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Shadows The development sector From the Community Development Resource Association's
Annual Report 1995/1996 |
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The NGDO - A stuck record, or an alternative stance?
The CBO - Power in adversity, and adversity through power
Funding development - the dark side of the coin
Government and development - a desperate liaison?
Every light casts a shadow; indeed, the brighter the candle the longer the shadow
We are a group of consultants, working within the development sector, helping to build the organs of civil society. As such we are privileged to be integrally involved with the development processes of a range of organisations within that sector throughout Southern Africa and beyond - NGOs, CBOs, donors and government. Our task is to listen, to clarify, to challenge and support; generally, to create and apply processes aimed at developing the capacity of these organisations, where capacity is seen as an increase in organisational awareness and consciousness, such that the organisation is better able to take control of its own functions and future in a responsible fashion. This work primarily requires of us that we facilitate, but there are times when it is necessary to bring our experience and insight to bear on a situation. This often helps to shed some light, where organisational processes have grown particularly murky and confused.
We thus work with, and respect, the unique organisational reality of each client, but we also try to build a generic understanding of organisational life itself, and especially of the organisational forms which manifest in the development sector. We try, in our work as a consultancy team, to collectively reflect on our experiences in order to identify patterns and thus lift our understanding by way of fresh insights. These insights can help to resolve organisational obstacles through increasing organisational awareness. Our reflection and learning is assisted by the fact that we work with a vast geographic and typological range of organisations which nevertheless exhibit the commonality of all being involved in the development sector.
Over the last while, as the miraculous transition in South Africa has taken shape, we have been witness to a shift in organisational priorities from resistance to development. As an NGO working in the development sector, we have experienced, through our own processes as well as through those of our clients, the difficulties of organisations working with the ambiguities of development; the often contradictory pressures, demands and choices which are brought to bear. We believe that there are common organisational issues which face us all, issues which we would (unconsciously) prefer to avoid because they contain within them the seeds of our constraints, but which we need to be aware of and confront with courage because they contain also the kernel of our strengths and potential.
When organisational contradictions are dismissed or ignored they sap our energy in spite of ourselves; when they are taken on as a challenge they become a creative force.
One concept which we have found helpful in providing us with organisational understanding, and liberating insight into the obstacles which beset those organisations working in the development sector, is the concept of the shadow. Increasingly we are seeing organisations drawn unconsciously into the power of their own shadow and having little insight into the phenomenon, nor into the constraints which such a process engenders. We would like in this Annual Report to share some of our own understanding of the way in which the shadow affects the organisational functioning of a range of development players. We use the rest of this introduction to briefly explore the concept of the shadow in theory, before we look - in the articles which follow - at how it manifests in different organisational types in practice.
Life is not arbitrary and unconstrained anarchy; there are patterns which form it and give it coherence. We are subject to these boundaries: the ebb and flow of natural archetypes within which we take root and flower and fade. The shadow is one such archetype, and it relates as much to the life of organisations as it does to individuals.
The shadow arises through having too much or too little of something, or through striving too much or too little towards something. It seems that when we direct our energies in too focused a fashion, a balance is lost; yet life strives towards balance. Thus the opposing polarity of our striving will manifest, and the more it is denied or avoided the greater its power will become, until the unconscious shadow aspect of our life becomes paramount, and we become trapped in its field.
Depth psychology uses the concept of the shadow to denote those parts of oneself which one denies. "The shadow is that part of us which we fail to see or know... We are all born whole and, hopefully, will die whole. But somewhere early on our way we eat one of the wonderful fruits of the tree of knowledge, things separate into good and evil, and we begin the shadow-making process; we divide our lives. In the cultural process we sort out our God-given characteristics into those that are acceptable ... and those that have to be put away. This is wonderful and necessary, and there would be no civilised behaviour without this sorting out of good and evil. But the refused and unacceptable characteristics do not go away; they only collect in the dark corners of our personality. When they have hidden long enough, they take on a life of their own - the shadow life.
"The shadow is that which has not entered adequately into consciousness." (Johnson - Owning your own shadow).
The shadow is that which we specifically and consciously do not choose; it is that which arises when our attention is elsewhere. It is the counterbalance to that attention, the gap or void which is created and which cries out for attention, for a redressing of the imbalance. It is not an arbitrary manifestation but rather the unconscious twin of our conscious intention. And if the shadow is avoided or denied or rejected it gains in power until it becomes a potentially destructive force, a contradiction capable of fragmenting the individual or organisation, or at least of impairing its productivity and warping its energy.
But the shadow is not inherently destructive. It is the dark side to the light. The more light there is, the more dark there will be. The more energy we focus on a particular area, the more unseen forces gather in the shadows. Dark does not mean ‘bad’, or ‘evil’, or ‘destructive’. Rather, the shadow lives as a potentially developmental nodal point around which the organisation may turn. It is the obstacle which can shake us out of our complacency, precipitating the crisis, the need for which our conscious self cannot acknowledge. If taken seriously it can wake us up, cause us to take action before we fragment. It is the unregarded friend to our processes of development, the spur to shaking our fixed paradigms into facing (an everchanging) reality.
