It is often assumed that the growth of NGOs in Latin America reflects a strengthening of civil society. But in searching for alternative models of development, North American progressives need to question whether these NGOs are invariably the best vehicle. El Astillero is a tiny Nicaraguan community perched on the edge of the Pacific Ocean. Until 1979, the abundant varieties of fish and seafood off the coast were harvested only by large privately owned, off-shore trawlers, and sold abroad. After the Sandinistas came to power, they encouraged landless laborers to move to the coast and establish fishing cooperatives. The inshore fisheries were seen as one way to increase food self-sufficiency and employment. After 1985, however, because of the advancing eco- nomic crisis, government support for the inshore fish- eries dwindled, and promised assistance to El Astillero such as a processing center did not materialize. The Sandinistas turned to international non-govern- mental organizations (NGOs) to fill the gap. OXFAM-Canada (a progressive NGO with links to OXFAMs in the United Kingdom, the United States, Belgium and elsewhere) decided to link up fishermen in Nicaragua with their Canadian counterparts from the Maritime provinces, who, OXFAM thought, had useful technical and organizational expertise to share with the Nicaraguans. The El Astillero project was part of OXFAM's effort to increase solidarity in Canada with the Nicaraguan revolution, to identify common struggles between people in similar posi- tions in their respective countries, and to find ways in which groups in the North could assist their Southern counterparts. Small delegations of Canadian fishermen began vis- iting El Astillero in 1986. Not surprisingly, they tend- ed to focus on the low levels of technology in El Astillero, particularly the unstable boats carved by Laura Macdonald teaches political science at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario. She is the author of Supporting Civil Society: The Political Impact of NGO Assistance to Central America, forthcoming from St. Martin's Press. hand from logs. The Canadians organized shipments of basic equipment like nets, ropes and knives, and built a flat-bottom boat. Canadian fishermen were enthusiastic about the experience. After a Nicaraguan delegation paid a visit to Canada, a Canadian participant remarked, "people in the community are more open and interested in meeting people from other countries. Before you would have heard a lot of racist comments. Now peo- ple see foreigners as interesting people. It is not unusual now to have a few of the guys talking about international issues around the wharf."' One of OXFAM's representatives called the linkage "a per- fect example of how concrete the international solidar- ity between working people can be." Yet when I visited El Astillero in 1989, the local fishermen were sitting in their houses or repairing their nets, while the equipment which OXFAM had provided lay idle on the shore. None of the fishermen were going out to sea because there was no market for their fish, and because they had no money to pay for gasoline to fuel their boats. That year, the local fishing economy had entered into crisis when the state-the only purchaser at that time of local fish-stopped buy- ing from El Astillero. The setback revealed that the real needs of the community were not in production, but in organization, marketing, and increasing their political impact on government policies. It was not clear what the Canadians had to offer Nicaraguans in any of these areas. The crisis in El Astillero pushed OXFAM-Canada to rethink its strategy. It eventually decided to with- draw from involvement at the community level and to focus on supporting attempts to organize inshore fish- ermen at the regional and national levels. In 1992, with OXFAM's support, nine regional unions of fish- 30NAflA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 30REPORT ON SOLIDARITY A young woman builds a bicycle wheel at ECOBICI, a project of the Salvadoran Center for Appropriate Technology. ing cooperatives formed the National Federation of Inshore Fishermen (FENICPESCA). Although organi- zationally still weak, the capacity of the fishermen to represent their interests vis-&t-vis the state has increased substantially. The fishermen have also orga- nized to market their fish collectively, rather than rely on the state or large private buyers. Though much work remains to be done, the boats of El Astillero are now returning to the sea, and their owners have more secure access to markets. The story of El Astillero illustrates many of the dilemmas faced by Northern NGOs throughout Latin America. First, paternalism has not disappeared, even though many NGOs like OXFAM recognize the problem and have tried to eliminate it. As a subse- quent evaluation of the program at El Astillero noted, OXFAM's approach reflected the wrong-headed assumption that modern technology could solve "Third World" problems. Since Latin American agencies are reluctant to bite the hand that feeds them, needed program changes are often slow in coming. Similarly, direct people-to-people linkages between groups of the North and South may not be the best way to promote development. "Perhaps it was wrong to think that primary producers know best what other primary producers needed in terms of development," one organizer reflected. "We forgot that it was their first exposure to Third World issues too, and that they too needed to learn about development strategies." 