E N V I R O N M E N T D E P A R T M E N T DISSEMINATION NOTES TOWARD ENVIRONMENTALLY AND SOCIALLY SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT L AIy Number 22 June, 1995 Participation and Intermediary NGOs NGOs can be effective inter-mediaries in Bank funded projects which depend on participation and capacity building at the community level. Successful collaboration depends on identifying an organization with appropriate characteristics, and involving its staff in decisionmakingfrom as early as possible in the project cycle. Steps must be taken to prevent Bank or government requirements undermining the participatory orientation of the NGO and, where necessary, to strengthen NGO capacity, encourage cooperation between NGOs, and support communication between NGOs and government. The Intermediary Role capable and dedicated community workers, and the greatest experience in reaching disadvantaged' As increasing emphasis in Bank lending groupsthroughinnovativeparticipatorymethods, operations is being'placed on poverty reduction, are found in NGOs. investment in human resources, and environmental management, so more and more Not all NGOs are participatory, and not all Bank projects depend on participation and Bank-NGO collaboration -has been with the capacity building at the community level. purpose of promotingparticipation. Until recently, Participatory community-based development the Bank looked to NGOs primarily for capability depends' in turn on intermediary organizations in service delivery. However, in approximately with the specialized skills and experience to two thirds of projects approved in recent years, provide- links between community level the promotion of beneficiary participation was institutions on the one hand, and national cited, as the main rationale for seeking NGO institutions and the Bank on- the other. The' involvement. For the task manager, the key issues intermediary functions include facilitating are (i) identifying an organization which is willing commnunication between project beneficiaries and to collaborate and whose capacity and orientation government; helping to identify and voice match the specific task at hand, and 'then (ii) community needs; supporting participation and ensuring that the influence of the Bank is to group formation; training and building the support rather than undermine the participatory capacity of community groups; and channeling character:and capacity of the NGO. resources to the community level. Identifying Participatory NGOs This bridging role may be filled in different ways, depending on institutional circumstances and The term "NGO" encompasses a broad array the nature of the particuIar project. Line agencies of different organizations, varying enormously or local government units may be restructuted and according to their purpose, philosophy, sectoral reoriented to fill the role of community facilitators. expertise and scope of activities. A distinction is Alternatively, the. needed services may be made between operational NGOs, which are contracted out to the private sector, to multi- or engaged primarily in designing and implementing bilateral agencies, to NGOs, or to a combination of projects, and advocacy NGOs, whose main these. Often, the strongest grassroots links,'the most purpose is to defend. or promote a specific cause. This note is based on the paper written by Thomas Carroll, Mary Schmidt and Tony Bebbington as a contribution to the Participation Sourcebook. Copies of the full paper are available from the Environment Department, Social Policy and Resettlement Division, of the World Bank, Washington, D.C: 20433, Fax (202) 522-3247. Dissemination Notes represent the views of their authors and are not official publications of the World Bank. - Some NGOs engage in both types of activity. organizations's participatory effectiveness. Non- Advocacy NGOs, such -as those defending the participatory NGOs tend to regard community rights of indigenous peoples,' may perform an members purely as beneficiaries, and the funding important intermediary role in supplying agencies-as their clients. -information, facilitating communication and : consultation.. Generally, however, Bank-NGO' Specific criteria for selectingan NGO-in terms collaboration on specific- projects is more likely : of technical and operational capacity, outreach - to involve operational intermediaries.' .' potential, skills in comnmunity capacity building, and knowledge of conditions in target NGOs vary greatly.in the extent to which they cornmunities-need to be matched to the specific ensure beneficiary participation within their own -task .at hand . Guidelines for, assessing the programs:-. At one extreme are NGOs whose:. -participatory effectiveness of an NGO are orientation and' competence are, very similar to 'sumnmarizedin Box 1.Assessmentshouldbe based the private sector firms with whom they compete on the NGO's proven track record as. well as its for. contracts in project implementation or service '-stated objectives. Paper credentials and financial' . delivery. Such NGOs may be very efficient,(and or orgarnizational strength are often less important in strong demand) as service deliverers but are than dedicatioi, conmitment and enthusiasm. oriented to. meeting the requirements of bureaucratic; funding agencies and are unlikely 'Operational Challenges . . to use participatory processes. At the other' * - ' extreme are participatoryeNGQs which .see Supporting the Participatory Process themselv'es exclusively as enablers and capacity - A paradox confronting thetask manager is that builders and' refus'e to. compromise their the qualities which make NGOsparticipatory--- objectives or independence by collaborating in : and therefore attractive as. intermediaries-a.re official programs. A minorityQ of exceptionally incompatible with many government, donor and effective NGOs combine a high level of.' Bank requirements., One of the major constraints competence in service