Power and accountability in NGO-community relationships: lessons from Thailand

Driven by the mistrust of governments, many donors see NGOs as their favoured project partners. But are NGOs as flexible and participatory as they are made out to be? Are they really better than governments or the market in understanding the needs of the poor? Can beneficiaries truly become partners who are able to hold NGOs to account?

An Overseas Development Institute Working Paper suggests that local people can be disadvantaged when dealing with external NGOs who pursue donor-driven objectives that do not reflect the needs of the poor. Expenditure on offices, staff and other project costs often makes it difficult for NGOs to recognise or meet the needs of the poor. A case study from southern Thailand shows, however, that the relationship is not completely lopsided: organised and determined communities can transform the terms on which NGOs operate.

Wildlife Fund Thailand (WFT), an offshoot of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), has worked with inhabitants of a Muslim village on the Thai island of Phuket to encourage fisheries conservation. Villagers agreed to exclude all trawlers, push nets, explosives and poison – fishing technologies which had created much destruction and conflict. Enforcement of the conservation zone has depended on mobilising large numbers of community members who use physical coercion to deter trespassers.

The village has been transformed. Glimpsing the possibility of successfully protecting their fishery, villagers began working with a wider circle of allies in political lobbying. WFT compensated them for attending meetings and spread information about constitutional rights and Thai natural resources legislation. For the first time, villagers began taking demands to the government. They are no longer deferential to the district chief.

Donor priorities have been apparent. WFT was motivated to establish a community bank not by local demand but because empowerment of the marginalised is a priority of one of its main funders, Novib. Pressure from WFP was instrumental in an initiative to rehabilitate mangroves. In general, however, the paper finds evidence to contradict the stereotype that NGOs invariably rule the roost. Donor priorities were defined with sufficient ambiguity to allow room for manoeuvre and space for accountability and community influence.

The report notes that

• The first moves to protect coastal fishing predated the arrival of WFT.
• WFT could not compel acquiescence, but had to win the backing of local elites.
• WFT’s access and influence was contingent upon an ability to recognise and meet the needs of people.
• Poor villagers do not share the general enthusiasm for the project and have taken little part in meetings dominated by elites.

What lessons emerge to help ensure that beneficiaries are similarly able to influence other development projects? The report calls for donors and NGOs to:

• stipulate, and monitor adherence to, regulations requiring consultation and information flow
• recognise the dilemmas involved when the institutions of power – through which communities hold NGOs to account – themselves exclude poor community members
• appreciate the challenges of promoting accountability and democracy in societies in which livelihoods are still dependent on interpersonal and unequal relations.

Source(s):
‘Towards accountability: narrowing the gap between NGO priorities and local realities in Thailand’ Working Paper 149, Overseas Development Institute, by Craig Johnson July 2001

id21 Research Highlight: 13 January 2003

Further Information:
Overseas Development Institute
111 Westminster Bridge Road
London SE1 5JD
UK

Tel: +44 (0)20 7922 0300
Fax: +44 (0)20 7922 0399
Contact the contributor: c.johnson@lse.ac.uk

Overseas Development Institute, UK

Other related links:
'Knowledge, power and development agendas: NGOs north and south'

'A partnership of equals? Working with southern NGOs'

'NGOs and capacity building: for what and for whom?'

'Community action - mobilising NGOs and CBOs'

'Punching above their weight? NGOs as builders of peace'

'Peacebuilding from below: can NGOs promote non-violent conflict resolution processes?'