2 Although exchanges are an important way to educate people in the North about development issues, it can- not be assumed that people in similar situations in the North and South have the same interests and needs. Even if they are poor and marginalized within their own countries, groups from the North cannot automat- ically transfer their experiences and knowledge to the South. Finally, as OXFAM learned, long-term success requires moving beyond the local community to con- front broader economic and political structures at the national and international levels. The El Astillero pro- ject stumbled at first because it did not adequately take into account the national socioeconomic framework in which the fishing cooperatives operated. In the wake of structural adjustment and the wide- spread decline of faith in state-led development strategies, both Latin American governments and Northern donors are increasingly turning to NGOs. NGOs are seen as a way not only to fill the gap caused by cutbacks in state services, but also as a way to con- tribute to democratization through support for civil society. The 1993 Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) argues, for example, that governments need to find new ways to give people greater influence and partici- pation in decision-making: Unless this is done, and done in time, the irresistible tide of people's rising aspirations will inevitably clash with inflexible systems, leading to anarchy and chaos. A rapid democratic transition and a strengthening of the institutions of civil society are the only appropriate responses. 3 Reliable statistics on total amounts of NGO assis- tance to Latin America are difficult to find. According to the UNDP, total Northern NGO aid increased from $1.0 billion in 1970 to $7.2 billion in 1990. NGOs are increasingly on the receiving end as well. In Central America alone, some 4,000 NGOs currently receive an estimated $350 million annually from all sources. 4 During the 1980s, the growth rate of official aid to Southern NGOs was almost five times higher than the growth in governmental development assistance. 5 Several different types of organizations are involved in this growing phenomenon: i) Northern NGOs: These are non-profit organiza- tions based in North America and Europe. They fund, and sometimes implement, development projects, usu- ally in more than one country. They receive money both from governments and private donations. In the United States, they are often referred to as Private Voluntary Organizations (PVOs). ii) Southern NGOs: These are non-profit organiza- tions based in Asia, Africa and Latin America, whose principal function is to implement development pro- jects favoring the poor. 6 Northern NGOs are the main source of financial support for Southern NGOs, but they may also receive assistance from Northern gov- ernments or international organizations. Both South- ern and Northern NGOs are typically staffed by mid- VOL XXVIII, No 5 MARCH /APRIL 199531 VOL XXVIII, No 5 MARCH /APRIL 1995 31REPORT ON SOLIDARITY Women participate in a community-organized program to distrib- ute bread and milk to schoolchildren in Perquin, El Salvador. dle-class professionals who provide technical support, training and financial support to communities. South- ern NGOs serve as intermediaries between the grass- roots and government, Northern NGOs, and interna- tional financial institutions. iii) Popular organizations: Popular organizations are composed of members, to whom they are in some way accountable. They include neighborhood associa- tions, agricultural cooperatives, peasant unions, and women's groups. They may get support from state agencies, international NGOs or national NGOs, though many receive no external funding. Political scientist Charles Anderson once referred to Latin American politics as a "living museum," in which new political actors appeared on the scene, but the old ones refused to disappear. 7 Latin American NGOs are very similar. In general, they have evolved from providing charity and relief, into community organizing and local development, and more recently toward lobbying and advocacy work. The older types of NGOs, however, continue to coexist with the newer forms, and probably control more money. 8 The boom in NGO aid has been fueled by the repu- tation of NGOs as paragons of development action. This reputation comes from their small size, efficien- cy, moral commitment to the cause of helping the poorest, their proximity to the grassroots, and the high levels of popular participation. NGOs are seen as peo- ple-to-people organizations capable of creating direct links between people in the North and South, thus pro- viding a human face to the problems of development. Because of their small scale, NGOs can be more flexi- ble and innovative than bilateral or multilateral aid agencies, and therefore are often a source of alterna- tive development strategies.9 In recent years, however, doubts have emerged about the real impact of assistance from Northern NGOs to their Southern counterparts. The apparent virtues of NGOs tend to obscure the real problems even the most well-meaning and effective NGOs encounter in attempting to promote development. The virtuous