If You Don't Count,You Don't Count: Monitoring and Evaluation in South African NGOs

Non‐Governmental Organizations (NGOs) are increasingly challenged to demonstrate accountability and relevance, with reporting, monitoring and evaluation arguably having become development activities in their own right. Drawing on interviews and observation research, this article examines the impact of intensified monitoring and evaluation (M&E) requirements on a number of South African NGOs. M&E — and the types of expertise, vocabularies and practices it gives rise to — is an important area that is usually neglected in the study of NGOs but that significantly impacts on NGOs’ logic of operation. By focusing on three areas — data that are considered appropriate to conduct M&E, staffing and organizational cultures, and NGOs’ reformist relationships with other civil society organizations (CSOs) — M&E is revealed as a central discursive element in the constitution of NGOs appropriate to neoliberal development. By engaging a neo‐Foucauldian framework of governmentality, M&E practices are thus understood as technologies through which governing is accomplished in the trans‐scalar post‐apartheid development domain.     

Voluntary Agencies as Development Organizations: Theorizing the Problem of Efficiency and Accountability

Co-operatives, NGOs and community groups are being increasingly used as development agencies by policy-makers, because they are thought to provide more accountable, effective and equitable services in many areas than public or private agencies. This article attempts to consider some of the theoretical and practical implications of this growing role by treating them as ‘value-driven’ organizations, and asking how this differentiates them, in terms of efficiency and accountability, from public or private agencies. It notes the lack of developed theoretical models capable of dealing with this question, and examines the relevance of existing theories (neo-classical economics, public administration and especially varieties of organization theory including the New Institutional Economics) in dealing with agencies which claim to be dominated by motivations based on democracy and altruism rather than self-interest. The author looks at problems associated with the measurement of efficiency and enforcement of accountability in organizational life and at the need for effective incentives and sanctions which provide a stable basis for maintaining commitment. He then considers the issues involved in the enforcement of accountability to ensure the efficient use of resources in producer co-operatives on the one hand and service delivery NGOs on the other. In the former, the focus is on the strengths and weaknesses of market competition and the costs of collective management; in the latter on the varied relationships between ‘principals and agents' involved in the production and management of services.     

Social Capital and Post‐Conflict Reconstruction in Burundi: The Limits of Community‐based Reconstruction

Using an examination of three NGO interventions in post‐conflict Burundi, this article questions community‐based reconstruction as a mechanism to rebuild social capital after conflicts, particularly when direct livelihood support is provided. The authors demonstrate a general shortcoming of the methodology employed in community‐based development (CBD), namely its focus on ‘technical procedural design’, which results in what may be termed ‘supply‐driven demand‐driven’ reconstruction. The findings suggest the need for a political economy perspective on social capital, which acknowledges that the effects on social capital are determined by the type of economic resource CBD gives access to. Through the use of a resource typology, the case studies show that the CBD methodology and the potential effects on social capital differ when applied to public and non‐strategic versus private and strategic resources. This has particular consequences for post‐conflict situations. A generalized application of CBD methodology to post‐conflict reconstruction programmes fails to take adequate account of the nature of the interventions and the challenges posed by the particular post‐conflict setting. The article therefore questions the current popular ‘social engineering’ approach to post‐conflict reconstruction.     

Advocating Workers' Collective Rights: The Prospects and Constraints Facing ‘Collective Bargaining’ NGOs in the Pearl River Delta, 2011–2015

Labour struggles are frequent in China, but because workers’ organizational resources are controlled by the state, these struggles have been fragmented. Targeting this problem, a group of internationally connected labour NGOs emerged in the Pearl River Delta between 2011 and 2015. These organizations sought to advocate workers’ collective rights by helping workers organize outside the state system. Adopting a relational approach to the study of civil society, this article examines the impact of these NGOs. Based on ethnographic research and a unique data set, it argues that although the organizational skills shared by these NGOs could to some extent sustain workers’ collective actions, they could not be used to integrate the fragmented struggles. Due to the lack of institutional guarantees, activists’ interventions can generate more mistrust than solidarity. The preference of the key donor for a more confrontational and independent labour movement further widened the gap between NGOs and workers, and distracted the NGOs from channels that had the potential to influence policy. The study contributes to an understanding of social movements and NGO intervention by emphasizing the necessity of locating advocacy channels within the state, and the importance of recognizing and maintaining the complex ecology of civil society.     

