How are Civil Society
Organizations Important for Development?
by Anirudh Krishna
Aid to civil society is
becoming an increasingly important part of the development agenda. Located in the
space between the family and the state, and promoting coordinated public action
among their members and other citizens, civil society organizations have been
celebrated most often for their role in promoting and protecting democracy 1.
Increasingly, however, their contribution to economic development and poverty
reduction are also being acknowledged and supported 2.
A fundamental aspect of the operation of civil society organizations (CSOs)
concerns the mediating role that they play between the individual and the
state. Analysts have demonstrated empirically how both states and citizens can
benefit when a dense web of civil society organizations mediates the
relationship between them. The performance of government programs is improved
and the impact of state policy is enhanced and made more widespread when,
instead of interacting with citizens as atomized individuals, state agencies
deal with relatively organized citizens' groups. Citizens are also able to
derive greater benefits from government programs and from market opportunities
when their individual efforts are organized and made more cohesive by CSOs. 3
There are good reasons to believe why organizations originating in society can
perform these mediating roles more effectively compared to other organizations
that are initiated and controlled by the state. While analysts of development
have focused traditionally on the resources and capacities that exist among
state agencies, a relatively ignored resource, comprised by the talents and
energies that exist among the poor themselves, is increasingly being identified
by recent studies conducted under the rubric of social capital. Civil society
organizations, these studies indicate, are important for mobilizing social
capital to serve development objectives.
Social capital has been defined as those aspects of social organization,
including networks, norms and social trust that facilitate coordination and
cooperation for mutual benefit. Communities and groups that are more closely
united by bonds of trust and networks of mutual assistance are more likely to
achieve superior development performance compared to other communities and
groups where such bonds and networks are weaker. Social capital in this
reckoning has both a cognitive dimension - consisting of norms, values,
attitudes and beliefs that predispose people toward collective action - and a
structural dimension, composed of formal or informal organizations that
facilitate collective action for achieving some common objective 4.
Having a high level of social capital, a community is endowed with the capacity
to tackle multiple tasks related to collective well being. Some agency is
necessary, however, to harness this endowment and to convert it into a stream
of benefits. How exactly is the social capital of any community brought to bear
upon any particular development problem? How, for instance, can a community of
poor citizens utilize the social capital that they have for resolving some
common problem, say, building a water supply system or enhancing agricultural
productivity? Empirical research on social capital is still relatively new, but
the emergent evidence indicates that some act of agency is necessary in most
instances for making productive use of the resource, social capital.
CSOs play the critical role in mobilizing social capital. Social capital is a
resource that any community possesses to some level and it can help in
resolving multiple problems of a collective nature. Like any other resource,
however, social capital also needs to be activated and it needs to be combined
with other kinds of resources, including physical, financial and human
resources. A useful analogy draws upon the distinction between stock and flow.
To be helpful for development or for any other purpose, the stock of social
capital possessed by any community needs to be converted into a flow of
benefits. Like a lode of rich mineral ore, social capital has only potential
and not real value - until it is activated and combined judiciously with other
resources.
These acts of mobilizing social capital and harnessing it together with other
resources are performed in the main by CSOs. Usually, CSOs that have a local
origin can tap - legitimately and accountably - into the cultural and social
resources that comprise social capital. Evidence collected by the small group
of studies conducted so far concerning development and social capital indicate
quite clearly that forms of organization imposed from the outside are rarely
successful in tapping into communities' resources of social capital 5.
Earlier studies intended to study the effects that different types of
organizations have in terms of mobilizing people's participation in development
programs also support a similar conclusion. Membership organizations and those
emanating from the grassroots up are more likely to draw upon local traditions
of coordination and cooperation compared to other organizations that are set
down from above 6.
One critical advantage, thus, that CSOs usually have over state-sponsored
organizations concerns their ability to tap, effectively and legitimately, into
societies' reservoirs of social capital. As good results are achieved with the
help of collective action, social capital gets built up and traditions of
cooperation for mutual benefit are further reinforced. Encouraging and
facilitating these virtuous cycles of social capital mobilization provides an
important reason behind the current concern with assisting civil society
organizations.
