Published: June 18, 2015
comments are in footnotes at the end of this article
The writer is an independent social scientist and author of
Military Inc. She tweets @iamthedrifter
The government is upset with NGOs and claims
some work against state interests. Notwithstanding the issue of who defines
state interest and according to which formula, the state-society attitude towards the
non-governmental sector needs a serious rethink. Broadly, our
political behaviour changed with the advent of the NGO era. We rarely stand up
for causes unless there is funding for them from somewhere. Barring exceptions like
Karachi or the donations that mosques and madrassas get[1], we don’t have a culture
of serious philanthropy. But who is to blame?
I
remember a chat with members of a UK government body, who were interested in
initiating counter-extremism ventures in southern Punjab. My advice to them was
that unless
the local population was serious about the issue and wanted to save their lives
by protecting their surroundings[2], this would really be a
waste of British taxpayers’ money. They didn’t listen and many a strange
character with little knowledge of the sub-region received funding from both
the said body and the European Union, while the radicalism problem continues
unabated.
Pakistan’s state functionaries don’t like
such advice. They are happy when donors pour in money. It takes two to tango. The Punjab government’s[3] education budget, for
instance, is funded by the Department for International Development (DfID).
Today, there are DfiD-funded[4] NGOs ensuring school enrollment and literacy. Similarly, the Sindh
government has subcontracted famine response to several NGOs. Where is the state and why
can’t it shoulder the responsibility to provide health, education and other
services to its citizens?[5]
The proliferation of NGOs started[6]
after 9/11
with additional impetus provided by the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir and the Northern Areas.
Then came the 2010 and 2011 floods — natural calamities in which Pakistan’s
governments depended upon all forms of NGOs, be it theLashkar-e-Taiba/Jamaatud Dawa or those funded by Western
donors. The expansion in this sector was also the consequence of a systematic
campaign to malign political institutions and governments. Many ‘darlings of
the deep state’ media anchors ran down the government and highlighted greater
credibility of the non-governmental sector in dealing with natural disasters.
There were others that advised foreign government representatives to depend on
civil society rather than on a corrupt state.
The
NGO sector in Pakistan has a hierarchical structure. On the top are two to
three big aid donors such as the USAID, the UK’s DfID and Japan’s JAICA[7]. They finance the
non-governmental sector in consultation with federal and provincial governments.
This is also the level where the state bureaucracy gets engaged. The INGOs,
like Save the Children, CARE and others form the second tier of the NGO sector.
They raise their own funds which do not compare with the money and programmes
of the USAID and DfID. The funding by these two donors surpasses even the UN’s.
The USAID, which had stopped operations after the American embargo on Pakistan
in October 1990, restarted its operations during the Mushrraf regime. At the
bottom of the hierarchy are national NGOs registered under Pakistan’s laws that
seek funding from international donors. The national NGOs seek donor funding in
areas mutually agreed upon by the government and international donors.
If
the NGOs are corrupt then they have a partner in crime and that is the
government itself[8].
Successive federal and provincial governments have willingly ceded initiative
and failed to use their brains and tailor programmes according to their needs
and environment. For instance, how would a programme aiming to make Punjab’s
schools bookless and introducing e-education, enhance literacy? When I asked a
consultant this question, the response was that it was easier to get assistance
for anything that had an IT component. The civil bureaucracy is part of the donor-NGO
cycle. Having the right information and contacts in the government, bureaucrats
have become smart tools for donor agencies. The government might be surprised
to find how many of its civil servants are working for donors. The
Musharraf-Shaukat Aziz government started the system of allowing bureaucrats to
go on leave in order to seek other employment. While many explain this as the
only way to earn honest money, there is a huge issue here of conflict of
interest that no one wants to look at.
Not surprisingly, the specified method for
INGO accountability does not work properly. NGOs operating in Pakistan are
registered with theEconomic Affairs Division (EAD) of the Ministry of
Finance. They need to report to the EAD to get concessions, like duty-free
imports[9].
They are also expected to periodically provide details of their activities.
Unfortunately, the very few section officers responsible for scrutiny[10]
do not have the resources or specified methods to do the job. Then there are
other organisations that have a specified or unspecified role in vetting INGOs.
In 2012, when inquiries were made regarding the temporary closure of Save the
Children office from the presidency, it was informed that it would remain shut
as per instructions from certain important quarters of the state. Incidentally,
the same quarters then allowed the organisation to reopen[11].
Save
the Children and other NGOs should operate transparently but so should the
formula for their accountability by the state. The possibility of incorrect
assessment may be higher because state operatives may not fully understand
programmes or the objectives behind them. It would certainly help if, besides
strengthening NGO accountability mechanisms, the government also regularly
trains and explains state operatives charged with looking into the activities
of NGOs, about the objectives for which donor assistance is sought. Health,
education, gender development or poverty alleviation programmes also require
assessments and surveys, which may sometimes be above the understanding of an
ordinary state operative.
But this is a simple technicality. The
greater issue is far more political. The entire anti-NGO debate may actually be
spurred by the state’s anxiety regarding international attention drawn to
issues such as Balochistan, missing persons, capital punishment, as well as
other issues[12].
However, knee-jerk reactions can only end up attracting the same negative
attention from abroad that the state wants to avoid. For definition of
‘knee-jerk’, see the speed with which Save the Children was shut and then
reopened.[13]
[1]
Why barring? strange
[2]
What is the yard stick through which one can know either people are serious
about the issue? With such argument she
is not questioning donor money or donor but the people
[3]
Why only Punjab? She looks reluctant to pinpoint presence of foreign donor money in Balushistan or KPK governments.
[4]
She excluded UN agencies like UNDP, UNESCO etc
[5]
Now she took another stand. In previous paragraph as mentioned in footnote 2,
her argument was quite different. If she think State should provide health and
education by its own then she not only criticize private investment in both
sectors but also amend her old stand regarding willingness of people
[6]
Wrong fact, she forgot Binyamin Rizvi, a minister who was killed mysteriously in
2004 and was famous in criticizing NGOs during his tenure as Minister
for Social Welfare, Women Development and Bait-ul-Maal of Punjab . he was minister in 2nd term
government of Nawaz Sharief . But these
days popular style is to link everything with 9/11.
[7]
UN agencies are missing here again
[8]
If both are corrupt then what is the solution? Is she barring donors once
again?
[9]
Tax concessions
[10]
Government needs foreign currency so State is least concern regarding
activities
[11]
So crux of the matter is if political government checks development sector or
INGOs they will contact establishment and if Establishment curb then then they
will invest in political parties. It is ground situation which needs an open
debate in parliament
[12]
Is it not the fact that some high NGOs follows foreign policy
initiatives of big countries?
[13]
Do you understand what exactly author is advising?
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