At a recently held CSR conference
in Gurgaon (Haryana), where Change Alliance participated as a Knowledge
Partner, I heard a common woe of most NGOs, especially the smaller ones. They
felt that the corporates either did not trust them at all or did not treat them
as equal partners. Some NGOs even felt that the doors of corporates were
totally shut for them due to various due diligence and legal-related
requirements.
No doubt, there is some amount of
distrust between corporates and NGOs, and some of the reasons for the same are
quite obvious. Look at the huge number of NGOs registered in India (under the
Societies Registration Act). An article [1]published
in the Indian Express puts the number of NGOs in India at a whopping over 31
lakh. While the article further details our state-wise NGOs and compares this
number with the number of primary schools and hospitals, I was just curious to
do a simple calculation. With 31 lakh NGOs, even if we assume only 50 per cent
are active, we reach a number of 15 lakh NGOs.
At an average of 5 persons per
NGO (highly underestimated number), we get a total of 75 lakh people engaged in
the social development space. For a country with 1.21 billion population, this
means that there is one person engaged in the development sector for every
161-odd persons. Similarly, with 15 lakh NGOs and 6.5 lakh villages, it again
means that more than two NGOs are working in every single village of the
country.
There is, however, a severe gap
between the level of intrusion of NGOs and other development agencies and the
actual development of different regions across the country, especially the
remote corners. This gap could only be due to one of the following reasons:
a. Lack
of intention
b. Lack
of Efficiency
c. Lack
of Focus
d. Lack
of Funding
The actual reasons could be a mix
of one or more of the above reasons. This, clubbed with random news about NGO
delisting for various irregularities, make corporates suspect NGOs’ capacities
and intentions in undertaking development work.
To remove this distrust and, more
importantly, for NGOs to get their due recognition and respect for the work
being done by them in the sectors, efforts will be required at the levels of
all three important stakeholders in the development space, viz. Government,
Corporates and NGOs/CSOs.
While the government is required
to provide a conducive environment for NGOs to function effectively and corporates
require to trust their partners, the onus, to great extent, lies on NGOs to
become and appear more credible and capable.
The first step in developing
credibility would be to ensure that they meet all the legal requirements. This
includes filing their returns, releasing their annual reports and keeping the
list of their Board, etc updated. Generally, a family-run NGO scores low on
credibility, when compared to an NGO with a diverse and independent Board of
Members.
Another area where some NGOs lack
miserably is documentation of their work. The NGOs can aptly document their
work through detailed project reports supported by relevant case studies and
pictures from the field. In absence of proper documentation, the NGO cannot
showcase its work or expertise in the areas it is working.
More importantly, collaboration
and consolidation is the need of the hour, but it is not happening as
frequently as it should happen. Last year, Grameen Foundation and Freedom from
Hunger, two U.S.-based international NGOs merged their Boards and staff in
order to emerge as a stronger force and of course to cut the costs. I strongly
feel, even if NGOs in India cannot merge themselves with another NGOs, they can
at least look for opportunities to collaborate more frequently in order to
better utilise their resources and, thus, cut costs.
Some areas where NGOs have to
spend huge sums of money, without much impact on the field, include
administration, HR and Fundraising. If some of these functions can be managed
jointly for NGOs, the resultant savings could go into the programs, thus,
significantly benefitting the end beneficiary.
Additionally, and even more
importantly, wherever NGOs are working on the same theme or geographic areas,
it makes sense to join forces so that a more comprehensive and sustainable
solution can be developed to target the issue at hand. Currently, I see few
sectors and geographies over exploited and intruded as far as development
agency working there is concerned, while some continue to remain devoid of resources.
Take the example of the education
sector, for instance. Currently, a number of NGOs are evolving their own models
to benefit the education sector by working on themes such as making primary and
secondary school teachers better trained, improving the education pedagogy in
schools, improving school infrastructure, providing education to the
under-privileged, to name a few.
As a result of working
independently, i.e, without taking other stakeholders on board and without
taking a holistic view of the problem, at times NGOs end up reinventing the
wheel. Just a look at the NGO Darpan website of the government will give an
indicator of the sheer duplication of work in different thematic and geographic
areas. A total of 14,246 NGOs are registered under the ‘Education and Literacy’
tab on the sector-wise listing of NGOs. Please note that those registered on
this website is a fraction of the total number of NGOs/CSOs in existence in the
country!
The more number of NGOs must either result in
better results on the field; otherwise, there is no justification for their
existence.
[1] http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/india-has-31-lakh-ngos-twice-the-number-of-schools-almost-twice-number-of-policemen/
No comments:
Post a Comment