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Contributions from
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Focus
Participation as a process
Too little attention to the aspect of legitimacy
Problems of a water supply project in India
An endeavour by terre des hommes
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What is civil society?
Too little attention to the aspect of legitimacy
By Frank Bliss
The demand that civil society must be included in the debate on national development strategies in the developing countries has grown in recent years, particularly with regard to strategies to reduce poverty. But there is no conclusive definition of the term 'civil society', which is why disparate groups are involved – and least of all the poor themselves. The favoured NGOs frequently pursue commercial aims behind the mask of a non-profit status. Frank Bliss advocates a new concept in dealing with civil society.
In the formulation of national Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) under the HIPC-II initiative, pressure from the international donor community resulted in civil society institutions being included in the PRSP circle and consulted. In many countries, such as Mauritania and Vietnam, this meant the first opening of a previously state-monopolised planning process. But, apart from a few exceptions, the way in which civil society was involved in the development of these papers appears unsatisfactory. The process by which the now almost 60 PRSPs came into being has recently been the subject of several studies.1 This aspect in particular, besides the unrealistic basic macroeconomic data in many PRSPs, became the focus of criticism.
What is 'civil society'?
When one analyses the PRS process it turns out that a basic question remains unanswered: who in the partner countries are actually 'civil society', who within its framework represents which population groups with what legitimacy? It can be seen that in the case of almost all PRS processes the term remains vague and is interpreted in very different ways. Whereas some understand the definition of civil society to be all institutions of a non-state nature in a country, others exclude explicitly definitions of business institutions (such as professional and employers' associations). That means civil society is understood as a "sphere beyond the market and state".2 Whether elected MPs and mayors are to be classified as members of civil society also remains unclear. In most of the HIPC-II countries, Parliamentarians have at any rate in common with the (other) representatives of civil society that they are included in debates as seldom as are the latter and at best may raise their hand in approval at the end of a government-steered process. Also, by the way, a look at the non-state Press leaves open the question of its membership of civil society.
Most commentators are astonishingly in accord that NGOs are an important element of civil society. But nowhere is it defined what NGOs are. Are they organisations such as the non-profit association in Germany which with donations and an honorary board of management carries out social work for the benefit of the community? Are they human rights organisations, or even big social associations such as Caritas or the Red Cross?
Noticeable are parallels to this debate on developmental project work in which no clear rules lay down whether primarily national consulting offices, professional organisations or state offices are to be selected as project partners, whereas it is agreed that there should be cooperation with NGOs as far as possible. While, for instance, NGOs are mentioned explicitly in the 'Concept for German development cooperation with African countries South of the Sahara' of the German Development Ministry (BMZ 1998), and indeed are to be "included as authentic spokesmen with regard to the field of tension between cultural traditions and modernisation", the same concept fails to name other social institutions as potential partners.
The diffuse picture described here has in practice considerable consequences for the PRS process and development cooperation as a whole. If, say, we assumed that the NGOs were actually not the pre-eminent representatives of civil society – then the developmental concepts' demands for participation of the (such as that of the German development cooperation concept3) would be evaded and the legitimacy of the ostensibly societal decision-making processes would be cast into great doubt.
The wrong ones participate
How badly a development cooperation can get it wrong by viewing mainly NGOs as the representatives of civil society and privileging them by promotional measures is shown by the Mauritanian example, which differs little from some others.4 Here I start from a definition of civil society according to which it is composed of all social institutions of a non-state-administrative nature, thus also including business associations and representatives of communal, regional and national assemblies. Hence, in Mauritania first place is taken by the professional organisations, which, like all other social groups there, have a weak representative structure but represent the interests of hundreds of thousands of people.
They are followed by the undoubtedly state-influenced but de jure independent agricultural cooperatives and the women's and youth associations, which have memberships of comparable size. A central role in civil society is certainly played by the trade unions, which combined probably have more than 100,000 members. The strongest union, the independent and state-critical Confédération Générale des Travailleurs de Mauritanie (CGTM), which with its some 70,000 dues-paying members and regular meetings and elections is by even stringent standards probably the civil society institution with the greatest legitimacy. It is followed by a wide margin by less organised groups such as the organisation of university lecturers and students, parent associations, the leadership groups of the clans and, in particular, the religious brotherhoods, which have very large memberships. According to our yardsticks, some of these organisations may have a purely informal character, but their leaders enjoy in part considerable legitimacy among their members.