However, while the roles played by CSOs in effecting social mobilization and
harnessing social capital are being increasingly well recognized, there is
relatively little practical guidance available that can assist practitioners
translate from expectations into ground realities. How should plans and
strategies be devised in any given situation that can assist in strengthening
CSOs appropriately? The sub-field of development concerned with strengthening
civil society is still relatively new, and few answers have been provided to
deal with issues of practical concern. Theory building in this new and emergent
area will be both slow and inductive. Specific situations require far more
attention to detail than theoreticians of civil society can usually provide, so
deductive accounts are hardly sufficient for this purpose. Inductive accounts,
based on the experiences of pioneering projects, will therefore provide a major
part of the learning required to assist and guide future endeavors. It is
useful and important in this context to bring together insights and lessons
from the pioneers' examples - not merely to accord well deserved recognition to
their efforts, but also to serve as a benchmark for future learning.
This volume of case studies has been put together with this intention of
promoting mutual learning among those concerned with advancing civil society
solutions for development and poverty reduction. Eight case studies,
representing an equal number of projects and countries, have been selected from
among a host of instructive and interesting experiences examined by the
editors. This selection of cases was based as much on the excellence of results
achieved in any particular case as on the richness in which these experiences
were documented. Each case leads the reader step-by-step through the various
stages of its particular learning experience, elucidating how particular
problems were satisfactorily resolved in a specific situation, and providing
insights about how similar processes and programs can be developed in other
countries and contexts.
Though not by themselves constituting any generalized body of theory relevant
to all situations and every country, these cases nevertheless represent a rich
lode of practical experience, gained in a variety of different situations, and
relating to different sectors, different countries, and different types of
civil society organizations. The brief analytical framework presented below
helps to organize these individual experiences into a cumulative body of
knowledge that holds useful insights for practitioners as they deal with field
situations elsewhere in the developing world.
Civil
Society Organizations and Poverty Reduction: What Functions Do CSOs Perform?
The existence of a
number of contending definitions complicates the task of identifying civil
society organizations. For the purpose of this volume, we have selected a
broad-based and relatively non-controversial definition that regards civil
society as "the realm of organized social life that is voluntary,
self-generating, (largely) self-supporting, autonomous from the state, and
bound by a legal order or set of shared rules. It consists of a vast array of
organizations, both formal and informal, including interest groups, cultural
and religious organizations, civic and developmental associations,
issue-oriented movements, the mass media, research and educational
institutions, and similar organizations." 7
Notice that the description of organizations associated with the term civil
society has deliberately been left somewhat vague and open-ended. It is neither
possible nor useful to make any final list of CSOs that can apply universally
and at all times. Which sorts of organizations qualify as CSOs will need to be
determined with reference to the specific situation.
The constituents of civil society in any given setting can be distinguished by
considering the functions that particular organizations perform or do not
perform on behalf of individual citizens. It is with respect to their
inclinations and their effectiveness in performing these functions that
specific organizations in any particular country can or cannot be classified as
CSOs 8.
Broadly, three sets of functions are performed to varying degrees by different
types of civil society organizations:
Each of these functions is important, given the particular
context, for mobilizing citizens toward the various tasks involved in reducing
poverty.
Schemes of classification exist that differentiate among CSOs as membership vs.
non-membership organizations; small, face-to-face organizations vs. large,
subscription organizations spontaneous vs. professionally managed
organizations; grassroots vs. umbrella organizations; etc. Any of these types
of organizations can be relevant, however, provided that it serves one or more
of the three functions stated above, and many different types of CSOs are
represented in the cases included in this volume. It is important to recognize
that there are a variety of organizations, serving a multitude of objectives,
each related to empowering citizens and mobilizing social capital to serve
collectively valued purposes 9.
Illustrating
Three Functions Performed by CSOs
Articulating citizens' interests and demands is an important function performed
by CSOs. Particularly when state policies and the programs of government
agencies do not take account sufficiently of needs of the poor or of some other
vulnerable sections, CSOs can step into this breach and help to represent their
needs and interests. Cases from South Africa and Ukraine included within this
volume illustrate situations where civil society actors have mobilized sections
of society and where government policies have changed based on the interests
and demands voiced by these actors.
In South Africa, it was the rural poor, particularly women and non-white
people, whose concerns were not addressed adequately or in any effective manner
by government departments. Even after a more democratic and representative
government had replaced the apartheid state, many women and non-white males
continued to live amid grinding poverty. A group of national CSOs got together
to devise solutions to this problem. Acting in coordination with selected
government agencies, they organized a series of Poverty Forums at different
locations across this country, where the poor could come forward and speak
about poverty as they experienced it in their everyday lives. Government
policies have changed considerably to reflect the interests and demands that
the poor have expressed at these forums. For the first time in this country,
and perhaps anywhere in the world, policy makers are dealing with poverty in
terms of the lived experiences of the poor. It is difficult to imagine how the
interests of the poor in South Africa could have been equally well represented
without the intervention of the concerned CSOs.
