Why NGOs Need Sustained Help
(24-04013)
Sustainability is a big word in any dictionary or language
but it looms even larger if you are an NGO trying hard to survive against the
odds. Conventional businesses such as limited liability companies operate on
the basis of profit and profit projections but NGOs survive on the most elusive
of all possible outcomes: sustainability. This is the ability of the
organisation to guarantee its existence and continue its activities into any
kind of future without depending fully on external aid. Like profit,
sustainability is difficult to acquire and most NGOs die under the weight of
its considerable lack thereof!
The term NGO is an acronym for non-governmental organisation
and is applied to any organisation registered legally as not being under
government control. In cases where an NGO is funded fully or partially by a
government it has to maintain its independence by excluding official government
representation from its controlling structures. Another important aspect of NGO
identity is that such organisations do not exist to make profit but to pursue
wider social aims. Most NGOs aim for political impact although they are not
political organisations themselves.
The term NGO once had a rather restricted usage, and was
almost solely reserved for non-state institutions that were accredited to the
United Nations when it was created in 1945. In the last 30 years the NGO world
has grown astronomically and the term itself has undergone rapid
transformation.
Today, according to the UN, any kind of private organization
that is independent from government control can be termed an "NGO",
provided it is not-profit, non-criminal and not simply an opposition political
party. These include even professional associations, faith-based organisations,
social entrepreneurs and other private setups whose primary objective is not to
make a profit for shareholders. Estimates of the worldwide spread of NGOs
differ but the number must be vast; a Wikipedia article puts the number of NGOs
operating in the United States as 1.5 million while Russia has 277,000 NGOs. India
is estimated to have had around 3.3 million NGOs in 2009, which works out at one
NGO per 400 Indians.
The NGO world has spawned its own acronyms such as CBO
(community based organisation), INGO (International NGO), TSO (Third Sector
Organisation), CSO (Civil Society Organisation) and my all-time favourite QANGO
(quasi Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisation), among several others.
NGOs come in different sizes from the behemoths such as Christian
Aid, Oxfam, Greenpeace, Amnesty International and others two small community
associations in villages. The story is told of a man and his wife who printed
calling cards and simply wrote: Mr. and
Mrs. XXX, NGO. But whether it is a budget-endowed organisation or a man and
his wife operation in a tiny village all NGOs have to pass the sustainability
test at some point in their operational lives. It is not an easy rite of
passage because sustainability determines whether an NGO can work on its own or
must rely on external funding or bust!
In Ghana the number of registered NGOs is reported by socialresponsibility.com
to be around 5000, and the number is said to have jumped by about 30 percent in
five years. There is no record of the number that perishes every year along the
way for lack of sustainability or of those that can only operate as and when
some donor funding becomes available. Last week STAR-Ghana, the multi donor
mechanism for funding civil society organised a meeting in its ongoing effort
to address the issue. Billed as an “experience-sharing and lessons festival“,
the meeting brought together 43 organisations from different social sectors who
are all STAR-Ghana Sustainability grantees and some donor representatives. This
was the first opportunity for the organisations to get together since they got
these grants which are meant to help them improve their sustainability or their
chances of survival without depending on external aid all the time for all of
their operations and other expenses.
Sustainability comes in different shapes and sizes and any
organisation that hopes to achieve this elusive status has to touch all the
bases. There is financial sustainability, which is perhaps the one that is most
easily recognised and whereas it is the anchor of an organisation’s overall
fitness, it is not the only measure. There is project sustainability which is
how an organisation sustains its operations one project at a time and links
them together to provide a seamless fabric that covers the range of its basic
mission and purpose. There is sustainability in people and human resource which
can have the most deleterious effect on small organisations that pay only a
fraction of what experienced personnel are paid elsewhere. But the mother of
all sustainability headaches is organisational and institutional sustainability
which is the sum total of all other concerns that should make or break an
organisation, including its internal culture and how it responds to external
stimuli.
Conventional wisdom holds that NGOs have a lower threshold
for professionalism than for-profit businesses but this notion was easily
dispelled at the STAR-Ghana meeting when organisation after organisation
presented professional sustainability performances similar or even better that
what you would expect from a corporate entity. And across the expanse of social
concerns NGOs address, they have to provide ancillary services, supervise staff
and clients, and motivate partners in addition to their core projects. Then
there is the fundraising which is the most backbreaking of all NGO
undertakings, and for which reason STAR-Ghana is a blessing to civil society –
and Parliament – for whom it provides funding.
However, despite the nice presentation and performance
indicators presented at the meeting in question the fact remains that even the
best NGOs cannot become fully self-sustaining over the long haul. This is not
for want of trying but the very nature of social change and its management
means that NGOs will forever be catching up in their effort to meet new
challenges all the time. Unlike the corporate world, NGOs cannot claim success
when the bottom line is black after 12 calendar months. Therefore, our
government and donor partners must accept that funding these vital social
institutions is going to require increasing support; not less, and funding organisations
like STAR-Ghana and others need replenishments to sustain the social sector.
Another way to support the NGO sector is for corporate bodies
to channel their social responsibility funds through established funding
structures such as STAR-Ghana and others because they know which organisations
are performing where and how. NGOs are not without their critics but the role
they play far outstrips and reproach that may be directed at them. There are parts
of this country that owe most of their development infrastructure to civil
society and corporate social responsibility and communities across the country
would become sustainable if the two ideational engines of social change work
together. Even so, it is still very important for civil society to demonstrate
responsibility and accountability as measures of their effort towards
sustaining what they do, and this column hopes to be able to chart their
progress in the coming months and years.
SHELF LIFE
Woeli Dekutsey is a publisher well known for establishing the
Woeli Publishing Services but few people know that the man is a writer and poet
in his own right. Last week he published two books for the youth literary
market which also launched the Great Ghanaian Series. The two books are
biographies of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana and Dr. James
Kwegyir Aggrey, the world famous educator who became Assistant Vice Principal
of Achimota College.
Although the two books, Kwame Nkrumah – the Great African and
Kwegyir Aggrey – His Life and Achievements – are nominally targeted at young
readers, they are indeed good books for all ages. Even for those who know the
Nkrumah and Aggrey stories will be surprised at new insights in these two
books. I recommend them highly as they become available in all leading shops.
kgapenteng.blogspot.com
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