Column by Alan Fowler: Aided development is a language industry

Column by Alan Fowler: Aided development is a language industry

Tags: Civil Society Building
Additional tags: Aided development, Language, Civic

Aided development is a language industry. This opening sentence draws on the important messages to be found in Paul Hoebink’s column for the previous Newsletter. It does so from a novel and challenging way of looking at development cooperation which is emerging from the civic driven change (CDC) initiative hosted by the Institute of Social Studies.

The CDC process required authors to be precise about what the words and terms used meant to them. One result is my own greater sensitivity to vocabulary – not just as a foundation for ‘knowing’ but also as responsibility for communication that acknowledges embedded aspects of power. Concern with the (dis)empowering, labelling function of language is not new. But I would argue that erosion of the ‘being-ness’ of NGO-ism as a world view, identity and practice stems from the loss of a different terminology to the main stream of official aid. Re-asserting NGO-ism calls for recovery of a distinct vocabulary with clarity of meaning.

So, in this column, taking the CDC experience as an example, I wish to propose both a shift in language as well as an invitation for us all. This is to revisit and re-determine if the language we use day to day in our work is consistent with what we are actually doing.

For a start, you will see that in the title I am introducing an unusual formulation: ‘aided development’. It’s the vast amount of ‘development’ and social change is ‘unaided’. Such a differentiation was required in the CDC process because the aid system was not the initial frame of reference. It was therefore important for the group to make clear to each other when discussion was within the aid framework and when not. Continuing to use and ‘aided’ formulation may help acknowledge context and proportionality to break down the ‘enclave’ that the self-referential development industry has become.

A further civic innovation in vocabulary would be to use alternatives to the words like partnership, participation, and projects – pillars of today’s aid-speak. We all know that partnership is a seldom realized aspiration. Its intimation of equity, balance and fairness is almost impossible to achieve because of the asymmetric power in aided relationships and disbursement chains. The term masks this reality, usually to the benefit of those closer to and controlling the source of resources. It also implies a harmony of interest and change that is ahistorical when it comes to reducing poverty and making gains in citizen influence over governance. With power and negotiation in the foreground, a civic language talks of collaboration. It leaves open the specifics of the relationship, which can include contention as well as cooperation. It means one has to ask what exactly is the relational set-up, rather than comfortably relying on shaky assumptions of harmony and equity.

An additional candidate for a shift in concept and language is participation. In practice, this catch all, something nothing term, ranges from people’s passive acquiescence to assertive engagement with aided development processes. But in most cases it implies people joining into something constructed by others, often in the name of the participant’s own good. It easily turns citizens into clients and locates the centre of action elsewhere than people’s own drives and energy. The alternative language for CDC is civic agency. That the self-willed action of people to create the society they individually imagine and collectively want. It involves empowerment, but understood as crafting and navigating political space rather than an increase in economic choice – an interpretation favoured by official aid.

Third in line is a radical re-definition of a project as a time and resource-bound set of activities to produce pre-determined outputs, outcomes and impacts to development itself as the political project of society in action. One civic expression of such a view of a ‘project’ is public work. That is a prosocial pursuit of change that improves a locality, a community, a space, an institution etc., as a public benefit. The point is that the ‘projects’ of civic agency are political acts with all citizens as actors, irrespective of their walk of life or livelihood.

These are a few examples of where a new language can take us in testing the mental models that we use to understand development from a civic vantage point. For I seriously doubt if the sort transformative change that many NGOs say that they strive for will be attained using the old vocabulary. So, isn’t it time to break out of the language trap and reclaim forms of expression that bring who we are, what we say, what we mean and what we do closer together? Can I invite you to do so in your own organisation? Start with the external communication of web site and move to Annual Reports. Then critically examine the standard internal documentation that ‘hold’ assumptions about change and express the culture of internal processes. Then debate if a language update – with all that this implies - would be a valuable step into (re)defining the place of NGOs in aided development of the 21st Century.

Alan Fowler is an affiliate professor at the Institute pf Social Studies, honorary research professor at the University of KwZulu Natal, former president of the International Society for Third Sector Research and past board member of Civicus, the Global Alliance for Citizen Participation.