image creates unrealistic expectations about the possibility of quick fixes if only aid is directed to people at the grassroots. In most of Latin America, the cards are stacked against the poor, and NGO activity can do little in the short term to reshuffle the deck. Shifting responsibility for the welfare of the poor away from the state (which at least has the capacity to do something about it) onto civil society is problematic. Moreover, NGOs are a varied lot, with diverse motivations and ideological perspec- tives. Needless to say, not all do useful work. n Central America, political polarization has led to the emergence of two distinct kinds of NGOs: neoliberal and progressive. A group of progressive Central American NGOs, the Concertaci6n Regional de Organismos de Desarrollo, describes the difference between the two accordingly: The difference lies in how they view the problem of power. In the first case, the activity of the NGO is directed at provoking changes in order to avoid modifi- cations in the structure of power. In the second case, the NGOs try to promote changes in order to achieve trans- formations in the relation of social forces, in a manner which favors the majority.' 0 Both types of NGO are responding to the needs of large marginalized populations who lack economic alternatives. Their objectives and political agendas, however, are very different. Neoliberal NGOs advocate the merits of market-led strategies for economic recov- ery. They see their role as assuaging the worst suffering caused by economic structural adjustment, in order to ensure social stability. These NGOs may claim to sup- port community development, but they tend to favor individualistic solutions to the economic crisis. Neoliberal NGOs are flourishing throughout Central America under the auspices of multilateral financial institutions. According to a World Bank official, the financial institutions "are beginning to see NGOs as important vehicles for dissemination and constituency- building for a variety of macroeconomic efforts includ- ing structural-adjustment programs."" Moeen Qureshi, senior vice-president of the World Bank, says the Bank considers NGOs "important coworkers in a common cause."'2 In a typical case from El Salvador, U.S.AID, together with the World Bank, UNDP, and the Inter- American Development Bank (IDB), has helped estab- lish a Salvadoran Social Investment Fund (Fondo de Inversidn Social Salvadoreiia or FISS). As in other countries of the region, the fund pays for projects meant to alleviate the worst effects of structural-adjust- SNACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICASREPORT ON SOLIDARITY ment programs on the poorest. The FISS is notably selective in choosing its NGO collaborators. "The lim- ited effort to create a framework to incorporate NGOs into the FISS," says one observer, "reflects government policy to work only with NGOs with proven links to business groups, and the IDB's relative inexperience with welfare-orientated NGOs." 3 Not surprising, the NGOs allied with the popular sectors during the 1980s have found themselves largely shut out of government plans for postwar reconstruction. Even if they claim to support popular participation, neoliberal NGOs are usually interventionist and pater- nalistic. Local participation is often limited to provid- ing voluntary labor so that development projects can be implemented more cheaply. In one particularly egregious example, after the 1990 election in In the wake of structural adjustment, the"alternative" strategies advocated by progressive NGOs often end up looking not too different from those of neoliberal groups. Nicaragua, one large Northern NGO funded a food- for-work program run by the right-wing municipal government of Managua. Workers were hired, among other things, to paint over the large, colorful murals on city buildings which had become a symbol of support for the revolution. By contrast, progressive NGOs in both the North and the South define their main objective as altering the political and economic balance of forces within their societies, often through empowerment of people at the grassroots. In Guatemala City, for example, numerous women's organizations are engaged in such diverse activities as establishing a Pap-smear clinic, sexual-education talks, legal advocacy for abused women, and a drop-in center for prostitutes. Although these groups do not call themselves feminist, they aim through popular education to increase women's self- confidence and their capacity to participate in commu- nity organizations.14 In general, progressive Northern NGOs (many of which are based in Western Europe or Canada) do not directly implement their own projects but provide sup- port for local NGOs or popular organizations with which they have developed a long-term relationship. As much as possible, local partners establish priorities for work, and are given control over day-to-day deci- sion-making. n the face of the broader constraints of the interna- tional market, structural adjustment, state policy, and the general political bias against the interests of small producers, the "alternative" strategies advo- cated by progressive NGOs often end up looking not too different from those of neoliberal groups. This neoliberal-progressive convergence can be seen in the examples of two NGOs from Costa Rica. The first is Catholic Relief