NGOs as civil society organisations

However, the question remains to be tested against the degree of contribution NGOs can realistically reach in developing countries such as Bangladesh. Here, I would first look briefly into the origin and definitional understanding as well as typology of NGOs and then move on to explore their legitimacy and potentials as civil society organisation in making developmental contribution in Bangladesh.

Definition, Commonality, Differences and Specialty of NGOs

In spite of the maturity in terms of activities and life span, a wide range of definitional variety of NGOs exists that differs from country to country. However, we take the World Bank's definition that describes NGOs as "private organisations that pursue activities to relieve suffering, promote the interest of the poor, protect the environment, provide basic social services, or undertake community development".

Among many other typologies, NGOs can be classified according to whether they are: relief or development, religious or secular, service delivery or participation oriented; public or private oriented.

Whatever might be the differences in definitions and typologies, a fundamental commonalty of the NGOs lie in the fact that they mobilise social energy and resources through the mechanisms of shared values and expectations. Other commonalties of the NGOs include: strong grassroots links, field-based development expertise, the ability to innovate and adopt, participatory methodologies and tools, promoting gender issues, flexibility and cost-effectiveness.

NGOs in Bangladesh

Most of the NGOs in Bangladesh started working during and after the liberation war of Bangladesh in 1971 to help deliver relief and rehabilitation to the war ravaged people. Keeping pace with the development of the NGOs around the world, Bangladeshi NGOs have also graduated in stages.

The increasing growth and influence of the NGOs coupled with polarisation of the traditional civil society along narrow political lines paved the way for the emergence of NGOs as a new social actor into the stage. However, in recent times a crude political polarisation along political lines has started to make pervasive inroads in to the NGO sector as well.

NGOs as Civil Society

Civil society is the sphere where social movements take shapes. The organisations of civil society represent many diverse and sometimes contradictory social interests that originates from its social base, constituency and thematic orientations. Here, we would look at the NGOs within the framework of three sectors of the society namely the government (first sector), market/business (second sector) and private non-profit ventures (third sector). It is the third sector of the society, which is termed as civil society organisation. From the defining characteristics of NGOs, as has been discussed earlier, we can easily trace them within the third sector and hence as a civil society organisation.

Legitimacy

According to one development commentator, "Legitimacy is generally understood as having the right to be and do something in society -- a sense that an organisation is lawful, proper, admissible and justified in doing what it does and saying what it says, and that it constitutes to enjoy the support of an identifiable constituency".

Here, we would look into the legitimacy issue of NGOs in Bangladesh through: legality, acceptability, self-reliance, and accountability.

Legality: NGOs in Bangladesh work under the legal framework outlined by the NGO Affairs Bureau established by the Bangladesh government. The formation of the NGO Affairs Bureau and the drafting of the Foreign Donations Act ensure the legal frame under which NGOs operate. The provision of licences to operate and permission to receive foreign funding regulates the operation of NGOs. Apart from the government regulation, NGOs themselves have also developed self-regulation adopting 'code of ethics' initiated by the Association of Development Agencies in Bangladesh (ADAB).

Acceptability: Since inception, NGOs are being considered as organisations that are based on the concept of serving people as opposed to coercion. In fact, a missionary zeal has worked as a driving force in organising and implementing the work of the NGOs in general. As opposed to the bureaucratic attitude of government officials, the NGO staff are comparatively more easily reachable by the mass people.

Through their grassroots network, NGOs have played a vital role in all the national disasters of the country reaching to the poor before any government agency could. This has also enhanced, to some extent, the acceptability of the NGOs to masses as well as the government. Apart from this, some of the NGOs' successes in micro-finance and non-formal education have arguably contributed immensely to the wide acceptance and legitimacy of the NGOs in the country.

