D+C Development and Cooperation (No. 6, November/December 2001, p. 8 - 13)

NGOs have arrived in the corridors and meeting rooms of international conferences and can make their voices heard. Civil society has become a factor in decisionmaking throughout the world. Have NGOs become a counterforce to governments and states? Or is their influence overrated, as some critics believe? More importantly, what is their legitimacy for acting on behalf of democratic societies?

There is hardly a German government ministry or an international organisation that does not rally NGOs around it, include them in forums and attempt to keep them happy with small or large allocations of funds. The dramaturgy of the most recent international conferences shows that NGOs are no longer sidelined in the anterooms or at the minor tables of negotiations. Sometimes they are incorporated even in government delegations. In UN organisations they have long had a varying consultative status. Obviously, both sides perceive benefits from this cooperation. Governments and international organisations tap the NGOs’ experience and embrace them to head off their potential for protest. NGOs gain access to government knowledge and can influence discussions.

We are seeing civil society actors geting into the game at all levels of political action, from local to global. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has described it as a “silent revolution” backstage of the intergovernmental scene, whose television images and own claims suggest that it alone moves and shakes world events, which, however, has not been the case for a long time. The active role of human rights organisations in international human rights policy, the effective influence of environmental groups on global environment policy, and the impact of the growing transnational development lobby network on national and international development policy raised the question of whether there had not already been a “NGO-isation of world politics” and a shift of power from governments to civil society. Or, given such assessments, are NGOs the most over-estimated actors on the national and international political stage, as some critics believe?

On the one hand, for the hard-boiled ‘state supremacists’ in Foreign Offices and ‘realists’ in the academic discipline of international relations the ‘motley rabble’ of the NGOs are still a tiresome, strident and, in the final analysis, powerless potential for interference in the exclusive domain of competence and action by governments and diplomats. On the other hand, there is already a genre of literature that profiles the NGOs to be the yeast of the emerging global society, as the fountain of youth of a society of world citizens, and the democratic counterbalance to the dark powers of globalisation. Thus the assessments of their role swing between an uncritical romanticisation, which sometimes also encourages the NGOs to over-estimate themselves, to contemptuous disregard for them. Neither extreme does justice to their role.

Why NGOs are enjoying a political
upswing

What functions do NGOs fulfil in politics and society? What role do they have in the interplay of political forces? What strengths and weaknesses can now be seen in them?

First, NGOs upset well-established political routines by protests and provocation, and by their increasingly deft media relations work generate a contrarian body of public opinion and thus an opposition. NGOs act as society’s sensors, take up neglected topics and do politicians a useful service by their early recognition of social problems and early warning of conflicts.

Second, NGOs confront the world of expediency and laborious compromises with ideals and Utopias which often are miles apart from day-to-day politics, but which also can guide the politicians on standards. The NGOs can afford to look beyond the short time horizon of election campaigns and put forward proposals which political leaders have tabooed at the hustings for tactical reasons. The NGOs’ popularity is due also to the weaknesses of representative institutions, the public’s loss of faith in political parties and a widespread feeling of helplessness in the face of bureaucratic machinery and opaque decision processes and power structures.

Third, NGOs help to activate a society’s social and moral capital. They demonstrate that beside trends to individualism and a lack of solidarity, the community also has a need for creative activity. In a way, they are fetching politics back to society and forming the catalyst of a citizens’ engagement that is not limited to turning out for elections.

Fourth, the NGOs’ growing cross-border networks form the organisational cores of an emerging international civil society and the ‘assault squads’ of a global opposition against concentrations of power in world politics and the world economy. They now assemble everywhere where the rich and the powerful meet behind high walls and police lines, be it in Davos, Seattle, Prague, Gothenburg or Genoa. On the one hand, they throw sand into the gearbox of opaque power cartels and compel some openness and transparency where such cartels are more and more evading democratic control amid the process of globalisation and the multilateralising of politics. This watchdog role cannot replace supervision by democratically elected parliaments. But it can pressure MPs and enable them to be more effective in exercising their rights of control.

