Harnessing Local Capacity:
U.S. Assistance and NGO in Pakistan
By Nadia Naviwala
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The motivating question for this Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Policy Analysis
Exercise (PAE) is: How can USAID spend the new $7.5 billion development assistance
package for Pakistan more effectively by engaging local NGOs and leaders?.
The challenge for USAID is to work with Locally Funded NGOs without converting
them into foreignfunded NGOs. This PAE suggests that USAID can achieve this by
following principles of “non-distortionary”
and “demand-driven” assistance...
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Dangerous Correlations
by Masooda Bano
[World Development, Vol 36, Issue 11, Nov 2008, Pgs 2297-2313]
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Based on a country-wide survey of 40 civil society organizations in Pakistan, this
paper demonstrates that the policy of channeling development aid through NGOs in
the South in the name of generating social capital and strengthening civil society
is having a reverse impact: organizations reliant on development aid have no
members. The survey indicates a strong correlation between receipt of international
aid and absence of members; it further demonstrates a strong correlation between
aid and rise in material aspirations among leaders of NGOs and lower organizational
performance. The paper raises possibility of a causal relation where aid leads to
material aspirations among leaders of NGOs, which in turn result in lower performance
and an inability to mobilize members...
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Other Comments:
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No other comments have been submitted...
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Response by:
Nadia Naviwala, Belfer IGA Fellow:
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The influx of $7.5 billion in development aid to
Pakistan over the next five years has raised a critical and contentious question:
how can local NGOs be best engaged?
“Dangerous Correlations” and “Harnessing Local Capacity” suggest
that the best NGOs in Pakistan are locally-initiated and locally-funded. However,
USAID is not structured to work with these organizations because aid amounts are
too large, reporting requirements too burdensome, and projects are too heavily USAID-
rather than locally-defined. To work with Pakistan's most effective local actors,
U.S. assistance must be “non-distortionary,” meaning that funding amounts and
processes should not distort NGO budgets and structures. U.S. assistance should
also be “demand-driven,” meaning more support for existing and locally-defined
work. In sum, USAID will need smaller, more flexible grants to support the
existing or self-defined work of reputable local actors.
Surprisingly, neither USAID nor Pakistan's top-performing NGOs seem inclined to
work with each other. USAID prefers to work through the Government of Pakistan to
achieve national scale impact, while the best NGOs are flush with millions of
dollars in local donations and find that USAID is not worth the trouble. However,
USAID needs local NGOs to achieve maximum effectiveness, and should pursue innovative
public-private partnerships with the government to achieve scale of impact.
More importantly, reputable, local NGOs can lend credibility and visibility to U.S.
efforts. This is badly needed given the controversy surrounding current and past U.S.
assistance, high mistrust of the government, and the saturation of NGOs in urban areas
where public opinion is formed.
“Harnessing Local Capacity” summarizes what is known about the composition
and funding of Pakistan's NGO sector, describes specific potential local partners, and
provides illustrative anecdotes from Pakistani NGO and civil society leaders. It also
describes the experience of The Citizens Foundation, likely Pakistan's largest
schools-building NGO, when it tried to apply for U.S. assistance.
There is one critical piece missing from this research: how can projects and
organizations that depend on aid perform better? “Dangerous Correlations” demonstrates
that foreign-funded NGOs are weaker organizationally than locally-funded ones, but does
not compare their project performance. “Harnessing Local Capacity” also suggests that
USAID can reliably channel a small portion of the $7.5 billion aid package to
locally-funded NGOs, with relatively high impact, but does not resolve how USAID can
fully define and fund work locally. If USAID wants to channel large amounts to local
organizations to fulfill its priorities, it should learn what distinguishes effective
aid-dependent NGOs from ineffective ones and build both local and its own capacity
accordingly.
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