T h e R o l e o f N G O s i n B a s i c E d u c a t i o n i n A f r i c a

United States Agency for International Development,Bureau for Africa, Office of Sustainable Development

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Evolving Partnerships:The Role of NGOs in Basic

Education in Africa

Yolande Miller-GrandvauxMichel Welmond

Joy Wolf

July 2002

United States Agency for International DevelopmentBureau for Africa, Office of Sustainable Development

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This review was prepared by the Support for Analysis and Research in Africa (SARA) project. SARA is operated by theAcademy for Educational Development with subcontractors Tulane University, JHPIEGO, Morehouse School ofMedicine, and Population Reference Bureau. SARA is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development throughthe Bureau for Africa, Office of Sustainable Development (AFR/SD/HRD) under Contract AOT-C-00-99-00237-00.The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Agency forInternational Development.

For more information or copies, please contact:

Support for Analysis and Research in Africa (SARA) ProjectAcademy for Educational Development1875 Connecticut Avenue, NWWashington, DC 20009 USATel: 202-884-8000Fax: 202-884-8447E-mail: sara@aed.org

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Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................viAcronymns............................................................................................................................................ vii

Chapter I. Introduction ...................................................................................................... 1

The NGO Context ..................................................................................................................................2Methodology ...........................................................................................................................................4Organization of the Document ..............................................................................................................4

Chapter II. How Governments and Non-Governmental Organizations Interact ........... 6

A. Legitimacy: Government Rights and Responsibilities / NGO Responsibilities to Under-ServedCommunities .....................................................................................................................................61. What Governments Believe Are Their Rights and Responsibilities ........................................................... 62. How Governments Regulate NGOs ................................................................................................................ 73. What NGOs Believe Are Their Responsibilities ............................................................................................ 94. How NGOs Work in Communities ................................................................................................................. 95. How Government Regulation and NGO Community Focus Interact .................................................... 10

B. Capacity: Government Efficiency / NGO Effectiveness............................................................... 121. NGO Perceptions of Government Efficiency ............................................................................................ 122. How NGOs Supply Schooling ........................................................................................................................ 123. Government Perceptions of NGO Skills ..................................................................................................... 134. Government Standards ..................................................................................................................................... 135. How Government Standards and NGO Attempts to Supply Education Interact ................................. 14

C. Motivation: Government Suspicion of NGO Character / NGO Frustration with GovernmentLimitations ...................................................................................................................................... 161. Government Perceptions of NGO Character ............................................................................................. 162. How Governments Monitor NGOs .............................................................................................................. 173. NGO Frustration with Lack of Government Experimentation ............................................................... 184. NGO Experimentation .................................................................................................................................... 185. How Government Intervention and NGO Experimentation Interact .................................................... 20

D. Conclusions ..................................................................................................................................... 22

Chapter III. Education Policy and NGOs............................................................................ 23

A. Why Do NGOs Attempt to Affect Education Policy? .................................................................... 241. Changing Specific Policies ................................................................................................................................ 242. Changing the Policy Process ............................................................................................................................ 263. From Policy to Policy Process—A Necessary but Difficult Step ............................................................. 28

B. NGOs and Education Policy: The Perspective of Different Stakeholders ................................... 281. The Government Perspective .......................................................................................................................... 282. The Donor Perspective .................................................................................................................................... 303. The Local Stakeholder Perspective ................................................................................................................. 324. Teacher Unions .................................................................................................................................................. 325. The Stakeholder Environment for Policy Change ....................................................................................... 33

Table of Contents

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C. How Do NGOs Attempt to Influence Policy ................................................................................. 331. Policy Dialogue .................................................................................................................................................. 332. Coalition Building .............................................................................................................................................. 343. Using Donors to Leverage Policy ................................................................................................................... 354. Leveraging Change through Resources .......................................................................................................... 355. Providing an Example ...................................................................................................................................... 366. Partnership .......................................................................................................................................................... 377. Advocacy Campaign .......................................................................................................................................... 378. Selecting Effective Strategies Depends on Imagination ............................................................................. 38

D. Conclusions ..................................................................................................................................... 38

Chapter IV. NGOs and Donors: Who’s On First? ................................................................ 40

A. Different Kinds of Relationships ................................................................................................... 40B. Using NGOs to Implement Donor Programs: The Need for Results .......................................... 41

1. Doing What Governments Are Not Able to Do ......................................................................................... 422. Make Life Easier for Donors .......................................................................................................................... 433. Educational Innovation .................................................................................................................................... 434. When Democracy and Governance Meets Education ................................................................................ 445. International NGO vs. Local NGO............................................................................................................... 45

C. Using Donors to Implement NGO Programs: The Cost of Additional Resources...................... 451. The Cost of These Resources—Setting Agendas, Priorities, and Timelines .......................................... 462. The Cost of These Resources—Reporting and Other Administrative Tasks ........................................ 48

D. When NGOs Do Not Use Donor Resources ................................................................................. 48E. Conclusions ..................................................................................................................................... 49

Chapter V. How NGOs Influence Civil Society ................................................................. 51

A. Differing Perspectives on Strengthening Civil Society .................................................................. 51B. How NGOs Strengthen Civil Society in Communities ................................................................. 53

1. Changing Attitudes ............................................................................................................................................ 532. Creating Expectations ....................................................................................................................................... 533. Building Organizations ..................................................................................................................................... 544. Product or Process ............................................................................................................................................ 545. Does Community Strengthening “Trickle Up?”........................................................................................... 55

C. Strengthening Civil Society through Local NGOs ........................................................................ 561. Why Strengthen Local NGOs? ....................................................................................................................... 562. How Local NGOs Are Strengthened ............................................................................................................ 563. Creating NGO Networks ................................................................................................................................. 57

D. Strengthening Civil Society through Advocacy .............................................................................. 581. Why Advocacy? .................................................................................................................................................. 582. The Civil Society Coalition for Quality Education ...................................................................................... 59

E. Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 59

Chapter VI. Summary and Lessons Learned ..................................................................... 61

A. How Governments and Non-Governmental Organizations Interact ............................................ 61Lessons Learned ....................................................................................................................................................... 63

B. Education Policy and NGOs .......................................................................................................... 63Lessons Learned ....................................................................................................................................................... 65

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C. NGOs and Donors .......................................................................................................................... 66Lessons Learned ....................................................................................................................................................... 68

D. NGOs and Civil Society .................................................................................................................. 69Lessons Learned ....................................................................................................................................................... 70

E. NGOs and Education: A Continual Tension That Can Be Constructive or Destructive ............. 71

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Acknowledgements

This study was conducted across four African countries and many researchers, stakeholders and officialrepresentatives from education institutions and non-governmental organizations contributed to the research.We are grateful to the ministries of education in Ethiopia, Guinea, Malawi and Mali who welcomed theresearchers and were willing to share their thoughts on their sometimes controversial relationships withNGOs. We are indebted to all those who spoke with us, who provided invaluable insights on the crucialissues of the changing roles of NGOs in education in Africa.

We would like to thank the USAID missions in Ethiopia, Guinea, Malawi, and Mali for their interest in thestudy and the support they provided in the field. We are grateful to the staff of all the international NGOswe interviewed and who made documents available to us—World Education, Save the Children, Africare,CARE, Aide et Action, Plan International, ActionAid, Pact, World Learning, and Oxfam. For the generousamounts of time and insight they donated to this project, we thank: Kevin Mullally, Tassew Zewdie, andAberra Makonnen (USAID/Ethiopia), Dunham Rowley (World Learning/Ethiopia) and Leslie Mitchell(Pact/Ethiopia), Sarah Wright (USAID/Malawi), Simon Mawindo (CRECCOM/Malawi), and LesterNamathaka (Save the Children/Malawi), Andrea Yates (USAID/Mali), Jeff Ramin (USAID/Mali), BrehimaTounkara (ERNWACA/Mali), Alpha Bah (USAID/Guinea) and Natasha DeMarcken (USAID/Guinea),Billo Barry and Alhassane Balde. Outside of Africa, we thank David Archer (ActionAid), Jane Benbow(CARE), Michael Gibbons (Banyan Tree), Fred Woods (Save the Children), Nancy Devine (WorldEducation), and Joshua Muskin (World Learning).

The advisory group based in Washington, DC was crucial to the success of the project and we are indebtedto its members: Robert Prouty (World Bank), Suzanne Schnuttgen (UNESCO/Paris), Marcia Ellis (AED),Suzanne Prysor Jones (AED), Kay Freeman (USAID), Sharon Pauling (USAID).

Thank you to Renuka Bery at the SARA project at AED who was immensely helpful in editing the wholedocument.

Finally the study would not have been possible without the support of USAID Bureau for Africa’s educationunit and the SARA project at AED. We are first of all indebted to Kay Freeman of USAID/Bureau forAfrica for her on-going support throughout the year-long implementation of the research and for herappreciation of the changing education landscape in Africa. The SARA project and the American Institutesfor Research gave us the resources needed to carry out the study.

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Acronymns

AED Academy for Educational Development

ANFEAE Adult and Non-formal Education Association of Ethiopia

BEN Basic Education Network

BRAC Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee

CONGOMA Council for Non-Government Organizations

CRECCOM Centre for Creative Community Mobilization

DPPC Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission

EFA Education For All

GONGO Government non-governmental organizations

GTZ Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (German Agency for TechnicalCooperation)

INGO International non-governmental organization

MOE Ministry of Education

MOJ Ministry of Justice

NGO Non-governmental organization

PRODEC Programme Décennel de développement de l’Education (Ten-year EducationalDevelopment Program)

PTA Parent-Teacher Association

SARA Support for Analysis and Research in Africa project

S.O. Strategic Objective

SNNP Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples, State of

TDA Tigray Development Association

TUM Teachers Union of Malawi

UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund

USAID United States Agency for International Development

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1

During the last decade non-governmentalorganizations (NGOs) have been increasingly tappedto implement development programs. In recentyears, growing amounts of development resourceshave been channeled to and through NGOs in allsectors. And, in turn, NGOs working to alleviatepoverty, improve social welfare, and develop civilsociety have become more dependent oninternational donors, leading to an explosive growthin local NGOs in many countries.

This trend can also be found in the education sector,where most major donor agencies have increased theresources allocated through NGOs to implementtheir education programs. More and more, donorsuse international and local NGOs for educationservice-delivery in both formal and non-formalcontexts. Most countries in Africa with a donor-supported program for the education sector haveNGOs playing a significant implementing role.

NGOs have not limited their education activities toservice-delivery. They are also involved in lobbyingand advocating for educational reform, workingindividually and through networks to participate inpolicy dialogue in many African countries. In thecontext of decentralization in Africa, NGOs arecreating new spaces for civil society involvement ineducation. Recent Education For All (EFA) meetingsin Johannesburg and Dakar recognized the vital roleof NGOs in promoting universal and equitablequality of education. The EFA discussions haveheralded NGOs’ new roles as alternative educationproviders, innovators, advocates, and policy dialoguepartners. And donors have begun to engage intechnical and institutional capacity-building programsfor local NGOs.

What explains this shift to an increasing presence ofNGOs in the education sector? A myriad ofjustifications and assumptions can be foundthroughout the development literature as to whyNGOs should play a growing role in the education

sector, many that mirror the argument to increase therole of NGOs more generally. NGOs work at the“community-level,” thus affecting social changewhere others cannot; NGOs can represent andcatalyze “civil society,” an element many considercritical for sustainability and democratization; andNGOs are simply more “efficient” than otherpartners.

Trying to discern whether NGO interventions in theeducation sector have lived up to expectations is acomplex task and is more theoretical than practical.This paper responds to a more modest, butultimately more useful concern. It presents acomprehensive portrayal of how NGOs have in factintervened in the education sector, how theirpresence and relationships with governments anddonor partners evolved, what implications theirpresence has caused for educational systems and civilsociety, and which contextual factors have affectedNGOs’ interventions. Four major domains ofNGOs’ involvement in the education sector areanalyzed in this study: the relationship betweenNGOs and government; the role of NGOs ineducation policy; the relationship between NGOsand donors; and the influence of NGOs on civilsociety.

The lessons learned from this study are meant toinform those involved in educational development:ministries of education, NGOs, donors and civilsociety representatives. Why provide moreinformation? After all, most of these actors seem toknow what each other does in the field. In fact, theyall tell stories of friction and frustration as well astremendous successes. Often, however, each party’sinterpretation of each other’s intentions andinterventions radically differ. Dynamic interactionshave taken place over the years and lessons can nowbe learned on the various roles and interpretationsof NGOs and their partners. These interactions andtheir impact were analyzed across four Africancountries: Ethiopia, Guinea, Malawi, and Mali.

Chapter I. Introduction

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Developing an understanding of this evolvingphenomenon will inform donors, USAID missions,and host governments as they design and manageNGO-implemented education programs; it will alsoassist NGOs themselves to possess a betterunderstanding of the opportunities and constraintsof working in education—based on the actualexperience of NGOs in the field.

This study was intended to respond to educationpartners’ programmatic needs with a particular focuson selected countries. In addition to this comparativeanalysis across the four countries, four “stand-alone”country-specific studies focusing on the role ofNGOs in Ethiopia, Guinea, Malawi, and Mali wereproduced by African researchers and Africanresearch institutions in collaboration with theUSAID country missions. A fifth one is scheduled totake place in South Africa. Advisory groups wereformed in two countries before the study wasconducted, to identify partners’ needs and concernsand to guide the research so that the lessons learnedwould indeed provide an answer to the specificquestions raised on the role of NGOs in basiceducation. The advisory groups in Mali and Guineawere composed of donors, international and localNGOs, national representatives of parent-teacherorganizations and teacher unions, and the ministryof education. They met before and after the studywas conducted and they shared and discussed thefindings together. An advisory group was alsoformed in Washington, DC. This group wascomposed of representatives of major donoragencies, UNESCO, and international NGOs, andmet at the beginning and at the end of the process inJanuary 2001 and January 2002. In all groups, thefindings of the study and the lessons learned werediscussed and a healthy dialogue on partnershipsemerged.

Fundamentally, the question is no longer whetherNGOs should play a role in the education sector, buthow NGOs are most likely to fulfill their promise toimprove the quality, equity, accountability, andpertinence of education in African countries.

The NGO Context

Across the four countries, two key variables appearto have had the greatest affect on the specificevolution of NGO programs in the education sector.First, are the objectives and strategies of the NGOsthemselves. Second, each country provides a uniquecombination of social and political realities that haveshaped what NGOs can do. These two factorscombine to shape the similarities and differences inthe NGO stories told here.

On one level, NGO programs in the educationsector are quite similar across the four countries.Most are working at the community level to mobilizeparents and other local non-government actors toimprove conditions and accountability at schoollevels. Similar participatory methodologies are usedby most of the NGOs surveyed by this study,though some notable exceptions are discussed atdifferent points within the paper. On another level,however, NGO programs differ substantially interms of their overall strategies and objectives. Somefocus on providing services where communities lackaccess while others have more grandiose schemes.

A final and very important element that defines thenature of NGO involvement in education is theparticular blend of international and national NGOsfound within any particular country and program.Both types of NGOs constitute the field of studyfor this paper. However, international NGOs havetaken up the greatest part of our discussion becausethey tend to define, more than national ones, thekind of NGO programs that exist within acountry—a result of the much larger resource baseon which many national NGOs rely. But alsointernational NGO programs tend to influence oneanother across countries. Many programs in thecountries chosen for this study are often quite similarand their design has been influenced by the lessonslearned in previous programs.

The differences between the four countries, in termsof political, social and economic realities, explain theevolving path of NGO development. The degree ofdemocratic tradition, of political and social stability,and of economic growth have all shaped whatNGOs can and cannot do in a particular country.

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Interestingly, a very important factor defining therelationships between NGOs and different actorswithin a country has simply been the amount of timethat NGOs have been involved in the educationsector. The following paragraphs provide a briefdescription of some salient political features of thefour countries included in this study.

Ethiopia is a country fiercely proud of its richhistory, language, art and the fact that it is the onlyAfrican nation that was never colonized. Yet thecountry’s recent history has been brutal: civil war inthe 1970s, sustained armed conflict until 1991 andagain in the late 1990s, drought, and mass famine in1973 and 1984 that affected millions and claimedhundreds of thousands of lives. Throughout the1970s and 1980s, Ethiopia was a centrally plannedeconomy and virtually all human activity wascontrolled by the state. Beginning in 1991, a newgovernment reorganized the country into nineethnically-based regions, which have some autonomybut fundamentally depend on the centralgovernment’s budget allocation. Overall, while theentire political and administrative machinery is stillcontrolled by one single party and civil society is veryweak, the idea of democracy and greater opennesshas expanded the space for NGO activities. Underthe previous government, NGO involvement wasalmost non-existent and strictly limited to reliefactivities. But, in recent years, the number ofregistered NGOs in Ethiopia has grown rapidly toapproximately 250, half of which are local NGOs. Inthe past three years, the number of NGOs involvedin support to the education system has increasedsharply as have NGO activities. But the models ofthe past are difficult to overcome and Ethiopia is stillcharacterized by the influence and dominance of thestate over virtually all aspects of society, includingNGO programs.

The Republic of Guinea has spent the greater partof its history since independence under one of themost oppressive regimes on the continent. TheSekou Touré reign was infamous for its brutality, itscomplete destruction of social organization and“civil society,” and its isolation. When Guinea finallyemerged after the death of Sékou Touré in the mid-1980s, it had one of the least developed educationsystems on the continent. National NGOs were not

only non-existent but almost any expression of civilsociety was unthinkable. Considerable donor andinternational NGO resources have since beenmobilized to help develop the education system.Local NGOs, however, have been slow to participatein the education sector, until the World Bank PrimaryEducation project began to contract all its schoolconstruction activity through these organizations.Since the 1990s, more than 700 classrooms havebeen built with support from these nascent localorganizations. Guinea presents a case where alandscape virtually devoid of civil society quicklyfilled up with local NGO activity in the educationsector because of donor financing.

Malawi achieved independence from Britain in 1964under auspicious circumstances. Within weeks ofindependence however, Prime Minister Bandadismissed his rivals and began a process ofrepression. From the early 1970s to 1994, Banda heldtotal political control, dispensing patronage andselecting and dismissing members of parliament andministries at will. In 1993, all international assistanceto Malawi was in danger of being discontinued as thedonor community pressured the government to stophuman rights abuses. The first national electionswere held in 1994 and a new government took officeon a platform of free primary education. Aftereliminating school fees, access to education increaseddramatically, although direct and indirect costs ofschooling continue to be prohibitive for the poorestfamilies and the expansion of primary education isgenerally believed to have occurred at the expense ofquality. Malawi has a long history of NGOinvolvement in education through religious educationagencies that have directly provided educationthroughout the country. Other than the religiousNGOs, very few NGOs have supported activities ineducation, in part due to the constraints placed uponthem by the government. The history of tight statecontrol lingers in government restraints over NGOprograms.

The Republic of Mali has a paradoxical positionon the African continent. It is one of the poorestAfrican countries, close to the bottom of almostevery human development index. Until the end ofthe 1990s, it had one of the lowest primaryenrollment rates in the world. However, Mali has a

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vibrant civil society with promising experiments indemocratization. NGOs are numerous, dynamic, wellorganized, and represent a well-established voice inpolitics and society. Also, and with particularrelevance to this study, Mali is the home of thecommunity school. Although certainly not the firstplace that community schools have been tried, theMalian experience gained international notorietyduring the 1990s as a viable, albeit controversial,alternative to state-financed education. Key to thesuccess (and controversy) of Malian communityschools is the support they have received frominternational NGOs such as Save the Children,World Education, and others in partnership withlocal NGOs. Among the cases presented here,NGOs in Mali have had the most influence in thedevelopment of the education sector during the1990s.

Methodology

This paper is based on comparative case studies ofthe evolving role of NGOs in the education sector.Four countries were selected for this analysis:Ethiopia, Guinea, Malawi, and Mali. In all fourcountries, USAID has long-standing and substantialeducation programs. Also in all four countries,NGOs operate within the education system, manywith USAID support.

Two types of information were collected. First,available documents describing and evaluating donorand NGO programs were reviewed in each country.Second, semi-structured interviews with key personsat both national and regional levels using identicalprotocols were conducted in each country. Theresearchers interviewed representatives of nationaland international NGOs, donors, government andrelevant civil society organizations. Because obtaininga representative sample was difficult, the researchersdid not interview stakeholders at local levels;however, they did conduct numerous field visits toproject sites to gain a fuller understanding of thekinds of interventions in place.

In each country, the researchers examined the role ofinternational and national NGOs and relationshipsthey have developed with government, donors, policymakers, and civil society and with each other.

Comparing and contrasting the opinions of differentactors on the same phenomenon in specific countrieswas a special interest. By capturing the range ofperspectives and experiences, these interviews withkey actors at different levels of the system identifycomplex relationships and contradictions, and helpdevelop a more nuanced understanding of theimpact of NGOs on the education system. Thisapproach tries to convey the phenomenon of NGOsfrom the perspective of those who have beenintimately involved with their evolution.

The objective of this study, however, is not to“measure impact.” This study does not advocate thatone type of NGO program is more “sustainable” orcreates more “achievement” or “equity.” Too muchvariation exists among the different programs interms of objectives, methodologies, and contexts.Rather the study examines the types of relationshipsthat typically evolved as NGOs establish andimplement their programs, and how theserelationships have interacted with overall programimplementation.

Organization of the Document

This study focuses on four key themes that providethe basis of the four chapters. Chapter Two reflectson the evolving relationship between governmentand NGOs in the education sector. It examines theimpact of government attitudes about NGOs andNGOs’ attitudes about government.

Chapter Three examines a particular kind of NGO/government relationship—when NGOs try to shapeeducation policy. This chapter looks at why and howNGOs try to do this and what the effects and theimplications for education programs have been aswell as the evolution of education systems.

Chapter Four explores the specific relationshipbetween donors and NGOs in the education sector:why and how donors have turned to NGOs, why andhow NGOs have turned to donors, and what bothactors have learned from this experience.

Chapter Five turns to the relationship that existsbetween NGOs and “civil society” or non-governmental stakeholders. As mentioned above,

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almost all the NGOs have worked at the communitylevel with local actors. This chapter discussed thenature of this relationship and how it has evolved inthe four countries studied.

Chapter Six provides an overview of the principalfindings, conclusions and recommendations that wehope will lead to more successful educationprograms and reform efforts on the Africancontinent.

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In this chapter, we isolated three areas ofgovernment-NGO interaction that emerged in allfour countries as central to government relationshipswith NGOs. Each arena is presented as a dynamicmodel, set in motion by the beliefs and attitudesboth governments and NGOs bring to therelationship and the concrete actions each has takento implement these assumptions. We hope thisanalysis will guide governments, NGOs, and donorsto understand what factors need to be taken intoconsideration to navigate the dynamics in their owncountries. This chapter focuses on why governmentsand NGOs do what they do, how they do it, andwhat types of interaction have developed as a result.

Our framework for understanding NGO-government interaction is based on the contrastingperceptions of responsibilities, capacities, andmotivations expressed by government and NGOpersonnel. The structure of the chapter is dividedinto three major sections, each of which begins witha graphic model. Each model presents: 1) a set ofprevalent government and NGO beliefs aboutthemselves and the other; 2) reappearing governmentand NGO actions into which these beliefs aretranslated; and 3) types of interrelationshipsfrequently emerging from those beliefs and acts.Each section focuses on a different type of tension:Section A explores differing government and NGOassumptions about what their rights andresponsibilities are; Section B focuses on differingnotions of one another’s capacity to provideadequate educational services; and Section C looks atthe differing perceptions of what motivates andlimits the educational activities each undertakes.

While similar assumptions and actions were generallyfound in most of the four countries, governmentand the NGOs range in ability to implement theiragenda in different contexts. The examples in eachof the three sections were selected to demonstratethat range of beliefs and subsequent actions. Eachsection concludes with examples of productive

interaction that have emerged in different countriesout of specific types of tension. We believe thatthese dynamics of government-NGO interactionswill not be “resolved” or disappear; they are areas oftension that continually define and redefinegovernment-NGO relationships.

A. Legitimacy: Government Rights andResponsibilities / NGO Responsibilities toUnder-Served Communities

This section explores the tensions betweengovernment assumptions about its rights andresponsibilities and NGO beliefs about itsresponsibility to intervene where governments fail tomeet these obligations. Each acts according to aperception of what they should be doing, whichmolds NGO roles as well as the interactions betweenNGOs and government.

1. What Governments Believe Are TheirRights and Responsibilities

Governments generally believe that it is theirlegitimate right and responsibility to controleverything that happens in their country. Althoughgovernment personnel often talk about partnershipswith NGOs, they believe that the relationship shouldbe government regulating NGOs. Education is, inpart, about social and political control, sogovernment reluctance to allow NGOs to work inthis field is understandable. As a consequence, whenNGOs work in this sector, they inevitably requiresome sort of accommodation with government. Theamount of space allowed to NGOs in any givencountry is determined by political considerations aswell as by any calculation of the contribution ofNGOs to economic and social development. Thedegree to which governments do or do not actuallyregulate NGOs depends upon their politics,economic situation, and historical relationship withNGOs. Among the four study countries a wide rangeexists in the degree of government determination

Chapter II. How Governments and Non-GovernmentalOrganizations Interact

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over NGOs and their activities. In Mali, thegovernment talks of its partnerships with NGOs,engages in joint educational planning with NGOs,and seldom exercises any limiting power over NGOprograms. In Ethiopia, the government hasderegistered, dissolved, or prevented NGOs fromcontinuing their activities.1 Many governmentofficials interviewed for this study expressedconsiderable vehemence when discussingcircumstances when NGOs representatives ignoredtheir authority or overstepped perceived boundaries.Whatever the reason government officials convey forwanting to control NGO activity in the educationsector, in each country in our study a sustainedtension exists over the legitimacy of NGOinterventions.

2. How Governments Regulate NGOs

License. Although differences exist in degree andtechniques, all four governments attempt to controlNGO activities. NGOs are required to register in allfour countries. In Mali, the government mustcomplete an NGO’s registration within three monthsfrom the time of application or the NGO isautomatically registered. In Malawi, the process ofregistration can be slow, difficult and expensive. InEthiopia, every NGO interviewed expressed howdifficult it was to register. NGOs register through thenational Disaster Prevention and PreparednessCommission (DPPC), because NGOs previouslyworked in emergency disaster relief. The process iscomplex and not transparent. First, the NGO isassigned to a geographic area. Then the NGO mustget the local education office to write supporting theproposed activities. The NGO must then sign anagreement with the DPPC in Addis Ababa, whichcan require it to do things such as conduct a base linesurvey or get a letter from a donor describingsupport. Registration with DPPC is for three years,but NGOs must also register with the Ministry ofJustice (MOJ), which lasts for only one year. TheMOJ has been known to require members of theNGO’s board be acceptable to them. Theregistration route is so slow and expensive, due tothe need to travel and for support staff, that local

NGOs often cannot survive.2 The registrationprocess gives international NGOs an advantage overlocal NGOs because they often operate undermemoranda of agreement with donors and theministry, which allows them to avoid registering.International NGOs also generally find it easier toregister because they have more money behind themand there is not the suspicion that they are tied tolocal politics. Since the Ministry of Education(MOE) does not review NGO plans as part of theregistration process, it is often unaware of educationactivities being undertaken by NGOs, leading tocomplaints from both government and NGOs aboutthe lack of a mechanism for coherent planning.

