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Do Donors
and NGO’s speak different languages in Lesotho?
Part 1 – NGO’s take the Floor. |
At LCN everyday we see
small hard working NGO’s struggling financially for survival. For
the past twenty years Lesotho civil society organizations have been
the ones campaigning hardest for increased democracy in Lesotho and
now it is here we are still pushing hard from all angles to ensure
the citizens of Lesotho benefit from the relatively new found
democracy and improve social and economic empowerment for all.
However the new ‘Commission for Africa’ appears not to have
recognized the importance of NGO’s in the democratization of Africa,
in their recommendation to donors not to undermine African
governments through their funded programmes and to take care to
follow government policies, implying funding should be streamed
through governments. As the NGO society of Lesotho we support many
of the governments policies and indeed were integral in the
formation of the Lesotho Governments, Vision 2020, Poverty Reduction
Strategy and Lesotho Food Security Policy. As NGO’s we often go
further than the government to push for just laws to protect the
citizens of Lesotho and lobby for change of unfair laws, such as the
rights of women to own property, rights for disabled people and also
for ratification by government of laws such as the Environment Act
and many more. Should NGO’s be concerned by this lack of recognition
in the ‘Commission for Africa’? Within our community there are grave
concerns as to whether the Lesotho government has the capacity,
accountability and indeed the will to ensure that funding is
streamed downwards to NGO’s. We only have to look at the many
difficulties of the NGO sector in receiving Global Fund & Global
Environment Fund monies to illustrate how problematic this can be.
So how serious is the NGO funding crisis in Lesotho and why?
Financial Status Past & Present
We interviewed three small NGO’s based in three work areas;
Agriculture & Environment, Disability Rights and Community
Empowerment to tell us about their financial situation and
experience with donors. Out of the three organizations, two
organizations are currently receiving no funding and one has a small
grant. Boseele, an organization working in Agriculture and
Environment with a cluster of villages in the Buthe Buthe area, is
currently receiving a small grant from USC Canada. The grant is for
tools and seeds and implementation of a small tree-growing project.
This is their only source of funding at present. The grant has no
staff overhead costs or accommodation costs within it. Ntate Maqutu
from Boseele said ‘Why is it that donors do not want to fund staff?
In advanced countries it is easy to get volunteers because people
have livelihoods, here in Lesotho people need jobs because they are
unemployed and have no other means of livelihood’. I met five staff
members at Boseele’s base in Mate, in Northern Lesotho, none of who
are receiving a salary but who are continuing to fight for their
organisations survival. In the past they received funding and a
Development Worker through MS, the Danish funding mechanism. Ntate
Maqutu said ‘ When MS left the country they took with them our
development worker, transport and funding and we were left
bankrupt’. Boseele fear the closure of other donor and embassy
offices saying ‘NGO’s will collapse and fall when these
organizations leave. It is becoming more and more difficult to speak
to donors, especially if they move to Pretoria or out of Lesotho.
NGO’s will find it difficult to speak for themselves. It will be
down to organizations like LCN to speak for all of us’. Ntate
Seabata Lengosane from the Centre for Empowerment and Social
Analysis who work on human rights with people with disabilities said
on the same subject ‘ Organisations will collapse, it because of
them that our visions will not be reached’.
Ntate Soforea Shale, Programmes Co-ordinator for Development for
Peace Education, an NGO that works in community organization and
empowerment, policy & poverty dialogue and good governance believes
that closure of embassies and donor organizations has a deeper
meaning; ‘ We should not be deceived when an embassy closes that it
is a measure taken to save on resources and fund through donors,
this will not work! It is a programme statement but short on facts.
Closures means disaster for Lesotho. International organizations and
embassies put their money where their interests lie, there is no
mistaking that.’
Undoubtedly, many Lesotho NGO’s fear the closure of embassies and
donors, not just for their funding, but also for their strategic
positioning. With the Danish Embassy closed, British Embassy closure
imminent and rumours of Irish Embassy closures, many Lesotho NGO’s
believe at the very least this is due to a lack of confidence in the
potential for Lesotho to develop and for strategic positioning in
the more lucrative markets in South Africa.
