TR. Ramanathan
T.R Ramanathan an Indian national, is a research intern with the USDA Forest Service 's Forestry Support Program and a honorary research fellow at the American Forestry Association.
Local NGOs based in rural areas play an important role in improving sustainability in forestry and natural resource management. However; the effectiveness of these organizations is constrained in man´' cases by technical and, particularly, organizational limitations. This article draws on experience from South Asia to discuss the need for; and the process institutional strengthening among local NGOs involved in environmental and natural resource management. The article is based on an ongoing research project undertaken under the aegis of the International Forestry branch of the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service. It is clearly a "work in progress" and the author expressly solicits reader feedback. The final output of the project is expected to be a guide for persons arid organizations interested in working with NGOs in South Asia.
Institutional challenges
Local NGOs engaged in addressing environmental concerns are faced with multiple challenges. There are technical challenges: in the area of community forestry; procuring improved variety seeds; site selection for nurseries; transport of seedlings to field locations; forest protection and management; and ensuring equitable distribution of benefits On the institutional side, there are difficulties related to conducting proper needs assessments, establishing sound fund-raising strategies, recruiting and training staff, maintaining trainers' skills through refresher courses, mobilizing local in-kind contributions from economically disadvantaged communities, resolving conflicts within the organizational structure, maintaining good working relations with government departments and other resource groups, complying with the administrative and programmatic requirements of donor agencies, dealing with political pressures without losing independence and integrity, and so forth.
A study by Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN), a New Delhi-based resource group, states that NGOs' effectiveness and the opportunities for their organizational development are hampered by their isolation (PRADAN, 1988). In Bangladesh, an investigation by Private Agencies Collaborating Together (PACT) concludes that the vital connection between small voluntary groups in the country's vast remote rural areas is missing (PACT, 1989).
As the potential of NGOs in natural resource management receives increasing attention, the importance of institutional strengthening in order to tap this potential more fully is also being recognized. Phrases such as "enhancing institutional capacities of NGOs", 'improving local NGO effectiveness" and "expanded role for NGOs" are appearing with increasing frequency in official aid-agency reports and documents. For example, the World Bank's Operational Directive notes that some NGOs' abilities are constrained by their limited managerial and technical capacity: "Even some professionally staffed NGOs are poorly managed, have rudimentary accounting systems and sometimes initiate infrastructure projects with inadequate technical analysis" (World Bank, 1989).
The Environment and Natural Resources Strategy document of the former Asia and Near East Bureau (ANE) of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) - a 1991 restructuring changed the composition of regional bureaux - indicates that USAID and the the ANE could "strengthen institutions in their ability to inventory and value their resources and to analyse, develop and modify policies that directly or indirectly affect forestry, and natural resources management and use; promote new and expanded roles for NGOs and the private sector in the host countries..." (USAID, 1990). The 1991 AID initiatives progress update identifies strengthening human and institutional capacity and building public awareness; reforming unsustainable economic and environmental policies and practices; and encouraging private-sector participation in promoting environmentally sound development activities as key strategies for the agency's work in environment and natural resource management(USAID, 1991).
Examples of institutional strengthening efforts
Efforts to strengthen the institutional capabilities of NGOs concerned with natural resource management are under way in a number of countries in South Asia. For example, the Bankura project in the Indian state of West Bengal, jointly sponsored by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Programme for Rural Women and the Centre for Women's
Development Studies (CWDS) of New Delhi, offers short-term management training courses for women's groups in collaboration with local NGOs. The result has been the active involvement of women in project management and the regeneration of community natural resources through enhanced technical skills (ILO, 1988).
Since the early 1980s, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), PACT and World Neighbors have attempted to strengthen the technical division of Nepal's Social Service National Coordination Council (SSNCC), a quasi-governmental body responsible for NGO coordination and strengthening. The SSNCC has been helping NGOs to strengthen their programme competence through training in social process methods, project formulation, management and evaluation and adaptation of local resource technologies (PACT, 1987). Unfortunately, the promoters placed only marginal emphasis on documenting experiences and in supporting an open dialogue among like-minded organizations for sharing insights, pooling resources where applicable and cooperating in training activities to enable greater feedback and learning. Thus, many of the valuable lessons learned from these efforts have been neither adequately disseminated nor applied.
Over the past two decades, USAID's Office of Private and Voluntary Cooperation (PVC), has supported United States-based private voluntary organizations (PVOs) in carrying out local institutional strengthening activities in Asia, Africa and Latin America. This type of effort has made impressive strides toward upgrading the human resource potential of local NGOs by providing a broad range of training and technical assistance, including the development of management information systems, annual and medium-term planning cycles, cost effectiveness and monitoring and evaluation, etc. (Huntington, 1987). For example, the World Vision Relief and Development Organization (WVRD) established development assistance centres in partnership with local organizations in the Philippines and Indonesia, either through local churches or through WVRD's field offices. Through these centres, community leaders receive short-term training in development, agriculture and other technical areas before returning to their respective communities to share these skills with others.
The International Institute of Rural Reconstruct ion (IIRR), a PVO headquartered in the Philippines, has established a field education and training support unit to help community organizations develop their skills in
The World Wide Fund for Nature-USA (WWF) has been offering training workshops for conservation NGOs in Asia and elsewhere through its Organizational Development Program (ODP). This programme foments institutional self-reliance by developing overall organizational capability with the integration of managerial, operational, programmatic and financial components.