As organisational players in the development sector and in civil society, we strive very hard to make manifest our intentions, to become in reality the image we project. According to the type of organisation we are, all of our conscious energy goes into becoming an effective instance of that organisational form. Certain possibilities and certain attributes allow and encourage us to become what we are, and to realise our particular contribution in as focused a manner as possible. Yet even as we make this the subject of our striving, the more unseen forces - which are the dark consequences of our admirable intentions - gather in the shadows. They hamper our productivity and warp our impact. The way through does not lie in a switch to the opposite pole in the extremity of these contradictions; neither does it lie in looking the other way. It lies in coming to grips with the contradictions - staring them in the face, as it were - and consciously incorporating certain elements of the rejected extremities into the organisation's reality.
We must recognise the forces we unleash in our concentrated purpose, and bring them into the light of our understanding of ourselves. The creative tension generated by doing so is the real source of our unrealised potential.
A stuck record, or an alternative stance?
The South African transition throws the worldwide dilemma facing non-governmental development organisations (or NGDOs) sharply into relief. Within two years both the State and Capital, spurned pariahs actively blocking the path to social transformation, have attained the moral highground of the politically correct. Everyone, it seems, is now humming with the intensity of the development effort; a nation's prosperity and newly attained democracy is at stake. Our government is a new government, genuinely a government of the people, built by the people, and certainly orientated for the people. Its task, mostly through the medium of regulation but also through the discerning use of national resources, is to create an enabling environment which will facilitate the development of both nation and citizenry, thus meeting the needs of its constituency (in the broadest sense). Business (in this instance both capital as well as important aspects of labour) gains legitimacy through highly productive systems which are not only able to meet the direct needs of consumers but which also - and more importantly with respect to the overarching project of social development - are able to ignite economic processes leading to employment, prosperity and surplus.
The power of this combination has debilitating effects on the development role of NGDOs. This is true internationally, even where the general agenda is not necessarily development as such, and where multi-national institutions take precedence over nation states and local business. Within South Africa, the development hegemony displayed by this combination stands in sharp contrast to the bumbling and often seemingly inconsequential meanderings of the NGDO. Thus the agenda for the development effort is increasingly set by others, and the NGDO is either sidelined or exhorted to "play ball". The call, then, in the national effort towards development, is on the one hand for NGDOs to work alongside and in parnership with government; on the other hand, for NGDOs to "deliver", to formulate "business" plans, to prove their "productive" capacity, and to justify their existence thereby.
Increasingly there is an underlying assumption that the legitimacy and use-value of NGDOs to society and the development effort must be assessed by, and based on, those criteria which give government and business their legitimacy.
The terms of the debate increasingly exclude the notion that NGDOs may bring something particular which government and business do not, and indeed cannot, bring.
NGDOs themselves are losing their sense of self and are beginning to see themselves through the criteria of other sectors and organisational forms. The exhortations to "go to scale", to deliver according to the needs of government, to become profitable - or at least financially self-sustaining - all take their toll. And judged according to these criteria, NGDOs are found wanting, relegated to the status of bit-players, cast in the mould of naive and irrelevant youth disturbing the serious and "real-world" concerns of adults. There is a drive then to become "efficient" (where the question of effectiveness recedes in importance), and to concentrate on production (even while the concept of production as applied to the development of people remains enigmatic and mysterious). And, regularly, this drive towards acceptance seems to fail. NGDOs remain slightly marginal, smugly tolerated, and desperately berated by those who support and promote their right to existence.
Of course NGDOs must prove their worth to society if they are to gain credibility. And of course NGDOs suffer from disabling gaps in organisational capacity and lack of expertise. But the greatest obstacles to NGDO ascendence and legitimacy underlie these issues, rather than result from them. NGDOs flail in a mire of mediocrity because, in failing to recognise themselves as entities with something particular to offer, they do not seek to uncover and own their unique and inherent value, irrespective of the current and contextual constraints under which they work. And because the driving spirit of the NGDO remains unconscious, the shadow of the organisation is allowed to manifest unchecked, and it is within the ambit of the shadow that many of the ills of the NGDO may be understood. Let us look at this step by step.
NGDOs are something more than merely inadequate enterprises or small-scale delivery-vehicles for government. NGDOs are often referred to as "value-driven organisations". In a literal sense, all organisations are underpinned by values. The point is, however, that in the case of NGDOs the values are directly linked to the concept of an enlightened humanity. It is not economics which is the central note here, or politics; not production or the regulation of human affairs, although these are all, in various ways, incorporated. Rather, it is the furthering of the ability of people to act in a responsible and humane fashion, to achieve equity and justice, to participate fully in the influences and decisions which impact on their lives, to access and (in a considered fashion) utilise resources, and to find meaning and creativity. While profit motive is essentially selfish but undeniably motivating; politics is geared towards social regulation and is often constraining.
