development

Traveller’s Tale: Indian NGO development revisited

I remember many years back in the early 1980s, I came across an older journal article by a pair of brothers with the arresting name of Paddock. They wrote in the mid-1960s, saying that India was beyond redemption, and that the world should undertake triage and only provide emergency assistance. Similar things are often said about Africa in today’s discourse, including Dambisa Moyo’s argument (discussed on this blog) to cut aid all together. It is nearly ten years since I was last in Bangalore (in Karnataka state) in India. Now the question is: what is the relevance of aid agencies and NGOs in the context of a booming economy, at least in southern India, and Karnataka in particular? Ten years ago, the concrete and glass IT offices were on the edge of Bangalore, standing rather incongruously in farmland and paddy fields, and people commuted out from the city to them. Now these IT offices are all surrounded by luxury apartments and gated highrise suburbs for the IT elite.

Now where does this leave the ‘real’ India – the rural communities which still make up most of the population and most of the poverty? They have not been left out all together: the construction work on roads and the like is evident everywhere. The question is does this reach the most marginalised? The answer is not entirely certain, but probably not to any great extent. Figures seem to indicate that the depth of poverty in Karnataka is increasing while the absolute level of poverty is falling; that is, those who are poor are getting poorer. More people are coming out of poverty but an increasing number are getting deeper into poverty. While statistics can be unreliable and may not tell the whole story, it would seem that marginalisation is still a big issue and people are missing out on the benefits of ‘development’.

But how to reach them? This problem is made more difficult as local NGOs are being squeezed as their international supporters are pulling out of India in general, and this part of India in particular, as it is seen as a boom economy and a world leader in many ways. This means that local NGOs have to revisit their strategies, and either become more dependent on Indian government programs (and their associated bureaucracy) or adopt a different approach. One small NGO I visited had reduced its staff number by half in the last few years, but was some using commercial activities to provide a core income, and was being much more strategic in its activities. In India the Right to Information Act requires all government agencies (federal, state and local), to publish details of their programs if requested. It is ignorance of the details of programs that allows corruption or even the exclusion of poor people from these programs. So what this small NGO is now doing is that at taluk or sub-district level (around 500 villages), it is publishing a broadsheet newsletter every two months, publishing the details of the government programs for that taluk. It has 2000 subscribers, but of course a far greater readership.

What this means is that people know how much welfare is being provided, including food rations, school lunches, and the like, as well as public works and infrastructure, who is winning tenders, the time frame for completion, and any Employment Guarantee Scheme initiatives and other welfare programs. With the publication of these programs the level of corruption and patronage comes down and the reach of the program to the more marginalised community increases. In this sense, the NGO is now facilitating the people to hold the government more accountable, rather than been a provider of services itself.

While the economy is booming in Karnataka it is lean times for the NGOs who now have to re-imagine themselves as moving out of service delivery, and be more innovative in facilitating communities to demand more of the government services they are entitled to. Whether this strategy works and whether it will lead to benefits for the marginalised who are being left out of the rapid growth remains to be seen. But what is going on in Karnataka is a glimpse of the future for NGOs in India and in other high growth economies where they have to adapt to be true to their values, and recognise that if the government has the capacity to deliver services, then that is their job.

© 2009 People and Development.