Partnership and performance in the city: can urban NGOs raise their performance?

Many non-governmental organisations (NGOs) gain their experience in rural development. Are they therefore lost in the city – unable to understand the concept of ‘community’ and unsure how to pursue a pro-poor agenda? How can NGOs be assisted in their progression from service providers to advocates, able to exert pro-poor influence on policymakers?

A book from INTRAC, entitled ‘NGO responses to urban poverty: service providers or partners in planning’ examines the work of 141 urban NGOs in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Peru and South Africa, combining qualitative and quantitative analysis. Research in the case studies revealed lower than expected numbers of NGOs targeting urban poverty issues - in Dhaka, a city of 12.3 million people, only 30 urban-focused NGOs were identified while in Johannesburg the number of active agencies is in rapid decline. Overall the numbers of people reached by urban NGOs remain small.

NGOs are challenged to help urban areas with their social diversity, institutional complexity and economic diversity. NGOs often struggle to adopt community based and participatory approaches to the urban environment. Only slowly is there an urban NGO sector emerging, whose stategies and underlying development philosophies are driven by an understanding of the complex urban environment.

NGOs approaches to urban poverty alleviation have largely evolved from direct service delivery to community development programs targeting a wide range of needs at the household level. Fewer NGOs have developed programs based squarely on an analysis of poverty and needs in the context of city wide change, including labour markets, land use patterns, and population trends, among others. Relating household and community poverty concerns to larger city-wide issues remains a critical challenge facing NGOs.

The authors note that:

• Community development and service delivery approaches that flow from an analysis of poverty at the household and community level are dominant.
• A minority of NGOs are developing participatory institutional development and urban development interventions that aim to address the structural causes of poverty, address city wide-issues, and link communities to local governement.
• There are considerable differences in NGO strategies for urban poverty alleviation found in the five country case studies. Cultural and political factors such as the existence of community based organisations, the opportunity to contribute to political debate and the origins of the NGO sector act to shape and narrow the range of viable strategies available to NGOs.
• The survey revealed that only a small number of NGOs surveyed were working directly on the important issues of housing, land tenure and transport.
• The majority of the NGOs participating in the study linked only superficially with local authorities. In some countries, cooptation by local authorities posed a risk.
• The more successful NGOs were those that were able to draw macro-level policy implications from their community level experiences.

In order stop their rural inheritance, become genuinely participatory and influence the allocation of available public resources in newly decentralised political climates, NGOs should:

• accept that relationship building is not an optional extra: effectiveness requires linkages with local authorities
• forge more transparent and equal roles with community-based organisation partners
• do more to indentify and understand the macro-level problems facing the entire city in which they are based. When local household concerns are addressed with the needs of the city at large, the seeds of sustainable urban development are sown.

Source(s):
‘NGO responses to urban poverty: service providers or partners in planning’ INTRAC by Caroline Sahley and Brian Pratt, March 2003

Funded by: Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, DFID

id21 Research Highlight: 27 November 2004

Further Information:
Brian Pratt
INTRAC
P.O. Box 563
Oxford OX2 6RZ
UK

Tel: +44 (0)1865 201851
Fax: 44 (0)1865 201852
Contact the contributor: b.pratt@intrac.org

INTRAC, UK

Caroline Sahley
6620 Miller Road
Brecksville Ohio 44141
USA

Contact the contributor: sahley@aol.com

Other related links:
'A losing battle? Reaching the poor in Addis Ababa'

'Targeting urban poverty in India - can NGOs and the state cooperate?'

'Downtown development: are Peru's urban poor getting value from NGOs?'

'How can non-governmental organisations make a bigger difference?'

'Cebu City: politics of engagement?' From ELDIS

'Asian Coalition for Housing Rights, Thailand'