The NGDO, in its ideal manifestation, provides an alternative stance - the facilitation, from out of the people themselves, of a motivation and enthusiasm towards the furthering of the social good. And this social good implies the redressing of imbalances, the restitution of the marginalised, the fragmenting of power-blocks.
To activate this alternative stance, the NGDO must focus on particular ways of being. Working out of principle, as opposed to expedient, becomes paramount when the end is not profit, regulation or even provision but the realisation of such things as democracy, inclusivity, impartiality, responsibility and justice. (Lest there be misunderstanding it is necessary to emphasize here that the claim is not that NGDOs do not need to "deliver", or "produce", or attain "cost-effectiveness", or collaborate with government, but rather that, alongside all this there is an inherent value and reason for being which is different). The ability to work from principle implies the need for independence from the agendas of political and corporate interests. This implies not simply a lack of constraint, but a "standing outside" of the current status quo in order to challenge its inevitable excesses, contradictions and presumptions.
Challenge can be played out in a number of ways - through direct action via lobbying, through assisting affected communities to act, through bringing the concerns of the "grassroots" to the attention of the powerful, and also through presenting alternative approaches and methodologies. The NGDO thus requires not only independence and the ability to look from the outside in, but also mobility, flexibility and the ability and means to experiment with new approaches, controversial angles, even radical ideas. The NGDO, too, in order to be responsive to the real currents and rhythms moving through communities, must have local (or "grassroots") presence and the ability to facilitate from the inside out, and must therefore have permeable organisational boundaries, flexibility and groundedness.
Certainly the NGDO must be judged by its performance, but the criteria for that performance are not simply those of government or business, productivity in the conventional sense. The criteria must have something to do with the increasing ability of marginalised interests (in the broadest possible sense of that term) to build themselves into viable entities which can challenge the patterns of society (patterns which often congeal into unquestioned assumptions and the - sometimes - presumptuous power of the prevailing paradigm.) The central focus and value of the NGDO, then, can be summarised in two words - mobility and principle.
In the Introduction it was stated: "When we direct our energies in too focused a fashion, a balance is lost ... The opposing polarity of our striving will manifest, and the more it is denied or avoided the greater its power will become, until the unconscious shadow aspect ... becomes paramount, and we become trapped in its field". When principle is taken to an extreme, it rigidifies into unwavering dictate (and hence diminishes mobility). When mobility is taken to an extreme, it becomes inconsequential meandering (and hence diminishes principle). The "dark consequences" of NGDO's "admirable intentions" (of mobility and principle) which "gather in the shadows ...(and) hamper our productivity and warp our impact" are a bias towards presumption and a loss of focus - the very things of which NGDOs are regularly accused, and struggle to deny.
Interventions with NGDOs often reveal that they frequently impose their own values and perspectives on the communities whom they are supposed to serve, and that many show a marked absence of focused strategy leading to consequential impact. At their worst, NGDOs insist on the value of perspectives, strategies, methodologies and approaches which have not been validated or shown to be effective through adequate evaluation; at their worst, NGDOs lapse into a kind of vapid vacillation which renders them all but immobile. Principle and mobility, when pursued to extremes, release their shadow aspects - presumption and paralysis. (In these extremes, the shadow comes full circle and the claim to principle, to being "value-driven", is used, sometimes quite cynically, to offset and justify the absence of observable progress and achievement). It is these manifestations of ineptitude which constrain the status of the NGDO to the role of side-dish at the development table.
There is a point, then, to the demand for a different kind of flexibility - one which encourages collaboration with other players. There is a point, too, to the demand for focused strategy and demonstrable impact. The NGDO does indeed need to learn from other players. But this does not imply a reforming of the NGDO in the image of others, which appears to be the import of the many criticisms unleashed towards this particular organisational type. If the NGDO is to regulate itself without simply bowing to dominant paradigms, (the struggle against which forms the very bones of its endeavour), it must bring to consciousness its own - often veiled - reason for being, so that it can curb the excesses wrought by its unconscious shadow. The NGDO must look to building its capacity from within its own, articulated, understanding of itself. Alternative ways must be incorporated into its focused intention; compromise and productivity must be integrated with principle and mobility. Only in this way will the alternative stance gain power, and the NGDO gain the capacity to assert its unique contribution.
FUNDING DEVELOPMENT - THE DARK SIDE OF THE COIN
The act of giving has continued from ancient times as part of the social nature of humankind. It remains an important component of human interaction, from traditional culture-bound gift-giving between individuals and families at community level, to increasingly organised, structured and professionalise institutional forms of giving at all levels of society. At the global level development aid has become major currency in the relations between nations. There is now a complex chain of agencies involved in the industry of gathering and disseminating gifts; indeed, the size and formality of gifts have increased to the point where they are measured as a percentage of a country's GNP. And in these traditional roles of giver and receiver the potentially debilitating shadow continues to lurk.
