Ironically, NGOs face their most serious crisis in the new South Africa. Paul Zille suggests scenarios for their survival
IF there is one aspect of the development debate in South Africa about which there seems to be complete consensus, it is the importance of non-governmental organisations. Yet, ironically, NGOs today find themselves in the most serious crisis of their existence.
The immediate cause of this crisis arises from the accelerating redirection since the April election of foreign donor funds from a near-exclusive concentration on the extra-parliamentary sector towards government. But what of its consequences? Can anything be done to help NGOs through their crisis? And what implications will this have for development and for the design and delivery of the reconstruction and development programme (RDP) in particular?
Few would dispute the need in the new South Africa for a change in the historical focus and orientation of many of its NGOs. After all, many of the primary development services historically undertaken by NGOs as a result of apartheid neglect must now, necessarily, be taken up by the organs of government. Effecting these changes represents one of the key challenges facing the RDP: ensuring the continuity of these services without causing a collapse in the structures and processes that underpin them.
The solution to this challenge is not a simple matter. But it lies in large part in the definition of a concerted and co-ordinated strategy for the funding and practical implementation of the RDP. The principal responsibility for this lies with the RDP. But it will not succeed in this task without the involvement of donors and NGOs themselves in the formulation of appropriate mechanisms to solve the problem.
So far in South Africa, this understanding remains largely at the level of rhetoric only. There is a serious lack of appreciation of the practical implications and requirements of these arrangements by all the players.
This in turn is reflected in the absence of any clear guidelines or concrete mechanisms within the RDP which might facilitate NGO involvement.
The same can be said of most development funders, whose programmes and policies appear to be characterised more and more by a single-minded desire to engage directly with the government around the RDP. As a consequence, NGOs find themselves increasingly stranded in a no man’s land of warm public utterances and good intent, but with little practical guidance and direction as to how to work their way out.
What can NGOs do?
First and foremost, NGOs need to reduce their dependence on core funding from abroad. This implies a need to diversify their funding base but, more importantly, to restructure their operations towards the provision of services in exchange for fees. Admittedly, this depends on the existence of a complementary development funding environment which doesn’t yet exist. But it also implies fundamental internal changes to NGOs’ management and costing structures.
To ensure the emergence of a more conducive operating environment which views NGOs as competitive service providers, NGOs need to organise. Not in relation to the tired old agendas crafted around inclusiveness and special pleading, but with a view to achieving strong sectoral and subsectoral alliances which define the development services they offer and the means whereby they may be re-sourced from projects within the RDP.
The proposed NGO Council floated at the recent NGO-RDP Summit may catalyse this process further, but those on the inside are already cautioning not to hold one’s breath.
Organisation goes hand in hand with specialisation. To be effective, NGOs should “stick to their knitting”: do what they know and do it well; outsource the rest.
Specialisation in turn implies the definition of clear target groups, working procedures and management systems. Time sheets, fee-rate formulae and bidding procedures, once dismissed as irrelevancies, should be viewed as important management tools which will assist NGOs to fulfil their potential and prove their relevance in the development process.
What can the government do?
The recently published RDP White Paper is frustratingly vague on practical measures to deal with NGOs. But this does not mean that what is required of the government now is the definition of a range of new support systems, subsidies or handouts for its erstwhile comrades in the ailing NGO sector.
South Africa has had enough experience of this form of ersatz development and political cronyism. Instead, what is needed is some applied thinking and the definition of practical guidelines by the government around the design and implementation of the programmes that make up the RDP.
It may begin, for example, by outlining clear policies and procedures on subcontracting of RDP services, within and beyond the NGO sector. In this regard, there is a large body of successful experience to draw on, both from other developing countries and from the developed North.
The government also needs to define standard project appraisal, planning and evaluation formats for RDP programmes. Guidance needs to be given as to which aspects of the project cycle will be contracted out and how this will be achieved.
Such measures would encourage the systematic delegation of tasks and processes outside the government; provide a powerful incentive to independent service providers, including NGOs, to specialise and to concentrate on areas in which they have existing or potential advantages.
This in turn will encourage the development of professional partnerships between specialist NGOs and private-sector agencies, thereby helping to eliminate the historical antagonisms that artificially divide them.
To realise these goals, the RDP needs to engage the donor community to define an agreed framework for external assistance to South Africa. This must elaborate clear parameters for direct donor support for NGOs, as well as a strategy and working arrangements for the indirect participation of NGOs in the government projects that donors are asked to fund.
Without such an explicit framework, the present indiscriminate lurch by many donors towards the RDP will have dire consequences for the health and diversity of South Africa’s development sector.
What can donors do?
If donors are to give meaning to their frequent pronouncements on the virtues of a mixed economy, civil society and sustainable policies for change etc, they should ensure that RDP programmes they support take explicit account of, and are accessible to, the services of non-governmental agencies.
Donors must be upfront about the conditions for their assistance; and these conditions must reflect adequate incentives for outsourcing, subcontracting and decentralisation of development services by the government.
They might even take a leaf from their own books and translate some of their own important experiences regarding NGO subcontracting at home to the programmes they are asked to fund in South Africa.
Above all, they should resist the temptations of the easy route to development funding, of simply referring all independent funding applications to the RDP office for sanction. This would have serious consequences for the pattern and content of donor funding, and will set in motion a grotesque paper chase around funding, as projects queue up and jostle outside the RDP offices (in descending order of size and political correctness) for that all- important letter of authority from “the minister”.
At the moment, there is little evidence that serious attention is being given to these issues in RDP-donor discussions. Consequently, those NGOs which are serious about the need to restructure, sharp-focus and tool-up are in danger of being hit by a double whammy: of diminishing direct donor support, and the lack of any structured framework or procedures by which to access projects emanating from the RDP.
Unless this vacuum is resolved soon, the NGO sector in South Africa will be progressively weakened and undermined.
Paul Zille is a development consultant specialising in the non-profit sector