How are the game changers spending their time

By Jennifer Lentfer

As we look into the future of aid, can INGOs harness the energy   currently focused on controlling finances and demonstrating results   based on donors’ needs, and use it instead to concentrate on the   priorities of those their mission ultimately serves? The good news is   that international non-governmental organizations do not operate from a   profit motive. They can change the game until the game doesn’t look the   same. Jennifer Lentfer argues;

“Tell the truth,” I asked my friend at headquarters. “How much of every day do you spend talking about beneficiaries?”

“Who?” she joked, the essential problem revealed.

Last month I re-entered an international non-governmental  organization (INGO) after five years of working with small foundations  and local groups.

It is conversations such as these that remind me of why I left.

I am once again surrounded by smart, driven, committed people. But  unfortunately they are largely a group of people who are also exhausted,  overwhelmed, and discouraged by fighting while propagating the very  organizations in which they serve. From my still outsider’s perspective,  it’s as if the system closes in and the perpetuation of the institution  itself slowly, silently becomes what consumes people. Or must  protecting the interests of agencies always come first, given that they  ultimately rely on fundraising from donors and the public at large?

The Community Development Resource Association in South Africa describes the “particularly undevelopmental global development industry” as characterized
by:

• the need to urgently disburse money;
• a tendency to focus on product rather than process;
• higher respect for suits and ties than rages and bones;
• a proactive rather than responsive orientation;
• centralized and hierarchical decision-making; and
•  bureaucratic and instrumental rigidities, practiced largely (if unconsciously)
  for the benefit of those who intervene.

Many talented people within INGOs spend most of their time dealing  with the constraints of donor-controlled, project-based funding, which  ties their hands and shuts down the possible processes that could  genuinely result in local ownership and empowerment. In truth, the  corporate culture and heavy accountability systems that take up most of  staff’s time and that marginalize and de-motivate people, especially  local NGO leaders and activists, ultimately do not lead to any real  assurance of long-term results.

Instead, we need these talented people to focus their roles on  service and advocacy, rather than abstractions and bureaucratic  technicalities. We need to enable and encourage these same talented  people to expand their attentiveness to how to change the rules and  regulations by which their work is governed.

As Dov Seidman, author of "HOW: Why HOW we do anything means everything", and Bo Burlingham, author of "Small Giants: Companies That Choose To Be Great Instead Of Big",  encourage those in business to do, I want to see aid agencies put  behavior and relationships first. To do so, INGOs must abandon the  expertise infusion model of programming and require power asymmetries to  be a larger part of their staff’s consciousness, and most importantly  their performance assessment.

Getting partnerships right has plagued international NGOs since  their creation, yet in my experience the processes of decision-making  and power dynamics within these relationships are often the  make-or-break factor in the success of development projects. Hakima Abbas in Pambazuka News last  year questioned the role of outside entities in the developmental  process, describing an "...ever-expanding NGO industrial complex  separates and depoliticises service and advocacy while failing to  question its own role in weakening African institutions, power and  self-determination." Rather than building the capacity of local  implementing partners, INGOs and donors should first focus on building  their own skills to accompany and support local institutions, rather  than overpower or co-opt them.

As we look into the future of aid, can INGOs harness the energy  currently focused on controlling finances and demonstrating results  based on donors’ needs, and use it instead to concentrate on the  priorities of those their mission ultimately serves? The good news is  that international non-governmental organizations do not operate from a  profit motive. They can change the game until the game doesn’t look the  same.

Until then, I’ll be supporting and encouraging the seasoned and  dedicated humanitarian and development practitioners within INGOs to  openly, bravely, and constructively question business as usual in our  sector.