In Ukraine, it was handicapped citizens whose cause was represented by a
concerned civil society organization. Government policies concerning the
handicapped have improved significantly since Cerebral, an organization formed
among parents of handicapped children, commenced its activities in the capital
city of Kyiv. Small-scale but highly effective service provision by this group
of concerned citizens served as a demonstration and a catalyst for wider
changes in national policy. Significantly, citizens' attitudes toward the
handicapped have also undergone a healthy change - reflecting the fact that
CSOs are not always aligned in favor of society and against the state.
Articulating interests and demands is a key function served by almost every
civil society organization. While political scientists have traditionally
ascribed the function of interest articulation to political parties, such
parties are not always strong in developing countries, and even where they are
strong, they do not always represent the interests of the poor. Providing voice
to the poor is consequently a function that can very often be performed only by
active and accountable CSOs. Particularly where it concerns situations of
extreme social exclusion, for example, among indigenous populations or with
people who live in remote and inaccessible areas, voicing interests and demands
is a function that will usually be performed by area-based CSOs.
Both local- and national-level CSOs have been involved in performing these
functions in the cases of Philippines and the Pacific that are presented in
this volume. Additionally, these CSOs have also been defending the rights that
have traditionally accrued to indigenous people of these countries and which
were cast aside during decades of unaccountable and exploitative rule.
CSOs in the Pacific republic of Vanuatu have been actively involved in
designing and implementing processes of local governance that combine the
strengths of tradition together with the speed and efficacy of modern
scientific techniques. Oral historians, the traditional keepers of land rights
in parts of Vanuatu, are working alongside government technicians and trained
local youth, who use the latest global positioning technology to conduct land
surveys. While land boundaries are marked out by these technicians, land rights
are adjudicated by a local council headed by oral historians. Land disputes, a cause
of great social disruption during the past, have been largely eliminated
through this innovative combination of traditional institutions and modern
technology. In the process, peoples? traditional rights to land have been
restored and codified, and local institutions have been revived that can uphold
these rights and adjudicate local disputes.
Local, village- and community-level, CSOs have worked in tandem with national
CSOs and government agencies to bring about the mix of law, policy and
procedures that have contributed to success in Philippines and the Pacific. An
important lesson that emerges from these experiences concerns the need to
combine the resources and talents at the disposal of an array of organizations.
The best results are achieved when CSOs work not individually and in isolation
from other organizations, but when partnerships are formed among different
types of CSOs, distinguished by sector and level of operation, and also between
CSOs and government agencies.
Defending citizens' rights is an important theme in another group of cases that
deal with post-conflict situations. In Guatemala, for instance, decades of
unremitting civil war had resulted in tearing apart the social fabric and
eroding whatever trust existed among citizens and the government. Civil society
organizations played a critical role in this situation in reestablishing social
trust, in setting up institutions that could defend the social contract, and in
implementing programs that could bring citizens' rights to bear upon national
policy and institution building. Civil society actors involved in this effort
were not always or necessarily in conflict with the government. A successful
program was developed through restoring mutual confidence and building
partnerships among CSOs and government agencies.
Accomplishing similar objectives was made much harder in Laos on account of the
reluctance that this country's government had toward any form of civic
association that functioned outside and apart from the state. Defending citizens'
rights to form associations in this context required a careful and balanced
strategy. The advantages of civic associations would need to be demonstrated
carefully, without in any way appearing to threaten the government, so that the
risk of strong and adverse responses could be minimized. To succeed in this
milieu, the strategy of strengthening civil society had to start small and
build incrementally. It was necessary first to demonstrate success on a small
scale. Results accumulated from a succession of small-scale demonstrations
provided leverage for seeking changes in policy at the national level. To a
considerable extent, the strategy developed in Laos has worked successfully, at
least through the initial stages of this necessarily long drawn-out process.
The government is more permissive in its attitudes toward civil society, and
more projects are being taken up among CSOs in this country.
Defending rights quite often involves CSOs in performing monitoring and
watchdog functions vis-à-vis government departments and donor agencies, keeping
the personnel of these agencies honest to the objectives that they are mandated
to pursue. Performing these functions sometimes brings CSOs into conflict with
these government and donor agencies. More often, however, and with greater
advantages all around, disputes and differences are resolved through a
gradualist strategy, such as that of Laos.