In this context one can hardly in all conscience put forward the NGOs with their low membership figures. In this respect, practically every village self-help group far exceeds the average NGO. The latter appear in essentially three forms: 1) international NGOs and their national subsidiaries, which in their country have neither members nor a representation mandate; 2) advocacy NGOs with up to some hundred members, which have considerable legitimacy within small segments of civil society (such as lawyers for the observance of human rights); and 3) so-called 'development NGOs', which dominate in terms of numbers and claim to support projects in favour of the poor in their country. The latter are meant in particular when in the developmental dialogue NGOs are spoken of as partners, and they are the ones that (however inadequate this may be), participate in decision-making processes and thus allegedly represent civil society. But the advocacy organisations are viewed more as a nuisance and are excluded from the national debates as far as possible.
NGOs as business
There certainly may well be enterprising development NGOs which with commitment and their own funds aim to speed up the development of their country (such as in the Philippines, in India, and especially in Latin America). However, in large parts of Africa and most certainly in our reference country, Mauritania, such NGOs are the exception. Here, instead, one can hear: "This is my NGO". The state itself or government officials found NGOs in order to control the scene which in the West is understood as civil society, if its coming into being cannot be prevented.
But in Sahel and West Africa even this type of NGO is the exception. Here is it less about political participation and its prevention than about business. Even a cursory analysis of the NGO scene proves that it is mainly a matter of self-employment organisations as tax-saving models that are founded by young academics or established officials of the state administration – in the only too justified expectation of receiving well-paid assignments from international NGOs or state and multilateral donors.
Ever more often, even individuals are encouraged to start up such business NGOs by international development cooperation organisations which by this means create an instrument to enable them to circumvent state authorities in implementing projects (or because the authorities are not present in the project area). In these cases, NGOs are seldom nothing other than groups of young consultants, all resident in the capital, who work more flexibly and supposedly more professionally and in any case faster than the state line services because they can act only in a parallel structure that is influenced almost solely by the donor.
Now, one could perhaps have understanding for the idea of using mainly NGOs for implementing projects if the existing administrations are incapable of carrying out even only their core tasks. (The non-functioning of an administration, however, is often a question of the supply of funds and the motivation of its employees, who simply do not have the Honda motorcycles possessed by the NGO actors.) But here it is not about the functioning of projects but the question of the legitimacy of civil society.
NGOs instead of civil society
The analysis of the PRS processes has shown that the business NGO scene is not used solely for project implementation but also accorded the role of a representation of civil society in political processes. At the same time it is obvious that (at least in Mauritania, Mali and other Sahel countries) every single one of the organisations named above – professional groups, cooperatives, trade unions, women's associations – has a much greater legitimacy than virtually every NGO. However, those that are promoted and included in the national debate are not the membership organisations but the NGOs, which means that international development cooperation (possibly unconsciously) contributes to avoiding civil society participation. This may be quite convenient for the countries affected; at any rate the Mauritanian government itself picks up the development cooperation vocabulary and speaks everywhere in its PRSP follow-up documents of NGOs, when actually it should be talking about the legitimate representatives of civil society.5
Mass organisations, but not civil society?
The type of the participation of civil society and NGOs in the PRS process of Vietnam must appear really paradoxical. NGOs are so far not legalised in the Socialist Republic. To date, only international NGOs such as CARE and Actionaid have been represented in its PRS process. But Vietnamese (civil) society participated strongly through representatives of the so-called 'mass organisations' such as women's unions, trade unions and veterans' association. These organisations are highly active and have millions of members, but many (western) observers do not see them as civil society, which is why the call for legalisation of Vietnamese NGOs and their inclusion in the PRS process is becoming ever louder.
There is nothing against that. However, in the justified view of many Vietnamese the mass organisations have a much greater legitimacy to represent societal groups than have NGOs. Although the organisations are integrated in the Communist Party structures they have truly achieved a great deal for their members in terms of working conditions, women's rights and a minimum level of social security. The mass organisations must in future reform themselves and be more independent; but as far as legitimacy is concerned the NGOs cannot replace them in the short to medium term.
