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CECI's 20 Years Celebration Activities

Presentation by Michel Chaurette for the
Seminar on
State, Civil Society and Nation Building

October 8, 2007

Kathmandu , Nepal

Summary

In his presentation, Michel Chaurette favors collaboration between state and civil society as a development strategy. He points out to three successful examples in Africa, Salvador , and Nepal .

After examining the challenges and the stakes involved in relations between state and civil society, he concludes with a note of caution with regards to the Paris Declaration and the principles of aid effectiveness, which threaten the position and role of civil society in development.

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, speakers,

My name is Michel Chaurette; I am the Executive Director of CECI, the Center for International Studies and Cooperation. CECI is an international development NGO whose mission is to fight against poverty and social exclusion. With this objective, we support NGOs, community based organizations, and small industries in about fifteen of the poorest countries around the world. We contribute to improving the lives of one million people each year through a hundred projects implemented with our different partners.

Collaboration between state and civil society

To begin with, I wish to clarify my position regarding the topic of this workshop.

I am in favor of collaboration between state and civil society. In practice, I have noticed that social and economic progress cannot be sustainable if all the actors of development are not involved. Numerous examples reveal that government reforms or top-down initiatives fail if they do not include people's participation and support. Think for a moment about the structural adjustment policies in developing countries.

Efforts from civil society alone can also fail in this regard. Countless efforts have been unsuccessful due to NGOs working in isolation, without minimum state involvement. CECI learned this in the 1980's and 1990's when the progress made after ten years of reinforcing agricultural cooperatives in Guinea Bissau, was erased by measures taken by the Ministry of Agriculture, who was not concerned about our initiatives.

With the advancement of democratization in most places in the world, collaboration between state and civil society has prevailed in the past 10 to 15 years as a necessity in a growing number of countries. I wish to mention three successful examples of such positive engagement.

- First in Africa: This example concerns one of the coalitions of rights and citizenship for women Mali , Burkina Faso , and Guinea and involves three coalitions amounting to around thirty non-government organizations supported by CECI.

The coalitions wanted to promote respect for women's rights and their participation in the democratic process. They came up with three challenges that women faced: violence, discriminatory laws, and participation in elections. In order to get better results, they decided on a strategy of dialogue and concerted actions with twelve ministries with the following results:

  • The family code in Guinea was revised
  • The justice ministries in Mali and in Burkina facilitated the registration for 60,000 women living in remote areas
  • Radio programs were broadcasted in collaboration with Mali 's Ministry for Communication, to ensure women's participation in the elections.

Today, Mali 's parliament consists of 25% of women - more than what we have in Canada .

- The second example is of El Salvador where CECI contributed to reconstruct houses after hurricane Stan. Using the participatory approach, a relationship was established based on trust between community-based organizations and local authorities.

It was apparent that for these people the insecurity caused by street gangs - the maras, was a major obstacle to development. A community security project was then initiated and has been implemented successfully since then. This was founded on the synergy between three groups that were not linked previously:

  • Community organizations, which work in prevention and provide skills training to groups at risk
  • Municipal authorities who intervene for the general population and who manage public investments in order to secure sensitive areas with street lighting, fences, etc.,
  • Institutions responsible for security, i.e. the police.

CECI contributed by:

  • Bringing different groups closer to a conciliatory process
  • Bringing expertise regarding training in mediation
  • Creating links with specialist partners such as CIPC (the International Center for Criminality Prevention)
  • Mobilizing financial resources from Canada 's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The project's impact was such that it led the National Public Security Counsel of El Salvador to create a criminal watchdog with CECI's help, and organize regional exchange and training workshops on good practices regarding prevention and community security.

Once again, the success of the project is the result of efficient interaction between state, civil society, and other actors.

-  Now let's move to our experience in Nepal with the CGISP irrigation project, which works with small, poor farms in the Terai plains and with the economic, communal development project Sahakarya in the western hills of the country.

Community Groundwater Irrigation Sector Project (CGISP), which is part of Nepal 's Agricultural Plan, aims to increase production and improve the income of small farmers in the Terai region.

To date, the project has installed more than 10,000 shallow tube well irrigation systems and transformed the life of more than 35,000 poor households.

  • Crop yields have increased by more than 150%
  • Household surpluses doubled or tripled
  • Farmers' incomes increased from an average of Rs 6,654 to Rs 20,393.
  • 10,000 Water User Groups of 4 to 15 households were formed and their associations are now formally represented in all government-led planning and monitoring events.

CGISP has also helped promote important policy reforms such as the removal of the capital subsidy policy and the adoption of a new arsenic content standard for irrigation water.

Departing from traditional government programs driven by one agency, CGISP was designed as a ‘coalition of implementing partners', each with targeted responsibilities based on respective strengths.

The project has successfully involved a broad range of stakeholders including government departments, Nepal Rastra Bank, commercial banks, cooperatives, NGOs, farmers' associations and private sector service providers (pump sellers, drillers, and input suppliers).

It took three years to overcome initial feelings of mistrust and to reach the level of efficiency to deliver results of such a scale.