delivery and in cormmunity to group formation and capacity building is donor . capacity' building. The Aga Khan: Rural or goverment pressure. to disburse and deliver Development Program in Pakistan provides an example of what can be achieved. by such . Box 1 .organizations, committed to botom up:planning' Indicators of Participatory Effectiveness and combining- strong technical expertise with in Internediary-NGOs effective institution building at the village level. - - . Using infrastructure', projects as ,the catalyst for::0 * A flat management structure with decerntralized institution building, this program reAched 38,000 aX.hor.. households and created 110 women's groups * Organizational structures at the community level to within. for years. or, other decisions are delegated. :s to- * Use of iterative planning, involving consultatio with to oranzaio the-s interests of those.. local communities. to whom it is accountable.~ In this respect, national - or regional level ,membership NGOs, including: * . Contributions of cash, labor, raw materials or local federations of grassroots organizations or facilities by community members and organizations, c making them clients rather than beneficiaries of the NGO. cooveratives,-trades'unions, peasant unions ~orX - ethnic groups can'be valuable partners in projects * Staff recruitmen't criteria, incentives and training requiring broad participation (although women w .-hich support participation., and marginalized grusaenot always.well' -..- and -arginalized groups are not always Well Strong field presence outside metropolitan areas with, represented). One difficulty, however, can be that high proportion of staff of locai origin. -- they ,are oft'en more 'politically embroiled and subject to state regulation. Among NGOs that are * Comrmunity leaders and -members have a positive not membership based, accountability to client: perception of the NGO. : communities-'for example through conumunity-. -.. . co-in2unities--for examp.e through commu:ity> * Turnover of client 'groups as they "graduate" over time .contributibns of .cash', labor, materials or and intensive field attention is transferred to. new facilities-is an important indicator ,of an groups. - -: : :A- ; 7 : . 0 f- . - .0 ; - f . ' S .' ' ' ' services quickly. Unless procedures are made more . decision making from very earl-y in the project flexible, and both the Bank and the government cycle. If NGOs are to participate in a 'Bank are committed to supporting participatory finarced project in a significant way, it is processes, the NGO is pressed into a service important that they have a say as early as possible 'delivery rather than capacity building role. This in the design of the project and in defining the has happened in a number of Bank funded. terms of their involvement. projects, including Liberia's Second Education Project. Under this project, schools were The Question of Scale constructed rapidly and at low cost; however, no IHighly participatory 'NGOs tend to work on a attention was given to supporting the intermrediary very small scale and some of their programs depend NGO in building community ownership of schools on staying small and resource-intensive. In other and. planning for maintenance. As a result,. many cases, NGOs have established participatory schools deteriorated and some went unused. processes which they have themselves extended to' Similarly, in the Zambia Squatter Upgrading large scale programs, or which have proved Project, it was agreed in principle to pursue long replicablebyother organizations or by government .'term conmmunity developrnent goals by pronmoting agencies on a large scale. Various approaches have active beneficiary participation; however, a been used to enable successful NGO programs to stipulation was included in the final agreement be scaled up and "mainstreamed", where possible, that, if the collective self help approach to be used. without losing their essential participatoryqualities, by the two intermediary NQOs interfered w:ith the and without individual NGOs having to grow to predetermined project schedule, then contractors the point where they becorme hierarchical and would be, employed to carry out the work. bureaucratized. This may involve strengtherang the capacity of NGOs, -both through training and Creative TMs have found ways to ensure that through promoting NGO partnerships between they support rather than undermine' the NGOs. participatory strengths of NGO partners by introducing mrechanisrns which perrnit revisions Scaling up may also i'nvolve training in project priorities, greater flexibility in the:timi'ng . -government staff in participatory methods and and. scale of imnplementation, and alternative relaxing some'government regulations. When procurement proceduires, or.which allow NGOs to working.with governments to encourage NGO. design and implement their own programs. linkages, it is useful to consider that government agencies, as well as the Bank, may have' to scale, Cotisultation from the outset concerning. down in the sense of decentralizing and building development' objectives can help resolve the flexibility and.micro-variability into their tension between the short term project focus of operations. This not only pushes decisionmaking the Bank or government and the long term . down closer to the populationsmost affected (and community development goals of NGOs: The is in'this sense itself more participatory), but also most successful cases of Bank-NGO collaboration makes it easier to work with regional and local have involved mutual tran'sparency and shared NGOs. The community sup port process under- Box 2 Mainstreaming a Successful Participatory Process The Community Support Process, included in the Baluchistan Primary Education Program, is establishing new community girls' schools in remote rural villages. The process began in 1992 with a pilot project by a small national NGO whose community workers went door to door, urging parents to form village education committees, identify a potential female- teacher, and select a site for a school. 