By: Sheik Gulzaar
Role of NGOs in India
The poor of the land does not need charity; what they need is access to equal opportunities and levelling of the playing field so that they can also compete in the market-place on an equal footing. It is the capacity-building, not income transfers, that can transform the lives of the poor. Only the grass root movement reach the poorest of the poor. Government projects face great difficulty in targeting such groups. The poorest section of the society needs to be organised into viable groups, which can assume the responsibility of their own development as a community. And this is where the NGO’s come in with the role of civil society organisations or non-governmental organisations to chalk out programmes and projects targeting community problems.
The tradition of civil society initiatives for community development is still in its infancy in our part of the world. But it is only fair to recognise the fact that all NGO’s efforts are not motivated by the community itself. Self-interest is an important motivation too. In fact, many NGO’s reflect the personal ambitions of some rich do-gooders or a cynical effort to exploit the generosity of foreign donors or the patronage of the Government. For instance, out of more than 2 lakhs of NGOs//Trustus/ formally registered in India, there are only a few which have credibility and standing. A thorough, in-depth evaluation of NGO activities in India can easily prove the credibility of their working.
Going through the history of the development of NGO’s, it becomes evident that there has been an impressive growth of civil society organisations and NGO’s only in the recent decade. There are well over 85,000 NGO’s in the region today. Out of these, 25,000 are in India, 10,000 in Pakistan,3000 in Jammu and Kashmir, 19,0000 in Bangladesh, and some 30,000 in Sri Lanka. Some of these NGO’s are quite small and some only exists on papers.
The range of NGO activities varies from one country to the other. In Pakistan, nearly half of the NGO’s are committed to programmes for women development. In fact, several civil society efforts now target women as a preferred group. NGO’s enjoy a great advantage over government programmes in displaying much greater gender-sensitivity than for Government projects. The long term sustainability of any NGO’s effort is ensured only if it manages to mobilise resources from its beneficiaries, and if it is operated on the principle of self-help.
Several successful NGO initiatives have suffered because of their over-dependence on foreign donors support or on financial assistance from their own government. But then if an NGO is based only for the purpose of extracting money from the donors, then it simply cannot continue to fool them for a long time and can’t expect them to play the role of a money minting machine. The failure of many NGO’s in our part of the world is due to such personal preferences and ambitions to become richer using the name of community development. And then the direct relationship between foreign donors and NGO’s leads to a certain degree of tension with governments. Foreign grants are often scarce and this becomes the cause of a rift between government and NGO’s. Moreover government cannot have access, even for accountability reason, into the financial affairs of any NGO. This in fact increases the risk of exploitation and misuse of funds granted by the donors for the cause of community development. And with no accountability, no interference, some NGO’s have played havoc with the resources provided by the donors.
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There are several instances of financial misuse and mismanagements in the civil society organisations, with exceptions of course, have led to a general mistrust among the masses. And then very few NGO’s have their own data and statistics on the subject they are working on. They either depends on the media or the reports of UN agencies working in various sectors.
Though the NGO’s are required to do their own basic research and have their own records of data and statistics on the subject they are working on. These civil society initiatives are not a routine bureaucratic exercise, but a mass socio political movement, involving people who normally have no voice in decision making process of the country. To empower them requires both charismatic leadership and a life long commitment. It is for this very basic reason that NGO’s have failed to a large extent to replicate their experience, and the question of credibility looms large on the faces of the NGO’s. (Writer-South Asia)