A matter of serving old masters?
THE discovery that poverty was a revolving door, with households rapidly moving in and out, has transformed our understanding of what it means to be poor…. Programmes to eliminate poverty usually targeted those who were already living below the poverty line. But the dynamics of poverty challenged this assumption. Why should these programmes target only those who were poor today and ignore those who might be poor tomorrow?" These observations are not taken from the book under review, but from one that, in effect, challenges some of the assumption taken, and conclusions reached, in it (Pathways from Poverty: The Process of Graduation in Rural Bangladesh, Alastair Orr, et al, 2009).
The mission statement of the editors of Recreating the Commons? NGOs in Bangladesh is laid down in the preface: "What lessons should be learned from the success and failures of NGOs in Bangladesh that can be applicable to other nations in the developing world? This book, a collection of papers from a wide range of practitioners and academics, attempts to shed some light on this important question." The list of the authors is made up of Ahrar Ahmad, Ali Riaz, Debdulal Mallick, Elora Halim Chowdhury, Farida C. Khan, Geoffrey D. Wood, Harriet Matsaert, Joe Devine, Lamia Karim, Manzurul Mannan, Mohammad Ershadul Karim, Mokbul Morshed Ahmad, Munir Quddus, Sajjad Zohir, and Shafia Akhter. The quality of their output is distinctly uneven, ranging from Harriet Matsaert's ludicrous paean to NGOs in "The Bangladesh Innovation Take Away" (Chapter 12) and Md. Ershadul Karim and Shafia Akhter's rather insipid, at times laboured, piece extolling NGOs in the promotion and protection of human rights in Bangladesh (one can easily visualize strong rebuttals to their arguments) in "The Role of Local NGOs for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in Bangladesh" (Chapter 10) to three articles of high merit, Geoffrey Wood's "Clashing Values in Bangladesh: NGOs, Secularism and the Umma" (Chapter 3), Joe Devine's "Organizational Success and the Informal Politics of Social Change" (Chapter 5), and Lamia Karim's "Democratizing Bangladesh: State, NGOs, and Militant Islam" (Chapter 7).
The editors have divided the book into three sections comprising thirteen chapters. The first section (Chapters 1 to 3) "provides a historical background for NGOs", the second (Chapters 4 to 9) "assesses how NGOs have collaborated and contended with the state and religious groups in Bangladesh", and the third (Chapters 10 to 13) "constitute a sampling of the kinds of changes made by NGOs in Bangladesh". The most compelling essays belong to the second set, where Manzurul Mannan ("Islam, NGO and Development: The Shaping of Conflict Models in Bangladesh"), Lamia Karim, and M.M. Ahmad in two essays ("New Threat to Development: The Non-Governmental Organizations-Fundamentalist Conflict in Bangladesh", and "For God's Sake: The Religious Non-Governmental Organization in Bangladesh") discuss thoughtfully, and in some detail, the often contentious relations between the Muslim clergy and political Islam and the popularly called developmental NGOs, and the genesis, and the problems and prospects of, religious NGOs (RNGOs) in this country. Ahmad has this disturbing observation in "For God's Sake…": "…lack of transparency in the finances and activities of RNGOs greatly hamper their credibility and accountability. Interestingly, this allegation can be made against the secular NGOs too." He is more forthcoming and critical on this point in "New Threat to Development…": "Most NGOs in Bangladesh maintain a high level of secrecy of their documents, staff salary and budgets. This makes the concepts of 'participatory' 'grassroot' (sic) 'development' advocated by the NGOs somewhat illusory."
One can generally go along with the editors' observation that, "NGOs have transformed society in Bangladesh… (by providing) essential services in health, education, and credit, filling in where the state has failed to provide such public goods." However, there are several potent criticisms against their modus operandi, the most damaging of which is that, as the editors point out, they "have become captive clients who have to undertake whatever the foreign donor decides to finance." That sounds like neocolonialism in another guise, although Wood interprets the situation somewhat differently: "…the world has shifted into a post/post-colonial phase in which the structure of authentic knowledge about development has moved from a hierarchical, 'HQ' model to a globally redistributed 'network' model with a multiplicity of sites of discourse credibility." Wood also focuses on a generally unknown or ignored fact, one that is "rather uncomfortable for many NGO leaders and their senior/founder staff," that the organizations were made vital national and international players during the military regime period from 1975 to 1990.
