sovereign organisation
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- 1. Shaping Our World Making a case for Sovereign local organisations and social movements By Doug Reeler Community Development Resource Association South Africa (illustrations by Andy Mason)
- 2.
- ?
- 3.
- What kind of civil society organisations are making a difference?
- 4.
- How are they transforming power relations in the world today?
- 5. In three parts
- Two contrasting approaches to working with organisations in development
- The idea of Sovereign Organisations
- Phakamas Story
- 6. Everyone sees local organisations and social movements as important for social change
- working through or with local partners is big
- But we see two contrasting approaches
- 7. The Conventional Approach:
- Which asks:
- How do we make change happen?
- PROJECTS
- (or outcomes-based programmes)
- local organisations O O
- 8.
- Many Governments, Donors and larger NGOs use or work through local organisations
- to deliver their development agenda
- (increasingly around the Millennium Development Goals)
- local organisations = outsourced service
- providers
- funded to fulfil the aims of others
- 9. Organisational Capacity Building becomes very important
- Project management systems and skills
- M and E systems and skills
- Finance systems and skills
- Personnel systems and skills
- Governance systems and skills
- ICT systems and skills
- To fix up local organisations to be more accountable Project delivery vehicles
- local organisations O O
- 10.
- Project management systems and skills
- M and E systems and skills
- Finance systems and skills
- Personnel systems and skills
- Governance systems and skills
- ICT systems and skills
- To fix up local organisations to be more accountable Project delivery vehicles
- local organisations O O
- 11. More specifically: this Capacity Building
- (under an external project delivery approach)
- often undermines hidden local knowledge
- imposes a foreign managerial culture and systems
- creates cloned organisations copying Best Practice models
- professionalises community-based organisations
- 12.
- The result?
- a sector plagued with uncreative, obedient, local CBOs and NGOs
- ... doing what they are told to do, badly
- not being themselves!
- 13.
- Supporting local organisations and social movements
- as the core purpose
- starting from a different place
- 14.
- 15. and the people making choices and decisions about the future are those who have the power of organisation behind them
- 16.
- Some donors and NGOs are paying more attention to Civil Society Organisations
- not as Project delivery vehicles used to deliver external outcomes
- but strong, local organisations and social movements, as outcomes in themselves
- perhaps the truest measure of significant change
- 17.
- Instead of local organisations delivering Projects as service providers for others
- we have approaches which are focused primarily on supporting the development of local organisations and social movements
- who will themselves lead the change needed, driven by their own aims and initiatives
- 18.
- My sense is that people see organisations as vehicles through which to do things in the world, not realising
- that in building organisation they
- are shaping the world. James Taylor, CDRA
- 19. If we want to talk of sustainable development, we might ask
- Who will sustain it...?
- it can only be sustained if it is embedded in strong, sovereign local organisations and social movements
- possibly supported by the others - donors, NGOs, solidarity networks etc.
- 20. If we want to talk of rights
- Who will win and defend rights?
- Sovereign social movements
- made up of strong local organisations
- 21. So instead of asking
- How do we make change happen?
- we could ask:
- 22. In our minds The ability to understand and work with organisations is a discipline (like adult learning) that should be a core capability of leaders and facilitators in all fields of development Not the sole preserve of professional Organisation Development (OD) Consultants
- 23. the idea of Sovereignty
- Small farmers movements talk about
- 24. local organisations and social movements suggests:
- the same home-grown resilience
- an inside-out identity
- the idea of an organisation being the expression of the free will of its own constituents
- but open to collaboration, support and solidarity
- 25.
- It should be clear that rights like food and seed sovereignty can only exist if they are embedded in strong sovereign organisation
- 26. Defining a sovereign organisation:
- Works with its own purpose and principles
- Mobilises and expresses the will and voice of its own constituents
- Not an outsourced service provider
- Culturally and structurally unique (not a Best Practice clone)
- Politically conscious, asks its own questions
- Able to cooperate and collaborate
- Able to continually learn and adapt, from its own experience