There are many tendencies showing that donors are increasingly focusing their funding to civil society (CS) towards the role of being watch dogs of government performance. This means large programmes (like DIFDs AcT programme) which promote activities that will enable CSOs to analyse government policies, budget performance etc.
This is, of course, a classical role for civil society. The question is whether the tendency to focus only on this role will back fire, because it is build on the assumption that CSOs are – in general – ready to take up this role.
The studies of civil society in Tanzania, that I have been able to get my hands on so far, still paints a picture of a civil society in the ‘mushrooming phase’. This means that a broad range of organisations are still in the formation process, they are struggling with building capacity and internal governance structures. They are somehow struggling to build their own accountability towards their constituency!
In my view of the current status of CS in Tanzania, there are a number of CSOs that are already ready (and a number are very active as at now) for taking this role up, however there are a majority who will need also to have time and resources to build up there own capacities and accountability. The most able CSOs to take up this role are the urban based organisations, who can recruit highly educated staff and use the good networks available here. Meanwhile, the regionally based organisations face a lot of challenges in taking up this role.
If you look at typical phases of the formation of CSOs, you might divide it into three phases:
1. Formation of organisation
2. Building capacity and accountability towards own constituency
3. Ability to perform advocacy and be ‘watch dogs’
The new donor focus on CSs role in accountability and governance is – in my view- focusing a lot on funding activities that assume that CSOs are all in the third phase, whereas I would suggest that a majority is still struggling with the second phase.
Therefore, it seems to me that donors, who wants to pursue this very relevant agenda, needs to acknowledge that they can not only look at the end result they want (effective watch dogs), they need also to look at funding of the steps that comes before CSOs can legitimately take up this role, which means giving time (and funding) for CSOs to build their organisations to the ability to be advocates.
In their eager to use CSOs to hold government accountable, they tends to forget that CSOs can only do so, if they are themselves accountable to their own constituencies.
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Hi Søren
SvarSletJolly good to hear from you this way :-). And the themes you are bringing up are very relevant.
What is a the right intermediary organisation? You ask. I don't have the answer either, but I just want to attract your attention to a Ugandan initiative which has just started earlier this year. It is called Independent Development Fund (IDF)
Here I coute from their web page (http://www.idf.co.ug/info/index.php):
"Independent Development Fund (IDF) is a grant making organization, incorporated in Uganda as a company limited by guarantee and not having share capital. IDF was set up by four Development Partners namely:- Royal Danish Embassy, DFID, Swedish Embassy/Sida and Royal Netherlands Embassy, which partners have also made funding commitments to the Programme.
IDF is non political, non-governmental, not-for-profit grant mechanism for supporting civil society organizations in Uganda. It is set up to deliver a range of support services to Ugandan civil society organizations as a means of strengthening their capacities to effectively contribute to the country’s human rights, civil rights, good governance and poverty reduction efforts.
It aims to give grants and grant management support to Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) that will work to promote a human rights approach, support and facilitate citizens to access and understand laws and Government policies that impact on their human and civil rights."
Legally speaking, this organisation/fund is closest to your typology nr. 1, but at a closer look you will find that the donors occupy 4 out of 7 chairs in the board (see below)!
Well, no doubt that control is still in donor hands but they might have other ideas for the future, I don't know. But from what I came to know it seems like a good initiative also in the sense that it has a clear objective of reaching CBO's and none Kampala organisations as well. I also think they are quite transparent and clear in the whole setup and they have also started out with some capacity building efforts towards successful applicants (would be good to offer this to none-successful also).
Greetings,
Troels :-))))
Board of directors of IDF:
Mohammed Ndifuna (HURINET) / Chairman
Maureen Nahwera (Embassy of Sweden /Sida) / Vice Chairperson
Arthur Larok ( NGO Forum) / Secretary
Niels Hjortdal (DANIDA-HUGGO) / Treasurer
Prof. J.B Kwesiga (DENIVA) / Member
Agnes Ndamata (DFID) / Member
Esther Loeffen (Royal Netherlands Embassy) / Member
Hello Troels,
SvarSletNice to get comments.
I think the Uganda case is a similar construction as the Foundation was based on in the beginning. however, the ambition was to form a locally rooted agency, and not a donor-driven. So it is a challenge for Donors to step a bit back, an have the necessary trust in an independent agency, where donors are not directly on the board.
It has been a challenge to move to that level for Foundation, but it has the advantage of donors less likely to push own (national) agendas into the board rooms!
Soeren