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.