Thai Labour NGOs during the ‘Modern Slavery’ Reforms: NGO Transitions in a Post-aid World

This article explores how domestic NGOs responded to new opportunities that emerged during the 2015–2020 ‘modern slavery’ labour reforms in Thailand's seafood sector. The analysis takes place against the background of civil society transitions in a ‘post-aid’ setting. Like NGOs in other middle-income countries, the Thai NGO sector has struggled to remain relevant and financially viable in recent decades, as international donors have withdrawn from countries with steadily declining poverty rates. As a result of the ‘developmental successes’ of Thailand, the NGO sector needed to rethink its strategies. Examining the modern slavery labour reform process provides an opportunity to understand the strategic choices available to NGOs in the face of several important phenomena: the emergence of new actors such as international philanthropic donors; the growing influence of the private sector in governance matters; and the need for NGOs to balance multiple strategic alliances. The article draws on in-depth interviews to explore narratives of Thai labour NGO adjustments during the period of the modern slavery reform. The study contributes to a better understanding of how NGOs in post-aid countries transition and adapt to changing circumstances by embracing new roles as ‘sub-contractors’ for emerging global philanthropic donors and as ‘partners’ of private corporations.     

New Section: Country reports

This paper uses a simplified model of the aid ‘chain’ to explore some causes and consequences of breakdown in communication. Although the rhetoric of Northern‐based donors is awash with words such as ‘partnership’ and ‘inclusion’ when dealing with their Southern‐based partners, the situation in practice is different. Unequal power relationships sometimes result in donor imposition of perspectives and values. It is our contention, based on a collective experience of fifty‐four years in a Nigerian‐based non‐governmental development organization (NGDO), the Diocesan Development Services (DDS), that much of the driving force behind the successes and problems faced by the institution was founded on relationships that evolved between individuals. In order to understand why things happened the way they did it is necessary to begin with the human element that cannot be condensed into objects or categories. While injudicious donor interference had damaging repercussions, our experience suggests that care and consideration flow throughout the aid chain and actions are not malevolent. Breakdowns can be attributed to a number of factors, with the over‐riding one being pressures operating at the personal level that emanate from within the institution itself and the larger community. The paper analyses three experiences using institutional ethnography theory and methodologies as a basis. Examples taken address the influence key donor personnel had in the function of DDS, and how these changed with time. The mission, policies and even procedures of the donor did not change markedly over thirty‐two years, but each changing desk officer had their own philosophy and approach and a different interpretation of their own institutional policies. Hence while the ‘macro’ has an influence it is mediated via individual interpretation. In our view, the importance of people–people relationships is particularly understated in development literature where emphasis gravitates towards the aggregate and global.     

Unpacking the ‘Joint’ in Joint Forest Management

This article examines the concept of ‘jointness’ in India’s Joint Forest Management (JFM) programme, understood as an engagement between the state (in this case the Forest Department) and people organized into ‘communities’, with NGOs, where available, acting as the interface. By examining the commonalities between older examples of joint or co‐management of resources and current practices of joint forest management, the article challenges the notion that ‘jointness’ is a new feature of forest policy, or that it represents a resurgence of civil society against the state. Further, insofar as the basic agenda of the programme is pre‐determined, it cannot be considered very participatory in nature. None the less, within the limited degree of choice that JFM allows, there is a new and joint construction of needs.     

NGOs as Social Movements: Policy Narratives,Networks and the Performance of Dalit Rights in South India

Donor‐funded development NGOs are sometimes portrayed as co‐opting, privatizing or depoliticizing citizen action or social movements. This much is implied by the term ‘NGOization’. Alternatively, NGOs can be seen as bearers of rights‐based work increasingly threatened by tighter regulation or substitution by corporate social responsibility models of development. This article engages critically with both perspectives. It traces the role of NGOs and their funders in agenda setting, specifically in bringing the previously excluded issue of caste discrimination into development policy discourse in the form of a Dalit‐rights approach in Tamil Nadu, south India. The authors explore the institutional processes of policy making and NGO networking involved, the alliances, entanglements of NGOs and social movements, and the performativity of NGO Dalit rights. But at the same time, the article illustrates how NGO institutional systems have constrained or failed to sustain such identity‐based claims to entitlement. In Nancy Fraser's terms, the article explores success and failure in addressing ‘first‐order’ issues of justice, that is rights to resources (in this case, land), and in tackling ‘second‐order’ injustices concerning the framing of who counts (who can make a claim as a rights holder) and how (by what procedures are claims and contests staged and resolved). This draws attention to the important but fragile achievements of NGOs’ discursive framings that give Dalits the ‘right to have rights’.     

‘Assisting you to become a local’: NGOs and constructed foreign spouses in Eastern Taiwan

As social and cultural contexts change and globalization spreads, the number of transnational-marriage migrants mainly from Southeast Asia has increased in Taiwan. Using institutional ethnography, this article investigates the roles of local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and projects aimed at helping foreign spouses to adapt to their new life. I mainly elaborate that NGOs emerge as important actors in assisting and empowering transnational spouses to ‘become locals’. In empowerment projects, foreign spouses are given a voice to elaborate themselves. However, this article elaborates that these projects are a scheme of education to shape each such migrant into a proper ‘Taiwanese wife/mother/daughter-in-law’. Also, these projects particularly promote ‘exoticism’ of migrants and become key sources of how local people understand the images of ‘foreign spouses’. As a result, though NGOs play positive roles in empowering foreign spouses, we need to be aware that NGOs’ efforts may ironically become a mechanism to strengthen transnational spouses’ gender roles and cultural stereotypes.     

