NGO Cooperation: Need of the hour...

First Published in Focal Point, Issue 1: http://www.enterfocalpoint.com/focalpoint/?p=169

For the past five years especially, Pakistan has gone through frequent man-made and natural disasters. From the earthquake of 2005 to the recent floods, and from the early operations in Bajaur to the recent ones of Waziristan, the growth of the country has taken a serious jolt which has hampered its economic, social and technological growth. Moreover, constant political instability has increased corruption, mishandling of important institutions and is pushing more and more people towards poverty. All the aforesaid created the validation for international and local organizations to come forward and assist this country which is going through crisis every other day.

Throughout the history of Pakistan, Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) existed but were better known as voluntary organizations in the early days. After 1970, an upsurge was recorded when the Marital Law Government expounded its policy of social work and welfare. But the real upsurge was witnessed in the last decade where numerous organizations have started their operations in Pakistan and disaster after disaster has prolonged their stay. In a publication of UNDP in 2001, number of non government organizations was suggested to be from 8,000 to 16,000. If non-registered NGOs are added to registered ones, number of Pakistani NGOs could be anywhere from 25,000 to 35,000.

Considering the number of organizations working in Pakistan, the growth of the economy and the society has not been as positive as one might expect. The inflation rate has gone up from 3.90 % in 2003 to 13.60 in 2009-10. Moreover, the debt has also increased from US $ 33 billion in 2004 to more than US $ 50 billion and is still on the rise. The unemployment rate also shows a grim state of affairs. The unemployment rate has increased from 7.8% in 2003 to 14 % now. All these indicators usually raise some eye brows because a positive impact of NGOs is hard to find.It is necessary to keep in mind, that if NGOs would not have intervened regularly from 1947 till date, indicators could have been worse.  But, as there are a lot of macroeconomic reasons associated with the downfall in the economy of the country, it is time that NGOs regroup themselves and do a SWOT analysis on the industry they are associated with instead of doing it on the country’s various economic and social sectors and institutions. The number of NGOs in Pakistan certainly should have uplifted the economy of the 25th largest economy of the world – in terms of purchasing power – towards prosperity earlier.

Mr. Saleem Ranjha, Director of Akhuwat Microfinance Network  one of the largest interest-free microfinance network in Pakistan  expressed his thoughts on the issue of limited success by NGOs. He told us, “Lack of mutual cooperation between organizations and other institutions is the main reason for Pakistan not being able to change its condition. Mutual cooperation would open doors which will welcome exchange of technical skills and funding and believe me, sky is the limit if we change the current practices of working in isolation and without coordination”.

He also added, “The first step has to be that organizations should work with a pure intention to help the most deprived through the most cost-effective way and keeping a check on the quality of service delivery. Most importantly, mutual cooperation between organizations and government is the need of the hour and is the key towards success and I strongly believe that Muslim charities especially, should learn from the actions of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and implement it in order to get blessings from Allah (SWT) and to make life easier for the deprived instead of concentrating on covering their overheads”.

Hence, the major reason for NGOs not being able to achieve what they could have, other than the failures of the government in terms of political, economic, social and technological factors, is primarily due to limited mutual cooperation between NGOs with each other and with the government. Some critics accuse that due to specialization in the industry, the greater impact was not achieved i.e.  NGOs have got divided into the following four sectors:

• - Advocacy and lobbying
• - Policy issues and debates
• - Emergency relief and rehabilitation
• - Implementation of development programs

But those critics fail to understand that specialization and disintegration has played a vital role in getting more output and skilled workers in this field just like it has done in any other field. The real problem as mentioned before is that there is a need for every organization to come forward and cooperate with each other. The first point to realize is that the work of one NGO does not make it alien or superior to another NGO working in a different field. In simpler terms, the nature between NGOs is as complementary in nature as the relationship between petrol and a car – one can be the driving force while the another one can be the one who capitalizes and complements the driving force in order to achieve the greater good, mutually.

For example, usually advocacy and lobbying, and emergency relief and rehabilitation are two industries within the NGOs sub sectors which are thought to be poles apart. But, some recent amalgamation between the two has brought rewarding results. For instance, advocacy and lobbying created the path for relief and rehabilitation agencies to help out the flood survivors more easily. This was done by pressurizing and persuading the government to lift the rule of acquiring a no-objection certificate prior to relief work and relaxation in the visa rules where international humanitarian workers were given visas on arrival. Numerous partnerships like these are taking place regularly now and an increase in the frequency of it will surely generate greater positive results for which the people are waiting for a long time.

