The Grassroots Investment Model for Global Development

Figure 1: The Grassroots Investment Model

The views suggested in this model do not necessarily reflect the views of AGEN and AGEN-USA Inc; these views are mainly from Rasel Madaha who together with James Jesse has won an award as Champions of Women's Economic Empowerment offered by TIAW(TIAW World of Difference 100 Award and its TIAW Annual Global Partnership Forum recognizes up to 100 extraordinary women and men from around the world each year whose efforts have advanced the economic empowerment of women locally, regionally or worldwide, including well-known women and men as well as “unsung heroes.” The motto of TIAW is “Connecting to Make All the Difference in the World.” Details can be found at http://www.tiaw.org/global_forum_2012/Home_Page.asp) following their participation in the project titled, “Women Empowerment in Rural Sub Sahara Africa through Capacity Building and Training in Tanzania.” Using his experience drawn from the mentioned project and his prior experience spanning for a period of over five years, Rasel has developed the model for wider distribution and applicability across the globe and in Sub-Saharan Africa in particular. This is the first step towards production of a resourceful book on the same. By and large, the major argument made here is that development agencies need to trust poor/grassroots people because they are capable of helping themselves. The dominant doctrine that people need to be provided with direct assistance such as food, medicine, buildings and free education is being challenged. It is argued that any development intervention should invest in grassroots people’s resources by providing grassroots people with opportunities, mainly through micro-credit or other forms of grassroots level investment, for them to manage their development as they wish and as per their context specific situation. It should be underscored that grassroots people, especially those in developing countries are not that much poor and idle waiting for external assistance; actually they are busy engaging in various activities including income generating activities to make ends meet.  Although majority of them live in muddy houses, grassroots people in developing countries and Sub-Saharan Africa in particular, unlike poor people in developed countries, own a piece of land in which their respective muddy houses have been build. Majority of them equally own relatively larger piece of land, close or far from their respective houses, for subsistence farming. Such small farms, for example, are the ones which produce food for wider public consumptions in many of the Sub-Saharan African countries. The grassroots people are largely on their own as their respective governments invest in large micro-economic projects which benefit a small proportion of the population in those countries. The difference between grassroots people in developed and developing world is that those in developed world own their labor not portions of land, they are fewer and therefore receive support from their respective governments; those in developing world own land, their labor, they are the majority and thus receive limited assistance from their equally poor governments. 

Noteworthy, the assistance that impoverished grassroots people receive from both government and other development agencies, cannot enable them to meet their subsistence needs for the whole year. However, they survive throughout the year as they use whatever recourses they have in their localities. These are what are referred to as, “hidden resources” and it is time that the world should invest in such resources. Using such hidden resources, unrecognized by many in the outside world including those living in urban places of the supposedly poverty stricken countries, rural grassroots people can buy and produce food for themselves, send their children to school, build or improve their houses, strengthen their businesses, and even build schools for their children with no or zero support from government and other agencies.

The critical question that we need to ask ourselves is, “we have been providing poor people with insufficient free services for decades and in particular since independence in 1960s. Yet the proportion of Sub-Saharan poor people has remained relatively the same i.e. over 70% in many countries.” We need to re-examine our current models and attempt innovative models. It is time that we should invest on grassroots people and stimulate the engine in them to farther their context specific development.

Specifically, the Grassroots Investment Model (see the figure), as it is proposed by Mr. Rasel Madaha following his observations and direct interaction with grassroots entrepreneurs before AEIF project (Rasel had been interacting with the grassroots entrepreneurs for over  five years providing them with training and funds through organizations that he worked for) and during implementation of AEIF titled the “Women Empowerment in Rural Sub Sahara Africa through Capacity Building and Training in Tanzania” calls for greater interaction and partnership among grassroots people, scholars, government, and not-for-profit NGOs to identify and help develop grassroots people’s capabilities to help themselves and to pave way for them to contribute to the large human development.

Rasel argues that development agencies should understand that grassroots people in rural areas of Sub-Saharan Africa engage in some businesses even before their arrival and they can soundly decide what is important for them. Specifically, the major role of development agencies should be to identify existing groups of entrepreneurs not form new ones. Such kind of social setting already exists and in particular among women. The next step should be to identify if such groups have developed into networks. If the a network exists, the development agencies should start right away to interact with the network through formal arrangements such as signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). The MoU should be longer than proposed end of project to the donor. For example, AGEN has signed an MoU that is going to last four years after donor’s support has ended.