Being a registered NGO is very important for anorganization to have access to donor, governmentand even community resources. In Guinea, forexample, only registered NGOs can bid on WorldBank school construction contracts. Although therequirements for registration are not particularlystringent compared to those in Ethiopia, they stillfavor larger, better established organizations withgood connections in the capital.

Governments also enact laws that either deliberatelyor inadvertently limit NGO freedom of action. Thegovernment in Malawi had allowed church NGOs towork in education for decades, but, withdemocratization in 1994, international NGOs andlocal NGOs began to emerge. As one governmentofficial said, “now there is a need to controlthem…closer consultation is needed so that theministry is fully aware of what is happening on theground.” This year Malawi’s Parliament passed a newNon-Governmental Organizations Act, which willcreate a NGO Registration Board, with the membersselected by the government, to oversee NGOactivities. A precondition for NGO registration willbe that the NGO must be a member of agovernment-sponsored umbrella organization andhave letters of permission from the appropriateministry, indicating the sectors in which the NGOwill be allowed to operate. Each year, NGOs willhave to account for all activities to the Board and willbe audited. NGOs have accused the government of

1 In 1995, the government of Ethiopia nullified 45 NGOs that had been registered because they were said not to have begun theiractivities. In early 2001, 12 NGOs, both international and local, were “deregistered” for not completing everything in their plans andbecoming involved in income generation activities.2 For example, of the 110 NGOs that began the registration process in the SNNP region during the late 1990s, only 80 completed theprocess.

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imposing unnecessary restrictions on them throughthis law, lobbying both Parliament and the presidentto prevent it from being passed.

Not all laws that constrain NGO programs wereinitially written for that purpose, but they can act todo so until policy change occurs. In Ethiopia, eachregion receives a general, block grant type of fundingfrom the central government. In an effort topromote equity among the regions, any moneybrought into one region by an NGO is supposed tobe subtracted from the total amount sent to thatregion by the government. Obviously, regionalgovernments are not eager to give up funding for anNGO to set up an activity within their region. Oneregional government prevented a World Learningprogram from starting for almost a year; it onlybegan after USAID established an “incentive fund”to help offset the loss in national funding which theregion would suffer. Although this policy continuesto exist, over the last few years, as acceptance forNGOs has grown, it has tended to be increasinglyoverlooked.

Area of Operation. Although governments in allfour countries want to control education activities,they have realized that they cannot do everythingthemselves. Aside from the more philosophicalconcerns regarding the role of government in societyand in the education sector, more pragmaticconstraints exist—governments do not have theresources necessary to deliver the depth or scope ofeducation coverage mandated. A number ofgovernment officials indicated that one reason theNGOs were “allowed” to function in certain regionsor take on certain educational activities was becausegovernment could not because of structuraladjustment and/or economic crisis. Mostgovernments find it hard to admit that they cannotfill all the gaps. One way governments can feel thatthey are meeting their responsibilities and yet letNGOs take on some education burdens is for thegovernment to limit NGO programs by directingwhere, geographically, and what type of activitiesNGOs can operate. For example, the licensingprocess in Ethiopia tightly controls the district inwhich each NGO has permission to work. WhenSave the Children first began its community schoolprogram in Mali, it was told by the government to set

up its pilot schools on the periphery of the country,far away from centers of power and in regions thatare difficult and expensive for the government toreach.

The governments in all four countries expressedpreferences for NGO involvement in education-related activities not generally considered to be partof government responsibility. Most educationalsystems run from the central MOE, through regionaland district offices, to the school, but do not extendto the community beyond the school.3 Consequently,NGOs are almost always encouraged to engage insocial mobilization or “sensitization” programs, anactivity usually beyond the current scope ofgovernment responsibility. Many, and possibly most,NGO programs in education have been designed tosupport formal education through communitymobilization or school committee and PTA training.Because governments tend to focus on broaderaccess to education, they are also usually more willingto let NGOs grapple with issues such as girls’education and quality of education.

Although “ceding” certain domains of activity toNGOs is often pragmatic, interviewees insist thatgovernment must decide where and how NGOs areallowed to function. Government officials wereannoyed when they felt NGOs trespassedgeographically or technically on their program.Although government is often obliged to allowNGOs to play a certain role, officials wished todetermine where and how the NGO could work.

Standards. Rather than keeping NGOs out of thecountry, the sector, or a certain type of activity,governments often control NGOs throughadherence to educational standards. Becausestandards are often subject to interpretation andchange, and may or may not be applied, they aredifficult for NGOs to circumvent. NGOs ineducation most often encounter governmentstandards in community school activities. However,government standards for teacher recruitment andteacher training, and for selecting the schools toreceive support, have influenced NGO programs.The domains where NGOs are most constrained bythe government are meeting the standards for schoolconstruction, curricula, teacher qualifications, and,

3 This has not always been the case. Until the 1980s, many governments saw working with communities to increase their support foreducation as part of their role.

9

less frequently, school committee or parentorganization membership. The issues of standardswill be discussed more completely in the nextsection.

3. What NGOs Believe Are TheirResponsibilities

Most international and local NGOs work close tocommunities, especially disadvantaged communities,because that is where they see the most need fortheir assistance. The institutional and financialcapacity of African governments can no longer servethe most difficult to reach areas of the countries. Asa consequence, NGOs have often established theirprograms in those parts of the country wheregovernment cannot or will not supply services.NGOs believe that they have a legitimate right tointervene where governments have failed to meettheir commitments to communities.

In addition, international NGOs seek to empowercommunities as a way to strengthen them and toimprove access to and quality of education. ManyNGOs working in education today began throughintegrated community development programs, whichgenerally included a literacy component, orsponsorship of children. Working in adult literacyoften led them to work with out-of-school childrenin the same communities. Another route manyNGOs have followed into the education sector hasbeen through social mobilization, an area whereNGOs have worked since the 1960s. The basic goalof strengthening communities—to assist them tosecure needed resources and to participate in the civilsociety of their country—continues to influence thetypes of programs that NGOs implement ineducation. NGOs focus most of their activities inunderserved communities not only because this is anarea where they are less likely to compete withgovernment, but also because it is where they believethey should be operating. What has come to definetheir niche in the education sector is partly theproduct of where they have seen an absence ofgovernment.

4. How NGOs Work in Communities

Resources. Most NGOs began working incommunities to supply resources, sometimes in theform of disaster relief. Among the NGOs involvedin education activities in the countries studied, allbring resources with them to the communities withinwhich they work. The resources are most apparent inthe case of community schools, where NGOs mightsupply concrete things such as tin roofs and teachersalaries. Local NGOs and their proximity to acommunity serve as a conduit through whichresources from donor/international NGO-supported programs can flow to the community. Inall cases, NGOs bring their skills and experience intocommunities, shaping experiences of change in waysthat can provide models for future communityactivities.

Community Participation. For governments,community participation in education most oftenmeans supplying resources, both funding and labor,to support local schooling. The World Bank programin Guinea shows how NGOs have mobilizedcommunities to provide counterpart funds forschool construction grants. Initially mostmobilization or sensitization campaigns in educationfocused on encouraging parents to provide resourcesto create and support educational needs and to sendtheir children, especially girls, to school. For example,Plan Guinea, an affiliate of Plan International, hassupported the girls education unit of the MOEthrough several sensitization campaigns at bothnational and local levels. Increasingly NGOmobilization of communities has expanded to otherareas, such as assisting communities to assumeresponsibility for improving school quality. Themethodologies for working in a community have alsobegun to change, moving increasingly away fromtelling the members of the community what theyshould do, to involving them in decision-makingactivities. More participatory approaches, whichinclude facilitating community discussions andnegotiations to decide what their problems are, howthey might be solved, and how to implement thosesolutions, are being used by NGOs, in part becausethey better support the double goal of mostNGOs—improving education and strengtheningcivil society.4 In Malawi, the Centre for Creative

4 Their role in strengthening civil society will be discussed more completely in Chapter V.

10

Community Mobilization (CRECCOM) works withcommunities using a wide range of participatorytechniques. CRECCOM began working in girls’education and has expanded its activities toeducation quality and HIV/AIDS.

Capacity Building. NGOs also assist in creating ortraining school committees and/or parent-teacherassociations (PTAs), organizations through whichcommunities can gain control of their own schools.In Mali, World Education’s program is based on twohypotheses. First, it asserts that it can transform thenature of parents’ associations in Mali to be moreparticipatory, democratic, accountable, and capableof representing the interests of parents’ vis-à-vis theeducation system. Second, it claims that changing thequality of these associations will have a positiveimpact on school access, quality, and equity. InGuinea, a similar World Education program onlyworks with the parents’ associations of governmentschools. In Ethiopia, World Learning and TigrayDevelopment Association have implementedprograms to support improvement in educationalquality, girls’ participation, and communityinvolvement through building the capacity andmotivation of school management committees.

5. How Government Regulation andNGO Community Focus Interact

Government and NGOs can hold compatible beliefs.For example, government would like NGOs to workwith marginal populations or on the periphery of thesociety; this is just where NGOs believe that theyshould be operating. Government would like NGOsto engage in activities that fall outside the educationaldomain; most NGOs believe that one of theirprimary goals should be to assist and strengthencommunities. Programs that fit within these desiresmake everyone happy. However, as the followingexamples show, the impacts of such programsremain on the edges of the education systems andare unlikely to create changes in the systemsthemselves.

Government-Controlled NGO Activities. In 1994,upon urging from the World Bank, the governmentof Guinea adopted a new policy for classroomconstruction. Rather than relying on local

entrepreneurs, the Guinean government decided tocontract with local NGOs. The Guineans and theWorld Bank had several reasons for shiftingstrategies. First, using local entrepreneurs proved tobe costly and unreliable. The government and theWorld Bank believed that local NGOs were moreaccountable and efficient. Local NGOs were alsothought to be capable of “mobilizing communityparticipation” in school construction. Mobilizationhas meant that communities provide funding or in-kind resources to the construction efforts. In manycases, communities also received some sort oftraining, in school maintenance for example. Also, aspart of the “mobilization” process, NGOssupported local publicity campaigns to promote theimportance of schooling and the advantages tocontributing to the program. This approach has beenconsidered a resounding success by government anddonors. The government’s objectives regarding thisprogram were realized—more and better schoolswere established with the same resources. In fact, theWorld Bank project exceeded its construction targetby more than 50 percent. The local NGOs that havecontracted with government formed a clear, well-defined relationship with the government and fewopportunities or reasons exist for conflict,competition, or misunderstanding.

NGO Activities in Communities and Deferenceto Government. In Malawi, CRECCOM is a localNGO that grew out of a USAID education project.Today the MOE has only good things to say andholds it up as an example of what an NGO shouldbe. One reason lies in how CRECCOM has definedits work. CRECCOM believes that what it offers isits methodology for working in communities.Although CRECCOM’s methodology was developedaround the issue of girls’ education, it was laterapplied to quality of education issues. More recently,CRECCOM has used the same community socialmobilization techniques to address issues of HIV/AIDS and worked directly for the Ministry ofForestry and Tourism to assist in resolving tensionsaround poaching at a national game park. Working tochange attitudes in communities is the activity inwhich government officials generally believe NGOsshould be involved. In addition to engaging in agovernment-approved type of NGO activity,CRECCOM has developed a deferential style for

11

interacting with the government that heads offconflict and competition. Its director, who worked inthe MOE for 28 years, listed some of the strategiesCRECCOM has used to build this acceptance. Hesaid “Never go to the government in the stance ofknowing more than they do…Let them take yourideas…Bend your work to complement what thegovernment is doing…Always invite the governmentto see what you are doing. Invite the government tomonitor your programs…Keep allowances lowerthan those for government employees so as not to beseen as wasteful…Offer frequent briefing seminars,inviting the government and donors…Use a greatdeal of publicity.”

Partnerships. The term “partnership” has becomean increasingly popular term in NGO-governmentrelations. It signifies an admission that, whateverNGOs and governments believe their responsibilitiesto be, they do need to work together. In Guinea, theterm partnership is used regularly by Aide et Actionand Plan International to signify a realization thattheir programs must provide technical and otherresources to government to bolster its participationin their programs. Although the notion ofpartnership reflects a certain admission of mutual

dependence, it does not signal an end to tension.“Partnership” in the discourse and actions ofgovernment officials often means (re)gaining controlfor the government and often a compromise in whatNGOs wish to implement. Governments talk aboutbetter defining the role of NGOs in the sector, butassume that they will be the ones doing the defining.Partnerships can also provide a means for controllingNGO activities. In Malawi, one government officialdefined partnership as the government deciding whatwould be done, donors funding these activities, andNGOs implementing the plans. The more powerfulthe government, the more it can define itspartnerships with NGOs. In Ethiopia, where thegovernment is strong and the NGOs weak, agovernment official described partnerships withNGOs as “there is some shaping of the (NGO)program that goes on. But if the government needswork in a specific area or type of program and it isnot where the NGO wants to work or what theywant to do, then they resist.” Within a context wheregovernment institutional capacity is weak and theNGOs are strong, as in Mali, NGOs see partnershipto mean that government officials have accepted theprominent and legitimate role of NGOs in thesector. However, even in this case, Malian

The Dynamics of Government and NGO Beliefs about Legitimacy

Governments channel NGOactivities into addressingeducational needs thatgovernment does not.

Governments define partnershipswith NGOs. NGOs attempt tooperate in areas not reached bygovernment, piggy-back their

activities on governmentprograms, and allow

governments to take credit forprograms.

Governments believethat it is their

legitimate right andresponsibility to

control everythingthat happens in the

country.

Governmentsexercise control

through requiringlicenses to operate,

limiting NGOactivities, andpartnerships.

NGOs believe that it istheir responsibility toimprove conditions,

including access to andquality of education, in

underserved communities.

NGOs deliverresources tocommunities,

implement communityparticipation programs,

and train andstrengthen school

committees and PTAs.

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government officials insist that they alone shouldestablish the terms of the partnership.

B. Capacity: Government Efficiency / NGOEffectiveness

This section explores the tensions betweengovernment perceptions of NGO capacity andNGO perceptions of government capacity.

1. NGO Perceptions of GovernmentEfficiency

NGOs working in education in Africa tend to believethat governments are inefficient in providing accessto quality education for all members of the society.Education statistics that demonstrate the failures ofgovernments to adequately supply quality schoolingin most African countries support this conclusion.Governments, however, say they are not inefficient,but, rather, that they simply do not have enoughresources. They argue that they would be as efficientas NGOs if they had as much money to spend.

Because it is more difficult and expensive to reachmarginal populations or communities on theperiphery, government has most often failed to meetaccess and quality needs in these areas. To fill thisgap in schooling, NGOs have frequently stepped into supply education. Often there are no clearguidelines or policy regarding alternative approachesto basic education for children, as non-formaleducation is generally associated with adults. TheMOE is usually not involved in NGO registrationand often has no mechanism to learn about NGOactivities. Thus, in most cases, the NGO starts itsprogram and then tries to work out whatever issuesemerge with the government. Usually more issuesarise when NGOs attempt to supply education thanwhen they work to support government schoolsthrough social mobilization or school committeetraining. And most of these issues revolve aroundgovernment standards for school construction,teacher qualifications, and curricula.

2. How NGOs Supply Schooling

For many NGOs, creating community schools is aresponse to the inefficacy of government. Some type

of NGO-supported community schools exist in allfour countries, but the experience of the communityschools created by Save the Children and WorldEducation in Mali with USAID funding provides themost information. With exceptionally low enrollmentrates (under 20 percent in 1990), large areas of therural Malian countryside had absolutely no publicschools, and one of the worst girls schooling ratiosin the continent. Furthermore, secondary anduniversity students had essentially hijacked theeducation system with periodic strikes and schoolsclosures, making it virtually impossible forgovernment to focus on the needs of basiceducation stakeholders. Almost all Maliansinterviewed claim that NGOs work in the educationsector because the MOE was so ineffective.Nevertheless, until 1995, community schools in Maliwere not registered as institutions of learning; thisprevented their pupils from transferring to anequivalent grade in a government school and sittingfor the primary school leaver exams. Since that time,almost all communities with NGO-supportedschools have struggled with local and regionalauthorities to register their (community) school.

In Ethiopia, NGO-sponsored community schoolprograms have sprung up in many parts of thecountry. Local NGOs have generally initiated thesesmall programs with support from internationalNGOs. The government has watched these smallprojects but not attempted to regulate them becausethey have been defined as “non-formal,” and,consequently, outside the realm of governmentresponsibility. No uniform policy exists for studentsfrom non-formal community schools to continuetheir education in formal government schools. Thereis no consistent practice, either transfer orgraduation, as to whether or not students whocomplete programs will be allowed into formalschools at the appropriate grade level. The decisionoften depends on who is making decisions at thattime. An NGO facilitator in Ethiopia said, “Theeducation officers (district and zone) thought that analternative approach to the formal system was belowstandard and wasting children’s time.” Part of theobstacle to allowing students to transfer is thegovernment’s belief that NGO-supplied schoolingdoes not meet national or regional standards.

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In Malawi, religious institutions have a long historyof supplying education.5 However, in 1994, with theelection of the new government, these schools wereintegrated into the national system. Most schools inMalawi were originally built by religiousorganizations and are still frequently referred to as“owned” by a specific church. Recently, religiousNGOs have become increasingly confrontationalover teacher posting and the curriculum in theschools they support. The government curriculumdoes not include a religious education and theministry believes all schools must use theircurriculum. One Catholic church representative said,“We do not agree with certain policies such as thescraping off of Bible knowledge.” The Muslimcommunity has been angered by pictures of Islamicreligious figures in the national curriculum, as humanimages are contrary to Islamic practice. Somereligiously-affiliated schools have closed in anattempt to force the government to accept theirchoices of teachers and curricula.

3. Government Perceptions of NGOSkills

Some of the continuous pressure put on NGO-supported alternative schooling lies in governmentperceptions of NGO capacity. Governments havehired individuals with training and experience ineducation to design and manage the country’seducation system. The MOE runs teacher trainingcolleges, writes curricula, selects and hires teachers,and sets standards for the entire system through itspolicies. The MOE perceives local NGO personnelas individuals with no training or experience ineducation. The government sees international NGOsas having more experience in education, especiallywhen government staff has been hired by theNGOs. Plus, international NGOs frequently employlocal NGOs to implement their programs withoutsupplying what the government considers sufficientmonitoring and supervision. Thus, local educationoffices must supervise the local NGO activities, asituation frequently described as a partnership by thegovernment and a proof of sustainability by thedonors, but also one that further saps the time andenergy of the already over-extended districteducation staff. Governments believe that itsresponsibility is to maintain quality, standards, and

uniformity and often feel that NGOs deliberatelyignore government policy. All governments requirecontinued legitimization through effective provisionof services, yet they fear that NGOs couldundermine government legitimacy if their provisionof education services is seen as superior.

4. Government Standards

Government standards are a way for governments tocontrol NGOs, but, in most cases, these standardsexisted prior to NGO involvement in the educationsector. In Malawi, the standards for schoolconstruction have prevented both donors andNGOs from building less expensive schools formany years. Recently, teacher qualifications wereincreased, not to limit NGOs but to maintainminimum quality standards. This is not unique toMalawi. A Guinean official who visited the Save theChildren community school program in Malideclared, “We will never allow such chicken coops tobe established in our country.”

Standards for Classroom Construction. Thegovernment of Malawi is proud that its standards forclassroom construction have not been influenced byNGO programs. They say that they learned theirlesson in 1967, when communities engaged in self-help school construction. Less than ten years later,they say, these schools had fallen down. Since 1985,the government has been committed to buildingschools that will serve for at least 25 years, a decisionthey say is supported by a cost-benefit analysis theyconducted. The government also believes that if aschool environment is not attractive, then neitherpupils or teachers will want to remain, and pupildrop-out and a shortage of teachers in rural areas aretwo major problems in Malawi’s education system.

Standards for Teacher Qualifications.Government personnel have a low opinion of mostNGO teachers’ qualifications and feel that thelimited training provided is inadequate. They believethat the formal teacher training of public schoolteachers not only provides them with the requiredskills, but also insures a more mature teacher. InMali, government school teachers and governmentofficials complain about the quality of teachers incommunity schools, speaking with derision about the

5 Primarily Catholic, Presbyterian, Muslim, and Seventh Day Adventist.

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purported “fact” that they are semi-literate. A Malianteacher, responding in a seminar where studentachievement in public and community schools wascompared, declared, “Are we going to accept thatdespite our training, our experience, and ourmembership to the professional teacher corps thatthese (community school teachers) are our equals?”Any discussion of how these less trained teacherscould provide an equal level of service is dismissedwith vehemence. Governments also believe that they,not communities, should recruit teachers and makedecisions about teacher postings. In some countries,there has been conflict over churches’ desire to selecttheir own teachers, who may or may not meetgovernment criteria. Government is generally able toenforce its teacher qualification standards because,for an education program to be sustainable, thegovernment has to agree to take over the teachers’salaries.

Curriculum. Curriculum is a key policy issue in allfour countries. However, the degree to which it isenforced varies. In most regions in Ethiopia, NGO-sponsored schools are not forced to follow theregional curriculum, partly because these schools areclassified as non-formal, and not all regions have astandard curriculum for children in alternativeschooling situations. This issue is also very new inEthiopia and the regional governments have notdecided what alternative schools should be doing. InMali, the curriculum has traditionally been the keyissue of contention between government andNGOs. The recent development of a new nationalcurriculum, accepted by government, incorporatessome of the community school curriculum.International NGOs in Mali have all decided thatthey would use the government’s curriculum in theircommunity schools, thus the tensions aroundcurriculum have dissipated.

5. How Government Standards andNGO Attempts to Supply EducationInteract

Save the Children has attempted to supply educationin all four of the study countries; and each programis unique. Although it would be simplistic to reducethe variations in these programs to a single cause,one difference has been the various governments’

position on education standards. In each country,Save redefined its program in a context shaped bygovernment standards, its own previous experience,the country’s changing history, the type of fundingthey had to work in education, and the specificexpertise of the local Save staff.

Mali: Access. The first three Save the Childrencommunity schools in Mali in 1991, financed bysponsorships and a private donor, were designedaccording to the practice used in Save’s integrateddevelopment programs, going to communities andlistening to what they were told about the obstaclesto education. Initially the government told them toset up their schools on the edges of the country, butthree years later, 200 schools existed and thegovernment was claiming ownership. The rapidexpansion resulted from publicity of thesecommunity schools, pressure on the government tolegalize non-government schools, and substantialdonor grants to NGOs to support more communityschools. The government also saw the communityschools as a way to defray expenses and stretchpublic budgets, as the communities financed asubstantial part of their own schools. All of thesefactors, plus the major need to expand access toschooling in Mali, contributed the fantasticexpansion of community schools in Mali. There arenow 786 Save community schools in Mali, reaching47,502 students. Save feels it cannot support moreschools and wants to stop expanding. Althoughimproving access to schooling was the initialprogram goal, this has slowly evolved to includeimprovements in quality.

Malawi: Quality. Save the Children began its projectin early 1994 with eight pilot schools modeled on thesuccessful community school program in Mali. Butin 1994 Malawi had its first election and the newgovernment came into power on a platformcommitted to dropping all school fees. This meantthat Save’s proposal had been agreed to by onegovernment, but had to be renegotiated with a newgovernment during a period of extreme change inthe education sector. The three major innovations ofthe Save model all conflicted with the newgovernment policy: 1) the reduced Save curriculum,which involved teaching four subjects in the earlystandards, sharply abbreviated the eight subjects in

15

the government curriculum; 2) the use of localcommunity members as teachers, often with onlyprimary school certificates, as “paraprofessionals”trained and supervised by Save, did not meet theMOE standard for teacher qualifications; and 3)village construction of school buildings did not meetthe government standards for classroomconstruction.6 A number of factors made thecommunity schools in Malawi immediately differentfrom those in Mali. In Mali, the first schools wereestablished in communities where Save literacycenters had functioned for years. This meant that thecommunity already trusted Save and a pool of localliterate adults were available to teach. Thebackground of the Malawian program director wasin teacher training rather than communitydevelopment. The major curriculum difference inMali rested on the use of local language, while inMalawi the difference involved an “integrated”curriculum where the national curriculum wasabridged. In addition, the government, after a longhistory of church-run schools, had no basic problemwith the idea of NGO-supported schools—they justwanted the schools to all be of the same standard.The government threatened never to pay theteachers salaries unless the Save community schoolsconformed to government standards. If the teachers’salaries would never be taken over by thegovernment, the program was not sustainable. Andno donor would be interested in supporting such aprogram. The focus shifted from scaling up in theform of operating more schools, as in Mali, toestablishing what elements of the Save programworked well and might be adopted into the nationaleducation system, a different form of scaling up. Themajor issues that emerged were those of quality, theexperimental curriculum, and the methodologies inwhich the teachers are trained. Save now supports455 schools in three districts, but the MOE hasimposed its standards on both school construction7

and teacher qualification in those schools. Undergovernment scrutiny, the Save curriculum andteacher training practices are currently beingexamined and tested as a potential means ofimproving the quality of schooling nationally.

Guinea: Community Strength. Save the Childrenoriginally wanted to establish community schools in

Guinea based on the model it used in Mali. Thegovernment, however, did not agree with thisapproach because it did not want classes to be taughtby “untrained” teachers or for schools to not meetminimal construction standards. Save was,consequently, again obliged to compromise. Savecurrently has a relatively small pilot intervention,with approximately 20 schools, in one region ofGuinea close to the border with Mali.8 Thegovernment was comfortable with NGO support forparents’ associations and school committees, butinsisted that Save could not trespass on governmentdomains such as teacher training and curriculum.Save, after a long period of negotiations with thegovernment, adopted a model of support thatstrengthened parent associations, and provided somepedagogical support. While, as in Malawi, Saveshifted from the access focus in Mali to one ofquality, the means for having an impact on qualitybecame community strengthening, rather thancurriculum and teacher training. The longnegotiations with the government regarding theapproach enabled Save’s staff to create opencommunication with ministry officials. The fact thatSave did agree to modify their program inaccordance with Ministry wishes is generallyappreciated in official circles. Nevertheless, Save alsohad a certain number of preconditions for theirprogram, such as a supply of adequate teachers,which have been accepted and honored by theMinistry.