Compromises often arise among agency views based on the mutual learning that
results from implementing small-scale experiments and pilot projects. The
Ukraine case in this volume shows how citizens' group experimented, initially
on a small scale, with an alternative model of rehabilitation for handicapped
children. Avoiding head-on confrontation with government officials - even when
their aims were frustrated, for instance, by heavy-handed bureaucrats who
repeatedly shut down their first support center - this group was later
successful not only in scaling up its effort but also in getting the government
to adopt its model for implementing nationwide.
Ratcheting up gradually has been key to the development of other CSOs as well
who have had to defend their vision and their programs against co-optation by
government or donor agencies. In Trinidad and Tobago, for example, an area-based
CSO has kept donor agencies honest toward their commitment for integrated,
long-term and sustained development. Donor-supported assistance deteriorates
quite often into a series of disconnected projects that displace any long-term
action plan that an assisted CSO might have developed. Though most donors
proclaim in favor of capacity building and sustainable development, their
lending activities can result under some circumstances in diminishing capacity
and reducing the prospects for sustainable development. Particularly when the
donor supports isolated and short-term projects and long-term and programmatic
goals are ignored, capacity building for sustainable development is likely to
suffer in consequence. The Toco Foundation in Trinidad and Tobago provides an
example of an organizational strategy that has persuaded donor agencies to
extend support toward long-term objectives.
Some other cases in this volume also represent how CSOs have discharged the
function of defending citizens' rights in a variety of different circumstances.
The table below indicates how each of the three sets of functions has been
served by CSOs in several different contexts.
Functions
|
|
CASE |
Articulating Interests and Demands |
Defending Rights |
Providing Goods and Services |
|
Asia |
Philippines |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Laos |
. |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Pacific |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Europe |
Ukraine |
Yes |
. |
Yes |
|
Latin America |
Trinidad and Tobago |
Yes |
. |
Yes |
|
Guatemala |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Africa |
South Africa |
Yes |
. |
Yes |
|
Uganda |
Yes |
. |
Yes |
In every one of the cases we have considered in this volume,
and in nearly all cases of CSOs' involvement in poverty reduction activities
worldwide, there is usually a concern for providing some goods or services
directly, i.e., without recourse to the state. Quite often it is the case that
CSOs start out with the objective of serving some basic need, such as drinking
water in Laos or medical assistance in Ukraine, that is being poorly served by
state agencies. It is usually true, however, that even when they start out with
such limited objectives, CSOs get drawn into a wider arena, articulating
interests on behalf of their members and/or defending their rights vis-à-vis
the state. The more CSOs get involved in mediating the relationship between
citizens and the state, the more heavily they get drawn into articulating
demands and defending rights.
What
Features Enable CSOs to Perform Their Functions Effectively?
As mentioned before, a critical advantage that CSOs usually have over
state-sponsored organizations concerns their ability to tap, effectively and
legitimately, into societies' reservoirs of social capital. Among the cases
considered in this volume, the one from Uganda provides a good illustration for
this proposition. Farmers' groups, organized from below, and federated later
into the Ugandan Cooperatives Association and the Ugandan Horticultural
Association have been much more successful at mobilizing social capital than
have the government-sponsored Village Councils that were imposed in
standardized fashion across this country in compliance with administrative
directions. Largely dissociated from local norms and values, these Councils
have fallen prey in many instances to the unaccountable and self-serving deeds
of their leaders. The new administrative laws and systems of grievance
representation are not well explained among villagers, many of who live quite
far away, both physically and emotionally, from the formal legal system.
Organizations imposed from above - Village Councils, in this case - are usually
unable to mobilize social capital, at least not as effectively as other
organizations that are constructed from below. Being accountable to their
hierarchical superiors, state-invoked local organizations are usually less able
to tap into local traditions of cooperation and coordination. Standardization
of administrative practices further diminishes the ability of such
organizations to adapt themselves to variations in local customs and
traditions.
Combining modern institutions with traditional norms and social customs can be
more productive, our cases illustrate, than decentralization that is driven by
formal and codified rules alone. Highly formalized laws have served to diminish
the favorable impacts of decentralization for most people of developing
countries. Formal laws and courts remain mostly inaccessible to most people who
live in villages. Consequently, many of these people are quite powerless to
take advantage of decentralization schemes that bypass traditional systems of
control and accountability at the local level 10.
The cases in this volume from Philippines and the Pacific illustrate the benefits
in terms of mobilizing social capital that can be gained by melding together
traditional and modern institutions.