There is awareness in the development sector that the giving and receiving of development aid is fraught with complexity and unintended outcomes that frustrate both donor and recipient. Gifts that should bring relief and new opportunities to recipients; and satisfaction at having made a real and positive difference to the lives of others to those doing the giving; often result in the opposite impact on both. Donors are increasingly taking stock of why their giving is not having the desired effect; why poverty increases, and the gap between the givers and the receivers grows ever larger. Many wonder whether the process of giving itself is contributing to increased poverty (indeed, even perpetuating it).
The central value of the act of giving itself can not bequestioned. It is through this act that the balance between the individual and the collective is achieved; that the focus on the family and collective rather than on the (self-ish) needs of the individual is maintained. Yet increasingly it is recognised that from within the cloak of giving can emerge a process which dominates, disempowers and ultimately results in dependency amongst recipients, while empowering and reinforcing the position of the giver.
John Steinbeck looks deep into the shadow, and describes it very harshly when he writes that:
"The most overrated virtue .... is that of giving. Giving builds up the ego of the giver, makes him superior and higher and larger than the receiver. Nearly always, giving is a selfish pleasure, and in many cases it is a downright destructive and evil thing." (John Steinbeck, quoted in The Alms Bazaar, Ian Smillie)
The shadow side of giving is becoming increasingly prominent. It is much written about in a development jargon increasingly characterised by words emphasising the positive, but in so doing, alluding to knowledge of the shadow. Concepts such as empowerment, independence, partnership, and sustainability all play their part in reassuring agents of development that they are not engaged in the entrapment of others through their gifts. However, the shadow can not be wished away by the use of insightful and careful rhetoric. It needs to be engaged and wrestled with, not to overcome and expel, but to encompass and draw strength from. How then can the concept of the shadow be used to assist in making sense of current development rhetoric, and bring it closer to reality?
One value in the concept of the shadow is that it challenges us to search within ourselves for the opposite of all that we value most. For those involved as donors, a practical place to start might be to seek out and explore the role that receiving, or taking, plays in their work; to honestly confront the taking that is an inherent part of giving and to meet the self-interest that is a part of generosity.
Put another way, we need to explore the importance of reciprocity in the process of giving. When reciprocity ceases to characterise a relationship, friendship and goodwill are replaced by a hierarchical relationship in which dominance and even aggression might be expected. To give without the expectation of anything in return becomes a means of expressing superiority.
The challenge that faces donors is to start looking at more consciously, and acknowledge more openly, what they receive in return for what they bring. For too long the emphasis in the relationships between donor and recipient has been on what the donor brings, while what is being taken is never included as part of the gift giving process. We all know that the donor's receiving takes place, but because it is often not done openly and consciously, the tendency is for it to become "taking" rather than the direct "receipt" of a reciprocal gift.
Clearly this is not the simple transfer of one gift to one recipient. There are often many givers and receivers in the chain before the final gift is made. What is being suggested applies to all of those who are givers.
In an attempt to clarify the point we use an example from a recent discussion with members of a Northern donor-NGO. Referring to the term "partnerships", we were trying to understand what it really meant, and whether it was at all helpful in describing the relationship between donor and recipient. We suggested that while the term did not describe the vast majority of existing relationships, it might have some value in describing an ideal future relationship towards which both parties could strive. The donors replied that as long as the relationship involved giving money, any significant change in its dependant nature would remain a total impossibility. To support their claim they used the example of how, if they were to borrow money from someone, they would always be indebted to them and, as recipient, would always be in a less powerful position than the giver. The example seemed to make sense, but it worried us greatly as it implied that as long as development aid is "given" there is no hope for real development to take place, that the inequality in the relationship is something we as development practitioners can do nothing about.
As so often happens, it was days later before we realised that it was not a sensible example at all. We had accepted a basic, but fallacious, premise without thinking: that the giver in the example had ostensibly wanted nothing at all in return (not even repayment). How different would it have been if they had borrowed the money from a professional lender who had absolute clarity and openness about what was wanted in return, where an interest rate and terms of repayment were negotiated and formally agreed upon? What if they had borrowed the money from someone who made a living from it? Would this not have changed the relationship drastically? Knowing that they were giving back directly in relation to what they were getting would they not have been able to negotiate from a position of strength? At the least, to demand good service?
We are not suggesting that donor organisations must become professional lending agencies in order to become developmental (or that "development" lending institutions are without their problems). We are suggesting that it is vital for donor agencies to own up to what it is that they take in the place of interest and the direct repayment of the money that they give. We know the power and influence that is gained via the giving of donor aid, with its resultant increased access to the material and financial resources of the recipient.
Although bi-lateral donor aid is generally tied to trade agreements, it is in those relationships where there is ostensibly nothing given in return that so much can be taken.