In Nepal, the World Conservation Union (IUCN) has prompted the establishment of an NGO coordinating body designed to serve as a focal point for information-sharing among NGOs involved in environment and natural resources management (Denholm and Rayachhetry, 1990) The Agricultural Development Agencies in Bangladesh (ADAB), initially a forum and a representative of NGOs with government, is expanding its role to include training and technical assistance for local NGO groups. Similarly, the Sri Lanka NGO Council has begun training programmes for its member organizations (Stremlau, 1987). The World Bank's effort in involving Indian NGOs in the design, implementation and evaluation of Bank-supported operations, ranging from sericulture to watershed management, is another example of the concern shown for institutional strengthening by a multilateral agency (Bhatnagar, 1991).
Notwithstanding these commendable efforts, for the most part the rhetoric about institutional strengthening for NGOs has not been paralleled by practical effort on the part of donors and governments. Donor and government financing policies with regard to NGOs are generally short-term in focus and emphasize the achievement of physical targets. Long-term assistance aimed at promotion of financial independence and self-sufficiency is scarce. There is a clear need for coordinated concrete measures to improve NGO capacities on a consistent basis. For example, the Regional Workshop for Asia on Expanding the role of NGOs in national forestry programmes recommended that donor agencies should provide more long-term funding to support NGO projects and institution-building activities (Hazlewood, 1987). Institutional strengthening of local NGOs will require strong political will as well as commitment on the part of northern NGOs, international donors, aid agencies and national governments. Such a will should promote efforts, including research into institutional strengthening needs; long-term institutional strengthening interventions; and recommendations concerning policies that will serve as incentives.
Areas for improvement
In the light of the previous discussion, promoting institutional strengthening of rural NGOs concerned with forestry and natural resource management will require significant rethinking and effort. Integral to this effort are a number of specific and often interrelated issues:
Attitudes. One major requirement, if the institutional capabilities of NGOs are to be strengthened, is a change in attitude of national government workers, especially district- and village-level government officials. A primary impediment to community participation in forestry programmes, is the unwillingness of mid-level government officials to relinquish authority to local people and their institutions. "Government officers explain this caution as growing from tears that the local population would destroy the resource once government controls were lessened (Arnold and Campbell. 1986). Despite the positive results of NGO participation, local officials often continue to perceive NGOs as a threat to their interests or as an outside agency usurping the government's responsibility (Fernandez. 1987). Institutional strengthening must be based on open discussions, the development of mutual trust and the sharing of responsibilities and resources. A fine example of the underlying synergistic potential is the Ford Foundation's initiative in helping forest departments work with NGOs and research institutions to identify ways of enhancing local participation in joint forest management in India (Lurie, 1991).
Leucaena leucocephala seedlings raised by a local NGO
Finances and administration. Beyond an absolute shortage of funding, many donors and national governments offer inflexible and time-bound project-specific grants to NGOs which provide little or no scope for modification within the existing project structure or for change in priorities as needs of the local population change. Such inflexibility often prevents NGOs from articulating long-range plans and fosters a less viable climate in which NGOs seek short-term funds for organizational sustenance.
Governments and donors should provide long-term and flexible funding that includes a package for organizational development This would enable NGOs to undertake long-term interventions and to generate skills in developing self-financing options Further, seed grants should be provided to permit NGOs to experiment with new and collaborative initiatives. Closely tied to finances is a need for governments and funding organizations to simplify mandatory reporting and administrative requirements.
Training. There is a lack of professional institutions providing organizational development or institutional-strengthening training and, where they do exist, they are often too far away or too expensive for local NGOs. Government research and training institutions could provide professional training and technical support to NGO staff.
With donor support, these institutions could develop subsidized training programmes, specifically for NGOs, thereby creating a more effective link between government research and extension systems and rural communities.
Communication. Strengthening NGO capacities will also require effective partnerships among like-minded organizations. Poor networking among NGOs, VROs and research institutions inhibits the dissemination of knowledge and experience as well as the transfer of new technologies and skills. Donors and governments should provide long-term and flexible support both for NGO efforts to develop information systems that will permit the documentation of outcomes as well as the sharing of acquired knowledge on a wider basis and for the strengthening of the present institutional linkages among NGOs and between NGOs and other organizations. These efforts could also reduce wasteful duplications of efforts.
An example of this sort of dialogue was the workshop, Community Forestry, NGOs and Policy: What Makes for Success (FAO, 1991), held in Bangkok and jointly organized by FAO, Thailand's Local Development Institute (LDI) and the World Resources Institute (WRI), with partial funding provided by the USDA Forest Service's Tropical Forestry Program (TFP). This workshop brought together 60 representatives of NGOs, Asian governments and international donor agencies to discuss a wide range of approaches that could contribute to the success of NGO action in community forestry.
Another example is the Matching Grants Program (MOP) and the Outreach Grant Program (OGP) of USAID's PVC which, in part, supports indigenous NGOs' institution-building activities by strengthening their organizational capacities, improving their resource and reporting skills and promoting exchanges with counterpart organizations in developing countries(PACT, 1991).
These programmes, in conjunction with similar efforts promoted by other national and international organizations, could be instrumental in the institutional strengthening necessary for and appropriate to expanding the role of NGOs in national resource management.
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