Ethiopia: Experimentation. The Save program inEthiopia is not funded by a major donor, whichmakes it different from those in Mali, Guinea, andMalawi in a number of ways. The program issupported by a grant from a small donor, whichfocuses on supporting innovative approaches ineducation. Grant funding allows Save to shape itsprogram to fit the context, rather than responding toa design created by a large donor, based on what thedonor thinks the NGO should be doing. Freedomfrom major donor funding also means that Save canfocus on a process without worrying about time orshort-term results. Save feels that it is in Ethiopia“for the long haul, there to stay with this program.”The design of the Save program in Ethiopiacontrasts with previous community school programs

6 The greatest resistance from the government came over school construction.7 Save schools in Malawi cost approximately $26,000 as compared to about $7,000 in Ethiopia.8 The program has been administered from Bamako rather than Conakry.

16

in other countries. In Mali, Malawi, and Guinea, Savesupports local NGOs by hiring them to helpimplement their programs. The Save program inEthiopia focuses on the local NGOs themselves, aspotentially major actors in providing education andstrengthening civil society. The strategy is tostrengthen local NGOs who can then generate newideas and approaches, and have a long and lastingimpact whether or not the international NGOs ordonors continue their in the sector. The ten localNGOs Save supports in Ethiopia were selectedbecause they already had education activities. All areinvolved in supplying education for differentdisadvantaged populations in different ways as theirnames indicate: Adult and Nonformal EducationAssociation, Kangaroo Child and YouthDevelopment Society, Guraghe People’s Self-helpDevelopment Organization, Voluntary Council forthe Handicapped, Pastoralist Concern Association,and Kind Hearts’ Children’s Aid DevelopmentOrganization. Save offers support and guidance inareas such as capacity building, networking,negotiating with government, and establishing linksto other education programs. Save also assists inclassroom construction, teacher training, andcurriculum development. All local NGOs areencouraged to seek other funding as their programs

mature. Because the local NGOs supported by Saveare working in marginal areas where the governmenthas been unable to supply education, and areclassified as providing non-formal education, fewconflicts over government standards have arisen.The local NGOs have used a range of differentapproaches to support curriculum, school committeecomposition, teacher qualifications, and buildingconstruction.

C. Motivation: Government Suspicion ofNGO Character / NGO Frustration withGovernment Limitations

This section explores the tensions betweengovernment suspicion about what motivates NGOsand NGO frustration with government failure toexplore new approaches. Each acts according to itsperception of what the other is not doing, thusshaping their mutual interactions.

1. Government Perceptions of NGOCharacter

In all countries, governments question the motivesof NGOs. The basic concern stems from the factthat NGOs are not government—they are private

The Dynamics of Government and NGO Beliefs about Capacity

Governments believe thatNGO personnel lack

capacity in pedagogy andcurriculum development.

Governments issuemandates creating

educational standards,which limit the types of

activities NGOs canimplement.

NGOs directlysupply educationto populationsnot reached by

the government.

NGOs adapt their programsto government standards and

invite governments toincorporate their innovations

into the national system.Governments test theeffectiveness of NGO

experiments for national useand include NGOs in

national planning.

NGOs believe thatgovernments are inefficient

in providing access toquality education for allmembers of the society.

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organizations and need to attract funding to survive.In Malawi, local NGOs are frequently perceived as“opportunistic,” shifting their area of expertise to fittopics currently being funded. For example,government officials worry about the commitmentof NGOs, which they say worked on teacher trainingin the 1960s, curriculum in the 1970s, girls’ educationin the late 1980s and early 1990s, and are nowinvolved in HIV/AIDS programs. They see theseshifts as driven by where funding is available, asNGOs seeking to benefit their own interests ratherthan the interests of Malawi. Government officials inGuinea speak with derision about how local NGOsare “fake” institutions that represent nothing morethan the interests of a small cohort of ex-government officials who established them. InGuinea, this is partially an ideological holdover fromthe previous socialist regime, as government officialsare suspicious of the notion of civil society andbelieve that these institutions are essentially “frauds”due to their profit making and entrepreneurship.Ethiopia, also emerging slowly from a socialist formof government, is suspicious of private enterprise,sometimes calling NGOs “crooks” due to thepotential for profit because “private people own theNGOs.” In addition to these suspicions, thegovernment in Ethiopia perceives local NGOs aspossibly involved in hidden political agendas,especially as some NGOs have been created bymembers of the former government who lost theirjobs during the structural adjustment process. Theirconcern regarding international NGOs can also bepolitical, a worry that international NGOs, funded byforeign governments, spread foreign ideas and values.

2. How Governments Monitor NGOs

In response to their suspicions about NGOcharacter and motive, governments providethemselves with techniques for monitoring NGOactivities and examining what NGOs are doing.Government involvement often goes far beyondrequiring NGO reporting for accountability. In manycases, government intrudes into NGOmanagement—making unexpected visits, demandingwho can and cannot be hired, insisting ongovernment presence in all NGO activities, takingover projects they think the NGO is unable tohandle, etc. All governments require some form of

reporting from NGOs, whether it is actually read ornot. When donors fund NGOs, some governmentsfeel that donors focus primarily on monitoring theresults of the projects and do not pay adequateattention to financial monitoring. As a result,governments often require extensive financialreporting from NGOs.

Governments can intervene in NGO activities byrequiring local government personnel to participatein all visits to the community and in the committeesbeing established and trained by the NGO, and byplacing NGO offices within local governmentfacilities. In Ethiopia, the remaining socialiststructure of the government extends beyond theschool level into the community. This has meant thatNGO facilitators cannot meet with communitymembers unless the local government official agrees.Government representatives occupy many otherschool committee positions such as the local head ofthe women’s affairs, youth, or peasant associations.The chairman of the local government office in thecommunity, who has a legal status to collectresources for communities, is also the chairman ofthe school committee. This means that funds andmaterials contributed by the community for theschool are not always given to the school. Currently,in Mali, the proper structure of school managementcommittees is being debated. Government officialsadamantly support the development of astandardized and mandated school managementcommittee, one that will include representatives ofthe government education system. There is also adebate in Guinea over the role of school directors’vis-à-vis parent associations because, according toregional officials, the school director must be amember of the parent association.

In the extreme, governments can take over NGOactivities that they find suspect or incompetent. InEthiopia, NGO projects can be transferred by thegovernment to regional development associations(often called “GONGOs”—government non-governmental organizations). These organizationswere formed with the support of the government;they are primarily funded through ethnicmembership contributions and government projectfunds. Development associations are the only NGOsin Ethiopia defined by a total region, which allows

18

them to operate on a much larger scale than otherNGOs. Two projects begun by NGOs that involvedsavings and loan programs, which the governmentdeclared to be an area where INGOs should notoperate, were recently transferred to regionaldevelopment associations. In another case, oneregional government decided that an “outsider” fromanother region should not run a program and movedthe project to the regional development associationafter finding funding from local businesses. Inanother region, the development associationattempted to take over a NGO program on thegrounds that it duplicated its activities.

The limited travel capacity of most centralgovernments in Africa means district educationoffices usually witness the work of NGOs. In thecountries where data were collected, NGOs tendedto have better relationships with the localgovernment offices near their projects than withcentral ministries of education. This does not meanthat local government personnel are less suspicious.In all countries, there was a general belief thatNGOs roles will be strengthened as decentralizationbecomes more established. This is a change thatwould increasingly link NGO activities to local ratherthan central education offices. Local educationpersonnel generally have more responsibilities thanthey can handle; governments fear that supervisingNGO programs and attending NGO workshopscould further erode their ability to perform theirjobs.9

3. NGO Frustration with Lack ofGovernment Experimentation

Governments believe NGOs’ role should be todeliver the plans created and monitored by thegovernment. Governments do not see NGOs as aresource to experiment and test new approaches.Indeed, government officials are concerned with“duplication” of NGO programs. As one official inMalawi described it, “Lack of tight regulation andmonitoring of NGOs has resulted in duplicationbetween government and NGOs and betweenNGOs themselves.” The notion of a range ofexperiments attempting to solve problems in

different ways seems to be missing in governmentperceptions of NGO roles.

Although governments often say that they wouldexperiment with innovative programs if they had theresources to do so, they generally do not. Oneobstacle is that governments almost alwaysimplement change on a national level. Wheregovernments have attempted to pilot innovations,they have had to carefully locate the programs at sitesin all geographic areas for political reasons. TheNGO programs examined in this research usuallybegan as small, local experiments in a specificgeographic area. While governments complain thatone problem with NGO programs is that theyoperate in a small area of the country, this limitationallows NGOs to experiment with innovativeprograms. Governments tend to be closed systems,more interested in their internal systems workingsthan the needs of communities. District educationoffices, for example, generally look upward to theMOE for direction rather than outward to thecommunities they serve. For instance, one regionaleducation bureau official in Ethiopia commentedthat their good relationship with an NGO was due tothe NGO having “done their homework” andproposing “approaches to the types of problems thatthe government did not have answers for.”

4. NGO Experimentation

While more resources can always be used ineducation, often more valuable is insight into whatthe problems are and how to solve them. NGOsconsider one of their most important roles to beexperiments in identifying problems in educationsystems and the testing of a variety of solutions.

Funding. How innovative a program is depends onthe type of funding an NGO receives. In Guinea,Plan International began by building and equippingschools throughout the N’Zérékouré region,financing approximately 100 percent of the cost ofmaterials and construction. Over time, this programevolved and it now provides a fixed amount offunding to each local government area, with someparameters as to what it can be used for. The NGOthen works with the local education and government

9 Research has shown that in some countries a disproportionate amount of local MOE personnel time is spent in donor or NGOtraining workshops, an activity that supplies them with extra income through per diem but interferes with their ability to perform theirjobs.

19

authorities to determine priorities and monitorspending and results. The monies must only be usedfor education and health sector expenditures—bothcapital and recurrent costs can be covered. PlanInternational finances most of its interventionsthrough sponsorships. As a consequence, the NGOdoes not have to report to donors and takes pride inits independence from donor “meddling.” NGOindependence, unfettered by financial dependency todonors and government, allows for a substantialamount of innovation, flexibility and assertiveness.Until recently, the region in which Plan Internationaloperates was home to the majority of refugees thathave come from Sierra Leone and Liberia. Theregion has also been plagued with substantial rebelactivity over the years, culminating in a bloodyconfrontation with the Guinean government at thebeginning of 2001. Despite the fighting, PlanInternational continued to work in the region andhas been very active in rehabilitation efforts after theconflict. As a consequence, government authoritiesand communities appreciate and praise theorganization highly.

Scaling Up. Successful experiments all face thechallenge of scaling up. NGOs can experimentbecause they begin with small pilot programs, but thegoal is to change education for everyone. One way todo this involves seeking funding from major donorsand expanding the program to encompass more orall of the country. One problem emerging from thisapproach is that donors generally fund models ratherthan processes, which can mean that the NGObecomes locked into its own model. Any model willgenerally work less well in other regions than in thecontext for which it was originally designed. And allmodels can be improved, tinkered with to workbetter. The funding to “scale up” is usually based onreproducing a specific model, which limits adaptationto new contexts and further experimentation.Another problem emerges when NGOs aresupplying schooling rather than just supporting thenational education system. Should NGOs be creatingan entire education system, especially one whichallows the government to provide less resources tothe citizens most in need? And, even if this questionis ignored out of necessity, is a dual education systembeing created—a formal, government-supportedsystem in the urban and easy to access areas, and a

NGO- and community-supported non-formalsystem on the periphery or in marginal communities?Save the Children and World Education and thegovernment of Mali have been grappling with suchquestions for the last few years.

Rather than providing more of the same, scaling upcan mean increasing the range and type of NGOactivities. This can be evolutionary, as theinternational NGO ActionAid describes itseducation programs in many countries. First theNGO focused on building schools, but evaluationssuggested that this had less impact than they hadanticipated. Next they focused on pedagogy,developing a Freire-influenced approach to literacyand non-formal schooling. This led to creatingapproaches for breaking down the barriers betweenformal and non-formal schooling. Most recently,they began to focus on education policy at nationallevels. Local NGOs also can follow a process ofexpansion into new types of activities. CRECCOMin Malawi began its social mobilization campaigns inthe area of girls’ education, expanded to addressissues of educational quality, and is now also workingon HIV/AIDS issues and has assisted the Ministryof Forestry and Tourism. The danger in expandingthe areas of involvement is that the governmentbecomes suspicious of NGO motives because theysee NGOs as opportunistically moving from sectorto sector.

A third way that NGOs can expand from small-scalepilot experiments involves influencing the policiesand practices of other organizations working ineducation. In Ethiopia, World Learning allowedgovernment schools in the program area to sendteachers to their training workshops although theschools were not part of the pilot program. Thenatural competitiveness among communities canallow ideas to spread from single schools withminimal encouragement. NGOs share ideas amongthemselves; the best example is probably theimmense impact the BRAC program in Bangladeshhas had on community schools all over Africa.

What NGOs have not done is communicatesufficiently what they have learned from theirexperiments. The results of evaluations are generallyused to fine tune local programs, but often go no

20

further. Most NGO publications are geared tosoliciting funding rather than sharing exactly whatthey have done, what obstacles they encountered,and what the result was.

Probably the most powerful way for NGOs toinfluence education is for governments to adopttheir innovations. Mali is a clear case in which thecurriculum model developed by Save the Childrenfor their community schools eventually led to amodification of the national curriculum. To do thissuccessfully NGOs had to demonstrate their results.This may require both research and analysis,targeting both the process and the results, andworking with the government to shape how theresearch is conducted. In Malawi, the government isnow testing Save curriculum and teacher trainingapproaches. And in Ethiopia, members of the MOEconducted their own examinations of six alternativeschooling programs, wrote the case studiesthemselves, and presented the reports to theircolleagues. This process converted these officials tothe benefits of the NGO approaches they examinedmore firmly than any publication could have, andtheir investigations legitimized the findings in theeyes of the government.

5. How Government Intervention andNGO Experimentation Interact

This section provides concrete examples of theapproaches government and NGOs have tried andthe results of their efforts. Among the four countriesin which data were collected, the government inEthiopia exercises the tightest control over NGOactivities and is the most suspicious of NGOmotives. Under the previous government, no NGOswere allowed to function except to providetemporary emergency relief. Over the past few years,NGOs in Ethiopia have made great headway inassuaging government concerns, while thegovernment has also taken steps to improve theirrelationship with NGOs. It is a story of baby steps, aslow process in which the government has worked toexamine NGO experiments and NGOs have workedto demonstrate the value of their activities.

What NGOs Have Done. The decentralized,federated nature of Ethiopia’s government may be

polarizing increasing ethnic tensions, and means thatlocal NGOs often can only work in the region oftheir ethnic background. But regional decisionmakers have been able to get involved in localprograms. During the first few years of the WorldLearning project in Ethiopia, regional educationbureau staff members showed up unannounced atschools where the program was operating to checkthings out. But the reports were always positive, and,gradually, the regional government, members ofwhich were always included in the various workshopsand training events, saw the program in a verypositive light. Now the government worries that theprogram will end. Most NGOs in Ethiopia report asimilar evolution in government thinking: suspicion,investigation, acceptance, and support.

Almost all NGOs working in education in Ethiopiaoffer workshops and presentations for governmentpersonnel to illustrate their activities and approaches.In fact, most NGOs must include local governmentstaff members in any training conducted for theirown facilitators or for community members. The RiftValley Children and Women DevelopmentAssociation, a local NGO working in education, hadtrouble gaining the confidence of the local educationbureau. They addressed the problem by holdingworkshops, providing a series of field visits forgovernment personnel, and writing reports thatdescribed the impact of their activities. In addition,Rift Valley personnel visit the local education officefrequently and try to explain in advance any issuesthat they feel might create misunderstandings.

A number of different international NGOs workingin education have organized “exposure visits” forMOE and regional education bureau officials toinvestigate innovative approaches as far away asBRAC schools or as close as local NGOs workingwithin their own region. Last year, ActionAid,inspired by the opportunities for NGOs to workwithin their own countries on national EducationFor All plans, sponsored a workshop in Ethiopia forNGOs working in education from all over the world.These types of workshops allow NGOs to sharetheir innovations and encourage cross-fertilization ofnew experiments.

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International NGO guidance for local NGOs oftenincludes monitoring their activities. Because localNGOs are sometimes overly ambitious, internationalNGOs help local NGOs organize their activities intomanageable tasks and expand at a reasonable rate.International NGO have also helped local NGOs toprepare and distribute reports about their activities ineducation. In Ethiopia, Pact, an international NGOdedicated to NGO capacity building, developed anOrganizational Capacity Assessment Tool, which hasbeen used with approximately 30 local NGOs todiagnose what type of capacity strengthening wasneeded. To combat negative perceptions aboutNGOs, Pact has worked together with other NGOsin the country to create a Code of Conduct,essentially a statement of operating principles. Itsadoption in 1999 by the NGO sector appears to havesent a positive signal about the ethical underpinningsof NGOs, provided evidence of NGO ability toimpose self-regulation, and increased collaborationamong NGOs. Pact has also worked to improvemedia portrayal of the NGO sector; in recent years ithas transformed from no or negative coverage tofrequent, positive portrayals of NGO activities.

What the Government Has Done. The registrationprocess for NGOs in Ethiopia, a major problemmentioned by all NGOs working there, is said to

have become easier and the number of NGOsregistered with the government has grownsignificantly. Now over 300 NGOs are registered inEthiopia; more than half of these NGOs areEthiopian and about 30 are working in education. Atleast one region is attempting to redesign theregistration guidelines. Based on the fact that NGOsnow register on a national level, but are monitored atthe regional level, they are arguing that all registrationshould occur at the regional level.

Gradually the Ethiopian government has recognizedthe existence of NGO programs in education andthe government has begun to include these activitiesin their planning. Several regional offices have begunplanning school construction in terms of wherealternative NGO-sponsored schools are beingcreated or are planned. One regional teachers’training college has implemented a two-year, non-formal education diploma course to meet the needfor teachers in non-formal programs. Anotherregional education bureau has produced a directiveinstructing all primary schools to facilitate thetransfer of students from NGO schools into theformal education system.

Redd Barna has begun an alternative educationprogram in a region where the regional education

The Dynamics of Government and NGO Beliefs about Motivation

Governments believe thatNGO motives are

suspect: local NGOs maybe dishonest, “fake” or

“opportunistic,” andinternational NGOs may

advance foreign ideas.

Governments intervenein NGO governance,

monitor their activities,and can take over NGO

programs.

Governments study NGOperformance, relax policy

restrictions, andinvestigate innovationsintroduced by NGOs.

NGOs attempt todemonstrate the

effectiveness of theirprograms, create self-

monitoring guidelines, andinclude government

personnel in their training.

NGOs believe thatgovernments cannot and/

or will not experimentwith new and innovativeapproaches to the supply

of education.

NGOs implementexperimental programs

designed to improveaccess to and quality

of education.

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bureau director had, with support from Pact, traveledto Bangladesh to study the BRAC program. He cameback committed to alternative approaches and hasworked with Redd Barna to negotiate a newcurriculum for alternative schools which will bothmeet the national curriculum standards andguarantee that graduates of programs using thiscurriculum will be admitted to government schools.This curriculum is currently being discussed on anational level and may soon be adopted as a nationalstandard.

A condition built into the Sector InvestmentProgram in Ethiopia required the MOE toinvestigate the possibilities of alternative education.Last year, members of the planning office carriedout this research and produced six case studies ofalternative education programs, five of them run byNGOs. In part because they conducted the researchthemselves, they became supporters of alternativeapproaches to education. The MOE evaluation ofthe community schools made the NGO approachescredible to the government because, as onegovernment official pointed out, “no one believeswhat NGOs say.” When this research was presented,MOE officials commented enthusiastically about theneed to embrace alternative approaches to education.

It has now been written in the five-year plan that thegovernment will encourage more NGO involvementin education.

D. Conclusions

The underlying differences between government andNGO beliefs generate actions, which define theirinteractions. However, a pattern underlies all threesets of government NGO tensions described in thischapter: government and NGOs must collaborateand cooperate to achieve productive outcomes in theeducation sector.

Governments and NGOs do not always agree on anNGO’s legitimate role so NGO activities are limitedto areas in which government does not work. NGOsoften limit their role purposely to avoid tangling withthe government. In other situations governmentsand NGOs hold negative perceptions of the other’scapacity in supplying education. This often leads to a

carefully defined and limited division of labor amongNGOs and governments. These two modelsillustrate the need for governments and NGOs tocollaborate better to achieve results that arecomplimentary.The interactions between government and NGOsthat have emerged from suspicion and frustrationabout one another’s motivation seem to be the mosteffective means for building a collaborative andinteractive relationship. The focus on increasedlearning about one another in the example fromEthiopia suggests that increased exposure canincrease cooperation. This is also supported by theevidence that local education personnel had betterrelationships with NGOs than central governmentsin all four countries. If this is the case, then time maybe a key factor in forming more collaborativerelationships; among the countries included in thisstudy, the longest significant NGO involvement ineducation has been in Mali, which is wheregovernment-NGO relationships most resemble atrue partnership working on integrated activities.

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NGOs working in the education sector have animpact on education policy by their very presenceand interventions. In countries with little or noprevious experience with non-governmentalinvolvement in the education sector, the proliferationof NGO-supported education activities represents ade facto policy change—a new actor is taking oneducational responsibilities that were once of thepurview of the state.

At times, governments institute new policy inreaction to NGO education programs, making (orlimiting) available resources to support NGO actionsand facilitating (or constraining) NGO efforts. Thischapter, however, focuses on the intentional rolethat NGOs play with regards to education policy.10

In the four countries studied, NGOs have engagedin a concerted and explicit effort to change educationpolicy. What policies have they attempted to change?Why have they decided to do this? Have they beensuccessful? What has contributed to their success orfailure? These are some of the questions addressedby this chapter.

Before continuing, a few words concerning thedefinition of policy are in order. In the simplestterms, policy is a set of mandatory directives thatregulate decisions. Policy can be “set” at any level ofan education system by those in a position ofauthority. There might be school-level policy thatdetermines how much parents should pay in fees ornational-level policy that defines what should be inthe curriculum. In practice, however, policy is a morecomplex affair. Policy can almost always beinterpreted and is not necessarily enforced orenforceable. The practice of “influencing” policy,therefore, can also be seen in simple or complexterms. NGOs might want to influence an existingpolicy (change registration requirements for

community schools) or ensure a policy is enforced(oblige local officials to register community schoolsaccording to regulations) or help interpret a policy(that “community members” does not include theschool director). We are adopting a partial view ofpolicy, examining attempts by NGOs to influencethe content of policy and how it is enforced,although not how it is interpreted at local levels. Wealso have narrowed the scope of policy under reviewto that which affects decisions made above theschool level. We recognize that NGOs often try tochange the school-level policy dynamics throughcommunity participation, and that mostinterpretation of policy does happen in the schooland classroom. Nonetheless, this analysis focuses onhow NGOs influence decision-making apparatusesabove the community level and thus have aninfluence beyond specific communities where theymight work.

In practically all cases, international NGOs havebeen at the forefront of trying to influence nationaleducation policy or the national education policyprocess. In Guinea, local and national NGOs havebeen completely absent from the policy arena. InMali, national NGOs have played an important rolein the Groupe Pivot,11 but Save the Children andWorld Education were the driving force of thecampaign in that country to change policiesregarding community schools. In Ethiopia,ActionAid and Pact supported local NGOs in effortsto change local curriculum policy. In Malawi, nationalNGOs are part of a coalition of national andinternational NGOs and the Alliance which includesNGOs, donors and government, although ActionAidand Oxfam have clearly taken the lead in creatingboth associations.

Chapter III. Education Policy and NGOs

10 We emphasize education policy because some NGOs affect all types of government policies, some with implications for theeducation sector. Admittedly, the line is sometimes fuzzy, such as when NGOs pursue different sector objectives simultaneously—certainly the case for programs that aim for greater community participation, with education as one arena. Nevertheless, this analysisfocuses on NGO programs that are primarily focused on the education sector and efforts to influence policy that are motivatedthrough those programs.11 A grouping of national and international NGOs working in the education sector in Mali—see Section C for a more completediscussion.

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Country NGO Policy Agenda

Guinea Plan International More flexible teacher recruitment and deploymentSave the ChildrenPlan International Promote girls’ education

Mali Save the Children Integrate community schools into the formal education systemWorld Education National language pedagogyNational NGOs More flexible teacher recruitment

Ethiopia ActionAid Students from non-formal center can enter into formal schools in onePact region. Another region has created and had accepted a non-formalSave the Children curriculum. Now trying to influence policy on national level.World Learning Change local funding policy that reduced local budgets as a

consequence of NGO interventions in regionMalawi Save the Children Promote changes in curriculum and teacher training practice

National and local NGOs have not taken the lead inefforts to change national education policies or thepolicy process for two reasons. First, most nationalNGOs tend to work from a “service delivery”perspective. Few that work in the education sectoradopt a comprehensive and political agenda tochange policy or the relationship between nationalgovernment and citizens. Second, and moreimportantly, international NGOs are much morepowerful, with financial and political resources thatdwarf anything that local and national NGOs canmobilize. Whereas local and national NGOs arestymied when education policy gets in the way oftheir programs, international NGOs can use contactsand networks within and outside of the countrywhere they are working to implement a strategy toaffect policy.

In the cases of Ethiopia, Malawi, and Mali, local andnational NGOs are nevertheless involved in effortsto change the policy process. Although they haveessentially been enlisted in the efforts initiated byinternational NGOs, they are active participants in allattempts to change policy and/or the policy processin these three countries. Is it a problem thatinternational NGOs have taken the lead oneducation policy change? Many governmentauthorities claim that it is, as it appears that “outsideforces” are trying to shape priorities in the educationsector. Many international NGOs themselves areconcerned with being accused of substituting orshaping the agenda. Representatives from ActionAid

and Oxfam have expressed disappointment thatnational actors, particularly at the local level, have notplayed a significant enough role in setting priorities.On the other hand, without these outside forcescertain policy changes would probably not occur atall.

A. Why Do NGOs Attempt to AffectEducation Policy?

International and national NGOs are engaged inchanging policy as a consequence of two basicmotivations. On the one hand, they are involved inpolicy out of necessity. However, they find that theyneed government to make their education programssuccessful, and thus work to transform governmentpriorities and actions in the sector.

On the other, some NGOs see changing the policyprocess as part of their mandate. They hold animplicit assumption, often made explicit indiscussions, that government action lacks legitimacy,or is unaccountable to the public.