Self-reliance: The main concern for the Bangladeshi NGOs lies in their dependency on foreign funding. As NGOs are always in the look out for funding, they are less able to think strategically in terms of their specialty and sustainability. While it is true that non-government development interventions in Bangladesh cannot be financed completely by beneficiaries or by other domestic resources, the concern of funding will always pose a threat, either in the form of acquiescence to donor demands or termination of funding resources.

Integrity and Accountability: The issue of integrity is probably the trickiest part of the legitimacy issue. Integrity is much more to do with values, commitment, relationship and human dignity. It has been argued that voluntary organisations in industrialised countries have been able to maintain a sense of social values and downward accountability whereas any genuine sense of downward accountability to the beneficiaries is not common among development NGOs in the south including Bangladesh. However, limited efforts have been made to make NGOs' operation truly participatory. But beneficiaries are seldom allowed to make decisions on programmes or budgets, or even to participate in monitoring and evaluation.

Some Observations

Most of the criticisms of the NGOs in Bangladesh are focused around the issues of funding, and accountability. Among many negative perceptions of NGOs are: too rich, anti Islamic, too western.

The most vocal critics of the NGOs during the cold-war period were the leftist groups who termed NGOs as agents of capitalism involved in deterring revolution of the people. Another group vocal about the NGOs is the right-wing groups who accuse NGOs as agents of Christian world engaged in religious conversion. The latter group destroyed a number of NGOs' infrastructure including BRAC schools several times. Although, the voices of the left-wing bloc are weaning during the post cold-war era, the right-wing ones are very active, even becoming stronger.

The legitimacy of the NGOs in Bangladesh has been highly contested. Time and again the government has shown its intentions in regulating NGOs with verbal or non-verbal threat keeping them away from dealing with political issues.

The response from the NGO community to the heavy-handed policy of the government has been mixed. We can identify two emergent streams of thought in its strategy. The spilt is very clear, as one group has opted concentrating on the economic assistance to its beneficiaries while another section has taken the path of political clientelism supporting one or the other of the main political parties.

While the basic premise of democracy and participation is to make people understand their social relationship and make them active in changing the structure through democratic processes, the option to go for providing only economic assistance is questionable. It is crucial to look in to the causes of the problem in order to make valuable and sustained contribution.

Potential as Civil Society Organisation

With their limitations as discussed above, NGOs in Bangladesh are trying to come of age as civil society organisations in working with the grassroots people making them more active economically as well as socially and thus contributing to some extent to the development and democratisation of the society. However, in a society having high illiteracy rate, political pressure and coercive policy regime coupled with people's inclination in explaining poverty in terms of cultural and religious terms bypassing the structural causes, the question remains unanswered as how and what substantial role NGOs can play while their legitimacy and accountability are also being questioned?

The social and economic politics in Bangladesh is also dominated by money and hooliganism as opposed to genuine participation of the masses. The vertical relationship i.e. patron-client relationship in the society is much more valued rather than the horizontal one. As NGOs are part of the whole socio-economic entity, a reflection of social structure i.e. patron-client relationship is obvious in the construction and leadership of Bangladeshi NGOs in general.

Conclusion

It seems that the NGOs in Bangladesh have so far negotiated, more or less successfully, their legitimacy with various sectors of critics including the government. However, the challenge in increasing their legitimacy and success in the days ahead would depend on how they negotiate relationship with the left and right wing groups and, of course, with the government as well as other social actors.

Another crucial area for NGOs on the way to deepen legitimacy would be their accountability towards grassroots people. The more they would be able to strengthen inclusive synergistic relationship with their constituencies, the more they would be able to make other actors of the society including the state more accountable and thus contributing to the transition to a more prosperous and democratic society.

It seems that under the present political culture, the political parties and the elite in the government are not willing to entertain any role by the NGOs that they think may go against their interest. So, the goal of contributing substantially in the social development would depend on how the dialectic relationship among the government, NGOs, donors, religious institutions and the masses evolve in the days to come.

Nikesh Amit is an NGO worker.