Mannan has a different salvo aimed at NGO operations: "NGOs work to open up the local markets for foreign products, transform money into capital, promote democracy, enhance human rights, etc. In the process, under the pretext of sustainability and financial viability of both their beneficiaries and organizations, they transform millions of beneficiaries into market clients, petty commodity producers, and entrepreneurs." Free market advocates would have no problem with that particular outcome! Lamia Karim comes up with some incisive comments on NGOs, their philosophy, and modus operandi that highlight their shortcomings. One is particularly noteworthy: that "'social disasters' are sometimes manufactured by NGO actions…." It follows her analysis of an incident in Brahmanbaria in December 1998 that brought Proshika leaders and workers in direct physical confrontation with local madrassah students and religious leaders: "…the 'democratic' impulses of Proshika were grounded in its non-democratic clientelist relationship with its constituents --- the poor borrowers --- who were forced to act according to the dictates of the Proshika leadership." Both Elora Halim Chowdhury in "Challenges for the Women's Movement in Bangladesh: Engaging Religion, Development and NGO Politics" (Chapter 9), and Ali Riaz in "NGOs, Empowerment and Social Capital: Lessons from the BRAC and the Grameen Bank" (Chapter 11) take up the incident in some detail in the course of making their own respective points.
One of the more debatable points regarding NGO impact on poverty alleviation, one that recalls the divergent viewpoint of Orr that was presented at the outset of this review, is also made by Karim, although in a more specific context: "My findings contradict the much-heralded miracles of microcredit for rural women in Bangladesh, and document instead how debt relations have subordinated poor women and their families to increased domination and exploitation by the NGOs and community members." NGOs like Grameen Bank, BRAC and other microcredit lending agencies would likely contest this and, indeed, Orr's compelling observations and recommendations regarding the need for concentrating on graduation from poverty, but her, and his, points cannot be dismissed lightly. In fact, Ahmad, in "For God's Sake…" echoes Karim's contention that the leaders of the large NGOs are non-democratic and even the "governing bodies of the NGOs are…subservient to the dictates of these leaders."
Several writers, like Joe Devine, Lamia Karim, and the editors while referring to a World Bank report of 2006, allude to the overt, as well as surreptitious, political, particularly partisan, roles of NGOs, an activity that surely needs to be discouraged, indeed squashed, in no uncertain terms by any government in office. Additionally, Elora Halim Chowdhury believes that, "at times, the mission of NGOs is more to improve their own viability rather than to improve other people's lives." She also relates incidents that reinforce the notion that these organizations exist to serve the dictates of the donors at least as much as their target clientele. And, while on the topic of NGOs, the book rather obviously promotes BRAC, with the final chapter, Debdulal Mallick's "BRAC's Contribution to the Gross Domestic Product of Bangladesh" putting the final exclamation point on this issue. Moreover, Ershadul Karim and Akhter's naming only Grameen Bank receiving the Nobel Peace Prize while keeping completely mum on the co-winner Dr. Yunus, or the editors doing the same in the Preface, would only make this point more glaring.
Devine provides some thoughtful, realistic, as well as sobering, perspective on NGOs: "There is a growing sense that some of the enthusiasm for NGOs that was so palpable throughout the 1980s and 1990s, has begun to wane. This of course was entirely predictable for two interrelated reasons. First, the meteoric rise of NGOs on the development scene was a direct response to ideological shifts taking place in the West, in particular the growing influence of neo-liberal analysis within the development industry. The close link between NGOs and donor preferences meant inevitably that changes to the latter would have immediate implications for NGOs. Second, the support given to NGOs…was fuelled by hugely overstretched expectations about the potential of NGOs to deliver key services to the poor, or to facilitate processes of change that would radically alter the distribution of power in society. That view has now been thankfully tempered and while NGOs have been relieved of the burden of over-inflated expectations, they have also in the process lost a significant part of their 'flavor of the month' status." Recreating the Commons? NGOs in Bangladesh will likely give rise to a lot of debate, exercise the mind to some extent, and be an interesting read.
Dr. Shahid Alam is Head, Media and Communications Department, Independent University Bangladesh (IUB) .
Comments