This conversation is closed. Start a new conversation
or join one »
Re-order the flow chart for Development. Create partnership by directly connecting donors to beneficiaries
Ownership inspires accountability. The question of ownership is answered when collaborative projects are developed by stakeholders. At stake for the donor: money, reputation, and the opportunity to feel good about service to others. At stake for the beneficiary: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Facilitation requires:
Gentle encouragement and ample room to maneuver through discomfort
Constant update to expectations
Freedom to engage, agree, disengage, and disagree
Equal representation and compassion
Bringing the voices of stakeholders together amplifies the message, passion, and accountability.
Laurens Rademakers 50+
Euhm, hi Lorraine.
Maybe I'm from another culture (I'm from Europe), but here we organise development very differently:
-a public fund (voted on and created by parliament) launches a public call for proposals -- say, governments pool $2 billion for projects that combat deforestation
-hundreds or thousands of development institutions (NGOs, research institutes, private sector participants, etc...) submit their proposals
-a jury of highly qualified experts (also recruited in transparent and accountable ways), then selects a handful of the very best projects that more or less guarantee positive outcomes and that strictly stick to the topic and its importance
This system ensures that (1) you are dealing with an important topic for development, as scientists and democratically elected decision-makers have agreed on the topic, (2) that funds are made public and beneficiaries thus held accountable by public scrutiny, (3) that you have measurable impacts which reflect the goals of the call.
We don't really see private donors and NGOs who use them as credible players in the field of development. They merely satisfy their own political, ideological or romantic agendas (both donor and recipient organisation). We don't see them as relevant.
I know this is very different in the Anglosaxon world. But we tend to view the European approach -- based on democracy, scientific scrutiny and transparency -- as much more serious - even as it is highly "mediated" (the contrary of what you propose).
R H 20+
Laurens Rademakers 50+
But on the scale of individual projects, the system guarantees success. Let me give you an example of projects I have managed myself:
-the funding agency selects your 3-year project - you're very happy
-now you get a first slice of money, covering 6 months
-there are clear objectives to be obtained during this phase
-evaluation comes, and if you have not obtained the objectives, you don't get your next slice of money
-depending on the funding agency, they may even ask you to give the money back
-now do this for all other slices of the project (in a 3 year project you'd have 6 evaluations)
-when you do finalize a project, success is very high, because each step has been evaluated
There are many project cycle management systems, and many monitoring and evaluation techniques.
In publicly-funded projects these are applied. In privately-funded NGO projects they're much less stringently applied, I think.