The bringers of gifts often leave with a vastly increased membership of converts to their calling - which as laudable, honourable and potentially developmental as it might be - means greater power and influence over the recipients and their countries. The callings may vary from religious persuasions, to economic philosophies and practices, to the campaigns for environmental sustainability, gender rights and many others, but the reality is that the long term material and ideological benefits tend to flow to the North.
Apart from the broad institutional exchanges that take place between donor and recipient, we must also become more conscious of what we individually take in return for what we bring of ourselves as the "bearers of the gifts". It is often said by many of those working in donor agencies that they need to be involved in a lot more than "just the giving of money". There is a need to engage more with the recipients and give in other ways as well - there is a need to identify with the South and its struggles - there is the need too to take something very personal from challenges and experiences which can only be found in the South. Yet to ensure that our personal contributions do not play a part in the disempowerment of others we must understand our own shadows and be more open and honest about what we need in return for what we bring. Perhaps it is the inability to confront the receiving inherent in giving that leads donors to believe that "money is not enough".
Once we have become more conscious of our own, and our organisation's needs, we can start the equally difficult and ongoing task of trying to moderate them, and be honest about them in our relationships with others. By using the concept of the shadow in this way we increasingly recognise that we are all givers and receivers. We learn about basic reciprocity - the more we give the more we receive - whether consciously or unconsciously. Northern donor NGOs, no different from all the other participants in the development process, are both givers and receivers. They receive not only from those to whom they are donors but are primary recipients from those who provide them with the money. And those individuals and governments who are the original source of the development aid have themselves benefitted much from resources received from their beneficiaries. The more we explore and internalise the shadow the more we will realise that the aid chain is a continuous circle.
An inability to recognise the receiving in giving results in the major institutional weakness of donor agencies, and the main inherent danger of the individual as donor: an imperviousness to critical feedback.
We have noted Steinbeck's comment concerning the fact that the act of giving makes the giver superior. Strangely, this superiority is not limited to a sense of financial competence and achievement but rays out in all directions. It is of such power that it seems to have a gravitational field all of its own. The superiority of the giver draws certain assumptions to itself - that the receiver is, in all areas, less competent than the giver; that it is therefore pointless to elicit comment on one's actions from the receiver; that such comment, partially through being pointless, is in fact demeaning; and that where this comment becomes critical comment it destroys the credibility of the receiver by being seen as ungrateful. And thus, what with the receiver having little credibility with respect to competence (why did they need a handout in the first place?) and even less because of the upstart and ungrateful nature of such critical feedback, the givers render themselves immune to the learning which could arise out of a more reciprocal attitude to the relationship.
These comments are not made by way of conjecture; neither are they of a superficial nature. There are precious few donor agencies which seriously incorporate critical feedback from the recipients of their money; there are even fewer who go out to elicit such comment. More, there is active resistance to the validity and credibility of such feedback.
It is indeed ironic that donors, whose money is essentially generated by profitable business, should choose to ignore or deny that which business needs to be profitable - adequate and accurate information with respect to the responses of those they service. In the absence of such feedback, in the absence of solicited recipient response, donor agencies reduce their chances of success; they reduce the possibility of productive endeavour. The shadow of the giver thus manifests - not only does the giver (in so many ways) receive more than is given, but the refusal to receive response to the giving itself lames such giving and renders it less helpful than it might be.
For the donor, the concept of the circularity of aid may help to reduce the sometimes rabid effects of the shadow. Certainly, recognition of shadow, both in terms of concept and as specifically applied to donors themselves, would help donors to become truly part of the development endeavour - with the constraints that this implies - rather than seeing themselves as (literally) independent entities invulnerable to the dynamics they fund. Indeed, recognition of the shadow may serve to reduce such dynamics, and help the donor give real effect to the rhetoric of development. For the sector as a whole to become more truly developmental all the players within it will have to increasingly see themselves as both givers and receivers. They will have to learn to become more confident and honest in their receiving based on the knowledge that they give in equal measure. They will have to be as clear and open and proud about what they take as they are about what they give. They will have to learn to dance with their own shadow in order to participate as true partners in the process of development.
THE CBO - POWER IN ADVERSITY, AND ADVERSITY THROUGH POWER
If the NGDO is a unique organisational type which must be understood within its own parameters, the community-based organisation (or CBO) is even more so. What exactly is it? Within development parlance it seems to be one of the ultimate expressions of "people's power", the end-game of the development endeavour. If development finance and development work results in a proliferation of viable and effective CBOs, then we can be said to be - at least in some sense - succeeding. The CBO has received little attention as a unique organisational form with its own needs and tendencies. Yet through our consultancy work it is clear that interventions which do not recognise the CBO's specific orientations and constraints, which lump the CBO together with other organisations as simply another one, often miss the mark and prove incapable of working through its idiosyncracies. Perhaps the concept of the shadow can provide us with one entry point.
