Towards a Legitimate Civil Society in Afghanistan
| | RISQ Reviews | 17 December 2004 |
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Author: Salima Padamsey
NGOs in Afghanistan need to assess which new skills and tools they need to contribute effectively to the reconstruction of their country.
 One of the biggest challenges awaiting National Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in Afghanistan is the need to make the transition from emergency aid to strategic intervention. Many NGOs will have to examine their ability to adjust the culture of their organisation to long-term development goals. This in turn should begin a process whereby their target groups contribute to and own the process of their own development and, thereby, changing the profile of Afghan NGOs from sub-contractors of donors to "honest brokers" - i.e. organisations that are accountable to their target groups and that set out to build and shape a legitimate civil society.
Afghanistan is struggling to develop its own civil society. The combination of 30 years of political and socio-economic turmoil with successive years of drought has forced the country into a state of emergency. International recognition for the predicament of Afghan society has brought humanitarian aid programmes implemented by international aid agencies with support of existing Afghan NGOs, the majority of which were located in Peshawar, Northern Pakistan.
One of the resulsts of the ousting of the Taliban Regime in 2001 was the emergence of a larger NGO sector in Kabul. This was due in part to the relocation of Afghan NGOs from Pakistan to Kabul and in part to the mushrooming of several new Afghan NGOs all over the country. The sudden boom in the NGO sector in Afghanistan was indicative of the fact that these Afghan NGOs were attempting to meet the growing demands of the population as well as the demands of the donor community and their emergency aid programmes.
Consequently, a high percentage of the newly established Afghan NGOs began to take on the role of sub-contractors or, in the eyes of the donor community, "implementing partners". As a result, these Afghan NGOs began to carve their own niche in delivering the very much-needed humanitarian aid throughout the country in line with the international donor community's policies and guidelines.
This was easy to do (donor agencies were eagerly seeking partners) and easy to implement (mostly in their own villages and regions). There was some capacity within the organisations (mostly returning refugees that were educated in their host countries) and there was a desire to attract funding. A fluid and undefined civil society sector began to emerge in response to large sums of money made available for quick infrastructure and aid distribution projects.
Civil society is a diverse and changing phenomenon. Its shape and composition and its links with the state and market vary from country to country. Therefore, the notion of civil society should be considered against the backdrop of the specific political and economic context of any given country. In Afghanistan, NGOs have the potential to be key players within a civil society framework to contribute to peace and democracy while supporting major transitions in the country. However, the precondition for being able to make such contributions is the development of a legitimate civil society. Such would require that NGOs derive their existence from direct links to their target groups and that they develop the principle of accountability in their relationship with the market and government. In the end, NGO legitimacy originates from accountability to the population, allowing the voices of target groups to be honestly represented in their own development within their own country.
Since 2001, the Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan led by President Hamid Karzai has made some progress in addressing the various challenges and hurdles faced to bring some stability to the country. One such step has been to develop national policies with the support of the international donor community aimed at rebuilding the country. The transition from an emergency phase to a reconstruction phase within the Ministry of Rural Development (National Solidarity Plan) and the Ministry of Health (Basic Package of Health Services) are but two examples.
This tacit agreement between the government and the donor community sets new priorities for NGOs in Afghanistan - from focusing on immediate emergency aid (distribution) to having to work on long term goals. In practice, this means that many of the Afghan NGOs that had initially concentrated on humanitarian and relief aid, will now have to cooperate with the government to promote national policies, while simultaneously addressing the real needs of people. NGOs will now have to focus on real and positive impact within their geographical areas and pursue future-oriented development strategies.
In order to address this challenge and move towards a legitimate civil society sector, NGOs must begin to:
- Learn to develop and strengthen links with their target groups
- Initiate and develop links with local government
- Address issues of organisational development and organisational culture
1. Links to Target Groups
The entry point for any NGO in Afghanistan should be to delineate their target groups - those groups of people within a delimted geographical area to whom the organisation is committed to "improve the quality of life". After defining their target groups in realistic terms (deaf children in town "x" as opposed to all the deaf children in Afghanistan), Afghan NGOs need to begin to "listen", "learn", and "understand" by allowing the target groups to articulate their needs. Gone are the days, when NGOs under defined the needs of target groups and juxtaposed their own perspectives. Instead, NGOs in Afghanistan are now at a point where they have to develop relevant strategic interventions to meet the real needs of their target group and to be able to legitimately represent them.
Examples such as "this woman is illiterate, she doesn't know what she needs" or "as a doctor, I know that the patient needs" are no longer sufficient to justify interventions. There needs to be a change in attitude towards "our survey indicates that women do not attend their local health clinics because they have to wait for two hours before seeing the doctor and their husbands will not accompany them for this purpose".
Only when NGOs are able to legitimise their links with their target groups and develop relevant and effective interventions, will they be able to build and strengthen civil society. More importantly, involving the target group at the initial stages and creating and environment in which they are able to have input and take control of the development process contributes to the ownership, transparency, impact and sustainability of the intervention.
2. Links with Local Governments
It should be noted that the majority of national government policies and programmes have centrally set budget and activity constraints outside of which provincial and district representatives depend on external funding. Add to this the meagre salaries of civil servants and the physical remoteness of some of the district offices. The results are poorly staffed and under-budgeted district and provincial government offices with minimal links to the central government and with limited capacity to develop relevant policies. This lack of capacity is further compounded by the deteriorating security situation throughout the country due to the growing influence of the warlords, especially those dealing in the opium trade.
Therefore, the first step for Afghan NGOs is to begin to understand the environment in which they operate, and to to ensure that they have a good understanding of government policies and priorities that affect their programmes. Secondly, although in some instances time consuming and disheartening, it is imperative for Afghan NGOs to maintain an open dialogue with their district government representatives. It is of vital importance for NGOs to increase their transparency, to begin developing links with the government, creating an environment in which capacity building at the district level is extended to interested civil servants. Such a move, in theory, should permit NGOs to continue working in what may otherwise remain unstable areas and lend to their legitimacy.
3. Organisational Development and Culture
The changing environment in which Afghan NGOs now find themselves should drive them to begin to critically assess their own capacities, identifying the gaps that need to be addressed in order to initiate sustainable development programmes. Basic concepts of programme cycle management such as baseline surveys, planning, budgeting, monitoring and evaluation need to become standard practices, just as participatory monitoring, gender-balanced approaches, and participatory rural appraisal methodology for conducting surveys and planning. In addition to understanding basic development theory and tools, NGOs need to begin to apply them practically and begin to address the challenges of including target groups in their own development process.
In sum, Afghan NGOs need to focus more on their target groups rather than on their donors. Only then will they be able to contribute to the development of a legitimate civil society and, in so doing, help bring about the long-term goal of peace and stability in Afghanistan.
Published on 17 December 2004 by RISQ
© Salima Padamsey | www.risq.org
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