Funding through government
The ‘Commission for Africa’ commitment to support African
governments has to be commended. However in all democratic societies
across the world NGO’s and the civil society play an equally
important role as government watchdogs, protectors of communities,
environment and minority group interests and lobbyists and advocates
of a wide variety of issues that would not be politically within the
interest of governments to raise. This should not be forgotten.
There are many dangers of streaming all funds through government,
not least battling with archaic structures and red tape, 'jobs for
life’ stagnated staff and the huge administration costs of
government, and not the least, problems with accountability.
Equally, as organizations such as GTZ are advocating funding to be
brought down through the ‘infant’ local government systems, rather
than through well-established umbrella NGO organizations, almost
appears foolish. This is not to say that NGO’s are not willing to
support local government, they have been fighting for the formation
of these structures for years, but they are ‘new’ and untamed and
there is a huge funding gap until these bodies have built enough
capacity to effectively plan, strategize and implement. Indeed many
NGO’s could play a key role in helping local government build
capacity.
Soforea Shale, Programmes Co-ordinator for Development for Peace
Education said ‘It is reactionary to take funding from NGO’s and
redirect them through government. It is not that there are no funds
or commitments it is about the way they want to administer the
funding. It is naive to redirect the funding through government to
the detriment of NGO’s because the government is not the only
arbiter of society; it is shared with civil society organizations.
This may paralyse the development process.’
Problems with Donors
The three NGO’s we interviewed are small and underdeveloped NGO’s,
who are desperate to build their own capacity and understand the
complexities of ‘funding speak’. We asked them what problems they
had experienced with potential donor organizations. Soforea Shale
from DPE said ‘ First and foremost, the donors who we think we can
work with because of the nature of our work are looking up to
government and as a result, they are not ready to listen to the
programmes we are developing, often because of the nature of
bilateral agreements, all resources must be channeled through
government. Assistance is limited to small grants. To me a good
strategy, that will help address needs of donors is to continue to
support the Government of Lesotho, but fund NGO programmes,
especially where they are aimed at monitoring and advocating
government policy. The government cannot do it alone, neither can
the NGO’s’. He asked ‘Can donors use their power, influence and
resources to build capacity in NGO’s. Can they help us transfer the
skewed partnership between the South and the North, for example
development workers come from the North, how many development
workers go from the South to the North? I have never left Lesotho.
Lesotho people need to be exposed to other ways of working, this
will help people build capacity’. Ntate Maqutu, from Boseele said
“We have tried to apply for funds from donors. We applied for a
vehicle from the Irish Embassy, because the nature of our work we
need to transfer seedlings from one place to another and public
transport does not reach us. We were told it was too risky because
of theft and it being misused. There is a culture between donors not
to trust NGO’s’. Ntate Lengosane from CESA said ‘ I would like to
ask donors how do we get access to funds and can they tell me their
criteria. We have put in applications and have heard nothing. We
would like donors not just to say no to our applications, but tell
us why. How can we improve our organization if we do not know what
is wrong? We do not have an office so communication is difficult.
People with disabilities have often not been to school, so we need
help from donors to help us understand the funding processes’.
This lack of trust from donors is quite a fundamental problem in the
NGO sector. LCN itself is constantly critised, without any evidence,
of not representing their members, not having enough capacity and
many other damming statements. However there remains a huge gap
between donors and NGO’s as to what we expect from each other.
Perhaps I would suggest ‘just sit down and talk’. As a EU citizen I
find it quite dismaying the constant paternalistic nature of donor
organizations. There is a need for far greater and deeper
partnerships between NGO’s and donors to truly effect economic
empowerment and social change. Soforea Shale from DPE points out;
‘Donors will often not fund our programmes, but when our
organizations fall, the very same staff are utilized by donors and
international NGO’s. International NGO’s come and attract funding
from all over the world and bully Lesotho NGO’s into areas they
work.’
Perhaps one solution could be to create a similar model to the South
African, National Development Agency. This partnership between
donors and NGO’s is successfully assisting NGO’s and donors in the
eradication of poverty by focusing on predetermined areas of work
and assessing needs geographically. They have set up a clear annual
funding cycle and procedures that balances the expectations of
donors and NGO’s. However one thing for sure is donors and NGO’s
will need to negotiate a more trusting relationship to effectively
work towards the eradication of poverty, discrimination and
environmental degradation in Lesotho.
(In the next issues of the NGO Web we will be allowing donors to
talk back, so watch this space!)
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