On the other hand, protest actions discredit criticism of globalisation when they turn into violent rioting and blind rage attacks on people and property. When the actions make life difficult for international conferences which are supposed to deal with global problems and develop solutions to them, they torpedo the dialogue between politicians and civil society, play into the hands of the ‘state supremacists’, who have always preferred secret diplomacy in exclusive circles, and thus hurt efforts towards transparency and participation. The political shaping of globalisation, or global governance, needs the critical engagement of civil society. But it also requires its willingness and capability for dialogue. True, what happened on the streets of Seattle or Genoa was not to be blamed on the mostly peaceful demonstrators. It was the work of squads of thugs who were looking for trouble. But it fuelled doubts about the noble goals and legitimacy of the NGOs’ ‘International’.

Both light and shade

The strengths and potential of the ‘NGO scene’ therefore are countered by some weaknesses, although generalisations should be avoided. The ‘scene’ consists of disparate structures with respective virtues and weak spots.

First, NGOs frequently take up specific problem areas and develop considerable expertise in them. But their narrow focus blinkers them to the impacts on other problem areas. Often, they suffer from the same short-sightedness that they like to blame on politicians. The NGOs’ success is due also to their being in the privileged position of not having to worry about balancing conflicts of objectives and taking decisions. Some of them make a big and headline-grabbing production out of scandals in a bid to get out from under the shadow of larger rival organisations. The competition on the donation and grant ‘market’ is tough.

Second, some NGOs incline to a noble-minded moralising which sticks them with the less than flattering label of ‘do-gooders’. Their approach is well-meant, but not given a great deal of thought and is rather remote from reality. This moralistic self-righteousness of the ‘noble souls’ is deadly for dialogue and thus counterproductive, even in clever self-interest. This is not a criticism of recalling moral principles, such as justice and solidarity, but of a self-righteous moralising which recognises only one’s own truths and therefore is blatantly intolerant.

Third, the great number of NGOs that has inflated worldwide since the 1980s obscures oligarchic trends in the ‘scene’. Only a few of them can afford large staffs, professional PR and lobbying and expensive ‘conference tourism’. But these few ‘big operators’ - such as Geenpeace, BUND, Amnesty International or the church aid agencies - define the NGO image and have privileged access to the forecourts of power. Rather, civil society engagement is actually articulated more in small organisations that are nearer to the grass roots and can survive only with the help of voluntary workers. This is where what Jürgen Habermas sees as the essence of civil society is located: an autonomous, self-organised, often spontaneous association of citizens with the aim of achieving non-profit-oriented goals.

Fourth, in many cases NGOs operate amid an existential dilemma. The less they want merely to protest and organise campaigns and the more they agree to cooperation with government institutions in order to gain entry to the forecourts of power, the greater the risk of them sacrificing a greater or lesser part of their autonomy and being instrumentalised for the government host’s own purposes. The German government’s generous subsidies for church aid agencies, for example, made even the Catholic Misereor organisation suspect it was being misused as a “shunting station for alms and alibis”, and that in return it was supposed to secure its Church’s blessing for government development policy. This risk grows in line with the degree of dependency on government subsidies. Taking the wrong track from being a NGO to becoming a pseudo-NGO (Quango) and being assigned the function of an ‘extension of government’ is then not very far away.

The problem of in-house democracy

The more professional NGOs become in order to fight campaigns and/or turn themselves into competent partners for dialogue and cooperation, the greater the risk that they will lose their common touch and their claim to represent grass roots democracy. Their dilemma is that one side demands from them what others criticise them for. They must choose between readiness and capability for conflict or willingness for dialogue with the powers-that-be. Very few NGOs manage this tightrope walk between competing claims and demands without loss of credibility. The sharpest criticism of them therefore comes from within their ranks rather than from outside. An inclination to masochism is part of the ‘NGO scene’.

The big NGOs in particular have not only a legitimacy problem, but also one of in-house democracy. Greenpeace is not the only NGO with a hierarchical and elitist organisational structure. True, opinion polls show that the public gives it a high rating, but these research findings do not legitimise it in truly democratic terms. In whose name do its officials speak? They are people upon whose selection the donors have no influence. They represent at best a virtual community. Thus the myth of organisations committed to grass-roots democratic and noble goals needs correcting. Some NGOs are also dubious creations that obtain donations by crafty advertising methods and therefore end up on evaluation agencies’ black lists. While the financial stewardship of public administrations is subject to the supervision of budget committees and public audit offices, the boards of most NGOs approve their accounts themselves.