Services (CRS), a mainstream U.S. NGO which receives much of its funding from U.S.AID. CRS, the foreign-relief and development agency of the U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops, focused on charity and welfare work in the 1950s. During the 1960s, CRS, like many other Northern NGOs, became frustrated with its failure to reduce levels of poverty, and began to fund local small-scale development projects instead. U.S.AID viewed NGOs in Costa Rica as a private- sector alternative to state paternalism and as a "shock absorber" for social tensions in the context of the volatile Contra war raging to the country's north. In 1986, CRS began to provide organizational, technical and financial support to small farmers, primarily for the production of "nontraditional exports" such as ornamental plants, broccoli, macadamia nuts and cocoa. As part of this program, CRS established a pro- ject in Uvita to promote cocoa production among a group which was forming a cooperative. From the start, the cooperative members had little input into the project. The project was designed and implemented according to the priorities of the Costa Rican government and international donors. Since the cooperative would forfeit CRS' aid if it decided to produce food for domestic consumption, the coopera- tive's role in the project's design was limited to mak- ing suggestions about which nontraditional export crop it should grow. General meetings of the coooper- ative were held only twice a year. In addition, since almost all cooperative members were men, women were automatically excluded from participating. The problems of paternalism are not, however, lim- ited to neoliberal NGOs. A similar cocoa-growing project in Costa Rica was funded by Agro Action, a German NGO, and implemented by CECADE, a pro- gressive Costa Rican NGO. CECADE, formed by intellectuals associated with the Costa Rican left, was critical of existing models of cooperation between North and South. It preferred to work with agencies like Agro Action which took a hands-off approach and supported long-term development programs. CECADE was also closely aligned with one of the country's peasant unions, UPANACIONAL, and pro- moted political participation by peasants at both the local and national levels. Unlike CRS, CECADE was critical of the country's structural-adjustment program, but, ironically, it also chose to promote cocoa production. Since the state had stopped subsidizing basic grains such as beans and corn, the peasants were looking for alternative crops. As the CECADE project revealed, the options open to NGOs are constrained by the broader political and economic context. If food crops aimed at the local market are no longer economically viable because of competition from cheap grains imported from the United States, small farmers may have little choice but to produce nontraditional exports. Peasants found it difficult to compete in this sector, however, because they lacked access to credit, markets, and processing facilities, and were vulnerable to the vagaries of the world market. NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 34REPORT ON SOLIDARITY Bearing out these obstacles, both the CRS and the CECADE projects ran into problems when the world price of cocoa plummeted. The CECADE farmers eventually decided to replace the cocoa plants with other crops, while CRS decided to continue support for cocoa production, awaiting better prices. As the examples of both CECADE and OXFAM-Canada show, even progressive NGOs strongly committed to grassroots partic- ipation face real problems in developing strategies which respond to local demands. Of key importance is the question of who makes the critical decisions about development-the community itself or the NGOs. "If development organizations-official or voluntary, Northern or Southern-are to make meaningful contri- butions toward alleviating poverty," says John Clark, formerly of OXFAM-UK, "then they must learn to follow the people, not expect the people to follow them. The poor themselves know the capabilities of their communities, and know what needs to be done. Development is done by people, not to people."'15 This is easier said than done. After several years of working in the community, one CECADE promoter acknowledged how difficult it was to encourage gen- uine community participation. "It has been difficult to break with the paternalistic mentality," he said. "The people expect us to arrange everything. They still don't feel like the project is theirs." This problem is exacerbated by the fact that NGOs-regardless of where they are based-tend to be made up of middle- class, usually urban, professionals. More often than not, the groups are hierarchical, and led by one domi- nant individual. But like OXFAM-Canada, CECADE and Agro Action have learned from their mistakes and are responding to peasant demands. To its credit, CECADE has also consistently emphasized the impor- tance of lobbying and advocacy work. In addition, the group has carried out extensive research on the impact of structural adjustment on peasants, which led to the development of policy recommendations by Costa Rican peasant organizations for a roundtable discus- sion with the government. In order to bypass national NGOs, some Costa Rican peasant unions got together in 1991 to form a new organization, Nuestra Tierra. While acknowl- edging