect the NGOs who are benefiting?

SD: Some U.S. NGOs are also operators for the U.S. government in the food aid business, so it means that if you reformulate food aid and move from food in-kind to food in-cash, the role of the operator is also revisited. It’s a very tough challenge, but there is also good will now.

RK: But when you hear allegations such as earlier this year regarding the World Food Program and Somalia, in which up to half of the food aid was purported to be diverted to Islamist militants and corrupt contractors, one situation of this sort can be used to blanket the entire discussion of administering aid.

SD: You need some accountability everywhere. Even though we are advocates of food in cash because it would prevent wasteful programs directed towards U.S. interests and not driven by the needs of the beneficiary populations, we are also very much aware that all countries don’t necessarily have the capacity to develop it and that there are needs for very strong accountability mechanisms to ensure that aid reaches the intended beneficiaries.

Rahim Kanani is a Research Associate for the Justice and Human Rights domain of practice at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University. He is pursuing his second master’s degree in religion, ethics and politics at Harvard Divinity School, and is a frequent contributor to the Huffington Post.

The lively exchange on NGO collaboration on this blog has me thinking about the variety of ways in which NGOs collaborate and coordinate, what drives them to do so, and what keeps them from collaborating more systematically.

NGOs (especially large humanitarian NGOs) and other actors in the international humanitarian system took a lot of flak in the 1990s for failures to coordinate. The past 10-15 years have seen an upsurge in collective efforts (from setting shared standards to developing advocacy coalitions and from establishing issue-based programmatic partnerships to engaging in joint fundraising).  I’m thinking of the following examples.

The Sphere Project was established in 1997 by a group of humanitarian NGOs and the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement to define and then uphold standards to guide emergency response. The articulation of shared principles and standards was a complex, collaborative process.  The process of putting these standards into action and continuously updating the Sphere Handbook has shown real commitment to collective accountability. Other NGO initiatives like the Humanitarian Accountability Parnership (HAP International) and ALNAP have complemented Sphere by building mechanisms for increasing learning, accountability and self-regulation.

NGOs also collaborate to advocate for policy change and to build public support for global causes. The Global Campaign for Climate Action brings together environmental and development NGOs to campaign for actions to prevent catastrophic climate change. The ONE Campaign, which has mobilized broad public support, was preceded by the Better, Safer World Campaign which was founded by a handful of relief and development NGOs.  The Global Campaign for Education raises awareness and influences policy to increase access to education.  The Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network advocates for more effective U.S. foreign assistance.

In the United Kingdom and some other countries (but not in the United States), NGOs have come together to consistently engage in joint fundraising through the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC).

Donors like the Bill & Melinda Foundation have encouraged collaboration by investing in collaborative NGO efforts like the Hope for African Children Initiative and the Emergency Capacity Building project – and many institutional donors fund NGO consortia.

ANSO (the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office) was established by NGOs who combined their efforts to confront a complex and unstable security environment. This has served as a model in other insecure contexts.

That sounds like a lot of collaboration (and it is just the handful of examples that comes to mind) in a sector that is perceived to be uncoordinated and filled with organizations whose independent missions and governance structures allow them to march to their own tunes. What drives them to come together in so many different configurations?  I believe it is a combination of reasons, including:

• (in the advocacy arena) the recognition that unifying around specific issues and messages can draw more visibility, attention, access and influence
• (in standard setting) the understanding that NGOs are often painted with a broad brush and that a shared system of self-regulation and accountability benefits all concerned
• (in programs) the knowledge that organizations with complementary capacities, specializations and geographic reach working together can have deeper impact – and is an appealing proposition to donors

Broadly, collaboration stems from the recognition of shared mission and goals among various NGOs (as well as shared vulnerabilities) and the desire to find efficient ways to exploit these opportunities and mitigate these vulnerabilities.

I don’t mean the above examples of NGO collaboration to paint too rosy a picture, however. The reality of the “business models” of most NGOs is that they compete with each other for funding, and this competitive environment leads them to focus a lot of energy on work for which they can claim credit and brand as their own. 

The reality of short-term, project-based funding is that it puts the focus on “just getting things done” rather than on working collaboratively in each given context.  Add to that the reality of organizational culture in many NGOs, where staff are already over-stretched by their organization’s needs and priorities, and scarcely have time to think about collaborating and coordinating within a broader landscape.

Most NGOs have an explicit commitment to work in partnership, but how to do this genuinely, systematically and effectively (especially at the field level) remains a challenge for many NGOs.  Despite all the collaboration that does take place, I would argue that true advancement of the missions of these organizations requires much greater coordination and collaboration.