1. Changing Specific Policies

Education policies supported by NGOs can becategorized in many ways. Some policies are set at anational level with highly significant implications forthe overall education system, e.g., adopting a newcurriculum, or changing the status of a certain typeof school. Others are more modest, affecting

25

educational practice in a particular region or locality,e.g., giving a specific community school a locallicense to operate, or allowing a local NGO tofunction in a particular jurisdiction. Furthermore,some policies change educational practice, such ascurriculum change, whereas others aim to affectmanagement, e.g., teacher deployment andrecruitment. In all four cases, examples of each typeof policy can be found. The table below lists someof the key policies that have been supported(although not necessarily successfully changed) byNGOs in each country.

As seen above, the policies supported by NGOs canrun the gamut. However, the following threeexamples typify the range. The Malian case is anexample of how a group of international andnational NGOs pursued an education policy agendato make the status of community schools official. InGuinea, one international NGO sought a change inteacher deployment policy as a precondition toprogram implementation, and another internationalNGO facilitated a change in local policy affectingteacher recruitment. In Ethiopia, internationalNGOs collaborated with the government to accept anon-formal curriculum.

Mali. As mentioned in previous chapters, in Mali,community schools are practically synonymous withNGOs in the education sector. From their inception,however, the role and place of community schools inthe education sector has been contentious. Everyaspect of community schools has been the subjectof intense policy debate in Mali, from the curriculumto the qualification of teachers to the status of theirpupils. Fundamentally, government policy at theoutset indicated that community schools were non-formal education institutions, conveying no right oropportunity for pupils to continue their education inpublic schools. As community schools proliferated,NGOs that supported them had a clear interest inhaving government accept these children into formalprimary schools or secondary schools. However,government officials expressed the position thatthese schools did not provide the same quality andcontent of education as government-sponsoredprimary education.

More will be said below as to how NGOs engaged intheir campaign to change Malian education policiesconcerning community schools. Here, we note thespecific policies that NGOs targeted to create abridge between community and public schools. Firstand foremost, government officials claimed thatcommunity schools were not legally recognized aseducational institutions and thus had no status withinthe formal educational system. The Maliangovernment could not recognize the educationalexperience of children within these establishments.To change the status of community schools requireda presidential decree. The president issued a decreeallowing children who were enrolled in communityschools to attend public schools and sit the primaryschool leavers’ exam. It also allowed public educationauthorities to supervise instructional quality in theseestablishments and opened the door for publicresources, e.g., teacher training and supplies, to bemade available to these schools.

Second, government and community schoolsconflicted over curriculum policy. One of thegovernment’s principal criticisms of communityschools has been that they use a streamlinedcurriculum and Bambara as the language ofinstruction for the first three grades. Governmentauthorities argued that, as a consequence, childrenare not being prepared to transfer to equivalentgrades levels or to take the leavers’ exam for whichFrench is the official language used. This argumentwas used by government officials as one of theprincipal reasons why community schools should notbe considered on par with public primary schools.Save the Children and the Centre Nationald’Education engaged in a process of collaboration tomodify the curriculum used in community schools.

Concurrent to this process, as a medium ofinstruction, the Ministry of Education adoptedpédagogie convergente (using maternal languages in theearly grades) as part of the official curriculum.Although not the only force contributing tocurriculum change, many officials interviewedthrough this study claim that Save’s work with theMinistry of Education contributed to softeningofficial disagreement.

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Guinea (Save the Children). One very seriouseducation issue in Guinea at this time is the shortageof teachers. This situation provides the backdrop forthe next two examples. In Guinea, almost every ruralschool in the country does not have enough teachers.In the most extreme cases, recently built schoolshave not opened because they have no teachers. Aspart of government efforts to address this shortage,“contract” teachers have been hired subsequent totraining and deployed throughout the country.Nonetheless, the government to date has not beenable to attract enough people to become contractteachers and many quit after one or two years ofservice. In addition, many refuse or “find ways” toavoid deployment to isolated rural schools.

As discussed in Chapter Two, Save the Children wasobliged to change the design of its program inGuinea considerably. Whereas it had originallyplanned to use the main characteristics of its Maliprogram, the Guinean government had refused thisapproach, principally because of constructionstandards, but also because they were notcomfortable with Save’s plan to hire and train its ownteachers. Save agreed that it would apply governmentconstruction standards, use the government’scurriculum, and hire government teachers. In thissense, Save did not succeed in changing educationalpolicy in Guinea, as they did in Mali. However, as aprecondition to starting its program, the governmentagreed to provide all necessary teachers to schoolsSave built and supported. The government providedthis guarantee and has fulfilled its obligation as well.This constitutes a policy change because thegovernment has not made a similar commitment toany other education stakeholder in Guinea—community, education official, or donor.

Guinea (Plan International). As discussed inChapter Two, Plan International has an extensiveeducation support program in the N’Zérékouréregion of Guinea where local government authoritiesreceive conditioned annual grants for either primaryeducation or primary health services. Because of theteacher shortage, many local governments use theirgrant to hire “community teachers.” PlanInternational supports these teachers throughtraining and other pedagogical services. Plan was alsoinstrumental in raising community school teachers’

salaries over government contract teachers. Althoughthe Ministry of Education was not informed of thedecision to use community teachers, local educationofficials agreed and even participated in recruitingthem. In summary, local authorities instituted apolicy change to hire additional teachers and to paythem a premium; and this change was made as aconsequence of Plan’s involvement in the educationsector.

One interesting commonality of these threeexamples is that in no case did NGOs start theirprograms with the objective of changing governmentpolicy. Decisions or actions to affect policy camelater, after it was decided that the success or survivalof their programs required the modification ofgovernment policy. Even the “condition” set by Savethe Children to ensure teacher availability was morean implementation issue than part of programdesign. In fact, in Guinea, Save the Children decidednot to challenge policy constraints put in place by thegovernment and instead modified its project design.It appears that when NGOs confront barriers duringimplementation, they readily seek ways to addressthese constraints, including affecting policy change.However, the NGOs covered in this study did notcome to a country with the intention of changingspecific education policies, although, as discussed inthe subsequent section, NGOs have explicitlyattempted to change the policy process.

Instigating policy change to ensure program successcan take many forms. In Mali, the future ofcommunity school programs required fundamentalchanges in national education policy, which took timeand significant resources and energy. In Guinea, Saveadopted a very narrow “policy agenda” to addressspecific implementation concerns. The implicationsfor the education system as a whole will probably beminor, although an interesting precedent is set withregards to teacher deployment policy. Plan’s exampleis a case of de facto policy change. Through theprovision of resources, Plan International facilitateda local policy change that contradicts national policy.

2. Changing the Policy Process

Although few NGOs seem to design their programwith the objective of promoting certain education

27

policies, many have specifically been interested inchanging the education policy process. Typically,these NGOs share an interest in changing the way inwhich the public participates in decision-making inthe education system. The table below summarizesthe NGO programs that share this objective in thefour countries studied. Typically, because theseNGOs have concluded that the public does not havea sufficient say at any level of the education system,from the school to the ministry, their programs haveaimed to change this state of affairs.

Generally, these NGOs hope to change the policyprocess by institutionalizing a variety of mechanismsthat ensure that the public is treated as clients ofeducation services. As a consequence, policy wouldhopefully be set with the involvement of the public,implemented with public oversight and its impactassessed in the public arena. The most typicalmechanism is a grassroots organizational structurethat democratically represents community membersvis-à-vis the school or local education authority andis in a position to demand local accountability.Another mechanism is the creation of nationalbodies that group together different civil societygroups and interests and can interact directly withnational authorities on policy formation,implementation, and assessment.

Two examples—World Education in Guinea andMali and ActionAid, Oxfam, and CARE in Malawi—typify contrasting approaches to attempting tochange the policy process. For World Education, thekey to greater participation is transforming parents’

associations into more representative and organizedcivil society organizations that can demand greateraccountability from school directors and teachers atthe school level and other education officials athigher levels of the education system. In bothcountries, World Education’s program has focusedon this transformation, promoting the election ofnew parents’ association leaders, aiding inestablishing bylaws, and providing training for allmembers. In a subsequent phase, World Educationaims to establish more representative parents’association federations as a way of engaging in thepolicy process at higher levels of the system.

The ActionAid, Oxfam, and CARE approach tochanging the policy process started from the otherend. Their analysis of the education policy led themto conclude that much education reform is notsuccessful because it is set by consultants hired bydonors and the top officials in education and financeministries without engaging the public. In Malawi,they helped to create a coalition of national andinternational NGOs and other civil societyorganizations, e.g., teacher unions and church groups,whose purpose is to advocate for better quality andaccess. The Coalition has taken on a confrontationalstrategy to gain a seat at the policy table. They havepublished critical articles in newspapers anddistributed tracts espousing that the Ministry ofEducation is not doing its job to ensure that teachersare paid well and receive appropriate training.Ministry officials have expressed their irritation withtheir tactics and although the Coalition has begun tohave some access to different policy forums (i.e.,

Country NGO Policy Process Agenda

Guinea Aide et Action Act as liaison between community groups and education authoritiesWorld Education Organize parents’ associations at local levels through new bylaws

Mali World Education Transform parents’ associations or school committees to representcommunities

Groupe Pivot Create a lobby group representing the interests of NGOs in the countryEthiopia World Learning Redefine school committee membership and roles in one region

PactMalawi ActionAid Mobilize education stakeholders at national level to pressure government

Oxfam for policy changeCARE

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they made a presentation to the parliament), theyhave not yet succeeded in changing the policyagenda.

ActionAid has decided to leave the Coalition and joinanother group of NGOs (called the Alliance) thatincludes government and donor representatives.They did this for two reasons. First, they wereuncomfortable with the more confrontational tactics.Second, and ironically, they believed thatinternational NGOs were over-represented withinthe Coalition and were driving both agenda andstrategy. This is interesting because the Coalition’sobjective was to create a non-governmentalMalawian force that could contest and argue policypositions.

Compared to the pursuit of specific policyobjectives, changing the policy process has proven tobe more difficult. World Education’s aim for parents’association federations to have an impact on policydecisions above the school level has proceeded muchmore slowly than expected. As for Malawi, it is tooearly to tell. It appears that the Coalition has becomea more accepted partner at policy forums, but thecompetition between it and the Alliance appears toweaken the influence of both.

This last point exemplifies a common sticking pointfor many efforts to change the policy process. Thequestion posed by all is: to what extent do theseprocesses truly engage the public in policydeliberations? Are the different mechanisms put inplace really communicating the preferences ofcommunity members, and civil society to decisionmakers? Or are these positions really those of theNGOs that are sponsoring efforts to create thisprocess?

3. From Policy to Policy Process—ANecessary but Difficult Step

In analytical terms, NGO engagement in the area ofeducation policy has followed a particularprogression. NGOs engage in activities to improveaccess. To render their actions sustainable or to evenbe able to implement what was planned, theynecessarily must try to encourage government tochange policy. As they engage in a strategy to change

policy, they realize that the policy process is as muchthe problem as the policies in question. Althoughthis progression does not describe the evolution of aspecific NGO program in any one country, it broadlydescribes how NGO thinking in the sector hasevolved. In fact, World Education, ActionAid, andAide et Action have all come to this conclusion onan institution-wide basis, and their new and ongoingprograms reflect this evolution in perspective.

Although NGOs have tallied many successes inchanging government policy and even creatingmechanisms to ensure that their impact on policy ismore prominent, finding the formula to change thenational policy process has proven to be difficult.Regardless of this difficulty, however, NGOs in theeducation sector believe it is necessary.

B. NGOs and Education Policy: ThePerspective of Different Stakeholders

Whatever motivates NGOs to play a policy role,other actors have their own ideas as to whetherNGOs should or should not be education policyadvocates and which policies (or type of policyprocess) NGOs should support. In the fourcountries studied, stakeholders ranged from avidsupporters of NGOs’ policy role to adamant foes tobenign ignorance that NGOs play any role at all.Depending on the stakeholder group in question,these stances have created both constraints andopportunities for NGOs as they engage in policychange.

1. The Government Perspective

Government officials are the most important actorswhen it comes to changing policy. After all, thedesired change is in behavior of governmentinstitutions, which means a change in both attitudeand actions of the education authorities who inhabitthem. Also, for policy change to truly be effective,government officials at all relevant levels of theeducation system must enforce and enact newdecisions—from the ministry to the school. IfNGOs want to change government policy, the“target group” of all interventions will begovernment.

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This is problematic because, as discussed in ChapterTwo, governments are already ambivalent about thedomain NGOs occupy in the education sector. AsNGOs move into policy, this wariness becomesparticularly acute. Few government officialsinterviewed in any study country were particularlyenthusiastic about the growing role of NGOs in theeducation policy process, most displayed varyinglevels of displeasure. In every country, governmentofficials spoke adamantly about policy areas theyconsidered to be off limits to NGOs and oftenexpressed particular frustration with NGOincursions into these territories. This annoyance withNGOs that work to change policy tends to betempered in countries with longer histories of NGOinvolvement in the sector. However, it is a given thatNGOs certainly do not have a willing ally amongstgovernment officials in their endeavor to changepolicy.

In Mali, government officials have gone farthest inaccepting the idea that NGOs can and should play arole in policy—it is now an accepted part of theeducation system. With ten years of NGO activity inthe education sector, and substantial involvement inpolicy, national government officials may grumbleabout NGO involvement in policy, but no officialinterviewed in Mali claimed that they should play norole. In the other three countries, governmentofficials expressed varying levels of animositytowards NGO involvement in policy deliberations orany attempt on their part to influence policy. Indeed,in Ethiopia, Guinea, and Malawi, NGOs have nothad anywhere near as much impact on policy as hasbeen the case in Mali. In all three countries,government officials essentially depicted NGOs asimplementers of government policy. In Ethiopia andGuinea, government officials tended to express thegreatest resistance to NGO involvement in policy orthe policy process. However, in each of these threecountries, government has allowed NGOs toparticipate to some degree in education policydeliberations.

• In Guinea, some international NGOs haverecently been allowed to participate in regulardonor coordination meetings where significantpolicy deliberations often occur. In addition,

Aide et Action has indicated, and mostgovernment officials have accepted, that theywant to act as liaison between government andthe communities where they work, particularlyaround policy issues. However, the mechanicsof this liaison have not yet been developed.

• In Malawi, the Coalition and the Alliance havestarted to be included in regular meetings withthe Ministry of Education. In addition, theCoalition has advocated before Parliament,where they urged that budget priority be givento teacher education, teaching and learningmaterials, and teacher salaries and condition ofservice.

• In Ethiopia, the Ministry of Education is nowrethinking its policies around non-formalschooling. Pact, ActionAid, and Save theChildren sit with the MOE on selected taskforces to join in these discussions.

Chapter Two discussed how government sometimescreated institutional mechanisms that can facilitatediscussions with NGOs and help coordinateinterventions. These mechanisms have also served asimportant conduits for NGO involvement in policydeliberations. In Mali, NGO involvement in policydiscussions has been institutionalized through thePRODEC12 process, where national and internationalNGO representatives are included in a number ofdifferent committees that monitor theimplementation of reform. In other countries,nothing so formal exists, although as mentionedabove, NGOs are included in task forces or areinvited to attend meetings.

At local levels, NGOs have had significant impact onpolicy decisions in Mali, Guinea and Ethiopia. InMali and Guinea, this impact reflects more theweakness of local authorities to curtail policyventures by NGOs than a decision to welcome theminto the policy process. In both countries,government officials have expressed frustration thatthey have no way to prevent NGOs from having animpact on policy, particularly at a local level.Whatever they may think about the role of NGOs inthe sector, they claim that they are overwhelmed by

12 PRODEC is a 10 year education sector plan. It consists of over 15 committees that oversee different aspects of the reform—finance, curriculum reform, teacher training, etc.

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the implementation of NGO programs in theirjurisdiction. For example, in Mali, local educationofficials regularly complain that their preferences areoverruled by the actions of NGOs, such as theplacement of a school or the recruitment or teachers.The “policy” they have set at a local level has beenignored by the NGO that proceeded without properauthorization. In Guinea, many school constructionprojects financed by the World Bank came as acomplete surprise to local education officials. Thus,in these cases, NGOs are, in essence, enforcing theirown policies.

In Ethiopia, NGO involvement in policy is muchmore controlled, even at local levels. However,NGOs have had the most impact on policy at locallevels. In contrast with Mali and Guinea, this resulthas not happened despite government officials butrather with their full participation and consent.Indeed, the degree of true local control of educationresources and decisions determines whether localofficials feel engaged or frustrated by NGO effortsto change policy.

Although government officials interviewed for thisstudy were generally aware of NGO attempts tochange specific policies, they were usually lessknowledgeable of efforts to change the policyprocess. For example, whereas government officialsuniversally notice and claim to appreciate NGOs’social mobilization of communities to assist schoolsor increase enrollment, they had little to say aboutmobilizing communities to demand moreaccountability from the government above theschool level. As discussed in Chapter Five, they tendto continue to view such efforts as a way totransform civil society to embrace government policythan to affect it.

There was one interesting exception to this position.In Guinea, NGOs encourage parents’ associations toparticipate in year-end evaluations of school results.At all levels of the system, education officials werevery uncomfortable with this trend and manyexpressed outright opposition. Many governmentofficials claim that pedagogy in Guinea is a “reserveddomain” and thus citizens have neither the mandatenor the qualifications to discuss the effectiveness ofteacher practice.

On a final note, most government officials do notsee a difference between the policy agenda of donorsand that of international NGOs financed by thosedonors. And, as mentioned in the previous section,significant differences are rare. However, manygovernment authorities stated that NGOs are in factadvocating in favor of donor-preferred policy agendas.The more suspicious view NGOs as actually nothingmore than veiled agents of donors. Others maintaina more neutral perspective. Thus, NGOs are seen inmost cases as an extension of donor programs,rather than as independent actors—if their fundingcomes from donors. In Ethiopia, most NGOs havetheir own funding, so government does not see arelationship between the donors and NGO agendas.

Any effort to affect policy needs tension withgovernment. Challenges to the “legitimacy” ofNGOs to affect policy heighten this tension.However, NGOs have had openings and possibilitiesto influence policy even in environments wheregovernment officials have claimed categorically thatNGOs have no role in policy deliberations. Itappears that three elements contribute to suchopenings. The first is time. As NGOs become moreintegrated into the education sector, it becomes moredifficult to exclude them from policy deliberations.Second, familiarity inspires greater trust. Whenofficials and NGOs work together on differenteducational problems, they form linkages of trustand communication that soften ideological or otheropposition. Third, and in contrast, policy impact candepend on the relative strength of NGOs to leveragechange. Because of the essential nature of theservice that is being provided (such as with PlanInternational in Guinea) or the weakness of localgovernment to prevent NGOs from makingdecisions without their consent (as with local officialsin Mali), policy change becomes the prerogative ofNGOs. This last element, of course, has moral andsustainability ramifications.

2. The Donor Perspective

As will be further discussed in Chapter Four, donorsfinance NGO education activities because they sharesimilar education priorities and goals. Notsurprisingly NGOs that receive support from donorsshare their policy agenda and advocate for similar

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policies. In both Ethiopia and Mali, USAID andinternational NGOs financed by USAID haveworked together to support policy change thatprotects and encourages community schools. InGuinea, USAID worked closely with Save theChildren to change government policy regardingteacher deployment. In general, the study found fewexamples of NGOs and donors working at cross-purposes in terms of education policy.

Usually, when donors and NGOs did not share thesame policy objectives, these NGOs hadindependent sources of funding. By payingcommunity school teachers more than thegovernment provides contract teachers, PlanInternational pursued a teacher policy different thanthat supported by the World Bank, and by extension,other donors in Guinea.13 The NGO Coalition inMalawi has pursued an education policy agenda toelevate teacher pay and conditions, which are nothigh priorities amongst donors. More importantly,the Coalition has also targeted government policytowards donors, claiming that the answer to manyeducation issues would be through debt relief andthe reversal of certain structural adjustmentmeasures.

Donor representatives interviewed for this study hadlittle to say about these independent NGOs or theirinterventions to affect policy. In Malawi, donorsrepresentatives were somewhat irritated by theCoalition, but more for its tactics than its agenda. InGuinea, donors were not concerned about the policychanges Plan Guinea had accomplished in theN’zérékouré region.

Donors have less tolerance for NGOs that pursue aseparate policy agenda with their funding.Negotiations between World Education and USAIDin Mali in 1995 provide an interesting case in thisregard. World Education’s program essentially hascivil society objectives. It aims to increase communityand civil society involvement in education decision-making throughout the education system. ThusWorld Education targeted parents’ associations ofboth public and community schools. However,during negotiations, USAID insisted that WorldEducation focus solely on community schools and

abandon support to parents’ associations of publicschools. Although World Education continued tosupport those public school parents’ associationsthat had been in their program prior to 1995, no newpublic sector parents’ associations received fundingunder the new program. Essentially, USAID’seducation policy agenda at the time indicated thatcommunity schools were the privileged vehicle forsystem expansion and that resources for publicschools should be limited. In fact, USAID in Mali inthe mid-1990s tended to champion communityschools as the principal solution to low enrollmentand quality in Mali.

Thus, donors and NGOs funded by them tend toshare the same policy agenda. When they diverge,donors are easily able to leverage a realignment. Thissupport, however, reflects the general point madeabove that NGOs attempt to influence policy whenthe success of their program depends on policychange. Donors, of course, address policyconstraints that block programs they finance. What isless clear, however, is whether donors give muchimportance to the “right” of NGOs to play a policyrole.

Chapter Four distinguishes between NGOs thatreceive support from education sector departmentswithin donor agencies and others who receivesupport from the “democracy and governance”sector. This demarcation is also relevant here. WorldEducation in Mali and Pact in Ethiopia, for example,have received part of their funding through thedemocracy and governance programs. This fundinghas specifically supported the objective to engagenon-governmental actors in the education policyprocess. In these cases, developing federations ornetworks that can represent local educationstakeholders reflects donor policy priorities.

Education donors, however, have exhibited lessinterest in NGO efforts to change the policy processthan in changing specific policies. Although donorsobviously support these through financing, donorrepresentatives interviewed in our study focused onspecific education policy agendas rather than theactual role that NGOs play in the process. USAIDand other donors have encouraged government to

13 To date, donors have urged government to control salaries for contract teachers, keeping them at a level much lower than civilservice teachers. Donors are changing their position on this policy and contract teacher salaries will probably rise in the near future.

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allow NGOs (particularly international NGOs) toparticipate in policy discussions in Mali, Guinea, andEthiopia. However, in these cases, the overallobjective, according to those interviewed, was towork towards the relevant policy change, rather thana change in the policy process. From the perspectiveof most education sector donors, communitymobilization and the creation of stronger parents’associations are believed to contribute to higherquality, more equitable, and greater access toeducation. If government policy prevents this fromhappening, then donors will engage (with NGOs) inan effort to change those policies. Fundamentally, fordonors, it is the policy ends that are of interest whenit comes to NGOs, not the policy means.

3. The Local Stakeholder Perspective

Few local actors had much to say about the policyrole of NGOs, except in Ethiopia. Generally, theyfeel national policy decisions are a very distantconcern. In fact, most interviewees, particularlycommunity representatives, did not understand thequestion. Local government and local educationauthorities usually brushed aside the issue havinglittle to say about national policy. In many cases, theauthority indicated that he or she knew as little aboutNGO involvement in national policy as of themechanics of national policy formation itself.

In all countries, local actors were very much awarethat NGOs could influence local decisions. In fact,many community representatives viewed local NGOsas their conduit to decision makers, capable ofadvocating for resources and advantages. The case ofEthiopia is different because of the unusual way thateducation policy is set and enforced in that country.Much policy is substantially more local than in theother three countries. Curriculum, teacherrecruitment and qualifications, the placement ofschools, and other domains that are typically reservedby higher levels of the education system are decidedby local government. In this case, local actors werevery much aware of how the policy process workedand the influence that NGOs could have. Thus themore local the decisions, the more likely localstakeholders understand the impact of NGOs onpolicy.

4. Teacher Unions

Teacher union representatives were interviewed inGuinea, Malawi, and Mali concerning theirperspective on NGOs and their role in the policyprocess. This stakeholder is usually neglected bydonors and international NGOs, and is oftenconstrued as a constraint to policy change andeducational improvement.

Of all actors interviewed in Mali and Guinea, unionrepresentatives exhibited the most animosity towardsNGOs and their attempts to influence educationpolicy. For these stakeholders, NGOs were clearly adestructive force that is undoing the public educationsystem. NGOs (both national and international) wereusually equated with donors and constituted acomplementary force of structural adjustmentprograms. They were considered to have nolegitimacy working in the education system and byextension in the education policy arena.

International or national NGOs working in theeducation sector in Mali and Guinea do not have anyrelations with teachers’ unions. They appear in someof the same forums and meetings but rarely engagein discussion or common actions. Unionrepresentatives were usually not informed of thespecific programs or policy endeavors of eitherinternational or national NGOs, thus the animositywas often fueled by misstatements of what NGOswere actually doing. Lack of relations has certainlymade these unions an enemy.

The impact of unions on NGO policy endeavorsappears to be slight in Mali and Guinea. Theseunions have not specifically mobilized to curtailNGO action, although they have tried to stop therecruitment of community school teachers in bothcountries, with little success. However, theiropposition looms as a potential constraint to anypolicy initiative supported by NGOs.

In Malawi, ActionAid, Oxfam, and CARE have takena diametrically opposed tack with unions. TheCoalition has specifically asked the Malawian teachersunion to join its endeavor. Also, the initial policyagenda set by the Coalition is essentially the same asthat of the national union—better conditions and

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pay for teachers. It is too early to tell what will be theimpact of this alliance—it may have contributed tothe adoption of more oppositional strategies by theCoalition. Nevertheless, it will be very interesting tosee what this relation between traditionally isolatededucation stakeholders will yield in terms of policychange.

5. The Stakeholder Environment forPolicy Change

The principal issue that must be addressed to affectpolicy is the position of other stakeholders. Each ofthe four actors reviewed above hold a particularperspective on the role of NGOs in policydeliberations. However, each stakeholder’s positionhas variable importance to NGOs’ successful effortsto affect policy.

Interestingly, donors that fund NGO projects havethe greatest impact on whether an NGO cansuccessfully pursue their policy agenda. If donorsand NGOs are aligned in a strategy to change aparticular policy, they constitute a formidablealliance. Although government will challenge the“independence” of NGOs, this has not constituted amajor constraint to NGO efforts to affect policy.

In most cases, government officials represent the“object” of endeavors to change policy. Althoughthere are cases where weak government makes itpossible to affect policy without engaginggovernment officials, policy change usually requiressome sort of sustained interaction. Resistance andeven animosity are a given as NGOs attempt tochange the behavior of government, but these haverarely constituted insurmountable constraints.