that progressive NGOs played an important role when the peasant movement was beginning to organize, Carlos HernAndez, Nuestra Tierra's director, argues that they have outlived their usefulness. "These national NGOs have gradually became an end in themselves," he says, "and lost their original purpose, which was to help the popular organizations by chan- nelling funds from the international NGOs. Their orig- A Canadian fisherman holds up a fish at OXFAM-Canada's pro- ject in El Astillero, Nicaragua. inal sin was that they were born outside of the popular movement-from small groups of the left-not as a result of the suggestions of the popular movement." Without doubt, the problems of representation are even more acute for Northern NGOs, who are yet another step removed from the grassroots. In searching for alternative models of development for the hemisphere, North American progressives need to question the assumption that NGOs are neces- sarily allies in a common cause. When it comes to aid, small is not necessarily beautiful. In fact, assis- tance from Northern NGOs to small development projects can be even more dangerous than aid from state agencies because it penetrates into the very fibres of a community, creating new forms of clien- telism and cooptation. Yet NGOs do have an important role to play in pro- moting more participatory, egalitarian, and sustainable forms of development. In order to achieve these goals, however, Northern organizations must be flexible enough to learn from their mistakes, and to respond to the demands of the grassroots. Given the growth in numbers and competence of Latin American NGOs, Northern NGOs are rethinking their mandate and role. Creating direct people-to-people linkages is an impor- tant vehicle for stimulating political support in the North for social change. Lobbying, development edu- cation and advocacy work around issues like trade, structural adjustment and human rights, however, often better address the root causes of underdevelop- ment and poverty. While such work is usually less appealing to private donors in the North, it is more sharply aimed at the structural constraints which impede sustainable development and the alleviation of misery in Latin America. A Mixed Blessing 1. Diane Fournier and Bernard Martin, "Report of the Evaluation of the Atlantic Fisheries Linkage Project and the L'Acadie Project," prepared for OXFAM-Canada's Atlantic Regional Board and the Central America Work Team, May, 1991. 2 Diane Fournier and Bernard Martin, "Report of the Evaluation. 3. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 1993 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 5. 4. Tim Draimin, "Potential for Partnership: International Coopera- tion Institutions and Canadian and Latin American NGOs," discussion paper prepared for the International Development Research Center, Ottawa, Ontario, July, 1994, p. 12. 5. Alan Fowler, "Distant Obligations: Speculations on NGO Fund- ing and the Global Market," Review of African Political Economy, No. 55, p. 15. 6. Mario Padr6n, quoted in Leilah Landim, "Non-governmental Organizations in Latin America," World Development, Vol. 15, Supplement (Autumn, 1987), p. 31. 7. Charles W. Anderson, "Toward a Theory of Latin American Poli- tics," in Howard J. Wiarda, ed., Politics and Social Change in Latin America: The Distinct Tradition, 2nd ed. (Amherst: Univer- sity of Massachusetts Press, 1982). 8. See David C. Korten, "Third-generation NGO strategies: A Key to People-centred Development," World Development, Vol. 15, Supplement (Autumn, 1987), pp. 145-59; and David C. Korten, Getting to the 21st Century Voluntary Action and the Global Agenda (West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press, 1990). See also Brian H. Smith, More Than Altruism: The Politics of Private For- eign Aid (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), chapters 2-4 for a more complete description of the evolution of U.S., European and Canadian NGOs. 9. Tim Draimin, "Potential for Partnership," p. 12. 10. Concertaci6n Centroamericana de Organismos de Desarrollo, "Memoria: Reunion de organismos no-gubernamentaies para la constituci0n de la Concertacibn Centroamericana de Organis- mos de Desarrollo," unpublished document, San Jose, Novem- ber, 1988, pp. 24-5. 11. Quoted in Esquel Group Foundation, "Civil Society, State and Market: An Emerging Partnership for Equitable Development," presented to the Social Forum convened by the Inter-American Development Bank and the United Nations Development Pro- gramme, Washington, D.C., February 10-13, 1993, p. 8. 12. Moeen Qureshi, "The World Bank and NGOs: New Approach- es," remarks before the Washington chapter of the Society for International Development conference on "Learning from the Grassroots," unpublished document, Atlanta, April, 1992. 13. Peter Sollis, quoted in Francisco Alvarez Solis and Pauline Martin, "The Role of Salvadoran NGOs in Post-war Reconstruction," Development in Practice Vol. 2, No. 2 (June, 1992), p. 108. 14. Cathy Blacklock, "Reading Political Practices: Women's Contes- tation of Human Rights in Guatemala," prepared for the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, Calgary, Alberta, June 12-14, 1994. 15. John Clark, Democratizing Development: The Role of Voluntary Organizations (West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press, 1990), p. xi.
