Introduction — Why IFAD works with Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs)

There is wide recognition that NGOs have a significant role to play in assisting the rural poor in breaking out of their condition of poverty. For IFAD, a major source of the strength of NGOs comes from their insistence on the empowerment of the poor as the key to the transformation of their livelihoods.

Empowerment can be as basic as enabling groups to improve their conditions through socio-economic development programmes or projects. But like IFAD many NGOs view empowerment as a much more encompassing process that enables people, particularly the poor, to confront and deal with the systems and structures that cause their socio-economic or political marginalization in the first place, with the implementation of projects being only one way. This more-embracing view of empowerment ensures that the poor build the capacity to advocate and protect their interests vis-à-vis government, the market or others actors in society. Empowerment therefore becomes essentially a transferring of power to the poor so that they can take control and change the structures and mechanisms that have caused their poverty situation and their condition of powerlessness.

From a practical point of view, NGOs have a number of distinct features that build a solid foundation for effective collaboration with IFAD in rural poverty reduction:

NGOs are often able to reach segments of rural populations that governments neglect or do not target as a priority. They often find their way into remote rural areas to identify the poorest segments of communities, deliberately seeking out those who are normally excluded from development processes because of their isolation, their lack of assets and their vulnerability.

NGOs engage the poor in capacity-building activities as a major component in their programmes and projects. Whether literacy programmes, agricultural extension or handling of credit, these activities lay the foundation for creating local groups and organizations that can then link with other groups having common interests, through federations, coalitions, networks, etc. Clearly, the ability of rural residents to advance their interests depends substantially on their success in sustaining local organizations beyond the immediate tasks that precipitated them.

NGOs are recognized for their role in developing innovative initiatives, programmes or components of programmes, approaches and mechanisms to address development problems and issues. Certainly, NGOs have been in the forefront of many innovations that have provided ideas and models replicated or adapted in other settings and situations. Many NGOs, with their generally flexible organizational structure and characteristics — organizational independence, participatory structures and willingness to spend time on dialogue and learning — are able to experiment on new institutional mechanisms and on different approaches that add value to projects.

NGOs possess extensive knowledge of local conditions. Sometimes the answer is not innovation , but rather a sober consideration of the normal needs of small enterprises (which is what the economic operations of the rural poor principally are) and serious attention to how these needs can be sustainably served. In this regard, NGOs with long-term experience in the target area can help provide baseline date and information on the local economy and infrastructure, the existence (or absence) of self-help organizations and the major obstacles to development.

NGOs deem active participation by the poor in their development process as an essential precondition to their empowerment — participation not only in the implementation of programmes or projects but also in their conception, design, monitoring and evaluation. Over the years, NGOs have developed highly effective participatory processes to increase the involvement of the poor in their own development processes — to analyse and to act upon their situations through their own eyes, and not as defined by external entities or development agencies. Many of these participatory tools and methodologies have gone on to be adopted by official development agencies and, increasingly, by governments.

It must be emphasized that in order to have a significant impact on poverty reduction, project interventions must have benefits that go beyond the scope of the project. The issue of sustainability is a key concern, and one that is shared by IFAD and NGOs alike. The empowerment of the rural poor and community mobilization are the keys to sustainability, and these processes can take extensive periods of time to be accomplished. This in itself is a reason for forging partnerships with NGOs: such organizations often have a history of working in the areas involved. Their relationships with local communities are broad and deep; and a strong sense of mutual trust and respect has already been established.

Given these distinct features and advantages, IFAD values NGOs as players in the fight against rural poverty and hunger. Indeed, the opportunities for collaborative action to substantially reduce the vulnerability of the poor are there; these opportunities must be exploited.