There is also a growing group of ‘professionalised’ NGOs that have no membership base, but are financed by rich sponsors. Archetypal of these is the internationally highly-respected NGO Human Rights Watch, whose professional management is enabled by generous sponsor and noted financial speculator George Soros. The church aid agencies have a special status, although their activities are controlled by church hierarchies and not by the flock, who pay church tax [in Germany] and make liberal donations. Donors, however, unlike taxpayers who have no other choice, can signal their approval of the goals and work of NGOs by the money they give them.

The contentious legitimacy issue

Because the current debate on NGOs is focused on the legitimacy issue, which politicians, bureaucrats and association officials, in particular, are pushing into centre stage, some other reflections are necessary. Drawing a clear dividing line between themselves and NGOs, pressure groups such as trade unions or business associations emphasise that they have democratic internal structures and are financed and controlled by their members. But the ever more reproachful question of legitimacy that is raised about NGOs also applies to these groups when, in a ‘corporate pluralism’ [as in Germany], they seek to influence political decisions. Both they and NGOs try it on in equal measure, but in different ways and with varying degrees of success. The Federation of German Industry (BDI) and the German Trades Union Federation (DGB) do their lobbying more discreetly, but more effectively, than the highly vocal choir of the NGOs.

But if the business associations’ lobbying for their particular interests is recognised as a legitimate instrument in a pluralistic democracy, this legitimacy cannot be denied the NGOs, particularly since they are speaking up for public interest goals. Civil society participation, democracy’s elixir of life, and its contribution to the political culture of pluralism gives NGOs, also from the theoretical view of democracy, a basic legitimacy although from the viewpoint of constitutional law they have no democratic mandate. They have fewer shortcomings in legitimacy than have powerful business lobbies that operate at national and international levels behind the backs of voters and parliaments. NGOs are not afraid of publicity but seek it because it is only with the support of the media that they can make themselves heard and seen.

An important argument for the legitimacy of NGOs is provided by experiences of environment policy. Environment ministers emphasise time and again that the public pressure of environmental groups helps them push through an active government policy on the environment against the opposing interests of other ministries, especially economic portfolios, and the business lobby. Thilo Bode, former chairman of Greenpeace, answers the legitimacy question thus: “Our justification is based on the fact that besides the legitimated organs of power - political parties, parliaments and governments - there must also be pressure groups so that sensible decisions can be taken in an open conflict of opinions.”

Generally speaking, NGOs can claim legitimacy if they are able to convince society that in a pluralistic democracy they are needed as the yeast of civic engagement and the adversary of powerful lobbies, and that they perceive themselves not as a substitute for, but complementary to, democratically legitimated institutions. The NGOs’ popularity arises not only from society’s acceptance of them but also from a crisis of the official representative institutions, which would do well to draw a lesson from this approval.

NGOs in development cooperation:
over-estimated great white hopes?

NGOs engaged in the development cooperation sector have long been socially acceptable. The World Bank, many UN organisations, the European Commission and national development authorities not only invite them regularly to consultations but also finance many of their activities. The World Bank has had a NGO Committee in being since back in 1981. The OECD describes NGOs as “pillars of development” and as indispensable actors in development cooperation.

National and international development agencies know full well why they seek dialogue with leading NGOs (although a participant in such dialogue rounds says that in many cases the NGOs are merely “symbolic table decorations”). The agencies need the NGOs’ capability for cooperation in partner countries if they wish to activate civil society’s potential for self-help. They need, too, the NGOs’ ability - also and especially by means of critical engagement - to mobilise people and promote their cause in their own countries in order to gain greater acceptance for a development policy that has got itself a bad name.

Surveys have found that NGOs enjoy much greater respect and trust among the public than do government development authorities. The NGOs are seen as the great white hopes of a North-South policy that will be driven less by commercial and foreign policy interests than it is at present. NGOs take part in public debates on development policy in a more committed and often also better informed way than parliaments that have only a slight interest in this sector. The Economic Cooperation and Development Committee of the German Bundestag (Federal Parliament) is very much a marginal body.

