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SPEAKING ALOUD

[ Arun Maira, Harivansh , Shankar Venkateswaran, Riaz Quadir, Harmala Gupta, Kabir Mustafi. ]

In the March issue of Civil Society we reported the findings of an opinion poll conducted by GFK Mode on perceptions about social sector organisations. The government and judiciary were also rated. Here we print a collection of viewson the poll’s findings. Over to Shankar Venkateswaran

 

I find I have a love-hate relationship with opinion polls. They are absolutely essential to engage your stakeholders and find out what they think of you or want you to do. But the results can often be so confusing and contradictory! In the poll commissioned by Civil Society, 89 per cent of Delhi respondents felt that NGOs were important and 76 per cent felt they were effective in influencing government policies. But only 31 per cent said they were important to protect people’s interests and as many as 78 per cent felt that they took up personal agendas. The similar percentages from Mumbai were 82 per cent, 69 per cent, 39 per cent and 33 per cent! Now, how does one tie up these figures? That said, what I have chosen to do in this piece is to consider these inconsistencies as part of human nature and look at the bigger picture. And juxtapose this picture with a few of the thoughts and responses I got from some members of my dream NGO leadership team and other thoughtful people I had the privilege of crossing paths with.

____________________________________ What I hear Vijay and Rajesh say is that the traditional methods of NGOs–their work of building models, scaling up and advocacy–is not working beyond a point, and certainly not as effectively as the changes industry has been able to bring about on government policy. It is time to try other ways. ___________________________________

NGOS ARE HERE TO STAY BUT ARE THEY EFFECTIVE? : Whether you like them or not, whether they are effective or not, NGOs are here to stay. This is one clear message from the poll with an overwhelming 88 per cent saying they are important and 71 per cent (lower thanks to Delhi and Mumbai respondents) think they are necessary to protect people’s interests. Cynics would say that the importance of NGOs increases with the ineffectiveness of the other two major pillars – the government and the judiciary – who get a relatively lower satisfaction rating. It is interesting how the failure of the state gives rise to other sectors and industries – be it the inverter/generator industry or the private school industry, but that is for another time! But how effective are NGOs? This has not emerged clearly from the poll because while NGOs get rated 70 per cent on effectiveness, when it comes to their effectiveness on specific issues (the more recent farmer suicides and SEZs), they don’t even get to 50 per cent! Vijay Mahajan, who has played a significant role in getting the Indian microfinance sector to where it is as a significant player, seems quite frustrated that the sector has not been able to change the post office and RBI regulations so that a migrant Bihari labourer can remit money back to his home in a cost-effective and clean manner and is looking to do his own second partition and independence of Bharat from India on the country’s 60th birthday! On the other hand, industry (including those he calls the Johnny-come-lately industrialists) seems to be able
to influence public policy almost at will. Rajesh Tandon’s frustration is the complete indifference of the government system to be sensitive to the poor. After spending a lifetime enabling the poor to organise themselves and fight for rights he is now wondering if he should start working with tax payers (who effectively pay salaries of public servants) to perform to their expectations or get out! What I hear Vijay and Rajesh say is that the traditional methods of NGOstheir work of building models, scaling up and advocacy- is not working beyond a point, and certainly not as effectively as the changes industry has been able to bring about on government policy. It is time to try other ways. This means that if NGOs are to remain important and effective, they not only have to be good at what they are doing but they will also have to start thinking of newer ways to trigger change.

HIGHLIGHTING PROBLEMS NOT SOLUTIONS : I found it interesting that a significantly large number of respondents felt that NGOs highlighted problems not solutions, though Chennai and Bangalore respondents felt otherwise. Again, when I juxtaposed this with the other finding that a significantly large number (55 per cent overall) felt that NGOs pursued personal agendas, I could not help thinking that the sector has some serious work to do. Taking this at face value, what is very clear is that the NGO sector has not seriously engaged the public at large, especially the growing middle-class. I think it is important to know that the microfinance movement, watershed related work in India’s drylands, bridge programmes to get out-of-school children back to school, the increasing role of the village health worker and the centrality of the traditional birth attendant are but a few NGO innovations that have become national practice. So, NGOs have been providing solutions but the challenge is to remain motivated because it takes so much hard work to move policy by an inch while those that Vijay Mahajan calls the Johnny-come-latelys get what they want almost effortlessly! Engaging the middle class is important not only to make NGOs look good in the next poll. What seems clear is that public policy is determined by a small elite in which the middle class is very influential. Involving them is critical for any NGO solutions to get recognised and adopted. It is in this context that one has to see Rajesh Tandon’s idea to engage tax payers – not because he wants to satisfy their needs but in the process of forcing governments to be responsive to their public, the needs of the poor will also get addressed.

ENGAGING WITH COMPANIES : The respondents polled by Civil Society strongly felt that NGOs need to engage with the corporate sector. Few NGOs would disagree and many in fact do- a dramatic change from a decade ago when many NGOs had ideological differences in dealing with companies. Also, CSR is no longer a new word and hence companies too are more open to talking to NGOs more than ever before. The challenge, however, is what issues should NGOs engage companies on? Traditionally, it is about fundraising but that would be minimalist. With much of public policy driven by a corporate-friendly economic growth maximisation paradigm, NGOs need to engage its larger stakeholder group to ensure public policies are at least not anti-poor. Engaging companies in such an advocacy effort as well as helping them conduct their business in a responsible way should be the key agendas for NGOs.

(Views expressed here are the author’s own. Comments welcome, please email at shankarvee@rediffmail.com)