NGOs and Development

From mainstream to alternatives

AgendaMainstream and Alternative development

- Concept and evolution

- Different approaches

- Benefits and Critiques

- Key ideas of Alternative Development

Application on Alternative Development:

Case Study: Self Help Groups and Women development in India

Main stream development

Origin

Leopold Kohr published The Overdeveloped Nations:

The Diseconomies Of Scale in 1977. Over

development is characterised by the consumption

of goods for non-functional purposes.

In mainstream development , the existence of 'underdeveloped'

states, regions or cultures is seen as a problem that needs to

be solved.

States, regions, cultures and people are considered

'underdeveloped'

In contrast, the framework of overdevelopment shifts the focus

to the 'developed' countries of the global North, asking

"questions about why excessive consumption amongst the

affluent is not also seen foremost as an issue of

development".

By questioning how and why uneven development is produced in

the world, one can evaluate the global North’s role and

responsibility as “overdevelopers” in producing global

inequality.

According to various surveys, consumption is seemingly not

making people notably happy, but rather increasing the

West's ecological footprint. Overdevelopment has a huge

impact on the environment, the social realm,human rights,

and the global economy.

The key area of development to which NGOs have contributed is

that of ‘people-centered’ development, reflecting recent

shifts away from heavily theoretical ideas about

development, to more pragmatic ‘theories about practice”.

Critiques of mainstream development NGOs

- The dilemma between human needs and organization needs

- Depends on dependency (Unsustainable)

- Absence of environmental and equity concerns

Alternative development

1970

What is Alternative development“Local development on ground”

- Focus on participatory and people centered (grass roots)

- Acts as an alternative paradigm over decision control

- More successful model

- More concerned with real development measures not only

GDP

- Alternative in: agents, methods and objectives (values)

- 3 Pillars: participatory, endogenous, self-reliant

Evolution-Post WWII, Marxist economic philosophy (Rise of socialism)

“ Labour is the sole source of value; natural reources as

such have no economic value”

- Reformist prespective: Correction of conventional method

problem (State intervention, monitor and control)

-Now mainstream development is trying to be integrated with

alternative development pillars – MAD -

Different approaches

- Dependency Theory

- Capacity of people theory

“Alternative development is development from below”(Nerfin.1977)

Community - NGOs

Human nature being what it is, while everyone likes to be a social engineer, few like to be the objects of social engineering. (Ashis Nandy, 1989: 271)

Critiques

- Loose model: Objective and scope question is not yet

answered! (intervention? .. Impact measure?.. Tools?)

- Its postconventional ideas are still under the ties of

the conventional political imaginaries (load of

aspirations beyond its scope)

- Follow up on continuity

Key ideas of Alternative development

Participation, Gender, Empowerment

ParticipationParticipation - umbrella term to refer to the involvement of local people in development activities

Focus on reversing the power relationship that exist in mainstream development

Emphasis on the idea that people themselves are the “expert” on their problem & should be actively involved in working out strategies and solutions

Dimension of participation Appraisal – way of understanding the local community

and their understandings of wider processes PRA, PUA

Agenda setting – involvement of local community in

decisions about development policies, consulted and

listened to from the start, not brought in once policy

laws been decided upon

Efficiency – involvement of local community in

projects – building schools

Empowerment – participation leads to greater self-

awareness and confidence; contributions to development

of democracy

Different forms of participation Nominal –when government-formed groups are created; but their main purpose is merely tokenistic display.

Instrumental - a way of providing labour under conditions of resource shortfall created by structural adjustment, which then counts as a cost to local people.

Representative- a certain group within the community gains some leverage within a programme or project by gaining access to the planning committee and is able to express its own interests.

Transformative- people find ways to make decisions and take action on their own terms.

EMPOWERMENT A practice of sharing information, rewards, and power with people so that they can take initiative and make decisions to solve problems.

Achieved through participation

NGO ability to ´empower individuals´ (Willis, 2005102) – important part of the NGOs enthusiasm

Interest in empowerment reflected a shift from considering poverty simply as ‘a lack’ of material resources, towards a view of poverty as an outcome of unequal power

Idea of having greater power and therefore more control over your life.