Neither traditional nor modern structures are entirely useful by themselves;
rather, it is an appropriate combination of the two forms that are usually best
suited for the purpose of development. The importance of this combination can
be understood by considering the two dimensions of social capital, cognitive
and structural, that were outlined above. While traditional structures are helpful
in most cases for mobilizing the cognitive dimension of social capital, the
structural dimension is better addressed - at least insofar as the tasks of
development and growth are concerned - by establishing an appropriate and
task-oriented local organization.
In the Philippines and the Pacific cases, while customary local leaders and
oral historians provided the core around which the local organization was
built, the organization itself was built from among new and technically
competent elements of local society. In Philippines it was women, who served as
key constituents of the local organization, while in the Pacific it was
educated youth that were trained to apply the new techniques of land surveying.
Novel and useful ways of combining tradition with modernity have been pioneered
in these two cases as CSOs, not beholden to rigid official procedures, have
felt relatively free to experiment with bold and innovative ideas.
Another advantage of working closely with CSOs has to do, thus, with the ability
that these organizations have for developing innovative solutions through
undertaking pilot projects on a small scale. State agencies tend over time to
develop standardized and uniform responses that are implemented with relatively
little local adaptation across entire regions and countries. Formal rules and
operating procedures often limit the flexibility that even highly motivated
agency staffs have for adapting national programs to local circumstances. CSOs,
who have much fewer compulsions to bind themselves into some preconceived sets
of operating procedures, are often more capable of innovating new approaches to
development. Especially since they work on a small scale, CSOs usually provide
excellent laboratories for pioneering new methods and strategies in a
relatively efficacious and cost-effective manner.
Cerebral in Ukraine and the Toco Foundation in Trinidad and Tobago provide
examples of this kind of development. Cerebral has pioneered the development of
new approaches to deal effectively with rehabilitating handicapped children,
not just physically but also economically and socially, and the Toco Foundation
has developed original models for promoting eco-tourism in a region where
natural beauty is profuse but also very fragile.
Pioneering innovative approaches on a small scale is not the entire measure of
success, however. It is important in addition to disseminate these approaches
and to scale up the effort so that it can make a measure of impact on the vast
numbers of poor and powerless citizens who live in these countries. Cerebral's
model has been adopted for nationwide implementation by Ukraine's government,
and the Toco Foundation has been entering into collaborations with other CSOs
and also with government departments to promote the spread of its strategy and
approach.
Not all CSOs are able to scale up effectively the approaches that they have
developed and which have worked well on a small scale. Quite often, CSOs and
their external sponsors are not sufficiently sensitive to the need for
maintaining healthy ties with government agencies. Though autonomy of action is
often the motive behind choosing to remain aloof from government, this reduces
the ability that any CSO has for exercising an effective influence upon the
design of policy and large-scale national programs. Working in coordination
with government agencies has its costs, no doubt, as Michael Als, the founder
of the Toco Foundation, explains lucidly in the parts he has contributed to
this case study; but the advantages that Toco has derived from these
associations appear to outweigh the costs.
Development works best, as remarked earlier, when the strengths available to
different agencies can be combined together in mutually beneficial ways. Though
CSOs are much better suited for mobilizing social capital at the community
level, government has the distinct advantage for mobilizing institutional
resources at the regional and national levels. While we make a plea in this
volume for supporting and strengthening civil society organizations, and while
we use case materials to illustrate some ways in which these ends can be
achieved in practice, we do not for a moment intend suggesting that these
activities should be undertaken at the expense of the state.
Combining the spread and reach of government with the depth and flexibility of
CSOs is to our minds the most effective organizational method for achieving
development objectives. What we hope to achieve through this volume is to
generate more interest in the second, and relatively less well attended, among
these two complementary aspects of building organizational capacity, namely
that related to strengthening civil society. That strengthening civil society
is better accomplished through following a positive-sum approach - and not in some
zero-sum manner, which views the state and civil society as adversaries, with
the gains of one party being the loss of the other - is illustrated quite
handily by each of the eight cases in this volume.
UNDP and
Civil Society Organizations
The selection of cases represented in this volume all draw upon UNDP's
experience of working with CSOs in different parts of the developing world.
While these organizations must themselves be given full credit for the
remarkable achievements that many of them have recorded, UNDP does take pride
in the fact that, to some extent and at some times, it was associated with the
endeavors that have made these achievements possible.
