Helpers of the poor
Civil society and all the missed points
Prof. BALA DOGO raises questions on how to tell the chaff from the grain among civil society organizations purportedly set up to help the poor.
It
is very common to find a plethora of civil society organization (CSO)
actors these days that go by all kinds of names like:
Community Based Organisations (CBOs), Non-Governmental
Organisations (NGOs), International Non-governmental Organisations (INGOs)
and what some cynically call- Donors’ Organized
Non-governmental Organizations (DONGOs). The idea here is not
to provide an accurate definition of each term but stress the fact
that there is a common perception that these development agencies
are found everywhere in rural and urban areas working to improve the
living conditions of the poor, especially in Africa, Asia and other
countries described as ‘less developed’. They are seen as people
and/or outfits that are very close to the poor in all of their
ramifications. They are seen as the panacea, or possessing what it
takes to transform any less-privileged person into a happy and
comfortable position in life.
The idea here, too, is not to define who a poor person is.
Nonetheless, the poser in this treatise is: To what degree can we
say with certainty that these development agencies are very close to
the realities of the poor? Are they just people or outfits that are
making a living in the name of helping the poor? If a survey is to
be carried out how will the poor rate these development agencies or
CSOs? What proportion of the poor will admit that these agencies
have made any tangible contribution in saving them from the shackles
of poverty, ignorance, HIV/AIDS and other killer diseases
affecting children? Who are the true friends of women in the
rural areas? Who are those that are working tirelessly to reduce the
high rate of maternal death in the sub-Saharan Africa? Who are those
working hard to reduce the high illiteracy level? Who are those that
are working with the women in order to make them heard and
employable? How are they doing it? Who are those who are bringing
about real and/or practical development and are conquering
underdevelopment? Who are in touch with the realities of the
poor? Are they the CBOs, NGOs, INGOs, DONGOs or none of them? Who
are the true friends of the poor?
For the likes of Prof. Yunus Muhammad of Bangladesh who established
Grameen Bank and Chief (Mrs) Bisi Ogunleye of Country Women
Association of Nigeria (COWAN) the answers are not far
fetched. They started their fight against poverty, ignorance and
underdevelopment from their various communities- where they
live and among their people. However these days you find a
number of big NGOs, INGOs and DONGOs purporting to be working for
the poor but stay mostly in very comfortable offices; drive big
cars/jeeps and operate from five-star hotels, conducting one form of
workshop, conference and/or seminar.
A Chinese proverb has it that: talk (only) does not cook rice. Many
of them parade themselves as consultants. Programmes and/or
projects are designed for the poor and not with them. No
community needs’ assessment is carried out before the implementation
of such activities/projects/programmes. The contribution of
the poor is almost nil in terms of the conceptualization,
designing, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of such
projects. You can not shave someone’s head in his or her
absence is a very apt adage. The reality of the poor must be put
into consideration in any project meant at improving their lots.
At the risk of over-generalization, the CBOs, NGOs, INGOs and DONGOs
are expected to mobilize resources aimed at improving the lot of the
less privileged ones. Alas, what seems to be the vogue is that
we are seeing the chief executives of such CSOs living at the
expense (?) of the poor. It appears most of them are into one kind
of strategic planning workshops or the other than in being in
touch with the poor at community level. The many smaller CBOs/NGOs
who are doing wonderful things at the community level have remained
obscured and unable to access funds to scale up their work. What one
is seeing is a kind of translucency- you see through from only one
direction.
The DONGOs, INGOs, etc tell you of their success stories and there
is no way of hearing from the people they are claiming to be working
for. Most of them do not tell you how much they have collected in
all from their funders to carry out such activities. The local
people do not know. A proverb in Tsonga Shagana Corpus of Proverbs
has it that: ‘The dog with a bone in his mouth does not bark’.
Many CSO actors do not approach community development from an
empathetic point of view. A saying has it that if somebody is
promising to give you a gift of a shirt, you should look at the one
s/he is putting on. Many CSO actors working in the areas of poverty
reduction, alleviation and/or eradication have many of the
people from their constituency living in abject penury. The
same thing applies for some people working in agriculture, gender,
HIV/AIDS. While many people are dying of diseases some of the key
actors in the same segment are laughing to the banks to cash
their money! It appears over 90% of the resources meant for
community development work doesn’t reach the poor people. That is
the reality on ground. This is not fair and we must all do
something very practical about it. It does appear that there
is no value-for-money development work going on. Most of the rural
people have remained unreached despite the many logical
frameworks, Dollars, Euros, Pounds Sterling and Naira sunk into
development work. A Chinese Proverb has it that: ‘…And with the best
leaders, when the work is done, the task accomplished, the
people will say ‘we have done this ourselves’ Lao-Tzu. ‘If these
people plan above our heads, without consulting us, how can we
develop? We will follow their plans because they are ‘expert’,
they are the authority, but the plan can only fail if they don’t
consult us’- A group of Tanzanian Villagers, 1973 as reported in
SPORE No. 84, Dec. 1999.
Whereas one is not saying all the CBOs, NGOs, INGOs are bad
completely. There are some that are doing credible things. However
the presence/impact of many of them at the community level is
nil. It is also possible to see underdevelopment, deprivation,
squalor, injustice, disease in most of our communities. The
clarion call is for those of us that are into development work
to get our priorities right and work with the local communities in
order to put smiles on their faces. Somebody said ‘… greatness
cannot be measured by what one has achieved materially, but by
the number of lives one has affected positively by true motive’. It
was Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1861 who said: The person who can make
hard things easy is the (real) educator’.
Professor Dogo’s piece is originally titled ‘CBOS, NGOS, INGOS,
DONGOS and the reality of the poor: Very close and yet so far away.’
Baobab magazine and
www.baobabafricaonline.com are published by Baobab Media,
18, Adeleke Street, Ikeja, Lagos. Baobab Media International: 9703
Locust Avenue, Lanham, MD20706-2339. United States of America
..