Dimensions of power (Rowlands, Willis, 2005:102)

Power over – the ability to dominate

Power to – the ability to see possibilities for change

Power with – the power that comes from individuals working together collectively to achieve common goals

Power within – feeling of self-worth and self-esteem that come form within individuals.

An effective empowerment strategy was one which focus on ‘power to’ in order to resist & challenge ‘power over.’

A key elementt of empowerment as development outcome – interventions leading to empowerment.

Often claimed – NGOs empower communities – in reality not the case

Empowerment is something that comes from within

NGOs can provide context within which a process of empowerment is possible, only individuals can choose to take opportunities and use them

GENDER Feminist scholars and women’s groups began to raise important questions about the degree to which women were included in such process (Sen &Grown 1988,Guijt &Shah 1998)

Feminist argued that participation often involved a handful of women in participatory exercises and often obscured women’s interests and contributions to development.

Moser(1989) ,in her overview of gender and development approaches in the post-colonial era, argues that the empowerment approach has been led by women’s groups and NGOs in the South.

Example-SEWA

Sen and Grown (1985: 20), writing for

Development Alternatives with Women for a New

Era (DAWN), argued that

Equality for women is impossible within the existing economic, political, and cultural processes that reserve resources, power and control for small groups of people. But neither is development possible without greater equity for, and participation by, women.

Encapsulating the essence of the

key propositions of The theory of

Alternative Development i.e.

Participation, Empowerment and

Gender is the concept of SELF HELP

GROUPS

Self Help Groups (SHGs)

And Women Development in India

International Network for self- help centress say

“ SHGs follow a process of self help support wherein people

who share common problems, experiences and situation can

offer each other a unique perspective of mutual support which

is not available to those who have not suffered that

situation”

Thus, a SHG can be described as

A group seeking strength of collectives

By following the principle of mutual self-help

It works as a convergent community action

Roles of SHGs

•Empowerment, non- hierarchical decision making, inclusion

and shared responsibilities

•Non –exploitative models of mutual help

•Promotion of habits of savings, credit management, and

management of micro finance activities

•Social support

•Social and political inclusion of members

Women SHGs have played a catalytic and a multi-dimensional role in upliftment of their members

Credit security and Economic Upliftment

Promoting habit of thrift and voluntary savings

Doing away with exploitative interest rates (of usurpative

money lender) and oppressive formal procedures (of formal

banks)

Developing an in-house capability of managing a small mini

bank

Entrepreneurship Development

Set up their own eco activities through micro-industries and

other self employment generation activities like kuteer udgoy

in sectors like handicraft , food processing etc

SHGs also ensure buyer linkages

40 lakhs SHGs have been registered under SGSY which provide

training, skill development, technical and marketing support

Social Empowerment

Promote elementary education for girl child, adult female literacy for destitute, widows

Promoting facilities for children of working mothers like crèches or balwadi

Social awareness against practices of dowry, superstition, child marriage, small family norms, health and nutrition

Setting up vocational training centres which double up as centres of creating awareness and advocacy about gender rights

Social Capital for the group

Women’s leadership development and political empowerment

With small beginnings as a mini bank organiser provided women

with exposure about administrative and political processes

This catapulted them towards bigger roles in village/block or

district level

So SHG- PRI linkage is on an upswing and more women leaders

of SHG are finding possible to become elected people’s

representative in PRIs

The UNICEF- Yavatmal case study on SHGs

The Yavatmal(district In Maharashtra) has shown immense

multi-dimensional potential of women’s collective

The Yavatmal SHG strengthened the concepts like co-

governance, social audit, SHG-PRI linkages

Thus, SHGs which made a

humble beginning as a

micro credit management

institutions have led to

various positive

Refrences

http://aud.ac.in/upload/Development-

Alternative_Post_and_Reflexive-Jan_Petrse.pdf

http://www.sociologydiscussion.com/development/alternative-

development-theories-for-local-development/1129

http://www.prayaspune.org/reli/PUBLICATIONS_files/A_1_5.pdf

Book - Non-Governmental Organizations and Development (By - David

Lewis, Nazneen Kanji)

Team memebers

Ashmeet Baweja

Manar Ramadan

Richa Joshi

Saurabh Bhowmic