The sting in the gift….Rashid Kidwai
Foreign donors do not really understand the developing world and its needs. They must go beyond their agendas
Donor agendas have sometimes resulted in trillions of dollars being spent ineffectively.
Consider these examples. At the International Association for Educational Assessment, I heard an ambassador suggest that the recipient agency appoint consultants from the donor country. These consultants cost double what local consultants do, and they also lack ground knowledge. They would then engage local consultants from their large fees. Another example is that of a Scandinavian country providing an agricultural graduate to India, as she had an Indian spouse and was willing to relocate. This would look good in their parliamentary report: women’s qualifications were being utilised. Of little concern was the fact that she would contribute minimally to Indian agriculture, because of the different climates, practices and cultures.
The donor community attempts to be a one-stop shop for all development needs, without any focus in any developmental area. Toyota, Unilever etc are recognised as quality brands in their specialised fields. The World Bank, UNDP, the Ford Foundation and others have no specific area of expertise. They take on healthcare, education, livelihoods, old age, water management, home improvement, gender equality, and each with a host of multiple possibilities in healthcare, cancer, AIDS, child mortality and so on. Some less kind would call them large bureaucracies. If they focused on one or two chosen verticals, each donor would build its competence there.
Primary donors should then insist on NGOs focusing on their project. In the corporate sector, no company’s chosen distributor can distribute any other product, as companies insist on a 100 per cent focus on their products. If donors insisted similarly, the NGO and its members would derive much greater benefits. Donors too would gain from higher success rates.
When a donor visits an NGO, the entire team focuses on spring-cleaning, with continuity (and enlargement) of funding in mind. Similarly, in the following weeks, for other donors. And the activity for each donor’s project keeps getting interrupted in fact, disrupted as the more qualified staff are involved in window-dressing. In the private sector, when a brand is launched, no new activity is undertaken for at least six months, so the team involved can understand that product and its nuances. The corporate has all the systems and processes in place, which the NGO doesn’t. Yet donors expect the social sector to take on different projects of a donor, or projects of different donors simultaneously!
Donors obtain whatever information they require from senior members of the NGO. These know exactly what they want to hear, and feed them accordingly. Consultants ensure that proposals and reports from NGOs are written in an acceptable manner, mainly for audits that focus on financial aspects, without evaluating project achievements. Corporates report to their shareholders annually. Who is the donor answerable to? Do donors have any accountability? What happens if goals aren’t achieved?
Donors working with underdeveloped countries do not really understand the developing world and their needs. Despite having country offices, the approach is still top-down. Something’s not working. That something is missing needs to be taken on board before it can be addressed. Here are a few simple steps.
Establish a channel for raw material supply and marketing: The major problem NGOs face is that of access to markets. Distribution channels are limited. NGOs buy from village retailers, the last and most expensive point in the chain, once middlemen have added their margins. Quality and consistency is a challenge. Donors could establish distribution channels, outsourcing the project to professionals, keeping an oversight to ensure no exploitation. Once they realise that NGOs have alternate channels for sale, middlemen will also improve their terms. The channel should also aggregate NGOs raw material requirements and order in bulk to gain economies of scale.
Capacity building and training accounts for much of the 90 per cent earmarked for project spending. Good, and yet: Whose capacity are donors building? The supply side. To what end, unless they first identify demand gaps and then build capacity to fulfil those gaps?
Also, who should attend which programme? This assumes that NGOs have organisation structures and job descriptions in place, with an effective appraisal system to identify developmental needs. Unfortunately, the assumption is incorrect, and so, attendees are sent by rotation, or as a reward for good work. Donors could ask for participant resumes, latest appraisals and their current job description before accepting them. Corporates require those returning from courses to present to colleagues, and to write a report reinforcing learning, and imparting it to others. In the social sector individuals returning from such programmes go back to their routines, and a lot of the learning is lost.
Collaboration: All donors ask for reams of reports. If all NGO reports were uploaded on the donor’s website, along with an analysis, it would bring about transparency, which is currently lacking. Donors urge the social sector, to collaborate and share information in order to cut costs. NGOs share an almost universal conviction that information is power, and so hold all information close. They fear (perhaps justly) that by sharing information, another NGO could do better, thus affecting their funding.
However, donors are in possession of a wealth of information, gathered over years. From the deserts of Africa to the mountains of Peru, imagine a website with a critique of every project indicating the steps taken, what worked and why. Everyone working for the betterment of the poor or disadvantaged would benefit from such a repository of knowledge.
The UN Solution Exchange, which started in 2005, is a step in the right direction. It is interactive, and NGOs can ask questions and react to different aspects of different problems raised.
What’s holding donors back? Do donors have a common goal of working for the betterment of the poor, or do their agendas take precedence?
The writer is CEO, Grassroots Trading Network for Women
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-sting-in-the-gift/821711/0