The United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) has been increasingly involved
with non-governmental organizations, community-based associations, grassroots
groups, and other organizations of civil society, especially during the last
two decades. For the initial three decades since its inception in 1945, UNDP's
partners had traditionally been governments and other UN System bodies. Since
1975, however, UNDP has progressively sought to enlarge and enrich its
engagement with civil society actors as well.
Commitment by UNDP has deepened since then as CSOs have come to be perceived as
innovative in meeting community needs, flexible in their implementation
modalities, conscious of local traditions and circumstances, as well as being
cost-effective in service delivery. This change in awareness was reflected in
1986 when at the instance of UNDP's Governing Council a separate division, now
entitled the Civil Society Organizations and Participation Programme, was
established at headquarters with the specific objectives of enhancing UNDP's
involvement with organizations of civil society.
The 1990's have proven pivotal for UNDP's approach toward mainstreaming
engagements with civil society organizations. In part, this enlarged concern
stems from the major outcomes and recommendations of pivotal international
conferences organized under the auspices of the UN. Of particular importance
was the World Summit of Social Development held in 1995 that called upon the
international community, including all actors of the civil society to
"positively contribute their own share of efforts and resources"
toward assisting with the global objective of poverty reduction. It is from
this commitment that UNDP derives it mandate to expand its work with CSOs. The
concept and practices of Civil Society Organizations are now firmly entrenched
as an integral part of UNDP's work at country, regional, and global levels.
Collaboration with CSOs is an officially declared and policy of UNDP's work. In
1998, an Information Disclosure Policy was adopted to ensure that all salient
information on programmes and projects in made available freely to interested
members of the public. Several CSO representatives have been nominated to sit
on an oversight panel that assists with the implementation of this policy. UNDP
has invited leaders of civil society to join with government planners and
members of the private sector as well as other donors in preparing,
implementing and evaluating programmes. To facilitate this process, UNDP has
issued extensive operational guidelines in order that CSOs can be involved in
all aspects of program design and management and not simply as downstream
sub-contractors. CSOs participate in the formulation of Advisory Notes, Country
Co-operation Frameworks, Policy Papers, local Project Appraisal Committees,
etc., that is in all aspects of UNDP's work related to poverty reduction and
sustainable human development. A committee comprised of CSOs, both North and
South, is being set-up to consult with the Administrator and the Executive
Board on key policy decisions.
There is need, however, for deepening this ongoing process. CSOs are as yet
only peripherally involved in most countries in policy-making and governance
activities. Increasing CSOs' involvement with the state and promoting
mechanisms that facilitate co-operative relationships among state and civil
society actors are goals that will acquire additional salience and commitment
in the future.
A distinctive contribution of the UN lies in bringing civil society into the
mainstream of public affairs and political commitments that affect the
reduction of poverty and promote environmental conservation, gender equality,
transparency, peace, and human rights at all levels of society - with a
distinct emphasis on assisting the weakest actors. Working with civil society
organisations will be increasingly aimed, thus, toward contributing to a
different dynamic of promoting co-operation among state and civil society
actors that is consistent with the UN's principles.
While these aims are becoming increasingly clear, the task of altering
consciousness and promoting change is often slow and arduous. Even as UNDP
embraces this transformative agenda and views development as a people's
movement that transcends projects, structural change continues to be inhibited
by an interlocking set of interests that are sustained and legitimated by a development
vision grounded in the politics of the "powerful". Ultimately
governments and markets must be persuaded to deal with the global development
crisis - consisting of significant levels of human deprivation - and to address
the associated tasks in collaboration with organizations of civil society. By
providing examples of successful collaboration in practice, it is hoped, the
cases in this volume can contribute toward making such a transformation easier
and more widely accepted.
In stepping up its efforts to work with and support CSOs, UNDP commits itself
to deliver its share of the global responsibility to make the UN system fully
responsive to the aspirations of "We, the peoples." While the ground
has shifted, the task of altering consciousness and promoting change is often
slow and arduous. Even for UNDP, as it embraces the transformative agenda and
views development as a people's movement that transcends projects and accepts
sustainability and inclusiveness as its defining principles, structural change
continues to be inhibited by an interlocking set of interests that are
sustained and legitimated by a development vision grounded in the politics of
the "powerful". Ultimately governments and markets must be persuaded
to deal with the global development crisis, that of significant levels of human
deprivation, in collaboration with organizations of civil society.
Chapter 2 through 8 of this volume present the experiences of a selection of
CSOs that were assisted to a smaller or greater extent by UNDP. Chapter 10
concludes this volume by drawing together the lessons presented by the various
cases.
Endnotes