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Directions
and a map to
the
CDRA Centre in Cape Town
An Overview of CDRA's History and
Work
“Using known approaches to transitions to democracy and promotion of
sustainable development is likely to limit our horizons. We need to
take the risk of venturing into the unknown to explore new
possibilities.”
Mamphela
Ramphela (2008) “Laying Ghosts to Rest: Dilemmas of the
Transformation in South Africa”
In 1987 the CDRA was born in South Africa, a country that has had
little time to catch up with the changes it has been undergoing ever
since. Over the 21 years we have been deeply involved in many of the
changes and much has changed in the life and work of the CDRA but
our central purpose has remained constant.
“We aim to help bring about and support authentic and coherent
development practice amongst people, organisations and institutions
working towards those forms of social transformation that most
benefit the poor and marginalised.” (From CDRA mission statement.)
Last year we took a long hard look at the state of the sector and
the world we serve and also at ourselves, what we have contributed,
what we have learned and what we have to offer now.
To us it is clear that along with a growing global commitment to
ending poverty there is growing frustration as our best attempts
fail to achieve sufficient impact. As a result there is a growing
urgency and openness to consider alternatives, question convention
and seek more effective practices. The alternative view of
development, organisation and transformative practice that has long
been pursued and promoted by CDRA is rapidly gaining purchase and
earning credibility.
Our experience shows that the organisational forms and practices
that presently dominate in attempting to bring about change in the
world are replicating and reinforcing the systems that create the
problem. Leading organisations in the development sector have
learned that the successful initiatives are those that are shaped,
owned and controlled over time by the people who are expected to
benefit. The CDRA assists organisations and practitioners who are
actively searching for innovative organisational forms, practices
and principles that are more effective in addressing the challenges
of our time. Together we search for organising processes and
practices that transform the use of organisational power from being
a means of expert, externally driven problem solving and control to
becoming a driver of more equal development and innovative
co-creation.
The essence of our work and services can best be described in four
words: searching (collaborative inquiry, research and
learning); accompanying (consultancy services that accompany
organisations through processes of learning and change); sharing
(courses through which we share effective organisational practice);
and promoting (courageously standing with others to advocate
for new organisational forms and practices that work, and challenge
those that do not).
We remain rooted in supporting the role and functioning of a robust
Civil Society but will become bolder in working at the interface
with the state and business in the process of co-creating a more
just and equal society.
THE CDRA – PURPOSE AND DISTINCT CONTRIBUTION
The CDRA is a
strong organisation with a track record of delivery and acknowledged
contribution. For 21 years the CDRA has assisted organisations that
engage the urgency of acute human deprivation and the importance of
addressing its societal causes.
Our purpose lies
in contributing to the effectiveness and long term efficiency of
organisations that do not marginalise but include, that maximise the
value of diversity and that counter the tendency to use power to
undermine and exploit in ways that diminish creative potential –
organisations that are empowering in their impact on society and in
themselves. Our ultimate purpose is to contribute to building a
society that is sustainable and civil. We promote organising
principles, processes and practices that promote inclusion, dignity
and development.
The CDRA has a
very particular approach to development and its practice. We view
development as a complex, continuing and innate life process,
towards realising the full potential in all life forms. We believe
that organisations working in the field of human development and
social transformation should be contributing more to innovative
thinking and practices that facilitate the development of complex
living systems. The living systems we work with are composed of
infinitely interrelated individual human elements that have the
added possibility of free choice, free will and human agency. These
characteristics of the human condition that make social systems most
complex and unpredictable are the very ones we seek to enhance and
amplify.
We have a strong
field practice developed through years of accompanying organisations
towards becoming more effective in their development purpose. In
support of our practice and our purpose we have located learning at
the centre of our approach. The results of our learning and research
have been shared through writing, by participating in think tanks
and public platforms and through our courses. Our practice is
underpinned by essential elements such as achieving sovereignty
(owning and controlling your own development), constantly deepening
intention and purpose through conscious participatory processes,
learning one’s way into the future and embracing relationships as
the means and end to transform power and facilitate development. We
align ourselves to the creative, liberatory and formative roles of
civil society.
In practical
terms we offer:
·
An
accumulated body of experience that has great depth and breadth. We
have worked mostly in South Africa but also in 22 other African
countries and another 12 countries beyond. We have worked with well
over 500 organisations in many sectors of development and have
established relationships with an enormous array of organisations
and practitioners committed to finding ways of being more effective
in their social development and transformation purpose. We view
ourselves as a credible voice from the South and a connecting point
for a large community of practitioners.
·
An
existing body of writing and publications exploring new thinking and
practices commensurate with the demands of transformational
development. A website that is much visited and used.
·
Experience and skill in facilitating organisational development
accompaniment (consultancy) services.
·
A
range of learning programmes [courses] in aspects of developmental
organisational practice.
·
A
rare source of action research in developmental organisational
practice. In addition to being practitioners providing quality
services we have always used our experience as a source of learning,
and have invested heavily in taking this function seriously.