'The success of the pilot led to'full acceptance and ownership of the prograr by the government which is now fundirig the program on a province-wide basis using IDA credit. Because of the experimental nature of the project, Bank-support has only been possible through the new lending approach which suppprts the 'entire' 'primary education program rather th-an selected components; So far, the NGO has succeeded in mobilizing comrunity members to establish 200 schools. Replicating the process on this scale, and incorporating the schools and their teachers into the government system once -the school has proved viable, has depended on the willingfiess of the Ministry of Education to relax a number of its regulations, so that girls with as little as -eighth grade education can qualify as teachers and can-receive trairingiat home by mobile training teams. - , . : --:~~ Baluchistan's Primary Education Program (Box As the examples in Box 3 demonstrate, 2) illustrates how .flexibility on the part.-of, facilitating cooperation and partnerships between - government'can allow an innovative pilot project NGOs can. be a highly effective means of' by a small NGO to be expanded successfully and organizing training, as well as enabling small linked into government programs. - - . organizations to contribute to large scale projects, and developing the capacity of the local NGO Enhancing NGO Capacity sector as 'a whole. Training of NGO staff is often needed, to ensure that the institutional capacity of an NGO Strengthening NGO-Government Linkages : partner"matches the scope and demands of the 'Relationshipsbetweeri government and NGOs project. Although it is very difficult to generalize vary greatly between countries (and between for the sector as a whole, common areas of NGOs), on the basis of historical, political and weakness in NGOs are: limited financial and ideological differences. Simple lack of management expertise; linmted number of staff communiation, however, 'is often responsible for with training and experience in community mistrust and nisunderstnding about the other's mobilization; lack of technical capacity; lirnifed ' objectives, concerns and constraints. The Bank can coverage, in terms of scale or area; concentration ' help to promote state-NGO comrunication by in urban 'centers; lack of communication or sponsoring o n ps and otnm ;~~~~~j 'in~t- training, workshop an coordination with other organizations (including conferences, in advance of project appraisal and, government 'agencies); and limited . in particular, by including both government and understanding of the broader social and NGOs as stakeholders' in project design. economic context in which they are working., Since institutional, gaps can be difficult to foresee, A number of Bank projects (the West Bengal it is important to build flexibility'into the ' Population Project, for example) have also led to provision of training. ' the creation of NGO liaison units in government. Box 3 Encouraging NGO Partnerships - In the. Benin Food Security Project, partnerships were encouraged between stronger, larger NGOs and weaker, newer NGOs to stimulate the transfer of methbdologies and-technology. This project began as a pilot which involyed international NGOs and a fe-w Beninese NGOs. After two years of the pilot experience, NGOs were brought together with government and donors at a workshop to design.a rlew.project based on the pilot phase:*One of the findings at the workshop was that geographic concentration in the capital isolated many large NGOs from target conimunities. International NGOs had the -human and financial resources to submit cQmpetitive proposals for inclusion in projec't activities;.however, they often'had the least recentor direct experience with potential client communities. Where local NGOs lacked transport to access project areas, international NGOs had the necessarv equipment and staff, but lacked the local contacts. At the workshop, consensus was reached to modify the project'in several ways, including creating incentives for NGOs to establish field offices in the project area, giving regional offices the authorityto approve microprojects and disburse funds,.and requiring international NGOs to partner local NGOs to facilitate, technology transfer'arnd information sharing. For the Bank-financed Improved Environmental Management and Advocacy Project (IEMA) in lndonesia, an i-nternational - ' NGO teamed up with twelve 'Indonesianl NGQs to strengthen the capacity of local intermediaries to address the environmental consequences of pesticides. The international NGO assists local counterparts in developing primary learning approaches' to educate local people about environmental problerms and solutions. This collaborative NGO effort is-a broad- based initiative to develop education and training programs for farmers, consumers, and provincial-level regulatory officials. It also serves to transfer skills and knowledge among NGOs.- The goal of the Uttar Pradesh Sodic Land Reclamati'on Project is to redaim salt-affected lands using participatory management techniques that could serve as a model to be replicated more broadly in the future. Farmers' water management groups will be organized and community volunteers will be trained in technology transfer by small local NGOs. The staff of these grassroots'NGOs will be trained in turn 'by larger intermediary NGOs with previous experience in participatory management. Other projects, such as the Participatory Forest Development 'Project for Bangladesh, are using a similar-structure in which advisory NGOs coordcinate the irnplementation activities of small locallv-based NGOs. These projects are coordinated at the national level by a single organization that works directly with the government to ensure-compatibility with national goals and policies. Pnrnted on 1TOO post-consumer recycledpaper