The NGOs’ activities are as diverse as their organisational structures and purposes of their founding. Many are torn between concrete project work in developing countries and efforts to achieve solidarity in their own lands, which often are based on One World shops. The major aid agencies such as Misereor, Bread for the World, German Food Aid and the children’s aid organisation terre des hommes do both because they have recognised that solidarity in One World can be sub-divided. These big agencies are also involved in the international arena.

Comparative advantages of local
NGOs

Foreign government development authorities input some of their project funds via NGOs in the South because these have some advantages over state implementing organisations in the partner countries, which in turn also cooperate with NGOs

• NGOs reach target groups better than any government programme negotiated on a bilateral basis or by international finance organisations and administered by bureaucrats.
• They have or find partners that are familiar with the situation on the ground. This applies in particular to church aid agencies and their global partnership structures.
• They are better at organising self-help, participation and empowerment of poor people because self-help organised by state implementing agencies is a contradiction in terms. This is especially the case if it rests on existing power structures.
• They work with lower administrative and staff costs than government implementing organisations or private sector consulting companies (whose daily fees match the weekly pay of NGO development workers).
• Their work is focused on the core sector of a development cooperation oriented on poverty reduction and organised on a partnership basis.

In the meantime, not only scandal stories of the ruins of bilateral and multilateral development assistance have mounted, but also reports on failed NGO projects and missing millions. Dozens of postdoctoral theses and degree dissertations have seen not only good in the proliferation of NGOs but also coined the unkind term ‘NGO plague’. Indeed, in many African capitals local and foreign NGOs are treading on each other’s toes in seeking to help themselves from the cornucopia of foreign aid. One critic, Manfred Glagow, debunked the euphoria over NGOs as early as 10 years ago when he asserted that they were in fact different from, but not better than, government or private sector development agencies.

Such judgments are provoked by the NGOs’ exaggerated opinion of themselves, but they do not render a fair balance. NGOs cannot be blamed for having wasted billions of the taxpayers’ money, because they have always observed the maxim ‘Millions of projects instead of projects costing millions’. They do not work as the support troops of commercial and geo-strategic interests, but rather as troublemakers in the ‘development industry’. They can also be blamed for only some of the mistakes made in the booming ‘NGO scene’ in many developing countries, which grew out of the hunt by government development organisations and NGOs in the North for partners in the South.

The name NGO simply does not always stand for what it suggests - and in many cases it means GONGOs (Government Organised Non-Governmental Organisations) for tapping sources of foreign money. Instead of exhausting the corruption of bureaucracies, new ways of fiddling were found. This danger lies in wait everywhere that money flows. Development cooperation is a hazardous enterprise from which failures, setbacks and mistakes cannot be excluded.

Summing up: over-estimated, but still
‘that extra something’

NGOs here and there are the agents of helping, learning and change on the basis of solidarity. But they are under the pressure of far too great and unrealisable expectations, which they have also brought upon themselves. They cannot replace government development policy, but only complement it in some areas and keep it under constant pressure of legitimisation to do what many official declarations of intent promise. That is why their work in their own countries is at least equally important as their project activities in the South, where local NGOs increasingly are ensuring that the flood of foreign development workers is becoming unnecessary and counterproductive. Ownership, meaning self-responsibility and doing things yourself, is the developmental imperative.

What does that mean for NGOs in the North? They should no longer bore wells in the Sahel, but make their own societies capable of solidarity and fit for One World. What should apply to all aid agencies is the maxim of German Bishop Franz Kamphaus, of Limburg, who says that it is not only a matter of binding the wounds of those who have fallen among robbers, but also of uncovering and changing the structure of robbery. This must take place in Berlin, Brussels and Washington.

Global policy has not yet been ‘NGO-ised’, but some fruitful public-private partnerships (PPPs) are being formed in some political sectors. NGOs are indispensable organisational elements of these partnerships. They are sometimes a nuisance, but precisely because of their critical engagement they are ‘that extra something’. Their ‘magic’ needs to be brought down to earth, and their exaggerated opinion of themselves needs correcting. But development cooperation without civil society engagement which in organisational terms solidifies in the NGOs would have no future. The ‘NGO plague’ is a sickness only in the eyes of pre-democratic decision-makers who did not know what transparency and participation meant.