Local stakeholders have been irrelevant to efforts toimpact policy, and in most cases unaware of policychange strategies implemented on their behalf,particularly at national levels. This is veryproblematic as they are supposed to be thebeneficiaries of policy change. How important wouldit be if local stakeholders did not actually want apolicy change that NGOs had effectively influenced?They rarely have the ability to reverse policies(although they can often ignore directives). Althoughthis might be an unlikely occurrence, the potential

that this might occur illustrates the weak link in theparadigm that drives NGO interest in changing bothpolicy and the policy process.

Finally, stakeholders that have been neglectedconstitute a potential threat for NGO strategies tochange policy. Unions, political parties, churches,interest groups, other branches or sectors ofgovernment are both potential allies and formidablefoes to the policy agenda supported by NGOs.Watching how the Malawian Coalition unfolds as averitable force to change policy should provide someimportant lessons in the opportunities anddifficulties of including these often ignoredstakeholders in policy work.

C. How Do NGOs Attempt to InfluencePolicy

This section reviews the different strategies and toolsthat NGOs have used to affect policy in the fourcountries studied. In all, seven different strategieshave been used in different combinations to affectpolicy agendas: policy dialogue, coalition building,leveraging policy through donors, leveraging throughresources, demonstration, “partnership,” andadvocacy.

1. Policy Dialogue

Policy dialogue refers to a process by whichadvocates of a particular policy engage in ongoingdiscussions with decision makers to reach aconsensus. Ideally, these are informed by the bestdata and analysis possible and provide anopportunity for all relevant stakeholders toparticipate in the deliberations or at least have theirperspective considered. Policy dialogue is typically ameans for stakeholders and representatives to engageeducation authorities to either advocate for a certainpolicy change or ensure that their point of view isconsidered during policy deliberations. Frequentface-to-face meetings with decision makers, of aformal or informal nature, constitute the essence ofthis approach. What is important is that stakeholderscreate an atmosphere of partnership to solve aproblem or come to consensus. Often, policydialogue entails trust-building actions, such as

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stakeholders working together on the same task forcethat is responsible for fleshing out a particular policy.

Mali and Guinea both provide examples using policydialogue at a national level. In Mali, NGOs engagedgovernment authorities on a continuous basis in awide range of policy issues and continue to do so.They have had regular meetings, both informal andformal, with government officials to defend andpromote community schools. They have preparedand introduced information and arguments toofficials to persuade them to change the rules onrecognizing community schools.

Aide et Action in Guinea is preparing the ground formore extensive use of the policy dialogue approach.They are actively seeking to take part in differentgovernment policy discussions. For example, theyattend the regular meeting of donors held everymonth. They also have established contacts andrelationships with national education authorities thatthey hope will enable them to advocate for theirpolicy priorities more effectively.

In Guinea, it is too soon to judge the effectivenessof Aide et Action’s endeavor—the NGO has not yetdeveloped a specific policy agenda for which toadvocate. As mentioned above, they are particularlyinterested in establishing the elements of a differentpolicy process. In the case of Mali, policy dialoguehas been very successful. Many interviewees haveindicated that the numerous encounters withgovernment officials eventually convinced theofficials to change the rules with regards tocommunity schools.

Policy dialogue is clearly the method of choice atmore local levels as well. In almost all countries,international and national NGOs have attempted todevelop better ties with education officials to avoidconstraints to program implementation. As discussedin Chapter Two, earlier phases of programimplementation led to conflict and blockages becauselocal education authorities had not been involved indecision-making processes.

2. Coalition Building

In several countries, coalition building has been usedas a way to leverage change and also engage in policydialogue. Here again Mali provides a prime example.The creation of the Groupe Pivot, an NGOconsortium, was extremely important to pushforward the community school agenda, a strengththat certainly came from numbers. The Groupe Pivotwas initially established with support from thefederation of NGOs in Mali as part of a moregeneral effort to organize the NGO field. At first,the Groupe Pivot was essentially a “talk shop” whererepresentatives from interested local andinternational NGOs would discuss a particularchosen theme. The Groupe Pivot obtained financingfrom Save the Children and USAID for operationsand then took on the advocacy role for communityschools. Mostly, the Groupe Pivot engaged in policydialogue with national officials to influence changesin policy. It was also able to share information andcoordinate efforts between NGOs to present acommon front for government. Anotherconsequence was that many member NGOs alsoincreased their institutional capacity.

However, the Groupe Pivot experience alsodemonstrates the difficulties of coalitions. Afterhaving won the fight for community schools, theGroupe Pivot’s effectiveness as an organizationbegan to decline. Leadership changed and alsobecame more dispersed as key members receivedinvitations to participate in one internationalconference after another. Essentially, coalitionmaintenance requires substantial attention andresources. The coalition made a fatal mistake; upondonor urging, it began to act as a clearinghouse fordonors who wanted to contract NGOs for theirprograms. Although relatively effective as anadvocacy group and “talk shop,” it was not preparedto manage contracts. Eventually, because ofaccusations of mishandling of funds, the credibilityof the Groupe Pivot was undermined. It continuesto exist but with very little importance for theeducation NGO landscape.

The attempt of several international NGOs to createa coalition of NGOs in Malawi has been quitedifferent. From the beginning, the coalition adopted

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a more adversarial posture towards government anddonors than the Groupe Pivot. Although theconsortium in Malawi has not had the devastatingmanagerial issues faced by the Groupe Pivot, the factthat it has split into two consortia indicates thatefforts to institutionalize a national civil society frontvis-à-vis the education system has also been difficult.

The two experiments are different in a number ofways. First, the Groupe Pivot was formed by thefederation of NGOs in Mali. Although donors andinternational NGOs had rendered it operational, itwas essentially established by a number of keynational NGO actors. ActionAid, Oxfam, and CAREwere the driving force in establishing the MalawianCoalition. In fact, as mentioned above, ActionAidhas expressed its concern that the consortium didnot represent the interests of national civil societystakeholders in education, which is one of thereasons that it has left. Also, the concrete nature ofGroupe Pivot’s policy agenda certainly helped focusdiscussions and decisions in a way that the Malawianconsortium has not yet been able to achieve.However, after the Groupe Pivot had essentiallyachieved its desired policy changes, its raison d’êtrebecame more ambiguous and negatively affected itscredibility.

3. Using Donors to Leverage Policy

Because many NGO programs are financed bybilateral and international donors, they are oftenpulled into policy discussions between governmentand NGOs to resolve implementation problems ofvarying scale. Donors evidently want their programsto succeed and, as mentioned above, often have acommon policy agenda with NGOs as aconsequence. Here, two examples providecontrasting experiences of donors leveraging forNGO policy objectives.

In Mali, USAID and the World Bank have alwayschampioned community schools. Eventually, thelion’s share of their assistance was funneled towardscommunity schools, with little left for the publicschool system. Working in tandem with the GroupePivot these donors placed pressure on governmentto create a more advantageous environment forcommunity schools.

National policy in Ethiopia requires that the amountof money brought into a region for a project by aNGO be withheld from the block grant type fundingsent to the regional office. The purpose of the policyis to prevent uneven amounts of resources beinggiven to different regions of the country. Althoughnot always implemented and variably interpreted indifferent regions, this policy has created much grieffor NGOs in the education sector. For example, aWorld Learning project was held up for a year by aregional bureau of education that would not givepermission for it to begin. Finally education stafffrom USAID called a meeting that included differentgovernment representatives. The meeting wasdescribed as “a show of power.” USAID also createdan “incentive fund” to repay the regional educationbureau the money it would lose when the WorldLearning project began. Following these events, theproject was approved. Since that time, however, thegovernment has rarely implemented the policy, andthe incentive fund has not been used very often.Thus, donor and NGO worked together to preventthe enforcement and shape the interpretation of aparticular government policy.

NGOs take risks, however, when they depend ondonors to help push their policy agenda. On onehand, it reinforces the perspective of governmentand others that the NGOs are an extension ofdonors, rather than independent actors pursuingtheir own objectives. On the other, donors can befickle and may abandon an NGO if their interestsshift.

4. Leveraging Change throughResources

As discussed in Chapter Two, governments areambivalent toward NGOs because NGOs arecontributing resources to the education sector thatwould probably not be gained in any other way. Afterall, money does buy influence. In countries such asMali and Guinea where NGOs control a very largeproportion of external funds targeting the educationsystem, policy leverage happens because theirprograms are so big. In all four countries, NGO-supported sponsorship and integrated rural

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development programs have brought money intolocal education for many years.

The Plan International program in Guinea and theSave the Children program in Mali are both relevantexamples. In Guinea, the Plan International programsupports schools in every district of the N’zérékouréregion and provides budgetary support to almostevery local government. As a consequence, Plan’sinvolvement in the policy process is growing, even ata national level:

At first, some donors were firmly against havinginternational NGOs attend their monthly donor’smeeting. However, when it was pointed out to themthat Plan International was contributing annually muchmore to the education sector than a number of regularmembers around the table, they were obliged to changetheir mind (NGO representative).

Unlike Plan’s activities in Guinea, many educationofficials in Mali have opposed Save the Children’sprogram from the outset. However, the proliferationof community schools proceeded so quickly thateducation officials were obliged to accommodate andcontrol them rather than prevent them fromgrowing. Save’s program has grown from a handfulof schools in the early 1990s to over 700 schools in2001. In addition, four other major internationaldonors and NGOs (World Education, UNICEF,Africare, and CARE) all support community schools.Community schools enroll approximately 25 percentof the children in Mali. This obviously provides thebasis for substantial policy leverage.

5. Providing an Example

In many cases, evidence of the effectiveness ofNGO programs has influenced policy. Usually,however, demonstration has been used inconjunction with other approaches to leveragedecision-making. As NGOs conduct policy dialogueor mobilize advocates (donors or other partners) topressure government, being able to point toirrefutable program success (particularly incomparison to government efforts) is a strongargument.

In Ethiopia, education authorities at both nationaland local levels were rarely aware of non-formaleducation experiences supported by NGOs. Non-formal education is not considered a domain of thegovernment, and to change the government’snegative perceptions of NGOs, international NGOsbegan to highlight non-formal education activities tobridge this. Pact organized and funded many trips forgovernment education personnel to visit NGOeducation projects, both within Ethiopia and outside(trips to BRAC, for example). Also Pact organizedinformation exchanges, such as sponsoring a national“NGO day” where NGOs described their work: theactivities and their impacts. NGO success storieshave also been written up and distributed. Oneobjective of this demonstration has been toencourage government to develop policies onalternative education systems. Government is nowwriting NGO involvement into its new five-yearplan.

To inform the current debate about use of locallanguage as national policy, Save the Children and theMalawi Institute of Education conducted research.They have also undertaken longitudinal research intocurriculum and teacher training effectiveness. Saveused a reduced curriculum, which is now being testedin government schools in contrast to the officialgovernment curriculum. Save the Children schools’teachers are trained to interact differently with pupilsand given more support. This training is being testedin government schools.

In Mali, the government and Save the Childrenconducted an evaluation of the effectiveness ofcommunity schools. This evaluation demonstratedthat the children attending community schoolsachieved the same levels of competency as those inpublic schools. Though many different actors withinthe education establishment protested these results, itnevertheless convinced many officials thatcommunity schools must be included in the formaleducation system.

Demonstration, however, can also increase thedefensiveness of government actors to the detrimentof the “cause.” Again, in Mali, community schoolevaluation results, when presented to a large groupof teachers in the Koulikoro region, were met with

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uproar and anger. The teachers reactions were sostrong the meeting ended prematurely.Fundamentally, the problem was presentation; themessage communicated was that the communityschool teachers were responsible for the success inthese schools and, by extension, public schoolteachers were responsible for the respective failureof public schools. As discussed in Chapter Two,government insecurity regarding its own legitimacydrives efforts to control NGOs and accuse them oflesser quality interventions.

6. Partnership

As mentioned in Chapter Two, partnership hasbecome a reigning theme in NGO discussions.Although not very clearly defined, partnershipconnotes NGOs and government officials workingtogether towards a common goal withcomplementary responsibilities. Technically,partnership is a result rather than a strategy, however,NGOs have actively sought partnership as a strategyto change policy. The following three examplesprovide an interesting contrast as to how suchpartnerships are developed and their impact.

In Mali, government officials protested thecurriculum Save used in community schools whichled Save to contract with the Centre National del’Education to develop a modified educationalprogram. The process of collaboration betweenthese two actors helped realign perspectives andlessened the education officials’ opposition to thecommunity school approach. In this case, the NGOsought a technical relationship with governmentofficials to resolve a policy difference. By doing so,an ideological difference was eventually resolved as atechnical issue.

In Guinea, Plan International’s program is, by itsvery nature, a partnership between government andNGO. Plan makes grants to local government toimplement its education agenda. This relationshipbetween government and NGO is probably the mostintegrated of any NGO program studied. Theoverall aim of the program is to enable localauthorities to prioritize and meet education andhealth needs.

In Malawi, the Alliance grew out of the Coalitionbecause some actors were uncomfortable with itsconfrontational strategy for change. A definingcharacteristic of the Alliance is that it includesgovernment and donor representatives. AlthoughGuinea, Mali, and Ethiopia have institutionalmechanisms of varying degrees of formality andpermanence in place that bring together government,donors, and NGOs, the Malawian Alliance is the firstsuch case that is initiated and piloted by NGOs.

Each partnership was formed to address a verydifferent policy concern. In Mali, the partnership wasneeded to transform a political problem into atechnical issue that could be resolved. In Guinea,partnership represented a way to underwrite thedecentralization of educational decisions. In Malawi,partnership was used to operationalize a particularstrategy for changing the education policy process.

However, a key commonality of these three types ofpartnership is that they are all financed by NGOs.Thus, partnership has invariably meant a transfer ofresources from NGOs to government. This, ofcourse, represents a certain irony considering theideological roots of most NGO programs—toprovide an alternative to government for meetingeducational needs.

7. Advocacy Campaign

When most people think about affecting policychange, the common vision is one of a grouping ofindividuals and organizations that intend to worktowards a change in government policy throughadvocacy campaigns. These can take various formsfrom media and sensitization campaigns to politicalaction. The key characteristic is a concerted effort ongovernment officials to change policies throughpublic pressure. Although advocacy probablyconstitutes the most common strategy to leveragepolicy in more developed countries, it has been rarelyused as a way to change policy in these four cases.This is not really surprising because policy has notusually changed in these four countries as a productof public pressure, but rather because of otherfactors.

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The Coalition in Malawi provides an interestingexception. International and national NGOs linkedwith other non-governmental stakeholders are usingthe newspapers and other forums to challengegovernment positions on a number of educationissues. Although quite familiar in many moredeveloped countries, it represents an untried tack inMalawi, and government officials have initiallyreacted negatively and defensively. However, it is tooearly to make any conclusion regarding theeffectiveness of this strategy.

Basically, the NGOs underwriting the Coalition wantMalawi to become the kind of country whereadvocacy can work—that is, one where policy ismodified because the public mobilizes to leveragechange. The departure of ActionAid indicates apossible weakness in this strategy—possibly becausethe Coalition did not truly represent or engage thegrassroots of Malawian society. The members andthe audience of the Coalition remained a thin elite ofeducation stakeholders.

8. Selecting Effective Strategies Dependson Imagination

No recipe exists for what strategy to use where toachieve which policy objective. Our sample is toosmall and diverse to develop such firm guidelines.Also, the nature of policy change—contingent onmany interlocking factors—makes textbooksolutions impractical. Nevertheless, the array ofstrategies NGOs have used does indicate how todevelop effective approaches to affect policy.

First, policy goals need to be well defined. In eachcase of successful policy change, the targeted policywas clear and well understood by all actors. However,discrete policy goals do have one problem—what todo when they have been attained?

Second, there is both power and problems withnumbers of partners. Working with donors, otherNGOs, or other stakeholders has its advantages, andhas made it easier to leverage change withgovernment. However, maintaining relationshipswith other actors requires skill and capacity,particularly if members of any particular coalitionare in competition or have unequal relations.

Third, no strategy was undertaken without resources.Each strategy had significant financial costsassociated with it. Successful education policy changecannot be accomplished inexpensively.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, not one NGOthat engaged in successful policy change copied aprocedure or strategies used by another NGO. Thisis even the case with the same international NGOworking in several countries. This does not meanthat a particular NGO had not learned lessons fromthe experience of others or its previous adventuresin policy change. In fact, observation shaped manyof the strategies developed by NGOs. Ultimately,however, effective strategies for policy change weredeveloped as a product of honest analysis of pastsuccesses, comprehensive problem solving, andcreative thinking.

D. Conclusions

NGOs must attempt to influence policy becausewhat they hope to accomplish will otherwise bestymied. This is the first and perhaps most importantlesson to be learned from the experience of NGOsin this area. Changing government policy and the waythat it is formulated is probably the most effectiveway to ensure the success and sustainability of NGOinterventions. NGO projects need to include a policycomponent as part of their overall implementationstrategy.

The second principal lesson from NGO experiencein these four countries is that policy change requiressubstantial effort to nurture and maintainrelationships with different education stakeholders.Although confrontation may have its place, mostsuccessful endeavors to promote a particular policyagenda have depended on efforts to align the NGOand other actors—other NGOs, donors, and, mostimportantly, government officials.

Third, NGO interventions to change policy havealso revealed a significant weakness in NGOprograms—they have yet to find a successfulformula for changing the policy process to ensurethat the public understands, participates in, and caninfluence education policy at different levels.Although NGOs have created links with all actors,

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including grassroots stakeholders, they have so farfailed to develop mechanisms that link these actorstogether in an effective manner. The followingchapter will examine more fully some of the reasonswhy this has been difficult for NGOs. What we wantto emphasize here is the importance of continuing toattempt to change the policy process, regardless ofthe difficulties encountered to date.

Essentially, NGOs as a group learned that without afundamental change in the relations between thosewho provide and benefit from education services,many of the innovations and improvements thathave resulted from NGO involvement will not besustainable. This is the next challenge for NGOswho work in the education sector and for those whosupport them.

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The initial motivation for this study came from theobservation that USAID and other donorsincreasingly have involved NGOs in their educationalprogram. This chapter examines the motivation forand the nature of this relationship, as well as how ithas evolved over time.

The first section explores the different mechanismsin place that tie NGOs to donors and discusses someof the implications for these different types ofrelationships. The next two sections examine themotivations of donors and NGOs to enter into thisrelationship, investigating the reasons why donorshave turned to NGOs and the value-added theyexpect by working with them and then the sameissues from the perspective of NGOs.

Not all NGO programs are financed through fundsprovided by bilateral or multilateral developmentagencies. A number of international and nationalNGOs working in the education sector haveestablished and maintained their programs usingresources generated in other ways—charitycontributions, sponsorships, and even nationalgovernment. Section D compares these NGOprograms with those that receive donor support toprovide insights as to how donor involvement inNGO activities impacts on their scope, priorities, andresults.

In each of these sections, the relationship betweendonors and international versus national NGOs iscompared and contrasted. As discussed in ChapterOne, the experience of the two types of NGOs isquite distinct in the education sector and theirrelationship with donors is similarly so.

A. Different Kinds of Relationships

The relationship between donors and NGOs hasbeen defined through one of three basicmechanisms. First, donors have issued a request forproposals from NGOs to implement either a specific

activity or a program in the country in question.Terms of reference with varying degrees of scopeand precision are issued and NGOs compete for anopportunity to implement these projects. Usually, thecompetition is restricted to NGOs (that is, no profit-making firms are allowed to submit a proposal).

Among international NGOs, the World Learningprogram in Ethiopia is an example of this kind ofarrangement. In this case, USAID issued a requestfor applications for a cooperative agreement with aninternational NGO to implement a specifiedprogram of support to community organizations andschools. For local NGOs, the World Bankconstruction program in Guinea and the UNICEFprogram for community schools in Mali representtypical cases where national requests for proposalscan only be taken up by national and local NGOs.

The second type of arrangement is a contract oragreement resulting directly from negotiationsbetween a donor and an NGO. NGOs do notcompete for a pre-determined program in this case.Either, a donor approaches an NGO to invite it toprepare an education program that meets theirprogrammatical goals in a particular country, or anNGO might submit an unsolicited proposal to adonor requesting support for funding, arguing thatits approach to education fulfills donor objectives.Often, the NGO already has an established presencein the country and chooses an appropriate donor todevelop an education program. Also, an NGO thatalready has an education program in a particularcountry might approach a donor to solicit supportfor expanding or continuing the program. This hasbeen the case for both the World Education and theSave the Children programs in Mali, as well as theAide et Action program in Guinea. Finally, and morerarely, NGOs might approach a donor (or vice versa)to establish a presence and a program in a particularcountry. This was the case for both World Educationand Save the Children in Guinea. In the fourcountries studied, only international NGOs have

Chapter IV. NGOs and Donors: Who’s On First?

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established a relationship with a donor in thismanner.

The final type of arrangement defines much of thefinancing of national NGOs by donors in the fourcountries. In this case, donors contract withinternational or well-established national NGOs tofinance the activities of smaller national NGOs.Most USAID-financed programs in all four countriesinclude a similar arrangement. In Ethiopia, bothWorld Learning and Pact use local NGOs toimplement aspects of their programs. This is also asignature approach of all of World Education’sprograms. In Guinea, the World Bank first hadcontracted with individual NGOs to constructschools. In the new program, the government hascontracted ten international and large nationalNGOs to mediate the work with local NGOs.

As an overall field, contractual relations betweendonors and international NGOs have become moreformal. Historically, education initiatives were at firstdeveloped by NGOs using their own resources.Then, many approached donors requesting resourceseither to generalize or continue their program (forexample Aide et Action in Guinea, Save the Childrenand World Education in Mali, Save the Children inMalawi). This also occurred internationally, asprograms in one country served as a model foranother (for example, Save the Children in Mali andGuinea). NGOs’ successes in education sectoractivities led donors to ask NGOs to develop similarprograms. This was the case in Mali, in particular, asdonors were all interested in the idea of communityschools. NGOs, seeing this opportunity, beganproposing education programs to donors. In the lastinstance, donors have increasingly used competitionas a basis for establishing NGO education programs.

The trajectory of World Education programs insupport of parents’ associations typifies thisevolution. First, World Education developed itsprogram in Mali working with parents’ associationsin Bamako with World Bank support. WorldEducation then submitted an unsolicited proposal tothe USAID mission to expand the program whichwas renegotiated twice. World Education thenapproached USAID missions in other countries withother unsolicited proposals, offering to replicate the

Mali model. This year, the USAID mission in Guineahas decided to compete the education program.

This increased formalization of relations has certainimplications for the shape of NGO educationprograms. First, donors have a clearer understandingof the role they believe NGOs should play in theireducation programs. By competing programs withwell-delineated results and approaches, donors knowexactly what to expect from the program. However,one unintended consequence of “clarity” is thatNGOs become less innovative and experimental,which, as we will see below, is a common justificationfor their use.

The growing use of intermediaries to work with localNGOs also has positive and negative implications.Donors usually do not have the administrativecapacity to contract and supervise many small NGOsand thus the economy of scale significantly eases themanagement burden. This means that theintermediary filters all relations with local NGOs.

B. Using NGOs to Implement DonorPrograms: The Need for Results

Why have donors turned to NGOs to implementeducation programs? We put this question to all theinterviewees and the answers were surprisinglyconsistent across countries and stakeholders. First,and overwhelmingly, the interviewees told us thatdonors turn to NGOs because they are capable ofdoing things in the education sector that governmentcannot. This was expressed both in terms of thegovernments’ limited capacity and NGOs’ particularcharacteristics. Answers invariably contrast NGOs togovernment. Second, donor representatives indicatedthat often it is easier to work with NGOs than withgovernment or contractors to obtain the same result,more a matter of contractual ease than approach.Third, some donor representatives and otherinterviewees told us they appreciate the NGOs’ability to innovate and experiment. Finally, somedonor representatives claimed that using NGOsfulfills a mandate. The use of national NGOs inparticular is construed as way to reinforce civilsociety.

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1. Doing What Governments Are NotAble to Do

According to most interviewees, donors use NGOsto implement their programs mostly because theyhave achieved more measurable results moreefficiently than government. Interviewees of allcategories agree that NGOs are generally able toaccomplish the same results less expensively thangovernment, because they achieve lower unit costsand experience less wastage. Also, NGOs tend tomeet deadlines more reliably than governments whenboth are contracted to implement the same program.

Local NGOs contracted by the World Bank inGuinea to implement construction projectsexemplify this point. Local NGOs have built twicethe number of schools with the same budget, andmet almost all construction deadlines—particularlyimportant when schools must open in time for theschool year. Most Guinean government officialsagree that NGOs are more timely and accountablethan the government service traditionally responsiblefor school construction. In Mali, community schoolprograms of various international and local NGOshave led to a historic increase in enrollment that haseluded donors and government for several decades.

Chapter Two discussed some of the reasons whystakeholders believe that NGOs can deliver results ina more cost-effective manner than government.Everything from the purported weakening of statecapacity through structural adjustment to purportedcorruption has been used to explain why NGOsdeliver what government cannot. Some evenchallenge the accepted belief that NGOs are better.However, the evidence is strong that NGOs candeliver in ways that government has not proven ableto do. Essentially, donors turn to NGOs out ofnecessity: if targets are to be met and resultsproduced, donors must choose the most effectiveavenue.

Donors, however, have not abandoned governmentsor the possibility that government services can beimproved. Donors continue to target the capacity ofgovernment to provide educational services and touse government channels to deliver everything fromteacher training to textbooks to construction. No

donor implements its program solely throughNGOs. In addition, donors recognize certainlimitations to NGO implementation of programs.Whereas NGOs are often the preferred venue forconstruction, distribution of goods and services atcommunity levels and “social mobilization,” donorscontinue to work mostly with governments on issuesof pedagogical reform (curriculum change, textbookdevelopment) and teacher training.

NGOs are chosen over governments because theyhave a number of inherent characteristics that enablethem to act in ways government cannot. Practicallyeveryone interviewed greatly appreciated NGOs’capacity to work at a local level to mobilizecommunities to support schools. Most governmentsno longer work directly with communities in theeducation sector. The increased interest incommunity participation to improve education in thelate 1990s has led donors to NGOs to implementtheir community programs. In Ethiopia, both WorldLearning and the Tigray Development Associationimplement community-focused programs the currentgovernment education offices would not support. InMalawi, a number of international and local NGOsare funded by donors to work in communities.

Few donors, however, have thought through thelong-term implications of having NGOs rather thangovernment services implement certain aspects oftheir programs. Although most governments havecome to accept that NGOs have a certaincomparative advantage in chosen domains, no donorrepresentative interviewed for this study clearlyindicated what the “future place” of NGOs shouldbe. Until recently, this concern has been muted byideological suspicions concerning the state’s role inproviding any public good (see below). Althoughdonor representatives have expressed some concernabout issues of sustainability and have often insistedon exit strategies, most have been framed in terms ofhow communities might take over the programs ratherthan government. In countries wheredecentralization is occuring, this tack might havesome promise. However, even in these cases,community and local government capacity to step inat the same level of cost-effectiveness and deliver thesame level of results cannot be assumed.