·
A
stable organisational infrastructure and an experienced team of
practitioners with almost half of the eighteen-person staff having
been with the organisation for more than ten years.
READING AND INTERVENING IN OUR DEVELOPMENT
CONTEXT
The operations of the CDRA
are nested in the complexity of our global and local context and the
inter-linkages of the state, the market and civil society. Prior to
the 1990s, the development world was dominated by a rational logical
positivist science and implicitly a sense of certainty in the
future. In contrast, the new millennium has thrown up multiple
issues and challenges with large degrees of uncertainty, which we
believe can only be appreciated and engaged through a conceptual
framework and organisational practice based on the new sciences, on
complexity theory, and on the study of nature and ecology.
Attempts to address
complexity and uncertainty by increasing managerialist control from
above are not a viable response to the challenges of our time.
In order
to meaningfully address poverty and inequality, we must situate the
issues of development in all its complexity within the new global
context. In the following few paragraphs we look briefly at the
situational conditions at the international and local South African
front.
Economic and
cultural globalisation, climate change, competition for markets and
for strategic and scarce resources are forcing new complexities on
all sectors of society the world over. The geopolitical and economic
fortunes of the world are changing. But there is little to suggest
that the shifts in power and wealth creation are going to address
the issues of poverty and increasing inequality. Since the shifts in
power that resulted in the new order in South Africa we have had an
unprecedented 14 years of economic growth. While there are some
measures that suggest that there has been a small decline in
poverty, there is no doubt that the gap between rich and poor has
grown along with unemployment. Significant strides have been made in
providing services to those previously excluded but entrenched
structures and patterns of power and wealth and its attendant
poverty remain dominant. We are in the thrall of a global economic
and political system that is increasingly inappropriate and
self-contradictory, unable to come to terms with itself.
A significant
feature of globalisation is the expansive and robust economic growth
in the short to medium term, however, what is disturbing is the
gross inequality it generates with the poor experiencing severe pain
through high food and fuel price inflation.
This rise in income inequality is being felt acutely in South
Africa. In recent years there has been a dramatic increase in social
unrest, [it is suggested that we have the highest per capita rate of
social protest in the world, an average of 10 000 incidents per
annum]. The growing anger is further fuelled by a perception that
critical services like public education and health care are on the
decline while crime increases.
Located in a
country which is now considered to have the greatest gap between the
rich and the poor, we view these growing tensions as an opportunity
for creativity. The rich history of courageous civic driven change
and the urgent need for political and economic systems that work
make South Africa fertile ground for the search for innovation.
As social
development practitioners in support of civil society we strive to
systematically and rigorously ask good questions to explore and
improve the real work we need to be doing. We will continue to
contribute to building grounded theories of social change to inform
more effective practice. The conventional division in our sector
between policy-makers (and their theorising) and practitioners is
deeply dysfunctional, leaving the former ungrounded and the latter
unthinking.
We sense through
our range of work and experience that the development sector, both
in South Africa and more broadly in the world, is facing deep
challenges. The sector is faced with the particular challenge of
what it has to offer to a world so lacking in creative and effective
alternatives. The CDRA locates itself in the growing global
community of organisations and practitioners who are convinced that
we do not only have to change ‘what’ we do in response to these
challenges, but even more importantly we must change ‘how’ we
facilitate meaningful development. There is an increasing
realisation that the way the world organises and manages itself is a
significant part of the problem. Our core purpose for the next
three years is to explore, promote and support innovative
organisational forms, practices and principles that transform power
relations towards increasingly effective and creative
interdependence.
We see dangers of
the civil society sector drifting away from its unique purpose
towards becoming delivery agents for the state and/or the market.
But amidst all of this we are conscious of and encouraged by a
gradual convergence and consolidation of awareness of the challenges
being faced. We believe we are entering a period of opportunity as
issues of poverty, marginalisation and increasing inequality edge
their way towards centre stage on the global agenda.
OUR STRATEGIES
§
Research
– CDRA continues to locate inquiry and learning central to
its approach and practice. We view research as a disciplined
commitment to searching for improved and innovative organisational
practices that improve developmental impact. Our research is in
support of, and drawn from, our organisational development practice.
§
Organisational Accompaniment [Consultancy]
– This is an approach to
organisational development consultancy that commits to walking with
our clients through their processes of ongoing learning, change,
implementation, review and re-commitment.
§
Advocacy
and Education Programme
– through
this work we seek to increase consciousness of how organisation
shapes society and social change, and how current conventional forms
disempower. We will actively promote policies, practices and forms
of organisation which enable the marginalised to develop their own
sovereign organisations and movements. On this basis we seek to
encourage approaches to development that are more organisationally
conscious and skilful.
§
Learning
Programmes [Courses]
– A range of learning programmes are aimed at supporting more
effective and developmental practices and ongoing learning in the
individual practitioners, organisations and networks that we serve.
§
Internal
Organisational Development and Governance
– We maintain the ongoing health, development and accountability of
our own organisation which, as an NGO, is willingly bound by the
same commitment to social and financial transparency and
accountability as are those whom we serve.
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