  • Specific features of the project explain the success of this multi-stakeholders model. Firstly, the leading government agency's role has transformed from being that of a ‘direct implementer' to a ‘facilitator and promoter'.
  • Secondly, the project has recognized the benefits derived from new collaborative public-private partnership models, whereby the government subcontracts locally based NGOs to deliver frontline services. Such subcontracts have been signed for social mobilization and agricultural programs, and training in capacity development. Likewise, the government has worked in partnership with credit institutions to deliver credit services to targeted communities.
  • Thirdly, the project has shifted away from top-down approaches where beneficiaries are merely passive recipients of services, and instead uses a community-based / demand-driven approach, involving poor farmers in all stages of the project life cycle. Mobilized farmers form user groups and receive a collateral-free credit directly in their accounts (a factor of empowerment in itself), and make the final decisions on shallow tube well technology, the choice of construction materials and suppliers, and the selection of drilling mechanics without external interference.

Similarly, farmers are offered a range of options and decide which crops and appropriate agricultural technology they wish to use.

Lastly, the project has been successful due to sound coordination between local bodies (local governments at the district and sub-district levels), CBOs, and other development organizations (national / international). Due to these impressive results, CGISP earned the ‘Best 2004 Management Award' from the Asian Development Bank Resident Mission in Nepal .

The Sahakarya Project reaches 44,755 households in 804 communities. This project distinguishes itself by having:

  • Three national networks as partners (the milk cooperative, forest users, saving and credit union), 37 NGOs in the districts, and 1,255 local communal organizations
  • A transparent and participatory approach that identifies priorities and grounds the initiatives
  • Concrete measures that integrate women and minorities
  • Economic activities that favor the poor and are based on the market
  • An approach based on dialogue and feed back with the political authorities.

In other words, the project distinguishes itself through its democratic approach towards development.

It is interesting to note that one of the partners ‘FECOFUN', the Federation of Forestry Groups of Nepal, has committed itself to a civic education project with our support. FECOFUN's network throughout all regions and its credibility as an actor in development make it a major agent of democratization in the country.

Challenges involved in relations between state and civil society

It would be wrong to now assume that relations between the state and civil society are ideal and that progress has been acquired.

The new Canadian government has chosen to reduce its support to the community sector, notably by stopping investment funds for cooperative economic ventures and grassroots literacy groups.

The newly elected government in Haiti feels that international cooperation favors NGOs and would rather see aid concentrated on reinforcing the state.

This leads me to suggest three ‘assessments' regarding challenges in relations between the state and civil society.

  • The international community's fixation on state institutions does not favor active citizenship and civil society. When a government is elected, international cooperation aligns to reinforce the state and ceases to support civil society. When the government is in crisis, we (international communities) return to civil society. Therefore, maintaining consistency with civil society remains a major challenge.
  • On the pretext of good governance and efficiency, governments favor national development programs; for allocating public funds, they prefer competitive mechanisms. Competition discourages civil society to be a partner. Aligning with national programs imposes a single model of development that excludes the alternative approaches and innovations of civil society.
  • Several governments adopt a policy to provide contracts to civil organizations, which implement local-level services to the population. Civil society is then utilized to implement national programs at lower cost, however its role regarding citizen participation and dialogue on policies is not recognized.

The Paris Declaration on principles of efficient delivery of international aid

The Paris Declaration on the principles of international aid effectiveness is the perfect illustration of the challenges faced by civil society.

Ninety-three signatory countries are committed to respect the following five principles:

  • Any country receiving aid is responsible for the development of that country;
  • The project aligns itself with the strategies, procedures, and institutions of the country;
  • Harmonization and simplification of aid mechanisms;
  • Results-based management;
  • Shared accountability with regards to the results.

NGOs do subscribe to these five principles of aid, however they remain concerned that the Paris Declaration does not mention the role of civil society; the focus is on governments. We will not be able to increase aid efficiency unless we take into account all the actors involved in development. Development is a process of social transformation resulting from contributions from all sectors of society.

Civil society plays several crucial roles that we must recognize and reinforce. While the Canadian Council for International Cooperation (CCCI) and CIDA worked together on the topic of partnerships, they concluded that through civil society, citizens are able to participate and make their voices heard in an organized and independent way.

A strong civil society contributes to democracy by stimulating the debate on public policies, protecting civil rights, and keeping watch on the government's performance. Like others, CECI believes that strictly adhering to the Paris Declaration's modalities is a threat to the contribution that civil society brings to democratic development.

The Paris Declaration presupposes that we have reached a consensus with regards to the development model. The model does not recognize the diversity of the actors and the power relations at play in countries. In several countries, civil society feels excluded from the decision-making process and is not willing to align itself with plans that lack legitimacy.

A single model of development poses some risks, as was the case with reference to structural adjustments. It is in civil society's nature to explore diverse ways of development and to generate alternatives as we did with CGISP and Sahakarya. These alternative models of development provide lessons on how to increase efficient delivery of aid because they are based on principals of local responsibility, partnerships, and developing capacity.

A recent CIDA evaluation of a dozen West African civil society organizations confirmed that when donors aligned themselves with the Paris Declaration's modalities, there was barely any opportunity to finance NGO programs for citizens because NGOs were perceived by governments as being mere service-providers to populations.

Fortunately, NGOs that remain cautious about the Paris Declaration are showing success. Due to our lobbying and efforts towards collaborating with others, we can be proud of the decisions made by the Canadian government and CIDA to turn things around and be the leaders in reassessing the principles of efficient delivery of aid, in order to recognize and emphasize civil society's role in development.

 Michel Chaurette

September 3, 2007

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