The CBO has, amongst others, three distinguishing characteristics. It is organised to address the interests of its members or constituency, rather than that of an external user group - as is the case with NGOs and business - and this is the basis of its legitimacy. It is self-governing and its leadership is ultimately accountable to its membership rather than to boards of trustees, to donors or to clients. And it is a collective of volunteers resourced from within itself (and this holds true, ideally, even when it grows sufficiently to require the employment of staff; although this latter event generally signals the onset of major crises and re-thinking). In essence, then, the CBO is a membership organisation. Why not simply call it such? Because if referred to simply as a membership organisation it would be undifferentiated from many other organisations which both politically and developmentally would be strange bedfellows - the professional associations, membership charities, well-resourced sports associations. These are all membership organisations, but clearly not the target of development work and finance, or political rhetoric.
Within development discourse and practice the CBO carries with it certain additional distinguishing nuances. The very fact that it gathers the appellation "community" to it provides the key to its status. The development sector regards it as the expression of community in a special sense. "Community" here carries with it the connotation of the marginalised, the powerless, the target towards which the development game is geared. We know by now that an undifferentiated, simplistic view of the poor and disadvantaged community is naive and unhelpful; geographic and socioeconomic communities are not homogenous, like-minded entities. Inside these communities interests and concerns differ, conflict and tension abound, and a social or cooperative tendency is often significantly absent, particularly when development resources begin to pour in.
Yet these ambiguities and shades of reality often confuse the development effort, and thus tend to be avoided and denied. Calling these organisations CBOs, rather than membership organisations, brings balm to the conscience and salvages development contradictions. As membership organisations it would be clear that, while they may emerge from, and be accountable to, their membership, they would not carry the assumption that their membership is necessarily congruent with the wider community within which they reside. Neither would they carry the assumption that they are representative of all that is "good" within the community. Conflict and difference with others would be expected and accepted. Calling them community organisations, however, provides them with a legitimacy which the development sector craves; we are, after all, intent on serving "the community", in the sense of the disempowered, the disadvantaged, the marginalised, sometimes the disenfranchised.
Yet there is a profound truth underlying the simplification, and it is this truth which provides us with the key to unlocking the shadow of the CBO. Clearly the CBO is a particular type of membership organisation; it is not only the development sector which regards it as such, but the organisations themselves.
It does indeed belong to, and emanate from, the marginalised community or grouping, and its specific purpose is to pull people together in the pursuit of their rights, to wrest power for the powerless, to collectively confront adverse circumstances and to gain some measure of control over resources and influence over decision-making. As such, the CBO's prime focus is to reinstate the power and dignity of the excluded, the under-resourced. And it attempts to do this collectively, by building a voice for the people through a people's organisation, by pulling groupings together to make a stand.
Its overriding intention, then, is to pull disparate community groupings together, to bring together the fragmented and dislocated parts torn apart by the weight of rejection and exclusion, and to create an entity of the community, of which the CBO will be the representative and to which the CBO will be accountable. It is essentially a collaborative undertaking, the creation of a "we" out of many disjointed individuals, out of a "them". It underlies an attempt to pull the neglected community into the mainstream of society, to assert that community's rights alongside those of other communities, to insist that we are all part of one whole, that the under-developed community will no longer be sidelined. It is the collective attempt to gain power in adversity.
At its best, then, the CBO carries the nobility of the collective, the concept of humane society, the profound attempt to create real community from fragmented parts. It thus manifests as a flagship of democracy, and it attempts to practise this both with respect to its aims as well as its internal functioning.
Why then are so many CBOs riven with internal conflict? Why do they struggle so with issues of democratic functioning? Why do many struggle with accountability to the wider community? Many CBOs begin to make assumptions about their claims to representivity; they cross the boundaries of their mandate and engage in concerns about which they may have little experience and little formal permission from the community on whose behalf they presume to speak. They often find themselves in conflict with other groupings; a certain arrogance creeps in, an arrogation of power. Legitimate membership becomes confused with the wider community, and a certain antagonism manifests. Inside, individuals struggle with the demands of the collective, and natural, creative leadership is often quashed. Even while democracy may not be functioning adequately, individual initiative is curtailed in favour of the collective line.
Attempts to assist the CBO to build capacity must deal with the problems which surface, not merely with intent or success. Of course, many of these issues can be understood at face value, as a result of lack of individual experience, lack of capacity with respect to many functions, the natural mistakes of organisations pioneering new forms of endeavour and attempting to negotiate the tricky quicksands of democratic creativity and the intricacies of community. But there is more to it than this, a deeper angle, so to speak.
The CBO emphasis is always on "community", on the demanding of rightful place in the wider community, on the power of the people to make their own way, on people's power. This pervades through the promotion of democracy, and the drawing of collectivity and cohesion from disparate parts; it is felt via the attempted reinstatement of the marginalised into the mainstream of society and the assertion of rights in the face of neglect and rejection; it is achieved by way of claiming resources, influence, and control over decision-making. The focused intention is on community, the creation of a powerful "we" able to band and bond together in a humane and democratic whole.