Establish legitimacy
The brief analysis prompts me to draw the following conclusions. In the case of project implementation, where parallel structures appear to be absolutely necessary there should in future be more careful scrutiny than to date of the categories to which the NGOs that offer their services belong. If there are no NGOs that can play a decisive part in influencing the project idea and help its implementation with their own funds, it would in many cases be better to employ local consulting companies because here taxes arise and sustainable structures are established.
Where NGOs are active in the advocacy sector, such as in pushing through women's rights, general civil rights or the rights of minorities, or in work for democratisation or the rule of law, international development cooperation should purposefully promote these initiatives.
Where, however, it is about overall societal decision-making processes such as the drawing up and implementation of the PRSP, and everywhere where a society's participation as a whole is to be strengthened, NGOs must be treated according to the same principles that apply to every other civil society institution. In particular, the question of what category of NGOs is involved should be examined. Business NGOs are to be classified as commercially-oriented organisations of civil society, whereas advocacy organisations, depending upon their legitimacy, can be excellent partners in promoting civil society. Most certainly, as the Vietnam case shows, NGOs should not be given priority over other and more important representatives of social groups.
The promotion of civil society institutions by official German development cooperation will gain in significance if the national PRSPs are seen in the BMZ and implementing organisations as generally binding for the cooperation. It would be helpful if (also regardless of other donors) studies could be made to identify the organisations in the civil societies of the partner countries which on the one hand are successful in bringing civil society positions into the national poverty reduction process, and on the other hand can represent the people with sufficient legitimacy.
Professional organisations, such as those which German Technical Cooperation has promoted for many years, are certainly suitable partners everywhere, also or precisely because they are at present weak in organisational terms. In countries such as Mauritania or Mali, the preferred partners undoubtedly also include the independent trade unions. Why in comparable countries, including Vietnam, should not women's associations or other important mass organisations which still must work in part-dependence upon the state be promoted with the goal of making them independent in the medium term? Cooperation with religious institutions also should not be a taboo subject, even if in multi-religion countries especially strict standards must be applied.
However, the most important issue of the future in the context of civil society participation in national decision-making processes will be how the poor themselves, that 10 to more than 50 per cent of the population for whose benefit the PRSPs were after all explicitly introduced, will get a hearing and, if possible, also represent themselves. In general, the quality of the participation of the poor or disadvantaged people will in future be a benchmark by which to assess German and international development cooperation, and not only for projects and programmes aimed directly at reducing poverty.
1) See the study of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) 2001: PRSP Institutionalisation Study, Final Report. London. A well-founded analysis of the first complete PRSP was presented by World Economy, Ecology and Development (WEED) 2002:
Armutsstrategiepapiere [Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers] (PRSP) – Neuanfang in der Strukturanpassungspolitik von IWF und Weltbank? [Fresh start in the structural adjustment policy of the IMF and World Bank?] Berlin. German participation in the PRSP processes was examined in a BMZ cross-section evaluation: BMZ: Deutsche Beteiligung an Poverty-
Reduction-Strategy-Prozessen, Bonn 2002-2003. On the role of participation in the PRSP process, see Walter Eberlei (2001): Institutionalisierte Partizipation in PRS- Folgeprozessen [Institutionalised participation in PRS follow-up processes]. Duisburg.
2) Roland Roth (2002): Zivilgesellschaft und die Zukunft der Demokratie [Civil society and the future of democracy], in: Friedrich Ebert Foundation (Pub.): Die Bürgergesellschaft in der Diskussion [Civil society in the debate]. Bonn, p.29
3) BMZ 1999: Übersektorales Konzept 'Partizipative Zusammenarbeit' (Partizipationskonzept) [Cross-sectoral concept 'Participatory Cooperation' (Participation concept)]. Bonn
4) BMZ evaluation 'Einbeziehung von NRO in Vorhaben der TZ und FZ' [Inclusion of NGOs in TC and FC projects] (1997), in which the quality of the work of a great many NGOs is recognised, but on the whole their legitimacy cannot be confirmed.
5) Thus in 'Rapport sur la mise en œuvre du cadre stratégique de lutte contre la pauvreté', March 2002. (Report about the implementation of the strategic frame of poverty reduction)
Prof. Dr. Frank Bliss lectures in Development Ethnology at the University of Hamburg and is joint owner of the associated consultants Bliss & Gaesing.
bliss.gaesing@t-online.de
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