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Congo’s overburdened peacekeepers

The Philippines: controversy over NGO meddling

Kyoto Protocol: new incentives for investors


03/2006
  

[ International civil society ]

“Good access to media
and government“

Organisations such as Greenpeace, Social Watch or Friends of the Earth use global networks to campaign for their causes. They consider expansion to developing countries a “logical step”. Their moves into developing countries have caused governments to complain. Moreover, not all local NGOs are happy about such interventions.


[ By Hugh Williamson ]

The Philippines’ headquarters of Greenpeace looks much like the nearby offices of other non-governmental organisations. The environmental pressure group is based in a converted residential house in a quiet corner of Quezon City, the district of the capital Manila well-known as a hotbed of civil society organisations.

The differences between Greenpeace and local NGOs becomes apparent when staff member Red Constantino explains its approach to tackling the Philippines environmental problems. “For us, Amsterdam is our main co-ordination point,” he says, referring to the headquarters of Greenpeace International. “Without it, we’d function pretty badly.” Constantino is a campaigner, fighting against Manila’s support for coal-fired power stations: “The international momentum behind our campaigns is very important – nothing is quite like it for getting the adrenalin flowing.” Those energy shots have a history. It is thanks to a decision taken a few years ago in Amsterdam that Constantino has his job in Manila.

Unlike most of the dozens of other environmental NGOs in the Philippines, Greenpeace traces its roots not to specific local environmental conflicts with companies or state authorities but to a decision in 2000 by the international organisation’s strategy team to expand into south-east Asia. Since then, campaigns – for instance for renewable energy and against toxic waste – have been coordinated with Amsterdam and other international bureaus.

Bangkok was chosen as the other regional hub, partly as both cities have long-established NGO communities. Greenpeace is not active in, for instance, Malaysia or Vietnam even though, as the organisation admits, the environmental problems there are no less serious.

The centralised nature of Greenpeace’s decision-making is not shared by other international environmental NGOs. The global environmental networks WWF and Friends of the Earth, for instance, have international campaigns but their national sections are usually more autonomous groups with deeper local roots.

Nonetheless, the sharp contrast between Greenpeace and its neighbours in Quezon City exemplifies an issue gaining attention within the current lively debate on the power of international civil society: the role advocacy NGOs from rich countries play in poor countries. Relations between NGOs from advanced nations and developing countries have rarely been without friction due to differences over campaign priorities, strategies and even tactics. This trend has intensified in recent years due to globalisation pressures and the increased frequency of globally coordinated NGO actions – such as on debt and the UN’s Millennium Development Goals of poverty reduction. Differences on style and substance have emerged.

The Philippines is a particularly interesting case. Its civil society movement is highly developed;the role of NGOs in social change was even enshrined in the constitution in 1987. Moreover, the economy and society are relatively globalised. The eight million Filipino migrant workers overseas are but one example.

International advocacy NGOs regularly stir controversy, with no shortage of recent examples. At Greenpeace’s Manila headquarters, Daniel Ocampo, who campaigns against genetically engineered food, says many Filipinos see the organisation as “too radical”, because of its confrontational stunts and its policy positions that draw on international environmental standards dismissed by some as irrelevant in a developing country like the Philippines. In contrast, “many left-wing NGOs and militant farmers groups criticise us for importing European solutions and for being willing to talk with government.” The reality is somewhere in between, he says, with many supporters – including professionals not usually attracted to NGOs – drawn to Greenpeace by its international brand and modern campaign ideas.

However, it is not necessarily other NGOs that feel bothered most. Caesar Belangel, deputy head of Code-NGO, a Philippine federation of development NGOs, says the environment ministry went so far last year as to threaten to expel international pressure groups involved with anti-mining campaigns. “International NGOs can add weight to such mobilisations, and the government doesn’t like it,” he says.

Leonor Briones sees things from various angles. She is a former treasury minister and now heads the Philippine section of Social Watch, a global NGO network on social rights. “There’s no doubt international NGOs have an impact”, she says. “Oxfam recently sponsored a book on debt in the Philippines and there’s no doubt World Bank officials read it.” Yet government officials also get frustrated with what they see as selective international pressure on certain issues, she adds: “The view in government is: ‘Why highlight Smokey Mountain (one of Manila’s poorest slum areas), when you could look at Makati, (the city’s rich business district)?’”


Pride in professionalism

Lorenzo Tan, head of WWF in the Philippines, emphasises his group’s professional approach. He says WWF’s international status has opened doors to policy-makers in Manila. The group has given the government advice on several marine protection projects. “We have the privilege of a global perspective, that means a sense of how bad things are compared with elsewhere. But we also work hard on getting local stakeholder support,” Tan says.

Unlike many local NGO leaders, who are former activists, Tan is a wealthy ex-businessman. He came to WWF via his love of wildlife photography. He was recruited for his professional skills, he says, and argues that the group’s sophisticated project evaluation system “would put many Northern NGOs to shame”.

He also stresses what he sees as the mediating role of international NGOs in developing countries, by helping global donor agencies understand the country better, for instance. “Some donors are not flexible enough.” They are unaware, Tan states, of how fast political and economic conditions can change in a country like the Philippines, “altering a project’s parameters overnight”.

And how do international NGOs based in rich countries see the role and importance of their affiliates in places like the Philippines? Leaders of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth (FoE) say such affiliates are vital in the increasingly global nature of environmental campaigning. Gerd Leipold, executive director of Greenpeace International, says the expansion into the Philippines and Thailand came as his organisation recognised the need to anchor its activities where the greatest environmental threats are. “In that sense this expansion was a logical step.”

Meena Raman, a Malaysian environmentalist and president of the international network of FoE organisations points to the complexities of relations between the various partner organisations. “Our affiliates in Malaysia and elsewhere in the South are regularly accused by governments of being foreign-instigated organisations. Due to this, we do not emphasise our connections with Northern-based NGOs, in order to show that people in the South also worry about the environment.” In contrast, she says, Northern groups gain legitimacy from links with poor-country NGOs. Therefore, they tend to publicise such ties. In public relations terms, FoE’s Northern affiliates need those in the South more than vice versa, she says.

Back in the Philippines, Elisea Gozun, a former environment minister, says that groups such as Greenpeace make a – sometimes frustrating – difference. Even though she is from a NGO background herself, she is critical of Greenpeace’s radical stance against coal-fired power stations, which she says fails to appreciate the government’s broad pro-renewable energy thrust. “Greenpeace is influential because, once it has made its case, this is then picked up and repeated by other local NGOs.”

Mr Belangel of Code-NGO admits that the activities of international groups can sometimes lead to distortions – such as via selective grant-giving policies or due to a staffing brain-drain towards international NGOs with higher salaries – but says these factors are outweighed by positive impacts, such as by an increase in professional and governance standards. “International NGOs usually work at the macro level, with good access to the media and the government. This can really help if it is then related to less prominent, community-level initiatives,” he concludes.


Hugh Williamson
has worked with NGOs in the UK, Germany and Hong Kong. He is currently a Berlin correspondent for the Financial Times and was previously the newspaper’s Manila correspondent.
hugh.williamson@t-online.de