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Essentially, by framing the role of NGOs as an agentthat can do what government is not capable orexpected to do, donors have perhaps limited thepotential involvement of NGOs in the educationsector and have even closed off certain avenues forsustainability. After all, if NGOs cannot do whatgovernments are supposed to do (at least notforever), then who can?

2. Make Life Easier for Donors

Aside from the obvious benefit of having atrustworthy implementer, donors benefit in otherways by working through NGOs. First, it is easier tonegotiate with NGOs than with governments.Although NGOs have their own agendas andpriorities, terms such as “sovereignty” and“leveraging policy” never come up as arrangementsare made between NGOs and donors. Whereas ittook several years for donors to agree with theMalian government on where to build a new school,this was not an issue for NGOs. On one hand,donors have exceptional leverage over NGOs whoreceive their assistance. Although governments areoften desperately dependent on donor funds,Ministries of Education will not shut down ifnegotiations over a project end. On the other, thepolitical “messiness” of negotiating with governmentis absent. After all, NGOs have fewer stakeholders toconsider when engaging in discussions with a donor.NGOs can ignore teacher unions, political parties,bureaucratic hierarchies, dueling elites, the public, theIMF, and relations with neighboring countries.Where government is weak, they can even ignoreeducation sector authorities. NGOs are indeedvulnerable to political pressure from governmentofficials and other national and local stakeholders,however, significantly less so than governmentofficials.

Second, a number of donors indicated that workingwith NGOs has certain advantages over workingthrough contractors. Some of these advantages areironically the result of government regulations that,in many countries, restrict the actions ofentrepreneurs. The World Bank project in Guineaillustrates this clearly. Many fewer bureaucratic andlegal constraints existed to engage a NGO to build aschool than to hire an entrepreneur.

Another advantage to international NGOs overinternational contractors results from the fact thatmany have established a multisector presence withina particular country that is not limited to specificprojects. Save the Children has longstandingrepresentation in all four countries studied and worksin several sectors to support its country-specificgoals. Although this might attenuate, to some extent,donors’ negotiating position, this presence provides anumber of advantages for program implementation.Most importantly, international (and certain nationalNGOs) have already existing staff, offices, and otherinfrastructure that can be readily mobilized for a newprogram. Also, well-established NGOs havedeveloped their own relationships with governmentofficials that can serve the donors’ program.

In the increasingly rare cases where donors fundexisting NGO programs, donors can make a lessbinding commitment and mobilize fewer resourcesto achieve a particular result. Although donors mayhave less influence over priorities and programdesign, “piggy-backing” allows them to gain morewith a smaller investment.

For USAID, the use of NGOs has a number ofadditional internal benefits. According to USAIDofficials, managing grants to NGOs, both local andinternational, is much easier than managing contractswith local or international firms. Although NGOsmight complain that USAID has extensive reportingrequirements, for project and contract officers,managing a cooperative agreement or a grant is aconsiderably less onerous task than overseeing acontract with a consortium of firms.

3. Educational Innovation

NGOs often claim that they offer the opportunity toexplore and test educational innovations on a limitedbasis that can then be generalized by government ordonors. New curriculum and teaching approaches,novel funding formulas, and new and more effectivepartnerships with unexpected stakeholders are allproducts of NGO programs reviewed by our studyand funded with donor resources.

Few donors representatives interviewed in this studymentioned this particular motive, however. As

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mentioned above, donor representatives mostlyreferred to efficiency and ease, rather thanexperimentation. This may reflect a growingnecessity for donor agencies such as USAID toguarantee results to their own constituents.Nevertheless, it is clear that the community schoolmodel, strategies to reinforce parents’ associations,more participatory teaching and learningmethodologies, and new funding mechanisms areNGO innovations that have been adopted by donorsand incorporated into their overall education strategythroughout Africa. Although donors might notexpress this as a benefit from their association withNGOs, it is an observable advantage to thisrelationship.

4. When Democracy and GovernanceMeets Education

Donors claim other reasons for using NGOs in theeducation sector. The most common rationale isgreater school accountability to parents. An ongoingtension exists between the twin objectives ofeducational quality and equitable access on the onehand and greater involvement of “civil society” inoverseeing public services on the other. This tensionis sometimes bureaucratically translated within donoragencies and between donors and NGOs. Forexample, the development assistance agenda ofUSAID missions is defined by “strategic objectives”and groups of agency officials are organized into“S.O. teams” to develop overall strategies, designprojects, and monitor results in specific developmentsectors. In the case of NGO involvement within theeducation sector, “education S.O. teams” have usuallytaken the lead. However, “democracy andgovernance S.O. teams” have also invested in theseactivities, as they relate to the development of “civilsociety.” A key part of most civil society goals heldby democracy and governance programs is to create,strengthen, and sustain organizations that canrepresent the interests of citizens vis-à-visgovernment and can respond to public needsalongside government.

Donors appear to see many opportunities forsynergy when they pursue both education and civilsociety objectives. This synergy, however, has notoften manifested itself. The World Education

program in Mali was the only case of a project jointlyfinanced by two different parts of USAID. Oneinteresting aspect of many country programs is thatthe same NGOs might be contracted by both S.Oteams to conduct separate activities. This strategy hasboth contributed to the flexibility discussed belowand created management difficulties for the NGOs.

The experience of Pact in Ethiopia provides aninteresting example. Originally funded out of theUSAID mission’s Democracy and GovernanceStrategic Objective, Pact’s program focused on bothstrengthening the institutional capacity for thecountry’s local NGO sector as a whole and buildingthe effectiveness of individual NGOs and NGOnetworks. However, when USAID reduced itsspending in this area, Pact applied to the educationand democracy and governance teams for funding.Thus Pact has changed its organizational structure: itnow must write proposals for and report oneducation, health, and other sector specific programs,although they were originally part of the same Pactstrategy. There are several consequences, one ofwhich is that it becomes harder to support theactivities of many local NGOs, which, like Pact, haveprograms involving a number of sectors. Forexample, many local NGOs have activities in botheducation and microfinance, since communities needto generate income to support schools. Anotherconsequence is that Pact might not be able tocontinue some of the activities it describes as helpingto build an “enabling environment” for localNGOs—activities such as working to improve theNGO registration process, media portrayal ofNGOs, collaboration between NGOs andgovernment, and other activities supporting theNGO sector as a whole.

One area where education teams have expressedparticular ambivalence is whether participating localNGOs should be given sufficient support to becomeautonomous organizations. As will be furtherdiscussed in the following section, education projectsfunded by USAID and other donors do not includeresources for local NGO capacity building, with onenotable exception. CRECCOM in Malawi wascreated by USAID, which had invested substantialresources to ensure this organization was a fully self-sustaining NGO. Nevertheless, in most cases, donors

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see such capacity building objectives as peripheral,particularly those that approach NGOs from aneducation rather than a civil society perspective.

5. International NGO vs. Local NGO

Should donors work with international NGOs orlocal NGOs? The two main reasons donors workwith NGOs—greater efficiency and accountabilityon the one hand and the ability to work directly withcommunities on the other—also interact to influencewith whom donors choose to work. In almost allcases, local NGOs are in a better position to workdirectly with communities because they speak thesame language, are located closer to the communities,and are organized to conduct intensive, directsupport to communities. However, local NGOs, aswill be further discussed in the next section, rarelyhave the accountability capabilities demanded bydonors. For example, GTZ in northern Mali decidedto stop working through local NGOs because certainproject funds were not accounted for. USAIDseldom works directly with national or local NGOsfor exactly this reason, as few can meet such strictreporting requirements.

Contracting directly with many local NGOs createsmanagerial burdens that few donors can or wish tosupport. As a result donors prefer to contract out tointernational NGOs. Although almost allstakeholders agree that Guinea’s education programhas been a resounding success, the Guineangovernment with the World Bank has decided totransform the program so that all contracting withlocal NGOs is done through one of ten largerinstitutions, most of which will be internationalNGOs. In addition, Groupe Pivot’s problems in Maliare evidently a result of donor desire to use anintermediary to work with several local NGOs. Thisappears to be the favorite way for donors to workwith local NGOs. This is more a matter of ease thana practice motivated by any particular developmentagenda.

C. Using Donors to Implement NGOPrograms: The Cost of AdditionalResources

This section examines why and how NGOs anddonors collaborate in the education sector from theposition of NGOs. Why do they solicit donorresources and what are the consequences?

Part of the answer of the first question has beendiscussed in the above section—NGOs have usuallyturned to bilateral and international donors to extendtheir initial programs. Or they appeal to donors tofund a new program in a particular country orregion. In both cases, the NGO attempts togeneralize a concept or approach that it has foundpromising.

However, when NGOs submit a proposal orapplication in a competitive process, the reasons fordoing so are less clear. In some cases, an auspiciousalignment of interests exists, where the request forproposals or applications largely overlaps with theNGO’s mission or priorities. For example, someinternational NGOs that have bid for either theGuinea or the Ethiopia programs have couched theirproposals in terms of their own priorities andobjectives. A significant number of local NGOs inall four countries have a geographic regional or localfocus. However, in many cases, it is difficult todifferentiate between NGOs and firms orentrepreneurs.

In Guinea, a theme raised by almost all intervieweesis that many NGOs are actually “fake.” Usuallyreferring to local NGOs, interviewees weresuspicious of the real motivations of NGOsengaged in the education sector. Intervieweesclaimed that the local NGOs leaders used theseinstitutions for self-enrichment or as a politicalvehicle. They purported that many NGOs wereactually headed up by former civil servants and well-known, political actors.

A few government officials in Guinea alsodifferentiated between international NGOs that were“nothing more than contractors” and others thatthey believed had a development agenda. Althoughreluctant to go into great detail, they viewed NGOs

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that receive donor resources and are integrated intodonor programs and those that use other resourcebases differently, ascribing more acceptablemotivations to the latter.

This study does not investigate the validity of theseclaims. It seems these claims may reflect theparticular political history and culture of Guinea thathas bred a suspicion of the private or non-governmental sector and of actors that might beveiled representatives of foreign forces. Moreover, itis often difficult to distinguish between an NGO andany other revenue-making endeavor, particularly inthe case of local NGOs in all four countries. LocalNGOs that donors tend to support, directly orthrough an intermediary, are very similar toconsulting firms or small businesses. In all fourcountries, representatives of national and localNGOs themselves often had difficulty differentiatingbetween an NGO and a firm when asked.

What exactly is the difference between an NGO anda firm? In all four countries, one key difference isthat an NGO is “non-profit” and a firm is “for-profit.” This means that although NGO staff mightreceive a salary and contract individuals to performcertain tasks, no individual or group makes a profitor fee from their activities. This differentiation isadmittedly blurred as staff salary and anentrepreneur’s profit might be an equivalent amount.A second difference is usually that NGOs have somesort of development vision or mission. When NGOsseek funding for an intervention that they havedesigned, this vision or mission is quite clear—theyseek to develop a particular region, or to ensurecommunity participation, or to provide an act ofcharity. However, when they compete for funds,development objectives can be stretched to justifyany type of revenue generation. For example, manyNGOs affiliated with the World Bank in Guineafocus entirely on constructing schools.

Although an NGO is not a profit-making enterprise,it does provide employment to its staff and thusconstitutes a principal source of income for them inall four countries. National and international NGOsin Mali claim to employ 10,000 people, approximatelyone-third the number of civil servants in the country.The promotion of NGOs by some government

actors in all four countries has been couched as anemployment generating strategy.

Does it matter that many NGOs are essentiallyrevenue generating institutions for their participants?After all, from the point of the view of donors andgovernment, if the job gets done well, then what realdifference does it make? Interviewees neverthelessexpected NGOs to have an identity beyondgenerating revenue. Government actors wantedNGOs to be more than just enterprises. NGOrepresentatives wanted to be contributing todevelopment. Donor representatives regularlyjustified their support of NGOs in terms of civilsociety development.

Donors and government may have contributed mostto this ambiguity between NGOs and entrepreneurs.In Guinea, working with NGOs is easier and moreeffective than private firms in the education sectorbecause the national contracting process is onerousand the government cannot ensure the quality ofprivate sector actors. Thus, government regulationitself treats NGOs and private sector agentsdifferently, and creates incentives for any group ofindividuals to manifest themselves as one or theother. Donors also use different contractingmechanisms for NGOs and other providers ofservices—as discussed above, in the case of USAID,these different rules make it preferable from aworkload basis to work with NGOs rather thanother actors. Consequently, it appears that donorsand government may be ultimately responsible forthe propagation of what many interviewees called“fake NGOs,” as they have created conditions whereit makes it difficult for development support agentsto play an effective role.

1. The Cost of These Resources—Setting Agendas, Priorities, andTimelines

This section focuses on those cases where NGOshave a clear agenda and priorities and what happenswhen they turn to donors for financing. Althoughthese NGOs are requesting resources to supporttheir program, appealing to donors for financialsupport leads to a process of negotiated prioritiesand preferences. Because donors rarely provide

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resources with no strings attached, NGOs work withdonors to ensure that both NGO and donorobjectives and priorities are aligned or respected.Typically, negotiations with donors revolve aroundthree basic issues: scope, cost, agenda.

Scope: Interviewees reported that seriousnegotiations surround issues of the numberof sites, their location, and the extent ofintervention, with NGOs usually having amore conservative estimate of what they canor want to do. In Mali, according tointernational NGO representatives, donorsalways pressured them to deliver andsupervise more community schools thanthey considered manageable.

Cost: Donors want to pay only for specificactivities and results that meet their programobjectives. When the donor objective is aspecific educational output or outcome, andthe NGO objective embraces a widerdevelopment vision or agenda, cost becomesparticularly relevant. In negotiations betweenAide et Action and the French Cooperation,the NGO wanted support to create linksbetween civil society and government in theeducation sector; the donor wanted to buildschools. In this case, the FrenchCooperation agreed to provide theadditional resources necessary to create thelinks.

Cost is also an issue for NGOs that aim toprovide more than specific services todonors. NGOs usually need a financial baseto cover overhead costs and fund their owninitiatives. Local NGOs are usually at aparticular disadvantage because internationalNGOs often have established overheadcoefficients with donors. Also, donors tendto be less willing to finance the overheadcosts of local NGOs. Representatives froma number of national NGOs in both Guineaand Mali have indicated that donor refusal tounderwrite development or overhead costshas limited their potential for survival.

Agenda: At first, establishing commontechnical objectives with donors did notseem to be a problem for most NGOssurveyed. This might be a result of self-selection, as NGOs are likely to proposeprograms in which donors will be interested.Upon closer examination, however, manyNGOs navigate between what they want todo, according to their own developmentvision, and what donors expect from them.For example, as discussed above, WorldEducation has consistently defined itsprogram as aiming to reinforce civil society.However, USAID has financed this programessentially on the basis of its potentialcontribution to learning and educationalaccess. This has led to serious disagreementsregarding the priorities and content of theprogram.

One strategy many international NGOs use tomanage the “lack of fit” between their ownobjectives and strategies and those of donors is toseek funding from a variety of donor sources andeven from different parts of the same donor agency.Consequently, the savvy NGO can straddle both itsown objectives and those of specific donors. Thisrequires a certain level of sophistication andorganization, as well as the reputation necessary toattract funds from different sources. As a result, itallows NGOs to negotiate better and find room forboth their objectives and those of specific donors.

Most local NGOs in Mali that work in the educationsector began under the World Education parents’association project. This project both supportedinstitutional capacity building and conducted allinterventions through national NGOs. As otherdonors and international NGOs became increasinglyattracted to community schools and involving NGOsin implementation, they turned to these sameorganizations. Now, three major local NGOs receivefunding from at least three different donors to buildcommunity schools and facilitate communityparticipation efforts. These NGOs have alsoexpanded into other sectors, such as health, micro-enterprise, and democracy and governance.

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2. The Cost of These Resources—Reporting and Other AdministrativeTasks

Aside from competing objectives and priorities,NGOs must also respond to donor demands foraccountability. USAID seems to have the mostextensive demands for accountability of the donorssurveyed. In fact, international and national NGOsrepresentatives indicated that they spend anywherefrom 10-25 percent of their management timereporting to USAID on the results of their work.Many NGOs also reported that the administrativedemands of donors have increased over time.

Donors usually expect two types of reporting fromNGOs: financial and programmatic. Donors typicallywant NGOs to adopt accepted accounting practiceswith appropriate bookkeeping practices, paper trails,and regular audits. Donor agencies are accountableto home offices, and have elaborate bureaucraticcontrols in place to manage financial resources andavoid financial scandals or ambiguity. Representativesfrom several national NGOs that have multiplefunding sources listed USAID as having the mostonerous and difficult financial managementstandards. Rigorous financial controls mean that onlythose NGOs that have USAID accredited financialsystems can have access to resources. Severalnational NGOs in Mali have complained thatworking directly with USAID is virtually impossible;they must use an intermediary (see below).

Aside from the time it takes, program relatedreporting can have an insidious impact on programdevelopment or evolution. If donors are mostinterested in a certain type of result, e.g., the numberof girls dropping out from school, they will requireregular reports from NGOs. Many intervieweesconfirmed that the reports oriented the programobjectives and resources. Resources that could beused to develop other sectors or education activitiesoutside of the scope of agreement between theNGO and the donor are mobilized for reporting.Thus, the demands of donors absorb many moreresources than those allocated.

Finally, the reporting demands tend to privilegeinternational NGOs over local NGOs on several

accounts. International NGOs such as Save theChildren or World Education have developedsystems to meet the accountability requirements ofUSAID that can be “imported” from one country toanother. Most expatriate staff already havesubstantial experience with USAID-funded projectsand may have even received training in how tomanage reporting requirements. Few national NGOshave the institutional capacity to manage theseburdens and are often taken by surprise.CRECCOM, a well-established local NGO inMalawi, reported that early in their relationship withUSAID a major difficulty was how money wasreleased to them. Initially, they received money on amonthly basis and could not get the next month’sfunding until they had accounted for all money theyhad received. Because money could not be carriedover from one month to the next, they fell behind intheir implementation schedule, as each month’sfunding only arrived near the end of the month.Over time, however, USAID gathered evidenceabout CRECCOM’s financial management andfinally made the process easier.

D. When NGOs Do Not Use Donor Resources

Finally, we can learn much about the relationshipbetween NGOs and donors by also examining caseswhere NGOs do not use donor resources.

Not all NGOs seek out bilateral or multilateral donoragencies to fund their programs. In fact, many well-known international NGOs have traditionallyfinanced their activities through sponsorships andprivate donations, e.g., Save the Children, CARE,Plan International, ActionAid. Several internationalNGO programs discussed in this paper were startedwithout donor funds. The cases of PlanInternational and Aide et Action in Guinea andActionAid in Ethiopia and Malawi provide examples.

Independent programs tend to differ from NGOprograms financed by donors in two ways. First, andmost importantly, these programs are not held to anexplicit contract with deliverables due at specifictimes. Although these programs have strategic planswith expected results, extensive monitoring andevaluation systems, and regular links with theirheadquarters, they tend to be more fluid and flexible,

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with regular changes in objectives and strategies.Field offices also usually have considerableautonomy, and the ability to develop programs withobjectives that are distinct from those headquarterspromotes. For example, ActionAid headquarters inLondon indicated that it was very difficult togeneralize about their programs because theircountry staff has such a high level of independence.CARE International also reports wide differencesamong its country programs.

As a consequence, the programs of independentlyfinanced NGOs have developed more process-oriented programs that try to improve therelationship between government and communities,rather than emphasize specific educational results.

Second, these NGOs programs tend to have a rollingdesign that does not necessarily contain an “exit”strategy. As they meet one objective, they developothers. The above cases are examples of thisevolution. Independent NGOs, however, areconcerned with issues of dependence and theunraveling of programs if NGO support ends.International programs that support the creation andmaintenance of local NGOs, such as ActionAid inEthiopia, often try to graduate local NGOs so thatthey are able to continue their activities on their ownor secure funding elsewhere. CRECCOM in Malawiis a graduate of a USAID contractor. However,international NGOs do not tend to establish specificdates for when their support will end.

The experience of these NGOs brings to light afundamental difference in NGOs’ and donors’approach to development work. NGOs and donorsoften operate under different perspectives regardingthe time frame for exit. NGOs do not necessarily seethemselves as entities that will work themselves outof a job. Local and international NGOs seek apermanent presence that reflects their overall visionof the role of NGOs in society. Although theyusually have a keen interest in encouragingsustainability, their program is one that evolvesnaturally, continually redefining its activities in thesector in accordance with changing needs. Becausedonors need to account for resources to aconstituency, they seek finite and defined resultswithin the shortest time frame possible. Also, donors

cannot espouse an evolving role in society becauseof evident issues of sovereignty.

E. Conclusions

Fundamentally, the relationship between donor andNGO is a strained one. This is not necessarily a badthing. Rather, it is a reality that must be consideredwhen donors and NGOs interact. The objectives ofdonors and NGOs in the education sector areactually not very different in most cases; they areboth interested in greater access, equity, and quality,particularly for the more disadvantaged populationsof a particular country. The discussion aboveindicates, however, that differences in strategy andintermediate objectives exist and that these willconstitute the key issue in negotiating a relationshipbetween donors and NGOs.

NGOs and donors are also in an unequalrelationship. Those NGOs that have a diversifiedresource base, in terms of finance, people, andinfrastructure, can easily absorb the differences.Others that negotiate with donors from a perspectiveof relative weakness will have to align themselvesmore narrowly to the way donors express their owneducation agendas.

NGOs can, of course, decide to reject funds if theyfind donor demands to be too onerous. This hasonly happened in one case in the four countriesstudied. Plan International decided not to continueworking with the SAGE project in Guinea. Themanagement burden reached a level they concludedwas not acceptable and they decided to reorient theirfocus towards other objectives. As described below,they could afford to stop working on the projectbecause they have many other sources of revenue.

Alternatively, NGOs can seek out resources thatrequire the least degree of compromise. Save theChildren’s program in Ethiopia, for example, is partof a larger project financed by Banyan Tree, a small,private donor. Banyan Tree offers grants that aredesigned to free NGOs from donor-designedcompetitions for funding to increase the ability ofNGOs to be innovative.

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However, this study indicates that few NGOs are“free” from the need for donor resources. In fact,many NGOs surveyed began programs with theirown resources and eventually found it necessary toseek new sources of revenue from donors.Ultimately, this means that they must consider thedifferent paradigm under which donors function.Local and national NGOs must quickly learn thelessons that international NGOs learned some timeago—to be taken seriously by donors, organizationsmust be professionalized.

Donors on the other hand must realize that theirneed for results and timely and cost-effectiveexecution of projects should not overshadow otherbenefits of NGOs in the education sector. After all,if not for NGOs, community schools, alternativepedagogical methods, and school-based communityparticipation would not be incorporated into newproject designs. None of these innovations werehatched from contractual relations between NGOsand donors, but rather were products of fundingarrangements that made few demands on NGOs foraccountability or results. In fact, by focusing toonarrowly on NGOs as efficient deliverers ofservices, donors and governments create a contextthat can blur the distinction between NGOs and theprivate sector, to the detriment of both.

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One underlying belief that has fueled the increasinguse of NGOs to implement education programs isthat NGOs are important in developing civil society,which is thought to be essential to the establishmentand maintenance of democracy. This chapterexplores why governments, donors, and internationalNGOs believe that developing civil society isimportant and how variations in these beliefs havesupported different types of NGO activities.Sections B, C and D examine three categories ofNGO activities that potentially have an impact oncivil society—programs to empower communities,attempts to build the institutional strength of localNGOs, and support for NGO networks to engage inadvocacy for policy change and governmentcommitment.

A. Differing Perspectives on StrengtheningCivil Society

International NGOs. All international NGOsinterviewed for this research see their role as morethan a conduit for resources to disadvantagedcommunities and/or influencing national educationpolicies. International NGOs generally ground theirrole in empowerment, a process that enhancespeople’s ability to achieve their human rights,emancipates them from political and bureaucraticsystems that negatively affect them, and exertsdemands on the state. Empowered individuals andcommunities can lead to a stronger civil society.Some international NGOs see developing civilsociety as a main objective, while others are lessinterested in building civil society for its own sakethan as a means to an end, such as improvingeducation. More and better education can, in itself,improve citizens’ capacity to build networks ofresponsibilities and rights that constitute a strongcivil society. And increasing local involvement in theinstitutions that support education—structures ofcivil society—can strengthen the organizationsthemselves.

Donors. In the literature on NGO involvement ineducation two rationales appear for why NGOs areselected to implement programs. One is thefamiliarity of NGOs with involvement on a local,community level. The other is the role NGOs arebelieved to play in strengthening civil society. Theprevailing view among donors is that African nationswill not experience sustainable change without beingtransformed into more democratic societies. Anddonors generally assume that the process ofdemocratization is linked to a civil society becausethe nature of democratic systems calls for broad-based participation. Civil society, the configurationof social relations, institutional roles, and rights andobligations through which the people of a countryhave a means for influencing those who rule, canprovide the structure for a participatory, democraticsociety.

Governments. Although a stronger civil societyshould be able to control government actions,governments are not necessarily opposed tostrengthening civil society. Having the institutions ofmodern society—media, unions, professionalorganizations, universities, etc.—is modern and howAfrican governments would like to be seen. Inaddition, governments in Africa tend to see civilsociety as linked to a modernization process wheremodern citizens will take greater responsibility forimproving their lives—a process believed to promoteeconomic development. This view of civil society isappealing to the government because the processunburdens the state and reduces some of itsresponsibilities toward its citizens.

Although support for strengthening civil societycomes from each of these perspectives, theassumptions made about why civil society should bedeveloped leads to major differences in what typesof activities are supported by governments, donors,and international NGOs.

Chapter V. How NGOs Influence Civil Society

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The international NGOs, donors and governmentsthat provided information for this study supportdeveloping civil society on a local level. In general,governments have been somewhat oblivious to thecommunity empowerment efforts of internationalNGOs and they do not see stronger communities asa threat. Rather, they believe NGO activities willincrease community contribution of resources,which will ease government responsibility. A memberof the MOE in Malawi, frustrated by recentadvocacy activities by NGOs, made an interestingstatement about civil society. He said, “[The NGOs]are trying to operate on the wrong level. They wantto be on the same level as the government. Civilsociety is out there in the communities.” From thegovernment perspective, greater individual andcommunity participation in civil society possessrelatively little threat to the security and control ofthe government, while civil society organizationsoperating “on the same level as the government” do.

Only a few international NGOs, and no donors orgovernments, use advocacy as a means to holdgovernments to their commitments or to encouragepolicy changes. Between the extremes of nationaladvocacy and community development, someinternational NGOs and some donors also supportstronger local NGOs as a way to build theinstitutional structure of civil society. Thegovernments have been more nervous aboutstrengthening local NGOs than about communityempowerment because, in Ethiopia and Malawi atleast, they are concerned about possible local NGOinvolvement in politics.