Organizations working in the sector of policy making and debates can prove essential in imparting knowledge to NGOs related to other sub sectors. Likewise, if organizations from different sub sectors intend to work together, the policy sector can help immensely in drafting safe practices; the advocacy sector can pressurize stakeholders in implementing it and the development sector can carry out its program with more ease and efficiency. If the chemistry works out well between the different sub-sectors, the end product would always be successful and sustainable.

Usually, organizations repudiate to collaborate with each other on the basis of having a difference between their vision and those of other organizations. The only thing organizations need to comprehend is that the greater idea of all organizations is to help the humanity and boost their standards from meager to optimum (at least) without discriminating each other in terms of color, race, religion, ethnicity and creed. If all the organizations start believing in this supreme dogma; it will be the universal similarity which can bring all the stakeholders together.

The incorporation between different sub sectors and the NGO industry with the government will open new doors and bring infinite advantages:

Firstly, funding in to this industry will increase immensely. Donors will feel more confident to rally around the industry which helps the community to become sustainable because better cooperation between the members of the NGO industry would show better and improved results.

Secondly, it would encourage the corporate sector to fund the industry as well. All profit making companies produce goods or services in order to generate increased profits. Sustainability in their progress can only be insured if the society grows on par with the growth of the corporate sector. Therefore, they would be compelled to carry out their corporate social responsibility through the NGO sector.

Thirdly, if organizations start sitting together with stakeholders from all walks of life it will help to fix a lot of economic and social indicators. Usually, the priority is health or education as it should be because we lag behind in these fields compared to other developing countries. But, usually through their activities, NGOs at times forget to insure that the investment they are doing in the lives of the beneficiaries should be a productive investment instead of being consumptive. For instance, an NGO may provide soft loans to the needy people, but due to the lack of checks and balances, these loans are used to purchase dowry instead of becoming a beacon to increase the livelihood of a household.

Fourthly, the collaboration between NGOs would be able to eliminate the concept of duplication. Throughout the history of charitable organizations working in Pakistan, the biggest impasse for all of them has been to identify those beneficiaries who have not received relief or aid from any other organization. The reason to eliminate replication is significant because in a time of crisis aid is limited and the effort should reach all. Therefore, to reach the maximum number of people and those most deprived, many organizations prefer to help those who have not received aid at all.

Almost all organizations spend a lot of resources and effort to cross the logistical and social barriers to reach the affected sites; in the end they habitually find that the type of relief they are offering is also being offered by several others in the same region. At times, due to the pressure from the donors and the competition between the organizations, organizations succumb to the pressure and launch their activities in a hub which is already populated with a lot of social/welfare organizations. This attitude neglects other people in need and other divisions organizations need to focus on.

We do not need to go far to search for examples. For a long period of time during the recent floods, the focus was on Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), especially at Nowshera and Charsadda when the destruction in Southern Punjab and Sindh was creating havoc. Moreover, the focus was also on providing relief through food. The type of instant and effective intervention by aid agencies in the KPK province is hard to find in other provinces.

There are several reasons for it: one being that the province is near the capital of Pakistan and the NGO industry. But, it does not give organizations the leverage to over hoard relief items into this region only because it is accessible to them. There have been several reports where food was over supplied and I have personally been told by the flood survivors as early in the month of September, that they were more interested to receive aid in terms of medical facilities and reconstruction. Similar cases were also reported throughout the country where flood survivors had food supplies for more than two-three months with them in stock.

The healthy signal is that NGOs have realized that without any mutual cooperation, they would not be able to realize the ultimate goal which is to fortify the community and economic conditions of the people in a dignified method.

Organizations have started to combine forces with each other; in order to get accredited by different code of conducts which demand the signatory to believe in coordination with other stakeholders rather than functioning in seclusion.

Memberships of such code of conducts help organizations to accumulate funds easily as donors fancy ‘members’ with their ideal. Recent examples of forums and clusters making positive changes have been observed in Pakistan and are the following: UN OCHA, Muslim Charities Forum UK & the OIC Forum.

Hence, the need for mutual cooperation between organizations and government for all intents and purposes is required to lift the society and prevent it from other man-made and natural disasters. There is a saturation point to everything which exists; thus the need to converge into one focal point is the need of the hour or else there is a huge probability that the recurrence of disasters might ram the country and its people towards extreme poverty and unvarying failure.