Re-arranging governance in NGOs might just save their day

providing development assistance.
The late philanthropist, Jairos Jiri, had an amazing foresight and good heartedness, towards physically challenged people.
His unparalleled contributions to the people of Zimbabwe reduced tremendous hardships, among many African families.
Through his organisation, Jairos Jiri empowered thousands of disabled men and women through education, arts, crafts and life skills.
Businesses of the early generations’ non-governmental organisations, centred on charity, and were often referred to as charity or welfare organisations.
Their objectives included; elimination of poverty, promotion of health standards, easing the burdens of disability, and providing child welfare, among others. 
Along with demands of global development, the landscape of NGOs shifted balance, from charity towards advocacy, capacity, democracy, development, governance, power and politics.
New organisations came up to support governments in developing infrastructure, to provide clean drinking water, enhance gender and human rights, build  capacity of  civil society, protect the environment, advocate for human rights, democracy and governance, to fight HIV/Aids and many others.
This new set of players introduced new governance dynamics in funding, boards, stakeholders as well as objectives and beneficiaries. 
This shift attracted back to NGOs questions, for instance, on unelected power and governance.
What is the agenda?
Whose agenda?
Who are the funders?
Who are the stakeholders?
To whom are these organisations accountable?
How transparent are activities of these organisations?
Can performances of NGOs be measured?
Who monitors these performance results?
Who benefits?
Are these organisations sustainable?
This was basically to ask, who guards the guardian?
No doubt, NGOs the world over have received both respect and ridicule, within the societies they operate.
Some organisations have done more sterling work in their lines of business, than others.
As the global financial woes continue to eat into pockets of donors, funding is naturally becoming a serious challenge for local, regional and international NGOs.
Traditional donors are becoming more selective of what they donate their money into. Hence, sustainability of many organisations is now hanging by the thread due to reduced or non-funding.
Kenya had two consecutive rejections by the Global Fund to fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, flat-lined funding from the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief and an end to funding for paediatric ARVs from the Clinton HIV and Aids Initiative.
This significantly crippled Kenya’s ability to fund its fight against Aids, resulting in mass protests and calls for the government not to be too reliant on donor funding, for HIV and Aids programmes.
The Democratic Republic of Congo, Swaziland and most of the developing countries are also facing similar challenges.
Many local NGOs are struggling due to reduction in funding.
Zimbabwe’s foresight through the Aids Levy has turned out to be a blessing, despite massive criticisms at first, when the Levy was introduced.
Botswana government has been providing its own funding for most HIV and Aids intervention programmes.
Given the fact that, ingestion of ARVs is a life-long programme for infected persons; can NGOs alone be left to shoulder such a long-term responsibility, when their own funding is not guaranteed?
What is it that organisations, such as, the Oxfam, Save the Children, the Red Cross and some faith based NGOs, are doing right to have survived this long?  Dr Carolyn Woo, the new President and Chief Executive Officer of Catholic Relief Services (CRS), says that while everything in life has changed over the years, integrity and success remain interconnected.
Success stems from integrity and integrity gives life to success. Truthful commitment to original objectives and communities are the first keys to survival and continuity for NGOs. 
Keith Johnston who has served as chair of Oxfam International since 2007, recently alluded to the fact that Oxfam International values its history as a confederation, because of the importance that earlier Oxfam founders and supporters, placed on being community-based organisations grounded in their own countries.  NGOs with solid origins, which are community based, respond better to community needs and the resultant relations provide natural demand for their services.
In this way, organisations remain relevant and sustainable.
A solid relation with communities, which includes the ordinary citizens, private and the public sectors, is a key governance factor in mapping out stakeholders for NGOs. With the arrival of later generations of NGOs, during the 1980s to the present day, lack of respect, role clarity and trust among the NGOs, private sector and the government, have been predominant.
Dr Woo of the Catholic Relief Services dispelled this insecurity, when she said that in building long term access to funding and expertise in the areas of her organisation’s work, she will require the involvement of the private sector.
A private sector partnership with NGOs is a growing trend in many stakeholder mapping strategies.
NGOs can create value through private sector partnerships, by building upon existing micro-enterprise networks, leveraging local trust, and directly linking producers, processors, and consumers, while NGOs fulfill their social missions.
This naturally creates win-win opportunities for both the non governmental organisations and the corporate world.
For instance, rather than depend on imported commodities such as mosquito nets, relevant organisations could easily partner with local net manufacturers, resulting in more efficient logistical arrangements for the NGOs and increased business for the private sector.
In addition, such partnerships create more opportunities for the private sector to engage in corporate social responsibility and other social changes.
Over dependence on donor funding has always been a concern, both in NGOs capacity to balance stakeholder relations and to define accountability lines.
Dr David Brown and Mark Moore, of Hauser Centre for Non-profit Organisations at Harvard University, identified three key areas of accountability which the NGOs need to balance.
First is value represented by the NGO’s public purpose or mission, then support which incorporates political, legal and financial.
The third area of accountability is operational capacity shown by the NGOs ability to deliver program results.
However, demands for financial accountability and reporting by donors, have for a long time tended to obscure other areas of accountability, resulting in some NGOs just being irrelevant to local communities, as they paid more attention to donor requirements.
It is clear, that the entire donor aid architecture is changing and the pressure is mounting, more than ever before, to deliver results across the globe.
Aid effectiveness has been discussed at international platforms, starting with the Monterrey Consensus in 2002; through to the Paris High-Level Forum in 2005; then the Accra High-Level Forum in 2008 and the most recent Fourth High Level Forum in South Korea, in December 2011.
Aid effectiveness can be part achieved when NGOs deliver on development objectives. With this realisation, is that NGOs must partner with governments and the private sector.
Thus, there is a noticeable shift towards broader development effectiveness, which includes cooperation, policies and actors. Aid is recognised as only one element in the development system.
Governance architectures of NGOs must likewise, be re-arranged at local, regional and international levels, so as to refresh the sector from donor fatigue and aid ineffectiveness.
The governance frameworks must now move away from the narrow technocratic approach, to wider developmental view.
This means that NGO activities should not by-pass government systems. Board structures, policies and activities must reflect the trilateral cooperation with private and public sectors. As well, NGOs must deliver results and value for money for donors.
Beneficiaries must receive the promised assistance in good time.
This could entail doing away with; “founder’s syndrome”, quota based types of human resource recruitment policies — which favour certain groups, colour, nationality or tribe more than others. Some irresponsible operational behaviours including abuse of assets, should be curtailed. In order for the NGOs to perform, they have a right to an enabling environment.
However, there should be corresponding responsibility on their part, to comply with rules and regulations. Stop making a mockery of African governments and engage them with respect.
As much as possible, there should be consistent commitment to original objectives. Tendencies to run after fashionable donor funded activities should be a thing of the past, but rather be objective and principled. When donors, the government, the private sector and management develop trust, role clarity and effectiveness, development has no choice, but to happen.
Gertrude Takawira is a researcher and consultant in governance.