Epilogue: Homegrown in PNG — Rural Responses to HIV and AIDS

ABSTRACT A three‐years‐long, multi‐sited, multi‐method study conducted throughout Papua New Guinea by the Institute of Medical Research revealed a staggering prevalence of sexually transmitted disease (STD) that threatens an already fragile political‐economy and health services delivery system. Logistics, methodological complexities, and political and especially religious sensitivities hampered conduct of such research. Extremely little HIV social research has been allowed to inform interventions or serosurveillance protocols. Well‐ intended but ill‐conceived international initiatives have promoted a normative AIDS paradigm that misconstrues HIV transmission risk, incites greater fear, increases stigma, and promotes anti‐condom rhetoric. This collection ‘HIV/AIDS in Rural Papua New Guinea’ presents a sustained series of ethnographically based accounts of rural responses. In this epilogue I situate the importance of those responses in a discussion of the great divide between the lived realities of HIV infection and AIDS related suffering on the one hand, and the discursive practices and policies of media, public health, international donors and NGOs on the other.     

European developments in strategic spatial planning

Strategic spatial planning which takes an integrated approach to the development of a territory seemed to go out of fashion, but now there are signs that it is being re‐established. This paper explores these developments using case studies from 10 European countries. The analysis uses an ‘institutionalist’ approach, which examines how the ‘agency’ of spatial planning practices responds to the ‘structure’ of contextual forces, at the same time influencing that structure. The ‘driving forces’ which are influencing strategic spatial planning are investigated, as are two aspects of the changes in spatial planning: institutional relations and policy agendas. The conclusions are that—at least in the case studies—there is a movement in the institutional relations towards horizontal articulation, territorial logic, and negotiative forms. Policy agendas too are changing, becoming more selective and using new conceptions of space and place. Those institutional developments, however, are not necessarily being translated into territorially‐integrated policy (as distinct from functional/sectoral policy). That translation appears to require simultaneous re‐framing of relational resources (trust, social capital), knowledge resources (intellectual capital), linked to strong mobilization efforts (political capital). The cases considered varied significantly in how far that had been done. Where it had, strategic spatial plan‐making practices were playing a key role in developing institutional territorial integration and re‐invigorating territorial identities.     

Tackling the Down Side: Social Capital,Women’s Empowerment and Micro‐Finance in Cameroon

Micro‐finance programmes are currently dominated by the ‘financial self‐sustainability paradigm’ where women’s participation in groups is promoted as a key means of increasing financial sustainability while at the same time assumed to automatically empower them. This article examines the experience of seven micro‐finance programmes in Cameroon. The evidence indicates that micro‐finance programmes which build social capital can indeed make a significant contribution to women’s empowerment. However, serious questions need to be asked about what sorts of norms, networks and associations are to be promoted, in whose interests, and how they can best contribute to empowerment, particularly for the poorest women. Where the complexities of power relations and inequality are ignored, reliance on social capital as a mechanism for reducing programme costs may undermine programme aims not only of empowerment but also of financial sustainability and poverty targeting.     

Governing Mobility through Humanitarianism in Somalia: Compromising Protection for the Sake of Return

This article aims to contribute to an increased understanding of the importance of migration in humanitarian and ‘post‐humanitarian’ contexts, by exploring the interlinkages between protection and displacement. It argues that the strategies by which conflict‐displaced populations protect themselves are largely based on mobility. Yet, humanitarian approaches to displaced populations do not take sufficient account of the mobility needs of those they assist. Furthermore, the actual location at which aid is provided is affected by funding realities and donor priorities. This article discusses the case of protracted displacement realities of Somali refugees and internally displaced people in Kenya, Somaliland and south‐central Somalia. Based on in‐depth semi‐structured interviews and focus group discussions with humanitarian aid workers and displaced people, the article offers an analysis of the recent ‘stabilization discourse’ that fuels programming directed at the return of displaced Somalis. The authors argue that humanitarian protection is compromised by immobile aid practices and by humanitarian programmes that are guided by states’ interest in refugee return.     

The Rise and Fall of ‘Internally Displaced People’ in the Central Peruvian Andes

This article analyses the possible effects of the introduction of the category of ‘internally displaced people’— IDP — in the context of violent conflict in central Peru. It gives an account of the ways in which the IDP category has been introduced and appropriated by local NGOs, people affected by violent conflict and displacement, and by the governmental organization, PAR, set up to facilitate return and repopulation after the declared end of the armed conflict. The category has facilitated and given leverage to a national organization of IDPs. However, the agencies and programmes that work in support of IDPs tend to regard existing mobile livelihood practices as an impediment for advocacy and longer‐term development strategies. This article suggests that, instead of considering displacement (and return) as an absolute break with the past, a focus on networks and mobile livelihoods may be a better way to help people affected by violent conflict to move beyond emergency relief.     

