‘Development’ NGOs form an international community of talk. How do ideas, information and knowledge move within this vast and diverse ‘knowledge economy’? How can southern NGOs have more of a voice in determining the work they actually do? How can they get more of their ideas onto the international development agenda?

Neither global nor local knowledge is necessarily superior, and this report is concerned with a balance between the two. NGOs should not merely transport a powerful language and Western concepts of development to the south. Yet southern NGOs are not necessarily virtuous; some are corrupt and many simply agree with what donors want. The search is on for a better, less colonial balance between development fashions and local knowledge, and for better information for NGOs committed to what they see as positive change. The recommendations listed here come directly from NGO experiences through interviews with NGOs in Ghana, India, Mexico and Europe. Booklets resulting from these interviews have been distributed in local languages in Mexico, India and Ghana.

Structures and processes that restrict independent-thinking and committed southern NGOs from having a more appropriate voice within the global development NGO community include:

• the unequal ways in which ‘partnership’ tends to work in practice
• the effects of an overly bureaucratic ‘report culture’
• the priority placed on tracking rather than achieving change
• the exclusions of language and communication technologies (ICTs)
• the dominance of a minority of southern NGOs.

All of these help to promote ‘information loops’ – privileged circuits of information and knowledge, which some southern NGOs find much harder to penetrate than others. It is not just that smaller, independent-thinking NGOs find it harder to access certain forms of information, but that they are also excluded from adding their perspectives, ideas and experiences. This seriously compromises the rationale of creating or inventing locally appropriate strategies, and is one reason why waves of ‘global’ development fashions dominate the sector. As a result,

• a ‘knowledge economy’ exists within the global development NGO community, exchanging ideas, knowledge and information, but
• southern NGOs have many ideas and a great deal of information and knowledge, but often little power to influence what is done or how.

The most serious obstacle to listening to the south is the imposition on NGOs of a report culture using performance indicators. If southern NGOs were real partners in setting the development agenda, we would expect to find a far greater diversity of values, practices and ideas than actually exists.

Key policy lessons include:

• Donors have the best chance to increase ‘listening to the poor’.
• The audit culture does not exclude fraud, while depersonalising relationships can impoverish communication, as is recognised in the business world.
• The more information that is available to southern NGOs on the organisation, mission and working practices of northern NGOs, the better.
• If only the Web were more accessible, cheaper and more reliable, donors and northern NGOs could do much to increase transparency, bypass gatekeepers and listen to southern NGOs.

Source(s):
‘Knowledge, power and development agendas: NGOs North and South’, INTRAC, by Emma Mawdsley, Janet Townsend, Gina Porter and Peter Oakley 2002 Full document.
‘Different poverties, different policies? The role of the transnational community of NGOs’, Journal for International Development by J.G. Townsend, R.E. Porter and E.E. Mawdsley (forthcoming)
Booklets for NGOs, with recommendations, are available for Ghana, Mexico, North India and South India from Janet Townsend and online Full document.

Funded by: Department for International Development, UK

id21 Research Highlight: 20 August 2002

Further Information:
Janet G. Townsend
Department of Geography
University of Durham
Durham DH1 3LE
UK

Tel: +44 (0)191 374 2457
Fax: +44 (0)191 374 2456
Contact the contributor: janet.townsend@durham.ac.uk

Department of Geography, University of Durham, UK

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'Due south: how does direct funding affect donor-NGO relationships?'

'A partnership of equals? Working with southern NGOs'

'Community radio - bridging the digital divide'

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The North-South Institute focuses on international development

The NGO and Civil Society Unit facilitates civil society involvement in development

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