Fiscal Reform and Structural Change in Developing Countries (2 volumes), edited by Guillermo Perry, John Whalley and Gary Mcmahon (Macmillan in association with the International Development Research Centre, London: Canada, 2000, hbk £50, each volume)

✍ Scribed by Norman Gemmell

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2001
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 34 KB
• Volume: 13
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0954-1748
• DOI: 10.1002/jid.770

✦ Synopsis

credibility within their local communities as well as limiting their contribution to the development of civil society. Hudock lays out the steps needed for strengthening SNGOs to counteract such debilitating tendencies.

Currently Foreign Affairs Of®cer for Africa at the US State Department, Ann Hudock experienced her ®rst taste of the continent by spending a year in Sierra Leone working as a Project Assistant for the Association for Rural Development (ARD). She later returned to Sierra Leone to conduct extensive ®eldwork on the role of NGOs in development, thoughtfully pondering the nature of relationships between Southern and Northern NGOs. On several occasions during her time with ARD she witnessed the organization subject to outside control with donors driving the development process. One case was a latrine project. To respect local Muslim culture, completely separate latrines required completely separate structures, not just separate entrances. But the Northern NGO insisted that the latrines be built together and so no one used them. Another example was a water project that ARD was trying to implement along with a Northern NGO partner. The latter wanted to build a well in the community. While ARD suggested several sites, their partner decided that the well would be put in front of the village chief's house. Water collection is generally a woman's job, however, and when women collect the water they are actually doing more than that, like talking about their problems and childcare. They would not collect water in front of the chief's house because he would overhear them talking. ARD told the Northern NGO that they needed to put this well somewhere where the women could carry on their conversations but again to no avail. Therefore, money and effort were wasted as the well went untouched. Of course, Northern NGOs attach conditions to Southern NGOs because they themselves also have to account to donors. There are very few Northern NGOs that have an untied pool of funds. Because Northern NGOs receive a lot of money from governments, what Hudock calls the `cascading conditionalities' principle takes effect. Every layer of decision-making has a set of conditions, and these are passed on to the next NGO that has its own conditions for the money, and so on down the line.

Hudock dislikes the Johns Hopkins approach to research relating to NGOsÐcounting up the numbers of NGOsÐthe point is not quantity but quality: NGOs doing rather than being. Quantity should only come into the equation in terms of an NGO's constituent members, bene®ciaries or target groups. A lot of NGOs are just capital-based and elitist in organisation and outlook. It is important to work with the ones that have links to the communities and re¯ect the needs of the community. `Grassroots' should never be a derogatory term in development. The closer they are connected to the community, the better they are.

In a strong section of her book, Hudock argues that Southern NGOs are unnecessarily weak in putting forward their views on the dynamics of the development world. Southern NGOs have a lot more leverage than they think they have; they should not be afraid to say no to projects that will not bene®t them. The donors need them as much as they need the donors. They will have leverage with the donor if they demand the right kinds of things. Many Northern NGOs will change when Southern NGOs assert themselves and say this is an inappropriate intervention and it is a waste of time and money. There is increasing pressure on NNGOs to make sure that things are done in a way that is suitable to local NGOs. Accountability, legitimacy and ethical practices are looming ever larger in the NGO world.

While not yet having ®nancial muscle, credible and legitimate SNGOs should recognise their comparatively powerful advantages of credibility and access to communities. This would place them in a position to positively in¯uence Northern NGOs' policies and practices.

SIMON HEAP INTRAC, Oxford, UK