‘Saving the Amazon’: Conservation,international covetousness,and the politics of research (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

Many justifications have been made for ‘saving the Amazon’ from preserving the ‘lungs of the world’ to protecting unknown botanical wonders that might yield cures to deadly diseases. However, Amazonians have responded to these claims with charges of ‘international covetousness’, interpreting such foreign interest as a thinly‐masked desire to take control of the region's natural resources. In this article I examine some of the counter‐claims that have emerged in Brazil that reflect Amazonians’ uneasiness with such foreign interest in the region. Drawing from my own engagement with rural Amazonians, I share their critiques of the deep global inequalities that they see in conservation efforts and international research in Amazonia. To conclude, I discuss the value of ethnography and anthropological inquiry for encouraging grounded views of Amazonia that challenge abstracted notions of the region, including that of the monolithic rainforest in need of ‘saving’.     

NGOs and Environmental Public Goods: Institutional Alternatives to Property Rights

NGOs are linked to environmental objectives for good reason: non-profit NGOs provide a flexible, private-sector answer to the provision of international environmental public goods. The non-profit sector can link for-profit, non-profit, and public-sector objectives in complex contracts. This article examines how, for the case of the National Biodiversity Institute (INBio) in Costa Rica, such complex contracts with both domestic and international parties provide partial solutions to public goods problems in the absence of private property rights over genetic resources. INBio's ‘monopoly’ position, legitimized by the local government, brings in rents from genetic resources which are reinvested in the production of public goods.     

Looking ‘The Gift’ in the mouth: Russia as donor (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

While the Soviet Union was a significant donor of international development aid, since the 1990s, a generation of Russians has experienced the subject position of ‘recipient’ in the global political economy. However, following its G8 presidency in 2006, Russia officially signalled its intention to (re‐)emerge as an aid donor. Should the Russian government's efforts to join the global community of donors be understood as a defence mechanism against what Mauss called the ‘wounding’ experience of being treated as a perpetual recipient? International development aid is seen here as a cultural phenomenon whose underlying assumptions are both challenged and affirmed by the arrival of ‘emerging donors’ such as Russia.     

Does Patronage Still Drive Politics for the Rural Poor in the Developing World? A Comparative Perspective from the Livestock Sector

Is the analysis of patron–client networks still important to the understanding of developing country politics or has it now been overtaken by a focus on ‘social capital’? Drawing on seventeen country studies of the political environment for livestock policy in poor countries, this article concludes that although the nature of patronage has changed significantly, it remains highly relevant to the ways peasant interests are treated. Peasant populations were found either to have no clear connection to their political leaders or to be controlled by political clientage. Furthermore, communities ‘free’ of patron–client ties to the centre generally are not better represented by political associations but instead receive fewer benefits from the state. Nonetheless, patterns of clientage are different from what they were forty years ago. First, patronage chains today often have a global reach, through trade, bilateral donor governments and international NGOs. Second, the resources that fuel political clientage today are less monopolistic and less adequate to the task of purchasing peasant political loyalty. Thus the bonds of patronage are less tight than they were historically. Third, it follows from the preceding point and the greater diversity of patrons operating today that elite conflicts are much more likely to create spaces in which peasant interests can eventually be aggregated into autonomous associations with independent political significance in the national polity. NGOs are playing an important role in opening up this political space although at the moment, they most often act like a new type of patron.     

Mapping Common Futures: Customary Communities,NGOs and the State in Indonesia's Reform Era

The post‐Suharto ‘Reform Era’ has witnessed explosive revitalization movements among Indonesia's indigenous minorities or ‘customary’(adat) communities attempting to redress the disempowerment they suffered under the former regime. This study considers the current resurgence of customary claims to land and resources in Bali, where the state‐sponsored investment boom of the 1990s had severe social and environmental impacts. It focuses on recent experiments with participatory community mapping, aimed at reframing the relationship between state and local institutions in planning and decision‐making processes. Closely tied to the mapping and planning strategy have been efforts to strengthen local institutions and to confront the problems of land alienation and community control of resources. The diversity of responses to this new intervention reflects both the vitality and limitations of local adat communities, as well as the contributions and constraints of non‐governmental organizations that increasingly mediate their relationships to state and global arenas. This ethnographic study explores participants’ experiences of the community mapping programme and suggests its potential for developing ‘critical localism’ through long‐term, process‐oriented engagements between communities, governments, NGOs, and academic researchers.