Yet unstinting focus on the whole, on the collective, on community, can release as an unwitting but direct consequence, its flip side. Here, the shadow would manifest as division, as a tearing apart - the unconscious emergence of an organisational culture of "us and them", as opposed to the conscious focus on "we".
The overwhelming dominance of community releases excesses of collectivity, manifested, firstly, in the submergence of individual leadership and creativity. Further, it is evidenced in the subjugation of accountability to anything beyond the current collective line, and in the inability to stand outside the dominant organisational culture in order to critique it. The admirable intentions of "community" become tainted by power, the CBO falls asleep into a comfortable paradigm of claimed collective interest, and the shadow, in order to force recognition of the danger of extremes, inverts the paradigm so that it becomes a parody of itself. Thus does the power which grew in adversity begin to manifest as adversity through the power gained. The CBO begins to regard itself as the final authority not only for members and the wider community alike, but for other organisations either in the vicinity or on the horizon. Its stance becomes adversarial rather than inclusive, and it begins to absorb the community's power into itself such that community wanes and the (now only supposedly) representative organisation waxes. The ideal of the "we" degenerates into "us and them", in the very name of community.
To be sure, this is an extreme presentation, but it mirrors the various dangers of CBO malfunctioning when they occur. Interventions which aim to build the organisational effectiveness of CBOs would do well to assist with the excesses of an organisational culture which releases divisiveness through a concentration on community, and an adversarial stance through promotion of collective inclusivity. It would help, in times of such excess, for the CBO to recognise that in spite of the rhetoric it remains essentially a membership organisation. It would help, too, for development practitioners to recognise that their sometimes overly romantic emphasis on the "community" aspect of the name CBO would benefit from a more hardnosed approach to the CBO as primarily a membership organisation; and to work from there. The shadow is never inconsequential; it pays to pay attention.
GOVERNMENT AND DEVELOPMENT - A DESPERATE LIAISON?
With the South African transition to a democratic government, the state has begun increasingly to gather the rhetoric of development towards itself and to assume hegemony over the strategies and activities of the development sector. Where previously the struggle was waged against an illegitimate system and state, the task now is seen as the development of a national community, which has become one of the legitimate state's most legitimate functions. South Africa is not unique for attempts by the state to assume for itself the mantle of development coordinator, facilitator and final arbiter. After all, the state is the major locus of responsibility for the wellbeing of its citizens, as well as being the main repository of national resources required for enacting that responsibility. In South Africa the development sector may well be coming to be monopolised by governmental requisites and provision; certainly all players in the sector are having to review their activities in the light of reformulated relations with government. This is in line with practice in most other democratic countries. The question then arises whether and in which ways the state is adequate or not to the role of development facilitator. Or rather, given the nature of the state as such - and not of any particular government at any particular time - can its predominant shadows be identified which diminish the effectiveness of its necessary role?
As has been said, shadows are those unseen forces which gather as the dark consequences of our admirable intentions and strivings. It follows then, as with the previous articles, that the first step in exposing these shadows lies in identifying the focus of conscious intent. And the intention behind (good) government is clear: it is the creation of an enabling environment for nation and citizens such that the community of persons for whom it has undertaken responsibility are able to prosper and develop their inherent potential.
The best reading of good governance is thus a facilitative one; good governance is an attempt to create an enabling environment - or framing context - through which the nation can improve the quality of its life and its material wellbeing. Government exists in order to use the resources at its disposal - which, indeed, belong to its citizenry - to maintain and improve the lot of the people who have mandated it to do so on their behalf.
To effect this mandate government is constrained to do a number of things simultaneously. First and foremost it has the responsibility for maintaining order. It sets the framework within which society will function. Individual citizens cannot do this; neither can commercial organisations. These latter two bodies are predominantly concerned with pursuing their own self-interest, and have no mandate to legislate on behalf of society at large. Non-governmental and citizen organisations are created for the benefit of the larger society of which they form a part, but they have no mandate to legislate with respect to the rules governing that society. They can create cultures and paradigms conducive to improving the quality of that society, but they cannot insist that these be adhered to. Yet clearly some form of order, some form of regulation is necessary to contain the sometimes selfish and explosive tendency towards self-interest above the interest of society as a whole. The creation and maintenance of this order through regulation and law is mandated to government as a major requisite for an enabling environment towards social development and coherence.
Government is further mandated to deliver social services which go beyond the capacity and preserve of private bodies. That which is needed for the wellbeing of its citizenry (including infrastructure, education and health provision, and so on), and which cannot be delivered from out of the private resources of that citizenry, must be delivered by government to the extent that it is able - that is, to the extent that it is resourced through the monies collected via taxes for the use of government on the nation's behalf. There are of course disagreements as to the extent to which this provision of services should go; there are those who maintain that the more such provision is effected the less effective individuals become in providing for their own wellbeing. Nevertheless, although the extent of this provision is open to debate, there are few who contest the role of good government in provision as such.