In absence of a network, agencies should work with local NGOs only for a short time to network existing groups to help them form an autonomous network that should be legally registered. Then other formal arrangement of collaboration, such as signing of an MoU, should follow. Then, an agency should spend a significant amount of time and other resources to build the capacity of the network through mutual collaboration. During, this time the agency should understand that a grassroots network is a master of its environment and should equally learn from the network in efforts to build its capacity to serve the community better. Such relationship of mutual responsibility should remain throughout implementation of the project in such a way that more responsibilities to manage the project are being passed to the network right from the start as opposed to being retained by the NGOs. 

NGO administrative expenses are usually high and it has become a common thing for majority of donors to demand that such NGOs should minimize their administrative expenses and invest a larger proportion of funds on project. To minimize NGO administrative expenses and invest more on grassroots intervention, governments, development agencies and/or NGOs should make use of local volunteers and part-time employees. There are a lot of individuals outside there in search of job experience and these can be of great help for NGOs. However, in order retain volunteers for a longer time there should be arrangements for meals, accommodation, transportation and other forms of assistance. Good sources of such volunteers are, among other things, leaders of local grassroots groups at project sites, employees of grassroots NGOs working in the area, students, recent graduates and junior university faculty. International volunteers can equally play a key role through social media tools such as facebook, blogs and the like. They, among other things, can help in fundraising. One should not underestimate the power of social media which increasingly connect the world into one global village. AGEN and AGEN-USA Inc. whose members are scattered from across the globe have been benefited much from use of free and cheap social media tools. Well qualified and experienced full time employees are important; nevertheless, the number of such employees should be kept to a minimum and preferably from the country where an intervention takes place. International employees who consume large portion of funds in terms of salaries and other forms of stipends should equally work on part-time basis preferably residing in their countries. They can conduct occasional visits to project sites and use social media tools to monitor progress with those residing in project sites.

At country’s level, there should be similar arrangements. For example, national NGO staff should only conduct occasion visits (AGEN did it on monthly basis) to the site and continuously gather reports prepared by grassroots network leaders (who will be monitoring progress on daily basis) on monthly basis. Such arrangements would enable the NGO at national and international level to cheaply monitor the project for relatively longer time after donor’s support has ended (what the NGO can do once donor’s support has ended should be part of the equation and all donors should demand for a clear plan. AGEN and AGEN-USA Inc. has planned to and will implement the project four years after donor’s support has ended). The end of the project as proposed by or to the donor should not be the actual end of the project. Equally apparently, local government authorities should also be involved from the start in such a way that local government authorities treat local network as partners and not subjects or subordinates. Local government authorities interact with grassroots people on day to day basis. Therefore, a significant amount of investment should be dedicated towards this area to equip leadership of networks with skills and knowledge that will enable them to best make use of free government services. As the networks grow, they should be ready to pay for some services and not merely rely on free government services. For example, they should be able to provide underpaid local government experts with some stipend to make them come to their villages and provide some training to their group members. Moreover, they should equally sponsor visits of some government officials because such officials are likely to play an important role in addressing future conflicts especially when the role of an external local or international NGO has been minimized. 

Finally closing of one project should not be the end of everything. Using lessons learned from previous interventions, external NGOs should then launch a similar intervention elsewhere. Efforts to link individuals residing at new project sites and those from previous project sites should then be made. It has taken AGEN and AGEN-USA Inc. to build powerful communities at grassroots level for only a year. Another year of minimum intervention might be required. The bottom line is we do not need NGOs to stay at project site for years because in doing so, they replace and even duplicate government services as they severely cripple grassroots groups and networks from becoming full independent and functional. NGOs shouldn’t stay in one project site, they should be constantly moving to newer sites to learn newer ways and then share from their previous experiences. Thus the big role of NGOs should be networking locally owned networks from across a country for them to become key stakeholders in the development of their own country. If that level is attained in a country, then NGOs and international ones in particular, as we know them today, are no longer needed. Instead, intergovernmental institutions such as the UN and East African community should replace international NGOs at international level. At grassroots or country’s level, locally owned civil societies should replace NGOs. NGOs can neither speak for the government nor speak for the international community; let aim at building ways that give true voice to grassroots people themselves. And the cycle aimed at fostering larger economic development, both micro and macro, for sustainable human development of a country and the whole world continues.