What more should be done to maximize collaboration? Are there realistic limits of collaboration? I would love to hear your perspectives. Guest posts are welcome! 

Sherine Jayawickrama manages the Humanitarian & Development NGOs domain of practice at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University and manages this blog. Contact her at sherine_jayawickrama@harvard.edu.

A newly-published essay by Andrew Natsios – who served as USAID Administrator from 2001 to 2006 – lays bare the tension between the compliance side of aid bureaucracies and the programmatic side of those same agencies.  He argues that the balance has now tipped so strongly toward compliance that the integrity of programs is under threat.  He also asserts that the compliance side of aid has taken over management and decision-making at USAID.

It is interesting to see Natsios, who presided over this “counter-bureaucracy” for five years, rip into the compliance culture that he oversaw. He does so with a clarity and insight that should not be ignored as development and foreign assistance policies are being redefined by the Obama Administration and on Capitol Hill.  Ironically, Natsios’ account of these tensions and imbalances may also reveal why these policy processes seem to be so bogged down and delayed.

Natsios provides a historical perspective of how the compliance culture came to be dominant within the U.S. foreign assistance bureaucracy – he calls it “a painful story of good intentions gone bad.”  He is unsparing in his critique of what this has resulted in, and declares that it is well past the point where compliance has become counter-productive. 

Natsios argues that the demands of this compliance culture “are now so intrusive that they have distorted, misdirected and disfigured USAID’s development practice to such a degree that it is compromising U.S. national security objectives and challenging established principles of good development practice.”

The argument that Natsios makes – that increasing pressure to measure outcomes or impacts can lead to a tendency to invest in interventions that can be easily measured – is not a new one, but his “view from the inside” gives even more credence to this perspective. 

Natsios starts from the principle that development programs that are most precisely and easily measured are often the least transformational, and those programs that are most transformational are often the least measurable.  He posits that health programs have become the most favored sector in U.S. foreign assistance because health outcomes are more easily measured, and that democracy and governance programs have been underfunded because their results are hard to measure (especially within short timeframes).

I suspect that Natsios paints this picture so starkly in order to get his central arguments across: that measurability does not equal development significance, that good development must be the unequivocal goal of U.S. foreign assistance and that foreign aid systems and processes must not unintentionally undermine that goal.

Does Natsios go too far?  Although you might conclude that Natsios is targeting measurement as the villain here, I think the point is more nuanced. It is not whether measurement is good or bad.  It matters what measurement is for (e.g. is it for learning and continuously improving development practice, or is it for satisfying compliance requirements?) and how it is conducted (e.g. is it engaging community perspectives and creating spaces for reflection on what’s working and what’s not, or is it focused on the kind of bean-counting and report writing that takes staff time away from good implementation?).

Furthermore, how has the dominance of the compliance culture at USAID and other U.S. agencies affected NGOs that receive significant funding from these agencies?  To what extent has the compliance culture also become dominant within NGOs? 

Sherine Jayawickrama manages the Humanitarian & Development NGOs domain of practice – and the Humanitarian & Development NGOs blog – at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University.

Several months ago, a provocatively titled academic paper caught my eye.  The Ethics of INGO Advocacy or Why It’s Okay that No One Elected Oxfam was authored by Jennifer Rubenstein, Assistant Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia.   Her presentation and the discussion that followed were interesting and lively. 

Chatting with Professor Rubenstein afterward, I learned that she was keen to have her arguments considered by practitioners, scholars and activists.  She liked the idea of a candid discussion of her ideas on this blog.  I hope this post can be the beginning of interesting exchange.

Professor Rubenstein’s full paper can be found here – and a brief summary of her paper can be found here.  Her main purpose is to conceptualize (drawing from democratic theory) the role of INGOs in relation to advocacy in a way that their donors, intended beneficiaries and the public can better evaluate INGO advocacy and hold INGOs accountable. 

As a political theorist, Professor Rubenstein is drawn to this subject matter because INGO advocacy campaigns are an increasingly prominent feature of global politics. She lays out the following three ways of conceptualizing INGO advocates:

• INGOs as representatives of poor and marginalized people
• INGOs as partners of poor and marginalized people
• INGOs as agents of justice for poor and marginalized people

Professor Rubenstein seeks to assess which of these conceptions is most democratic: “which conception, if adopted, would best promote and embody democratic norms?”