Finally, and perhaps in contradiction to the concept of order through regulation, the best form of governance will attempt to foster the conditions for the release and promotion of creativity amongst its people. It is government which has been entrusted with the resources to promote research and projects which go beyond the limitations of current practice and which attempt to find new solutions for emergent issues in the ever-increasing complexity of social life. Such creativity is not necessarily a function of government itself; but the facilitation of this capacity by society at large is.
The above are, then, admirable intentions, and perhaps will be regarded as naive idealism by those whose experience of government incorporates more of its shadow side. It is certainly true that the shadow side of government often predominates, not always through malicious intent but rather because the idealistic nature of good government will inevitably reveal its darker side, and the longer this goes unrecognised and unchecked the more hostile its power becomes.
Government functioning, even in its best attempts to achieve its laudable intentions, regularly becomes tainted through the grandeur of these intentions, and inversions begin to appear in the very soul of government. Good government is in essence representative, and it is this very representivity which often releases the power of its shadows. Popular representation in government is often more to the point in official functioning than is competence or capacity. In order for a particular government to remain in office, it must be seen to deliver, often far more rapidly than common sense or the actual restrictions of social reality permit. Thus delivery with an eye on election results often comes to regulate government functioning to a greater extent than does the creation of an effective enabling environment.
Also, government's preoccupation with social structure, regulation and order gives rise to a culture of bureaucratic functioning which is inherently conservative and cautious and entangled with hideous reams of "red tape" which ensure order and due process, but which simultaneously inhibit innovative, flexible and timely responses to emergent social problems. This combination of the need to be seen to be effective in the very short term - between elections - coupled with the need to ensure that the representative mandate conforms to due process (thus hampering action inside bureaucratic organisational cultures) results in a confusing mix of messages.
To cite a South African example, the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) of the Government of National Unity talked of "fasttracking development projects" - thus making all kinds of questionable assumptions about the process of development - while the RDP department itself was so bureaucratically hamstrung that its failure to deliver much of note has played a major role in its demise.
In this mix of messages, which is as confusing to government itself as it is to its citizens, there creeps in the need to maintain some form of coherence. And it is here where the virulence of the shadow begins to assert itself. (In the self-congratulatory realm of the focused intention the ignored twin, presumed missing, in fact rules from the obscure and tenebrous realm behind the throne).
In this way the servant of the people becomes their master. Where we look for responsive regulation, the fostering of creativity within a social framework of responsibility and order, and the delivery of appropriate services, we find instead the dominance of the state in excesses of control and power. Government can become the arbiter of social process as a force of constraint to be contended with rather than as a facilitative service to be used by the populace to whom it is responsible. Government at its worst is indeed no more than an inversion of government at its best. The shadow of government is to be found where power and control usurp order and responsive regulation.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the development sector. If development is perceived as the provision of infrastructure and service then the problem more or less disappears. But if development is seen as people-centered - as the facilitation of the power of citizens to increasingly gain the capacity to responsibly access resources and exert influence over the decisions which effect their lives - then the top-down, bureaucratic approach characteristic of the shadow of government is a potent inhibitor of, and constraint on, the development process. The question then arises as to whether government, as an institution, can play a productive role in development, or whether, on the contrary, those who would foster development processes would not do better to temper the role which government presumes it can play.
There is no intention here to promote such a tempering of government's role in development. The intention is simply to highlight, for those both inside and outside government, the shadows which are released through undue attention to intention, behind which the shadow lurks. Indeed, it may be noted that the concept of "rolling back the state" plays neatly into the hands of international capital and multi-national corporations, allowing corporate self-interest to preside and forcing increasing millions to enter the ranks of the marginalised and dispossessed. Social responsibility and social service delivery is on the decrease, and as the role of the state is diminished the onus for these falls increasingly on a non-governmental sector which cannot hope to begin to cope with the fallout of rampant individualism.
The point of exposing the shadow is not to enter the realm of despair, but to assess functioning with honesty and integrity so that it may be improved. If government can begin to recognise and own its own shadows, rather than wish them away or deny their existence, then the resultant integration will herald a new level of functioning, new levels of integrity and competence.
Recognition of the tendency towards control and power can facilitate a return to original intentions, and foster creativity, flexibility, and responsive service, while in no way denying the reality of, and necessity for, the wielding of power in government. This alone will allow the state to play a constructive role in development.
About the Community Development Resource Association (CDRA)
The Community Development Resource Association (CDRA) was established in 1987 as a non-profit, non-governmental organisation (NGO) to build the capacity of organisations and individuals engaged in development and social transformation. We are based in Cape Town, South Africa and work mostly in Southern and East Africa.
Email: vernon@cdra.org.za
Webpage: http://www.cdra.org.za
P.O. Box 221, Woodstock, 7915, South Africa
Telephone: -27 -21 462 3902
Fax: -27 -21 462 3918