INGO

Support owninvolvement andthat of localNGOs as part ofan empowermentprocess

Support localNGOs as institu-tions of civilsociety and aslinks to communi-ties for programimplementation

Support NGOnetworks toadvocate forpolicy change andgovernmentcommitment

System toStrengthen

Community

LocalNGOs

AdvocacyNetworks

Activities

Changing attitudes about education;creating expectations for educationalservices; invigorating local educationalorganizations; providing participatoryexperience in planning, managing,negotiating and implementing educa-tional changes

Hiring local NGOs to implementprograms; providing training to in-crease capacity; supporting innovationsbased on understanding of local needsand culture; building NGO networks

Advocating for policy change and/orgovernment fulfillment of commit-ments; training local NGOs as advo-cates; promoting advocacy agendas forNGO networks

Supported by:Government

Support NGOinvolvement aspart of mod-ernizationprocess

Donor

Support NGOinvolvement aspart of ademocratizationprocess

Support localNGOs assustainable linksto communitiesfor programimplementation

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B. How NGOs Strengthen Civil Society inCommunities

1. Changing Attitudes

Governments, donors, and international NGOs allbelieve that the NGOs working in education canhave a direct impact on community empowerment.Local non-government civil society organizations canlobby for better educational services. Even if thedirect goal is to improve education, organizingaround education can turn community members intolocal activists. All NGOs studied are involved in arange of community-based activities and, therefore,support the development of civil society on a locallevel. In general, governments have ignoredcommunity empowerment efforts of NGOs,because these NGO activities encouragecommunities to contribute resources which eases thegovernment’s burden.

From the government perspective, the impact ofNGOs on civil society is generally construed as an“awakening” of communities to the importance ofschooling. Sensitization campaigns and socialmobilization programs generally begin with theassumption that communities must be convinced ofthe benefits of education for all children, especiallyfor girls. And everyone seems to agree that one ofthe most important successes of NGOs working ineducation has been increased access to education.Even the choice to send more children to school cancreate more active involvement in monitoring localschooling. Several NGOs have reported thatsponsorship programs alone have led villagers toquestion local leaders about the lack of moneydirected to the school and decisions aboutmanagement of school/teachers well before anyactivities were implemented to bolster communityparticipation. Asking community members tocontribute to improve the school creates a sense ofownership that can change community attitude.

How NGOs engage in local education has a greatdeal to do with the degree to which communitiesbecome empowered. Participatory approaches workwith the community as a whole, facilitating groupprocesses of analysis, decision-making, planning, andnegotiation. When participatory techniques are used,

the community often recognizes its ability to identifyand solve their own problems. In addition, beingencouraged to act as an organized social unit ratherthan a group of individuals, puts in place the basicrequirement for communities to act in their own bestinterests to ensure better education for their children.The results in the short term might mirror theimmediate educational goals, such as more girlsenrolled in school or more labor offered for schoolbuilding, but they have different impacts on thelonger term goal of strengthening civil society.

Although most NGOs in the study claimed to beparticipatory, little consensus existed about whatparticipation meant in practice. The initial stage ofmost NGO programs involved consulting thecommunities by using participatory techniques toidentify and prioritize their education problems,assess possible options and opportunities to solvethese problems, and select strategies. Nevertheless,NGOs in most cases retained most decision-makingpower and sometimes used participation to achieveits own goals.

2. Creating Expectations

In Mali, the objective of both World Education andSave the Children programs is to create viable civilsociety organizations at the community level. Save’scommunity school program in Mali was designed toresemble the BRAC model: providing four years ofschooling to a cohort of students, graduating them,and then beginning again with a new cohort ofstudents who would receive four years of education.However, the communities, told that they “owned”the schools throughout the four-year process,objected to the next stage of plans. If they ownedthe school, then they believed that they should beable to dictate the learning structure, and they didnot want their children to stop their education atfour years. Save explained that teachers who teachFrench after the fourth grade were not available, butthe community said they would find a way to pay tobring such teachers to “their” school.

The objective of World Education’s program in Maliis to transform local parents’ associations intoorganizations that represent the parents’ interests.Whether they have succeeded in this or not is

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difficult to determine. Although who determines theagenda is unclear, parents’ associations have beensuccessfully established to deliver services andmobilize resources, which has led to new demands.These include demands for more teachers, materialsand infrastructure. The definition of educationalquality is changing, with implications for teacherqualification and the provision of pedagogicalmaterials. The continuous “spiraling up” ofeducation expectations represents both the successand the challenge of a maturing parents’ association.Successful community mobilization has led to anincrease in expectations and, as a consequence, to asituation where demand for more and bettereducation outstrips the community’s capacity, evenwith international NGO assistance, to meet thisdemand. The community school has transformed theway citizens relate to the education system. Thedemands that they now make on their schools willeventually coalesce into demands upon the state for amore responsive school experience. Fundamentally,the vehicle of the community school has helpedWorld Education attain one of its principalobjectives—the creation of a civil society lobby.

3. Building Organizations

Community empowerment comes from shiftingattitudes, brought about through new expectationsand increased participation, and having anorganization through which to operate and maketheir demands known. A number of NGOs havecreated school committees or parent organizations asthe first step toward creating a community school.They have also trained existing school committeesand parent organizations in a variety of ways, frommore concrete skills, such as accounting or the rightsand responsibilities of the organization, to moreabstract skills, such as negotiation and buildingcommunity support.

However, training of school committees and parentorganizations does not necessarily make themcommunity representatives. One issue concerns themembers of school committees and parents’associations and how open these members are toother voices in the community. In fact, theseorganizations rarely include a representative sampleof the community. In Mali, parents’ associations

have often been taken over by local elites who aremore interested in maintaining their position thanrepresenting anyone’s interest. In Guinea, Save theChildren became involved in a long debate with thegovernment over the composition of the schoolcommittee because including teachers interfered withits ability to articulate community concerns. InEthiopia, school management committees includeteachers and government representatives, such asheads of local women’s or farmers’ associations, whoare said by the government to represent thecommunity. School committees created bycommunities are more representative than thosedefined by the government in programs supportedby Save and ActionAid in Ethiopia. They haveavoided conflict with government specifications ofwho should be on school committees because oftheir non-formal status.

4. Product or Process

Questions also emerge about how NGOs actuallyinteract with communities and communityorganizations. Does the interaction strengthencommunities? The assumptions that the NGOsimplementing the educational program make aboutthe goals of the program can influence how theyinteract with communities. For example, is theproject about accomplishing short-termimprovements in local education? Or is it aboutbuilding a community that can make decisions andlobby for its rights?

In Ethiopia, a project designed to supportimprovements in educational quality, girls’participation, and community involvement throughbuilding the capacity and motivation of schoolmanagement committees was implemented in twodifferent regions by different NGOs, TigrayDevelopment Association (TDA) in the TigrayRegion and World Learning in the Southern Nations,Nationalities and Peoples’ Region. In both projects,school management committees received trainingand on-going mentoring as they developed strategiesto address these goals, translated their strategies intoproposals to secure incentive grants of increasinglygreater amounts, and implemented the plans theyhad created. TDA saw the project as being aboutgetting the community to offer more financial and

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labor support to government schools. WorldLearning believed that the same project was aboutcommunity participation in decision making andmanagement capacity building. Perhaps the clearestindication of how these differences in goals weretranslated into differences in the programs can beseen in the criteria used to award incentive grants.

TDA determined that there was enough moneyavailable to give the first level incentive grants to 600rural schools in the region, to give the second grantto 400 of those schools, and award 200 schools withthe third level of grant. The first level grant wassimply given to all schools which met the TDAcriteria for being sufficiently rural, needy, and denselypopulated. These 600 schools were then rated byTDA according to criteria such as effectiveness andcommunity resource capacity to select 400 schoolsfor the second grant. These 400 schools were thenrated according to indicators of change such asimproved enrollment rates, reduced dropout rates,and reduced repetition rates to determine which 200would receive the largest grant. The focus of theprogram was on getting the money to the schoolsand rewarding the highest performing schools, thecompetition among schools being seen as desirableto stimulate increased community contribution.

World Learning’s focus was on leading schoolcommittees, communities, and school personnelthrough a learning experience, the incentive grantsbeing used to motivate them to participate in thisexperience and provide something to actuallymanage. Criteria for receiving the first level grantincluded committee members meeting to prepare astrategic plan and holding an open house for thecommunity to explain their plans. The second phasegrant was awarded after criteria such as establishing acode of professional ethics for teachers, establishingbasic learning standards for students, and developinga clear plan to recruit and keep more girls in schoolhad been met. Stage three required criteria focusedmore closely on education quality and include arequirement that schools have secured additionalfunding from some source other than WorldLearning. Because it took school committees muchlonger to meet these criteria than the criteria used byTDA, some schools were still struggling to get theirfirst grant while others had already received a third

grant and there was no need to select among schoolson a competitive basis.

Basically, for TDA, “community participation” meantcommunity contributions of money and/or laborand “improvements in quality” involved physicalinputs to the school. For World Learning, the goalswere to improve educational quality and girls’participation through increased school ownership,management skills, and teacher commitment and forcommunities to achieve a greater voice in decisionsmade about their school, as well as greaterinvolvement through their contributions. Althoughthe initial designs for these programs were identical,NGO implementation provided enough room forextremely different projects to emerge based on theNGOs goals.

5. Does Community Strengthening“Trickle Up?”

A stronger civil society is expected to mediatebetween individuals and the state. If the first link isto organize individuals within their communities,then NGOs are engaged in building andstrengthening local, community-level civil society.NGOs, however, have only rarely been involved inassisting communities to create links to otherorganizations. Although NGOs report that they wishto “help parents demand better education,” NGOsgenerally work in isolation rather than as part of anetwork of social organizations. Changes inparticipation, expectations, and organization withincommunities can generate demands that forcecommunities to construct their own links to thelarger society. World Learning has pushedcommunities to seek funding from otherorganizations and World Education has organizedparents’ associations into a nested representativestructure from community through district andregional levels. In Ethiopia, ActionAid has organizedan education committee of NGOs in a district tointeract with the district government educationpersonnel. NGOs and donors increasingly supportthe construction of these links to increasesustainability of the program. However, throughrarely mentioned, these connections are necessaryfor civil society to be built from the bottom up.

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C. Strengthening Civil Society throughLocal NGOs

1. Why Strengthen Local NGOs?

Both donors and international NGOs assume thatcreating stronger local NGOs can strengthen civilsociety by enabling these local institutions to becomeviable forces. Donors expect that NGOs will fosterdemocracy because they can strengthen localinstitutions as civic actors—enabling them to linkhorizontally and vertically into mass movements thatwill provide organized countervailing power to thestate. Donors and international NGOs believe thatsupporting local NGO involvement in education willincrease the sustainability of programs. In terms ofsustainability, even some governments might believethat strengthening local NGOs is of key importance.In Ethiopia, the Prime Minister has stated thatinternational NGOs should build the capacity oflocal counterparts and thus prepare their own exitstrategy. There is also a practical reason both donorsand international NGOs support strengthening localNGOs. In most countries, local NGOs provide afunctional organizational link, including the neededlanguage skills, knowledge of local culture, andproximity, which can be used to reach communitiesto implement programs. Logically, if civil society isan array of organizations and institutions locatedbetween the family and the state, then thestrengthening of civic organizations, singly and asnetworks or alliances, should strengthen civil societyin general.

2. How Local NGOs Are Strengthened

The major goal in strengthening local NGOs is tobuild organizations that will continue to work toexpand and improve education whether or notdonors or international NGOs remain. Twoapproaches have been used to build local NGOability. In Mali and Guinea, local NGOs are generallyhired as contractors to implement projects managedby international NGOs or the government. Incontrast, international NGOs support a number oflocal NGOs in Ethiopia to continue their ownactivities in education. These differences may reflectnational differences in NGO involvement in theeducation sector: in Mali and Guinea, no NGOs

worked in the education sector before the WorldBank project in Guinea and the Save the Childrenproject in Mali; in Malawi, local NGOs, primarilyreligious institutions, have been very involved ineducation for decades; and in Ethiopia, a variety oflocal NGOs have sprung up in recent years to meetlocal educational needs. No data at this time showthat one approach supports local NGOempowerment as a sustainable force within civilsociety better than another. Still international NGOsworking in a number of different circumstances inAfrica believe that local NGO sustainability isincreased by supplementing existing activities, whilehiring them to do a job is only a short-term influx offunding. Another reason to support local NGOs’own activities is to bring new ideas and promotemultiple, context-specific experiments, that canimprove the range of options available for solvingeducational problems.

Strengthening local NGOs is important to improveeducation and civil society, whether through simplyhiring them as contractors or supporting their ownactivities. The sense in Mali and Guinea is that localNGOs eventually come into their own asorganizations after working for international NGOs.Almost all local NGOs in the four countries receivecapacity building training while working forinternational NGOs or donors. One local NGO inMalawi, CRECCOM, began as a communityparticipation component of a USAID project, buthas now grown into a very successful, independent,local NGO. The staff of CRECCOM has describedthat evolution and how different it is to work for anorganization that controls its own decisions andstrategies, as compared to implementing a programdesigned outside the county, where decisions werenot made according to a “Malawian way of doingthings.”

In Ethiopia, ActionAid, Save the Children, and Pact,operating from somewhat different philosophies andfunding sources, have all supported local NGOs inexisting or planned education activities. Somefunding has come from the “Learning for Leveragein Education” project supported by Banyan TreeFoundation. The project was designed to addressunmet basic education needs by strengtheningeducation NGOs in five countries in East Africa

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through capacity-building grants and research. Thegoals include stimulating basic experimentation bylocal NGOs, strengthening local NGO capacity inbasic education, and widening the influences of localNGO experience on national education efforts. Thesupport consists of long-term grants to internationalNGOs to build capacity of local NGOs, a series ofannual subgrants to local NGOs to fund theireducation activities, international NGO training andtechnical assistance for local NGO staff, personnelexchanges and workshops among the internationaland local NGO staff members to share experience,and periodic cross-site evaluations to synthesizefindings. Because, in Africa, small, local NGOs aredifficult to reach directly, one international NGO hastaken the lead in each country. In Ethiopia, Save theChildren has been working with ten local NGOs toencourage them to explore new ways to work thatare effective and appropriate. Capacity buildinginvolves long-term mentoring, not single courses,and focuses on learning about basic educationcontent as well as organizational skills. All localNGOs have to seek their own funding elsewhereeventually.

One problem with the Banyan Tree approach hasbeen that the selection of small emerging NGOswith limited program and organizational capacityspread across wide areas has limited their ability toinfluence educational policy and civil society. Pact hassupported local NGOs in Ethiopia through USAIDdemocracy and governance and education funding.Pact seeks to build the capacity of local NGOs tocarry out effective programs, and also addresses theentire environment within which the NGOs operate.This project supported developing an NGO Code ofConduct, which, in turn, has eased governmentsuspicions, improved perceptions of NGOs in themedia, supported improvements in the NGOregistration process, designed and implementedexchanges among government officials and localNGOs, and helped work toward new governmentpolicies, that will allow NGOs to be more effective.In addition to strengthening management andtechnical skills and working to create a betterenvironment within which local NGOs can operate,Pact also attempts to teach local NGOs processesand mediation skills to interact with both thegovernment and communities.

3. Creating NGO Networks

Strengthening communities without linking them toother organizations is not sufficient for promotingcivil society. Similarly local NGOs will bestrengthened if they are linked to each other. A rangeof different experiences with NGO networks andalliances were reported in the countries involved inthis research. In some cases, civil society institutionshave resisted the activities of NGO networks. Forexample, in Mali and Guinea, teacher unionsdeveloped an intense animosity toward internationaland national NGOs. Yet, in Malawi, the teachersunion is an active member of a strong NGOnetwork. The relationships with governments arealso varied in different networks, running fromgovernment-created NGO umbrella organizationsused to control NGOs, to NGO networks thatinclude the government as a member to facilitateunderstanding, to NGO networks that areconfrontational.

Ethiopia: The Basic Education Network. TheBasic Education Network (BEN) was established topromote alternative education programs and to allowNGOs working in education to collaborate and shareinformation. The network was primarily supportedby two international NGOs, Save the Children andPact, but has also received assistance fromActionAid, Redd Barna, and World Learning. BENlacks a telephone, email, a vehicle, copiers, etc., butits biggest problem has been that governmentregulations prevent it from registering, which meansit is not legal. BEN has solved the problem bylocating itself within a local NGO that is registered,the Adult and Non-formal Education Association ofEthiopia (ANFEAE). But this creates difficulties, asANFEAE is not allowed to work with an associationthat is not legally recognized. To date its majoractivities have been a workshop conducted on thestate of basic education in Ethiopia and assistance tothe government in the selection of programs to beexamined by the MOE. If and when BEN becomesregistered in Ethiopia, it may find a more purposefulrole to play.

Mali: The Groupe Pivot. The Groupe Pivot is aconsortium of NGOs in Mali that came together

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initially out of a shared interest in the educationsector. The Groupe later obtained financing fromUSAID and Save the Children and became anadvocate for community schools. As described inChapter Three, Groupe Pivot engaged in policydialogue with national officials and presented acommon front to influence changes in policy. Its bigpolicy change success was getting government toexpand community schools. But Groupe Pivotstarted having problems after two major events.Once community schools were incorporated into theeducation system the consortium did not have a clearadvocacy agenda. As a consequence, they could notagree on a reason to exist. This led to the decision tocontract with donors as an intermediary for localNGOs. Groupe Pivote lacked the mandate,experience, and expertise to assume this type ofactivity and their management of activities led toaccusations of mishandling of funds. Over time theGroupe’s importance and effectiveness in educationhave declined.

Malawi. A number of different NGO networkapproaches have emerged in recent years.

The NGO-Government Alliance for BasicEducation emerged when a number of NGOsworked together to advocate for education policychanges. According to government officials, therelationship between NGOs and government was atan all time low when the Alliance formed. TheAlliance decided to extend membership to thegovernment to ensure that the government saw themas a partner and not an opponent. A local NGOheads the Alliance, but its formation was facilitatedby the international NGO ActionAid. The Alliancebelieves that its role is to bring government closer toNGOs and foster a new relationship andunderstanding between the government and NGOsworking in education.

The Civil Society Coalition for Quality BasicEducation grew out of the international NGOOxfam’s focus on advocacy as part of its globalcampaign for education for all, teamed withActionAid’s investigation into how civil society couldsupport education in Malawi. The Coalition, asdiscussed more completely in the next section, haslobbied the MOE and Parliament and won

recognition for their priorities in education.Although the Teachers Union of Malawi oftenrepresents the Coalition, CARE International headsthe organization. Coalition members believe that“confrontation is how it works,” a philosophy thathas made it unpopular with the government and mayhave contributed to the restrictions on NGOsimposed by the new NGO law.

The Council for Non-GovernmentOrganizations (CONGOMA) is a government-sponsored, umbrella organization administeredthrough the Ministry of Gender, Youth andCommunity Services. The new NGO law requiresNGOs to become members of CONGOMA withintwelve months of the law being passed. Thegovernment believes that it is responsible formonitoring the activities of NGOs andCONGOMA’s role will be to keep track of andregulate those activities.

D. Strengthening Civil Society throughAdvocacy

1. Why Advocacy?

Central offices of some international NGOs havecome to see advocacy as a useful way to influenceimprovements in education because neithercommunity nor local NGO strengthening tackles theissue of government commitment or policy. There isgreat variation in advocacy activities among NGOs.Some NGOs, such as Save the Children, advocateonly about what they have learned from their ownexperience while others, such as CARE, operatefrom a more general rights-based approach.Differences also exist between central officephilosophies and field office activities, and thiscreates an even greater range of approaches toadvocacy. Although most NGOs seem to groundtheir advocacy in actual experiences, an increasingnumber recognize the need to monitor educationpolicy at national levels even when those policies donot directly influence their programs.

The general context under which NGOs operate hasevolved considerably in the last decade. At theEducation for All meeting in Dakar in 2000, Oxfamand ActionAid took the lead in the protests about

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being excluded from the meetings, which culminatedwith their inclusion. One result has been a differenttype of NGO involvement in education, whichdiffers from the implementation role of NGOprojects in education triggered by the Jomtienmeetings. The demand for inclusion by internationalNGOs at Dakar resulted in a sense that NGOs nowhave an agenda of their own.

2. The Civil Society Coalition for QualityEducation

Oxfam and ActionAid worked together to addressnational policies by training local NGOs asadvocates. They also assessed the basic educationsector in Malawi to establish the value that civilsociety organizations could bring to the sector.Following this assessment, civil society organizationsinvolved in basic education were invited to form acoalition—the Civil Society Coalition for QualityEducation. While its membership continues tofluctuate, this coalition has become a significant partof the NGO context in Malawi. Considering thatone of their first initiatives was a newspaper attackon MOE teacher training, it is not surprising that thegovernment has reacted negatively to the Coalition.

The head of the new CARE International project onstrengthening primary school management is thecurrent chair of the Coalition. For CARE, thiscreates some conflicts of interest because they buildcapacity of local NGOs involved in education. Thismeans CARE will have to carefully divorce thecapacity building activities from its work with NGOsin the Coalition. ActionAid withdrew from theCoalition when the government was not included asa member. CARE, Oxfam, the Teachers Union ofMalawi, and the other Coalition members believethat that advocacy targets government and,consequently, government should not be a member.The Coalition believes that it cannot include thegovernment because “it has to be strong in itself tocome to government.” The MOE is concerned withNGOs trying to operate “on [the same] level withthe government.” ActionAid believes that NGOsneed to work with government as a partner and hasremained a member of the more conservative andMalawian NGO dominated NGO-GovernmentAlliance. These two NGO networks use very

different approaches to advocacy for policy changeand their differences have polarized the NGOcommunity in the education sector. Attempts tobring the two together have met with little success.

Recently, the Coalition advocated for its priorityeducation issues with both the MOE and Parliament.A member of the Teachers Union of Malawi (TUM)presented the Coalition’s position to give budgetpriority to educating teachers, teaching and learningmaterials, and improving teacher salaries andconditions.

These advocacy activities may yield results: first, thegovernment may endorse the Coalition’s priorityissues and, second, the strategic involvement ofTUM may help change the public’s and government’snegative perception of the Coalition. In fact, theMOE has invited the Coalition to participate in the2002 education sector review.

This organization is part of a wider network of civilsociety groups who have been lobbying for policychange in Malawi and whose activities have becomemore pronounced recently as the country developsits Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper. Currently theCoalition is participating in the civil society budgetwatch, which is monitoring the implementation ofthe budget as part of funding conditionalities. TheCoalition is tracking the budget spending in the threepriority expenditures of the education budget forwhich they advocated. The entire process is underthe umbrella of the National Democratic Institute,which is currently involved in working withParliament on various aspects of governance.

E. Conclusion

NGO support for developing civil society has takenvery different paths in each country.

Mali. With the exception of the Groupe Pivot NGOnetwork, most NGO support to strengthen civilsociety has taken place at the community level. Bothdonors and government support this NGO focus.While local NGOs have been supported as sub-contractors, relatively few attempts have been madeto strengthen them as components of civil society.But the many community schools that have evolved

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have changed community expectations, and this hasturned the communities into a powerful force fordemanding services from the government.

Guinea. Although most NGO activity in Guinea hasalso been directed toward strengtheningcommunities, the large school construction projectfunded by World Bank and implemented by localNGOs could have unforeseen results. Here thegovernment has inadvertently encouraged localNGOs to proliferate because they use them asintermediaries. Their numbers and the reputationthey are gaining through the success of the projectcould establish them as a civil society force betweenthe community and government levels.

Ethiopia. Government controls on NGOs and thedecentralization of government both encouragesmall, local programs rather than pilot models thatcan be scaled up through replication. While almostall NGO programs in Ethiopia are community-basedand include educational improvements andstrengthening communities as goals, the extremelyweak civil society in Ethiopia has attracted theattention of a number of international NGOs. Oftenoperating with private funding, international NGOshave focused their attention on strengthening localNGOs both as an approach to build civil society andas a means to improve education. The government,which is suspicious of foreign influences, likes thisapproach and has directly supported the idea ofbuilding the capacity of local NGOs.

Malawi. Of the four countries studied, only Malawiengages in adversarial advocacy. The government ofMalawi has successfully contained NGO activities ineducation, while allowing room for NGOcontributions. Given the government’s strongresistance to community school models, few NGOshave attempted to supply education, and donors limittheir support to NGOs. UNICEF, for example, onlyfunds NGOs involved in classroom construction.The growing strength of NGOs, due to theirincreasing size and, more specifically, the growth ofthe number and size of education programs, plusrecognition of their influence, makes advocacyappealing when other avenues for substantial changeare not open to NGOs.

The approach that will have the greatest impact isdetermined to a large degree by the current strengthof civil society in the country, so it is not possible tocompare their successes. What emerges as aconsistent theme in each type of civil societyinstitution strengthening is for these organizations tohave real tasks and reasons to exist; they cannotserve only as structures for civil society. Research hasshown that capacity building for local schoolcommittees and PTAs generally only works if theyhave something to manage—a grant, a project, ornew responsibilities. Local NGOs become strongwhen they define their own activities rather thanoperating as contractors. NGO networks havebecome strong organizations when they haveadvocated or lobbied for specific policy changes.

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If the experience in the four countries under studyhere can be generalized, NGOs have become anintegrated and important component of educationsystems throughout Africa. Considerable variationexists from country to country, region to region, andwithin the education sector. However, the studyfound that across all four countries, NGOsincreasingly participate in and contribute to thedelivery of educational services, influence educationpolicy, and are included by donors and governmentin different aspects of the education system.

This study does not indicate that NGOs “should” or“should not” play a role in the education sector.Rather, its findings inform a more pragmaticquestion. Given their presence in the educationsector, what factors need to be considered to ensurethat NGOs contribute most effectively toeducational development?

This study used stakeholder analysis as the principalmethod for understanding the role of NGOs in theeducation sector. It bases its findings on thecontrasting opinions of education stakeholders whoparticipate in and observe NGO education activities.

The following sections summarize the principalarguments, findings, and conclusions of each chapterpresented in this document.

A. How Governments and Non-Governmental Organizations Interact

We identified three types of dynamic that affectgovernment-NGO interaction in the four countriesstudied. First, government and NGO representativestend to have contrasting assumptions about theirrespective rights and responsibilities in the educationsector. Second, government and NGOs holddiffering notions of the capacity each possesses toprovide adequate educational services. Third, theyhold distinctly different perceptions of whatmotivates and limits the educational activities each

undertakes. We found that together, these dynamicsexplained the evolution of NGO-governmentrelations in a particular country. Although differencesexisted between countries as to the “starting points”from which respective government and NGO actorsentered each dynamic, and subsequent interactionswere not identical, we found a substantial similarityacross countries as to how these dynamics shapedNGO-government relations.