She recognizes that, on face value, the concepts of representation and partnership appear more democratic than the justice-based conception. If INGOs are faithful representatives, they can help poor and marginalized groups make their voices heard in important policy venues; and, if INGOs are good partners, they can work to gain respect for the rights of these groups.  She argues, however, that the reality of what INGOs are (and how they work) creates two problems – the “allocation problem” and the “displacement problem” – that make construing INGOs as representatives or partners less democratic than conceptualizing INGOs as agents of justice.

First, she argues that construing INGOs as representatives obscures that fact that INGOs make deliberate decisions about whom to advocate for and do not equitably distribute their advocacy efforts among all poor and marginalized groups (or, for that matter, among groups who need their advocacy support the most). Since there isn’t a fair mechanism to guide the allocation of INGO advocacy efforts, the democratic norm of inclusion is undermined. Professor Rubenstein calls this the “allocation problem”.

Second, she argues that INGOs are “second-best” representatives compared to democratically-elected governments or local NGOs. Thus, when INGOs occupy the role of representative, they displace better representatives.  Professor Rubenstein calls this the “displacement problem.”

Finally, she argues that, because conceptualizing INGOs as agents of justice avoids the “allocation problem” and the “displacement problem”, it is a more democratic way of construing INGOs and their advocacy efforts.  Because the justice-based conception encourages INGOs to take a broad and impartial view when developing and selecting possible advocacy campaigns, she argues that it “makes present” those whom INGOs may otherwise overlook.

I find Professor Rubenstein’s arguments interesting and hope the concepts she sets out will promote reflection on some features of INGO advocacy.  Here are some of my reactions to her paper.

• Even though many INGOs will themselves argue that they do not seek to represent poor people, INGOs’ actions often indicate the contrary. Their advocacy messaging gives the impression that INGOs are “acting on behalf of” groups impacted by certain policies; the human interest stories INGOs invoke in the policy arena seem to “speak for” a broader group of beneficiaries.  Do INGOs need to be more deliberate about avoiding the appearance that they represent certain groups of poor people?  Or, if INGOs leverage the idea of representation to enhance their credibility in the policy arena, should they then be held up to standards of democratic representation (or at least be transparent about how they make decisions about how to allocate their advocacy efforts – for example, how do they identify advocacy issues)?

• The language of partnership is evocative of equitable relationships among INGOs, local NGOs and community groups – and when genuine partnership is achieved, democratic norms are affirmed – but reality is often more complex.  If INGOs hold the power to choose the issues on which they advocate – and these issues are often tied, to some extent, to strengthening the INGO’s brand identity, raising its public profile and bolstering its fundraising and mobilizing capacity – then is this a mere illusion of partnership rather than the real thing?  Does the language of solidarity and partnership paper over (possibly) divergent interests that INGOs avoid confronting?

• In the long version of her paper, Professor Rubenstein states that “the normative implication of construing INGOs as agents of justice is that INGOs should try to act consistently with what justice really requires.” I agree. As she argues, the concept of justice provides analytical resources for principled decision making re how to allocate INGO advocacy (introducing ideas of impartiality, fairness and equal consideration) and what outcomes to advocate for. However, does this conceptualization, at the end of the day, leave it up to each INGO to decide what justice really requires and how best to advance justice?  If so, how should INGOs be held accountable?  Is there something inherently easier about holding INGOs accountable as representatives or partners than as agents of justice?  Or is this irrelevant because there are no ways to formally hold INGOs accountable as representatives or partners in any case?

• Overall, I found illuminating (as someone who worked for several years in INGO advocacy) Professor Rubenstein’s description of the circumstances in which INGO advocacy takes place as involving “second-best actors in highly non-ideal contexts.”  The best INGO advocacy work must carefully balance ambitious goals about affecting positive change at scale with the humility and consciousness of the “second-best actor in a non-ideal context.”  How can this balance be struck with the reality of the aid-driven, project-based, brand-conscious business model that many INGOs have?

I welcome Professor Rubenstein and others to respond candidly – both comments to this post and separate guest posts are most welcome!

Sherine Jayawickrama manages the Humanitarian & Development NGOs domain of practice at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University.

In response to this blog’s March 7 invitation of a variety of views on Charity Navigator’s decision to change its rating system (to reflect accountability and outcomes measures in addition to financial metrics like overhead), Steve Lawry shared his perspective, and George E. Mitchell and Hans Peter Schmitz contributed their opinion. In this post, Ken Berger and Robert M. Penna respond with Charity Navigator’s view.

Ken Berger and Robert M. Penna, Ph.D.

On March 7, 2010, Sherine Jayawickrama began on these pages a discussion of Charity Navigator’s proposed new rating system.  As many readers know, Charity Navigator (CN) is the largest US agency rating nonprofit organizations.  Since its launch in 2002, CN has relied and reported upon financial information contained in the federal 990.

It is no secret that over the years this rating system came under considerable censure.  Critics charged that solely fiscal measures were flawed for a variety of reasons, and that CN’s ratings could be having the perverse impact of steering investment away from organizations that were actually effective, but which, because their particular circumstances – considerations not readily apparent in the 990 data - had overhead or fundraising costs higher than CN thought prudent.

We have listened to these criticisms.  That is why we have announced that Charity Navigator is moving to a triad rating system, one that will retain fiscal measures (which may well be revised), but will also account for an organization’s transparency and accountability and, most importantly, its effectiveness.

Commentator Steve Lawry has countered that he does not believe that a “simple system for rating outcomes” is achievable.  Here he joins the numerous naysayers who have, since the inception of the outcomes movement over a decade ago, argued that the work of specific charities, whole classes of charities, or the entire charitable sector itself, is too complex to be held to any standard of accountability as regards results and effectiveness.  Mr. Lawry also states that “many good charities strive mightily to measure outcomes for their own management purposes.”  We believe that he is wrong on both counts.

While no one will argue that charities often work in complex situations, circumstances resulting from and vulnerable to any number of variables, the essential question “have you made any discernable, meaningful, and positive difference?” should not be beyond the capabilities of a charity to answer.  Unfortunately, however, this is precisely the claim of far too many nonprofits.  In fact, instead of the “many good charities” Mr. Lawry cites as striving “mightily” to measures outcomes for their own management purposes, our own investigation led to the inescapable conclusion that fewer than 10% of nonprofits are using outcomes at all, either as a standard by which to measure their effectiveness or as any sort of management tool.  Moreover, rather than the evidence which would be available were Mr. Lawry’s assertion accurate, we instead find an overwhelming collection of excuses why nonprofits are, in fact, not applying outcomes to either their work or themselves. “It is too hard,” “It is too costly,” and “We don’t know how” are among the most often cited.

In the end, Mr. Lawry criticizes the effectiveness component of CN’s new initiative as being an impossible task in a multivariate world.  We reject that position entirely.  No one is asking for a scientifically provable claim of proportionate credit for an incrementally improved situation.  What the sector needs, and what donors are increasingly demanding, is some sort of reasonable evidence that an organization succeeded in what it claims to have done.  There is a distinct difference between the two, and to hide behind the enormity of measuring the big picture as an excuse for neglecting to measure the small picture is, in our opinion, an abdication of the responsibility the sector has for granting donors – governmental, institutional or individual – more than some small satisfaction in the bromide of “We tried and our intentions were honorable.”  Ours is not a “pretense,” as Mr. Lawry put it, that we can credibly score outcomes, but rather a faith that we can report on those outcomes that charities are establishing and achieving themselves.

Moving on, we find Dan Pallotta claiming in his entry to the conversation that “No rating system can possibly capture the underlying complexity [of nonprofits’ activities and operating environments], and worse, a rating system enables the public addiction to simplicity.”  “Simplicity” is not the goal.  Trust is - specifically the trust of donors that the information they are given is accurate and verifiable as regards their social investment. 

There are two points to be made here.  The first is that, while everyone recognizes that donors give for a variety of (often emotional) reasons, they nonetheless very often seek and appreciate some guidance.  Within virtually any field of nonprofit endeavor, there are usually a number of organizations at work.  Which among them, donors often seek to learn, is the preferable investment? The second question is “how can I trust what I am being told?”

Responding to these questions is the underlying goal of not only CN’s new initiative, but its entire history.  This is why CN has remained so fiercely independent, even when an easier fiscal path might have been found in a different arrangement between ourselves and those charities we rate.  In a universe of self-serving information, we are trying to be a truly objective source that can answer at least some of the questions thinking donors have.  We view neither the questions at hand nor our audience as “simple.”

Finally, Messrs. Mitchell and Schmitz weighed in to the conversation with a balanced assessment of both the inherent flaws in a rating system based solely upon fiscal measures and the complexities of measuring outcome accountability.  They wrote “Nonprofit organizations need to take more responsibility for demonstrating results to stakeholders. If a nonprofit is really accomplishing something, it should be able to show it – and to the extent that it can show it, the nonprofit can be understood to be effective.”

This is precisely the position that CN is taking as it crafts the tools it will use to report on charities’ effectiveness.  While there are several measures that might be considered, there are a few basic questions that a charity ought to be able to answer:

1. Is it using outcomes in the design, management, and measurement of its efforts?
2. Are those targets that it sets “reasonable” outcomes?  In other words, are they, at minimum, meaningful, sustainable and verifiable?
3. Is the organization achieving those outcomes?

If an organization cannot or will not answer these questions, what does that say to its donors, both current and potential?  Similarly, if an organization cannot or will not reply to inquiries regarding the transparency and accountability of its management and decision-making, then what does that say?

These are the questions Charity Navigator will be posing and reporting on.  We recognize that it is a substantial undertaking we have set for ourselves.  We recognize that any system initially devised will require continuous improvement as we go.  But we are also firm in our belief of four things:

1. That charitable donations should not be merely “giving”, but rather a social investments.
2. That an informed donor is the best social investor.
3. That effective organizations represent the wisest, and most efficacious social investments.
4. That we owe it to our constituents to provide the best information we possibly can to help guide their giving decisions.

In fact, we hope that charities that provide this kind of information to donors will find it easier to attract funding than charities that don’t. We think this is what donors are and will be looking for and nonprofits that respond appropriately will have an advantage over those that don’t.

In the end, we disagree with Mr. Lawry; we do not think that the challenge is so big that we ought not try to meet it.  And we disagree with Mr. Pallotta.  The audience is not simple and neither is the reporting system we intend to launch.  While the national assessment apparatus he envisions might be a good idea someday, given current realities that day is far off indeed.  Meanwhile donors and the sector need answers now.

We understand the cautions offered by Mitchell and Schmitz, and we are grateful for their thoughtful description of the terrain before us.  But we are also determined to follow the course we have set out for ourselves.  Mr. Pallotta cites the figure of $300 billion given to charity each year. When other sources of revenue are added (government and fee for service) the total jumps to roughly $1.5 trillion. If this figure is accurate, we believe that all would agree that it is too substantial an amount to be “given hopefully” rather than “invested wisely.”  We intend to do our part to see to it that the latter becomes the norm.

Ken Berger is the President and CEO of Charity Navigator.  Dr. Penna is an independent outcomes consultant, author of the forthcoming Outcomes Toolbox, and an advisor to Charity Navigator.

On February 9, Professor L. David Brown joined the NGOs & Development study group, convened by the Hauser Center, where he led a discussion on “NGOs and the Puzzle of Legitimacy and Accountability”.

To tee up the discussion, he started by pointing out the recent failure of several supposed bastions of trustworthiness in our world.  Among others, he noted the controversial hanging chads in U.S. elections and the Catholic priest sex abuse scandals.  I would add the UN Oil for Food Programme as another well publicized example of abuse in the world of transnational institutions.  Each of these controversies has provoked increased skepticism of the trustworthiness of traditional public institutions (findings supported by Globescan surveys).  And NGOs, with their “do good” missions, have not escaped the scrutiny.  The question was then posed, “How do NGOs reestablish their place of legitimacy?  How do they reinforce a sterling standard of public accountability?”  These key questions were the focus of the study group discussion.

Without belaboring the point, a simple definition of both legitimacy and accountability were shared by Professor Brown.  He supplied the following basic definitions as a backdrop for the discussion.

Legitimacy – existence and activities recognized as justified and appropriate by wider publics
Accountability – answering for performance results to specific stakeholders

It was an interesting presentation and good questions were posed and discussed.  Several thoughts might serve as key takeaways for further online discussion.  First, NGOs need to answer to multiple constituencies: donors, Boards, customers, employees, partners, etc  Each of these stakeholders demands the organization’s consideration and a negotiated set of performance expectations.  Second, a key source of legitimacy comes from shared and upheld values.  In addition, civil society organizations get their energy from their stated values and mission.  Somehow, these standards need to become a source of accountability between NGOs and their constituents.  The idea of industry wide coalitions with common charters and shared accountability measures were highlighted by Professor Brown via a couple of case studies.  Third, and not discussed very much because our time ran short, performance measurement systems need to be put in place to bring transparency and dialogue to shared performance expectations.  If organizations want legitimacy, they need to maintain an evidence-based dialogue with their constituents.  The narrative is vital so that context remains intact to complement quantitative information.

It was a good group meeting but, honestly, it only scratched the surface of a topic that warrants a weeklong conference!  Feel free to join the dialogue by responding to this blog or by joining the next study group discussion on Thursday, February 25 at 4.00 pm.

George Veth is a Mid-Career Master in Public Administration (MPA) candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School.