NGOs and government officials interviewed in thefour countries have distinctly different visions as tothe legitimate role of each actor in the educationsector. Although the nuance differed, governmentofficials in each country expressed the position thatgovernment was the principal actor accountable foreducation development and this fact shaped the rolethat could and should be played by NGOs. The roleand interventions of NGOs in the education sectorare an affair of government.

NGO officials, on the other hand, view theirintervention through an entirely different lens. Theybegin by identifying an urgent development need thathas been neglected by other actors or concernsdisadvantaged populations. They then mobilize theresources and actors necessary to meet this urgentneed. Thus, the role and interventions of NGOs area matter of moral responsibility defined in theirown terms.

This difference of perspective manifests itself intodifferent types of behavior. In all cases, governmentofficials translate their perspective into actions thataim to regulate the interventions and scope ofactivity of NGOs. NGOs are intervening in an areafor which government is ultimately accountable—itfollows that government should control what NGOsdo in this area. They regulate through NGOlicensing requirements, prescribing the scope ofNGO interventions geographically, and by settingstandards to which NGO educational activities areheld.

Chapter VI. Summary and Lessons Learned

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Ironically, a government’s heightened suspicion ofNGO work can contribute to more familiarity andconsequently to better relations. In the case ofEthiopia and Guinea, government distrust of NGOsled to more monitoring and controls, which in turncreated mechanisms for communication andsubsequent collaboration between NGOs andgovernment.

International and local NGOs will work where theysee the most need for their assistance, and this tendsto be with the most disadvantaged communitieswhere governments have the greatest difficultyproviding services. NGOs have supplied resourcesdirectly to these communities (schools, teachers, andpedagogical supplies), implemented communityparticipation methodologies that aim to helpcommunities mobilize their own and other resourcesto meet development needs, and provided capacitybuilding to local institutions (i.e., parents’associations and school committees).

The interaction of these two perspectives hasdefined NGO-government relations along acontinuum. In the least collaborative cases,government reacts to NGO interventions astrespassing and an affront to government legitimacy.NGOs, on the other hand, treat government as aconstraint to be ignored or avoided in order to meettheir self-appointed moral mandate. Under a morecollaborative scenario, government welcomes NGOactivity within a domain where it is unable tointervene, such as at the community level indisadvantaged areas, and NGOs encouragegovernment to participate and guide their activitiesfor the purposes of mutual learning. In the fourcases studied, NGO-government relations havetended to resemble the least collaborative end of thespectrum at earlier stages and have evolved to a morecollaborative point along this continuum.

Government and NGOs hold contrasting beliefsregarding their respective abilities. Governments’staff has accredited training and recognizedexperience in education to design and manage thecountry’s education system. They often consider thesanctioned qualification of education officials(teachers, inspectors, etc.) as the sine qua non oflegitimately functioning in the education sector.

NGOs, on the other hand, hire their own staff totake on educational responsibilities and often providethem with the necessary training to perform specifictasks (teacher training, supervision of schoolconstruction, design of pedagogical materials,development of curriculum). The qualification ofstaff meets the practical needs of the NGO inquestion.

As a consequence, government officials tend tojudge the quality of NGO staff against the definedofficial qualifications. When such qualifications arelacking, they might insist on some sort ofmonitoring and evaluation or even expect the staff inquestion to stop performing the function inquestion. Government officials claim thatgovernment is responsible to maintain quality,standards, and uniformity and often feel that NGOsdeliberately ignore government policy. Governmentsalso sometimes fear that NGOs’ education activitiescould undermine government legitimacy if seen assuperior.

NGOs judge the performance of both governmentand their own staff by whether their overalldevelopment objectives in a particular community aremet. As a consequence, NGOs working in educationin Africa judge government capacity as lackingbecause the communities they target have, bydefinition, poor quality and insufficient schoolingopportunities. Under these circumstances, NGOsupport to community schools, for example, is apragmatic response to the lack of sufficient services.For government, these interventions do not meetminimal quality standards and thus are notacceptable.

The resulting interaction can also be construed aspoints along a continuum. In the least collaborativecase, NGOs have concluded that government isessentially incompetent because of glaringinsufficiencies in the supply of education. On theother hand, government officials vehemently opposethe sub-standard education provided by sub-standardstaff. Under the best circumstances, NGOs andgovernments recognize their mutual strengths andweaknesses and find ways to collaboratepragmatically to reach mutual objectives.

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Finally, NGOs and government officials hold certainprejudices regarding what in fact motivates the otherand have firm beliefs as to what motivates their ownbehavior. For government, NGO interventions aresuspect because they are not answerable to the publicin the same way that government is. Also, NGOsrequire outside resources to function. As aconsequence, they view NGOs as unfettered by trueresponsibility and potentially opportunistic. On theother hand, government action is motivated by theinterests of the citizenry. For NGOs, governmentsare conservative and cautious and view allinnovations as challenges to vested interests. Theyview their own interventions as innovative andunshackled from unnecessary bureaucracy.

In the least collaborative case, government officialsview NGOs as profiteers, “frauds,” and harborers ofsubversives. NGOs, in this scenario, viewgovernment officials as probably corrupt bureaucratswho have no interest in promoting change indisadvantaged areas. Such mutual animosity has beenrecorded.

These mutual characterizations are not usuallyinformed by much true knowledge of either side. Wefound that exposure usually breeds familiarity andsoftens suspicions. At local levels, NGO andgovernment have more quickly found it necessary tocollaborate and even become interdependent.Forums and regular meetings, even of a symbolicnature, appear to contribute to changing prejudicesthat lead to unproductive actions.

The study concludes that tension between these twoactors is inevitable and should be expected whenNGOs work in the education sector. No one shouldbe surprised that when NGOs attempt to establish apresence in the sector that government will reactwith concern and suspicion. This does not mean thatNGOs should not work in the education sector. Itdoes, however, indicate that these reactions must beaddressed.

Lessons Learned

First, NGOs must involve the government to beeffective. Many development agents hold theposition that NGOs fill a gap left void by

government and that contact should consequently beavoided. Such a starting hypothesis createsunnecessary antagonism.

Second, familiarity has a positive effect on relationsbetween government and NGOs. At local levels,when government and NGO officials are obliged tointeract, they quickly establish mechanisms ofcommunication.

Finally, it is unclear whether a more collaborativerelationship between NGOs and government can beprecipitated. The greatest collaboration betweenNGOs and government can be observed in Mali,which has the longest standing presence of NGOs inthe education sector. Aide et Action in Guinea isconsciously trying to involve NGOs in the Ministryof Education activities and the government in theactivities of NGOs working in the education sector.The Education Alliance in Malawi supports a similarapproach. These last endeavors have been initiatedquite recently and thus little can yet be learned fromtheir experiences. However, one of the generallessons learned from NGO/government interactionis that collaboration and integration are necessary ifNGOs and government are to achieve theireducation objectives.

B. Education Policy and NGOs

NGOs confront the contours of government activityby their very presence and interventions, thus NGOshave found that they must participate in theeducation policy process.

In the four countries studied, international andnational NGOs are engaged in changing policy as aconsequence of two basic motivations. First, they areinvolved in specific policies out of necessity. Theseare pragmatic concerns that result fromimplementation frustrations. Second, some NGOs,primarily international NGOs, see changing thepolicy process as part of their mandate. They believethat education would be better if differentstakeholders were brought into the picture.

NGO participation in education policy has tended tofollow a particular progression. NGOs engage inactivities to improve access. To be sustainable or

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even implement what was planned, they necessarilymust try to encourage government to change policy.As NGOs engage in a policy change strategy, theyrealize that the policy process is as much theproblem as the policies in question. While thisprogression does not describe the evolution of aspecific NGO program in any one country, it broadlydescribes how NGO thinking in the sector hasevolved.

Although NGOs have tallied many successes inchanging government policy and even creatingmechanisms to do so, finding a formula to changethe national policy process has proven to be difficult.Regardless of this difficulty, international NGOsworking in the education sector agree that changingthe policy process is necessary.

As NGOs intervene in the policy arena, differentstakeholders have expressed a range of opinionsabout this, with very different implications for NGOefforts to affect policy or the policy process. Thestudy found that donors that fund NGO projectshave the greatest impact on whether an NGO cansuccessfully pursue its policy agenda. If donors andNGOs are aligned in a strategy to change a particularpolicy, they constitute a formidable alliance.

Government actors are, of course, also important.Already ambivalent about the domain occupied byNGOs in the education sector, few governmentofficials interviewed in any country studied wereparticularly enthusiastic about the growing influenceof NGOs on education policy. However, in all fourcases, government officials have gradually acceptedthis increasing role. Government officials weregenerally aware of NGOs’ attempts to changespecific policies, but were usually less knowledgeableof efforts to change the policy process.

Local stakeholders have not engaged in policy changeefforts, and in most cases were unaware of policychange strategies implemented on their behalf,particularly at national levels. This lack ofinvolvement is problematic as they are supposed tobe the beneficiaries of policy change. Moreover,stakeholders that have been neglected can constitutea potential threat for NGO strategies to changepolicy. Unions, political parties, churches, interest

groups, and other branches or sectors ofgovernment are both potential allies and formidablefoes to the policy agenda supported by NGOs.

Our interviews in the four countries helped usidentify seven basic strategies used by NGOs toaffect policy. These are summarized below:

• Policy dialogue is a process by whichadvocates of a particular policy engage inongoing discussions with decision makers toreach a consensus. Ideally, the advocates use thebest data and analysis possible and enable allrelevant stakeholders to participate in thedeliberations or at least have their perspectiveconsidered. This strategy is clearly the methodof choice at both national and local levels. Inalmost all countries, international and nationalNGOs have attempted to develop better tieswith education officials to avoid constraints inprogram implementation. Early phases ofprogram implementation led to conflict andblockages because local education authoritieswere not involved in NGO decision-makingprocesses.

• Coalition building has been used to leveragechange and to engage in policy dialogue.Bringing together different NGOs and otherstakeholders to present a common front togovernment has usually been quite effective.However, maintaining these coalitions hasproven to be very difficult, particularly whenthey become distracted with peripheralobjectives. Coalitions are also difficult tomaintain when they are too successful. If aparticular policy agenda is achieved,maintaining the coalition becomes moredifficult.

• Using donors to leverage policy is acommon strategy used by a variety of NGOs.Because many NGO programs are financed bybilateral and international donors, they oftenengage in policy discussions betweengovernment and NGOs in order to resolveimplementation problems of varying scale.Donors want their programs to succeed and

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often have a common policy agenda withNGOs. Risks exist, however, when NGOsdepend on donors to help push forward theirpolicy agenda. On one hand, it reinforces theperspective of government and others that theNGOs are an extension of donors, rather thanindependent actors pursuing their ownobjectives. On the other hand, donors can befickle and may abandon NGOs if theirinterests are not being served.

• Using resources to leverage policy changeis also an important mechanism NGOs used.Sometimes where large amounts of donorresources for the education sector are funneledthrough the education sector, policy leveragehappens by virtue of the sheer size of theirprograms. In all four countries, NGO-supported sponsorship programs andintegrated rural development programs havebrought money into local education for manyyears.

• Evidence of NGO program effectivenesscan influence policy. Demonstration has beenused to leverage decision-making. As NGOsconduct policy dialogue or mobilize advocates(donors or other partners) to pressuregovernment, being able to point to irrefutableevidence of program success is certainly astrong argument. However, this strategy cansometimes increase the defensiveness ofgovernment actors.

• Partnership connotes NGOs and governmentofficials working together toward a commongoal with complementary responsibilities.NGOs have actively sought partnerships as astrategy to change policy. A key commonalityof different types of partnerships found in thefour countries is that they are all financed byNGOs. Thus, partnership has invariably meanta transfer of resources from NGOs togovernment.

• Advocacy is what most people think aboutwhen they consider ways of effecting policychange. The key characteristic is a concerted

effort on government officials to changepolicies through public pressure. However,advocacy has been rarely used as a way tochange policy in the four cases. This is notreally surprising because policy has not usuallychanged in these four countries as a product ofpublic pressure, but rather because of otherfactors.

We have found no certain recipe for what strategy touse where to achieve which policy objective.Nevertheless, the array of strategies that have beenused by the NGOs in our cases does indicate how todevelop effective approaches to affecting policy.First, policy goals need to be well defined. Second,creating and maintaining relationships with otheractors (donors, NGOs, other stakeholders) make iteasier to leverage change with government. Third, allstrategies required resources; successful educationpolicy change cannot be accomplished inexpensively.Finally, and perhaps most importantly, not one NGOthat engaged in successful policy change copied aprocedure or strategies used by another NGO. Thisis even the case with the same international NGOworking in several countries. This does not meanthat a particular NGO had not learned lessons fromthe experience of others or its previous adventuresin policy change. In fact, observation shaped manyof the strategies developed by NGOs. Ultimately,however, effective strategies for policy change weredeveloped as a product of honest analysis of pastsuccesses, comprehensive problem solving, andcreative thinking.

Lessons Learned

The most important lesson to be learned is thatNGOs attempt to influence policy to achievesuccessful outcomes. Changing government policyand the way that it is formulated is probably themost effective way to ensure the success andsustainability of NGO interventions. We no longerneed to “discover” that policy is important for thesuccess of NGO endeavors. NGO projects need toinclude a policy component as part of their overallimplementation strategy.

Second, alliances between the NGO and otheractors—other NGOs, donors, and most importantly

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government officials—are key to successfulpromotion of a particular agenda. Althoughconfrontation may have its place, policy changerequires substantial effort to nurture and maintainrelationships with different education stakeholders.

Third, NGO interventions to change policy havealso revealed a significant weakness in NGOprograms—they have yet to find a successfulformula for changing the policy process to ensurethat the public understands, participates in and caninfluence education policy at different levels.Although NGOs can create linkages with all actors,including grassroots stakeholders, they have notdeveloped effective mechanisms that link theseactors together. We want to emphasize theimportance of continuing to attempt to change thepolicy process, regardless of the difficultiesencountered to date.

Essentially, NGOs as a group have learned thatwithout fundamentally changing the relationsbetween the beneficiaries and providers of educationservices, many innovations and improvements thathave resulted from NGO involvement will not besustained. This is the next challenge for NGOs whowork in the education sector and for those whosupport them.

C. NGOs and Donors

The relationship between donors and NGOs hasbeen defined through one of three basicmechanisms. First, donors have issued a request forproposals from NGOs to implement a specificprogram in the country in question. Usually, thecompetition is restricted to NGOs (that is, profit-making firms are not allowed to submit a proposal).The second type of arrangement is a contract oragreement resulting from direct in-countrynegotiations between a donor and an NGO. NGOsdo not compete for a pre-determined program inthis case. Either a donor asks an NGO to prepare aneducation program in the desired country that meetsthe donor’s programmatic goals, or, an NGOsubmits an unsolicited proposal to a donorrequesting support for funding, arguing that itsexisting approach to education supports the donor’sobjectives. Finally, and more rarely, NGOs might

approach a donor (or vice versa) to establish apresence and a program in a particular country. Thisthird type of arrangement defines much of thefinancing of national NGOs by donors in the fourcountries. In this case, donors contract withinternational or well-established national NGOs tofinance the activities of smaller, national NGOs.

In general, contractual relations between donors andinternational NGOs have become more formal. Inthe past, education initiatives were at first developedby NGOs using their own resources. Subsequently,many approached donors requesting resources eitherto scale up or continue their program. This alsooccurred internationally, as programs in one countryserved as a model for another. Successes in NGOeducation sector activity led donors to turn to otherNGOs, asking them to develop similar programs.NGOs, seeing this opportunity, began proposingeducation programs to donors. In the last instance,donors have increasingly used competition as a basisfor supporting NGO programs.

This formalization of relations has shaped NGOeducation programs. First, donors clearly define therole they believe NGOs should play in theireducation programs. By competing programs withwell-delineated results and approaches, donors knowexactly what to expect from the program. Oneunintended consequence of such “clarity,” however,is that NGOs become less innovative andexperimental—a common justification for their use.

The growing use of intermediary NGOs to workwith local NGOs has had positive and negativeimplications. Donors usually do not have theadministrative capacity to contract with andsupervise a great number of small NGOs and thusthe economy of scale significantly eases themanagement burden. On the other hand, all relationswith local NGOs are always filtered by larger bodies.The lessons learned and realities at local levels willalways be filtered by representatives from theintermediary organizations and thus may lose someof their validity and reliability.

Overwhelmingly, our interviewees told us thatdonors turn to NGOs because they are capable ofdoing things in the education sector that government

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cannot. However, few donors have thought throughthe long-term implications of having NGOs ratherthan government services implement certain aspectsof their programs. Although most governments havecome to accept that NGOs have a certaincomparative advantage in chosen domains, no donorrepresentative interviewed for this study clearlyindicated what the “future place” of NGOs shouldbe.

Essentially, by framing the role of NGOs as an agentthat can do what government is not capable orexpected to do, donors have perhaps limited thepotential involvement of NGOs in the educationsector and have even closed off certain avenues forsustainability.

Donor representatives indicated that often it is easiercontractually to work with NGOs than withgovernment or contractors to obtain the same result.First, donors find it easier to negotiate with NGOsthan with governments because they haveexceptional leverage over NGOs who receive theirassistance. Moreover, the political “messiness” ofnegotiating with government is absent, and partnerscan ignore teacher unions, political parties,bureaucratic hierarchies, corruption, dueling elites,the public, the IMF, and relations with neighboringcountries. Second, working with NGOs has certainadvantages such as fewer bureaucratic and legalconstraints over working through contractors. Someof these advantages are ironically the result ofgovernment regulations that restrict the actions ofentrepreneurs. In addition, many internationalNGOs have established a multisector presencewithin a particular country that is not limited tospecific projects and can be mobilized for a newprogram. Finally, managing grants to NGOs (bothlocal and international) is much easier for a donorlike USAID than managing contracts with local orinternational firms.

NGOs often claim that one advantage they offer isthe opportunity to explore and test educationalinnovations on a limited basis, which can then begeneralized by government or donors. However, thisparticular motivation was not mentioned very oftenby donor representatives.

Finally, some donor representatives claimed thatusing NGOs is part of their overall developmentmandate. The use of national NGOs in particular isconstrued as way to reinforce civil society.

The two main reasons donors work withinternational NGOs are greater efficiency andaccountability and the ability to work directly withcommunities. While local NGOs are in a betterposition to work directly with communities, theyrarely have the accountability capabilities demandedby donors. Also, contracting directly with a largenumber of local NGOs creates managerial burdensthat few donors can or want to support.

NGOs usually turn to bilateral and internationaldonors to extend their initial programs. Or theyappeal to donors to fund a new program in aparticular country or region. In both of these cases,the NGO attempts to generalize a concept orapproach that it has found promising. However,when NGOs submit a proposal or application in acompetitive process, the reasons for doing so are lessclear and as a consequence it has become difficult todifferentiate between NGOs and firms orentrepreneurs. Local NGOs that donors tend tosupport (either directly or through an intermediary)are very similar to consulting firms or smallbusinesses. In all four countries, representatives ofnational and local NGOs themselves often haddifficulty differentiating between an NGO and a firmwhen asked. This confusion generates conflictamong the NGOs that thus become unequal rivalscompeting for funds.

If the objectives are met, participants in NGOeducation activities do not care if NGOs arerevenue-generating institutions, however, moststakeholders are uncomfortable with this ambiguity.

Typically, negotiations with donors revolve aroundthree basic issues: scope, cost, and agenda. FirstNGOs and donors will negotiate around issues ofthe number of sites, their location, and the extent ofintervention; and NGOs usually present a moreconservative estimate of what they can or want todo. Second, since donors only want to pay forspecific activities and results that support theirprogram objectives, and NGOs typically embrace a

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wider development vision or agenda, longnegotiations occur over what donors are willing topay. Finally, many NGOs must navigate betweenwhat they want to do, according to their owndevelopment vision, and what donors expect fromthem.

One strategy used by many international NGOs tomanage the “lack of fit” between their ownobjectives and strategies and those of donors is toseek funding from a variety of donor sources andeven from different parts of the same donor agency.

Aside from competing objectives and priorities,NGOs must also respond to donor demands foraccountability. USAID seems to have the mostextensive demands for accountability of the donorssurveyed. Donors usually expect two types ofreporting from NGOs: financial and programmatic.Donors also usually require periodic progress reportsthat indicate what results have been achieved duringany particular period.

Aside from the sheer time that it can take, programrelated reporting can have an insidious impact onprogram development or evolution. If the donor ismost interested in a certain type of result (e.g., thenumber of girls dropping out of school), they willrequire regular reports from NGOs to meet theirown accountability necessities. Many intervieweesconfirmed that such objectives served to orient theobjectives and resources of their programs.

Finally, the reporting demands tend to privilegeinternational NGOs over local NGOs on severalaccounts. International NGOs have often developedsystems to support accountability requirements thatcan be “imported” from one country to another.USAID is noted as having the most extensivedemands for accountability and the most onerousand difficult standards for financial management ofthe donors surveyed.

Not all NGOs, however, seek out bilateral ormultilateral donor agencies to fund their programs.In fact, many of the most well-known internationalNGOs have traditionally financed much of theiractivities through sponsorships and privatedonations, e.g., Save the Children, CARE, Plan

International, and ActionAid. Many of theinternational NGO programs discussed in this paperwere started without donor funds.

The programs of independently financed NGOshave been free to develop more “process”-orientedprograms that aim to create a certain relationshipbetween government and communities, rather thanspecific educational results. As discussed in greaterdetail in Chapter Five, these NGOs have increasinglyfocused their programs on institutional capacitybuilding rather than delivering education results.

The experience of these NGOs brings to light afundamental difference in the perspective of NGOsand donors as they approach development work.NGOs and donors often operate under differentperspectives regarding the time frame for exit.NGOs do not necessarily see themselves as entitiesthat will work themselves out of a job. Local andinternational NGOs seek a permanent presence thatreflects their overall vision of the role of NGOs insociety. Although they usually have a keen interest inencouraging sustainability, they also see theirprogram as one that evolves naturally, continuallyredefining its activities in the sector in accordancewith changing needs. Because of their need toaccount for resources to a constituency, donors seekfinite and defined results within the shortest timeframe possible. Also, donors cannot espouse anevolving role in society because of evidentsovereignty issues.

Lessons Learned

Fundamentally, we have found that the relationshipbetween donor and NGO is a strained one. Thehigher order objectives of donors and NGOs in theeducation sector are actually not very different inmost cases. Both NGOs and donors are interested ingreater access to, equity and quality of education,particularly for the more disadvantaged populations.Differences in strategy and intermediary objectivesexist, however, and constitute the key issue innegotiating a relationship between donors andNGOs.

NGOs and donors have an unequal relationship. Forthose NGOs that have a diversified resource base, in

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terms of finance, people, and infrastructure, thesedifferences can be easily absorbed. NGOs thatnegotiate with donors from a perspective of relativeweakness, have to align themselves more narrowly tothe way donors express their own education agenda.This study indicates that few NGOs are free fromthe need for donor resources. In fact, many NGOssurveyed began programs with their own resources.When they eventually found it necessary to seek newsources of revenue, they turned to donors.Ultimately, this means that NGOs must consider thedifferent paradigm under which donors function.Local and national NGOs must quickly learn thelessons that international NGOs learned some timeago—be professional to be taken seriously bydonors.

Donors on the other hand must realize that theirneed for results and timely and cost-effectiveexecution of projects should not overshadow otherbenefits of NGOs in the education sector. After all,without NGOs, community schools, alternativepedagogical methods, and school-based communityparticipation may not have existed. And theseinnovations are now incorporated into new projectdesigns. None of these innovations were hatchedfrom contractual relations between NGOs anddonors, but rather were the product of fundingarrangements that made little demands on NGOs foraccountability or results. In fact, by focusing toonarrowly on NGOs as efficient deliverers ofservices, donors and governments create a contextthat can blur the distinction between NGOs and theprivate sector, to the detriment of both.

D. NGOs and Civil Society

In the countries studied, three categories of NGOactivities have aimed to impact civil society—programs to empower communities, attempts tobuild the institutional strength of local NGOs, andsupport for NGO networks to engage in advocacyfor policy change and government commitment.Each actor can “justify” programs that supportcommunity participation in different ways—government agents see such efforts as a way tomodernize citizenry; donors see this as a way tointroduce democratic principles; and internationalNGOs use community participation to create

“empowered” community members. However,programs that reinforce local NGOs can only besubstantiated through arguments of democratizationor empowerment. Those that support NGOnetworks essentially aim to empower stakeholders toengage government in policy dialogue—and neitherthe government nor the donor view it as a civilsociety strengthening objective.

NGOs use three principal strategies to empowercommunities or strengthen civil society at thecommunity level.

First, NGOs attempt to change local attitudes toparticipating in the education system. For donorsand government, this often means that communitiesbecome interested enough in education to mobilizetheir own resources for local schools. Socialmobilization campaigns are used to encourageparents to send their children to school and fundschool activities. All NGOs claim to implement“participatory techniques” to change local attitudestowards schooling, including the community’srelationship to local schools.

Second, NGOs have created expectations at locallevels for increasingly higher quality education.Successful community mobilization has led to asituation where demand for more and bettereducation outstrips the community’s capacity, evenwith international NGO assistance, to meet thisdemand. The community school has transformed theway citizens relate to the education system. Thedemands that they now make on their schools willeventually coalesce into demands upon the state for amore responsive school experience.

Third, NGOs have helped build organizationalcapacity at the local level. The organizationstrengthened to accomplish educational tasks canprovide a sustainable structure through whichcommunities can make their demands known. Anumber of NGOs have created school committeesor parent organizations as the first step towardcreating a community school. They have also trainedexisting school committees and parent organizationsin a variety of ways, from improving skills, such asaccounting or the rights and responsibilities of theorganization, to more abstract skills, such as

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negotiation and building community support. Allprograms that have supported organizationalcapacity building at local levels, however, have beenconfronted with issues of representation.

Most programs that attempt to empower communityhave had to address two major issues. The firstquestions whether the interaction between NGOsand communities in fact strengthens communities orwhether the NGO is only mobilizing the communityto attain certain immediate educational goals. Second,although certain NGOs aim to create a mechanismfor mediating between individuals and the state, suchefforts have often fallen short of expectations.Although NGOs report that they are also interestedin helping parents demand better education, NGOsgenerally work in isolation seeking self-sufficiencyrather than as part of a network of socialorganizations.

Donors and international NGOs attempt to createstronger local NGOs because they believe that theselocal institutions can become viable forces topromote change. They believe that supporting localNGO involvement in education will increase thesustainability of education programs. If civil societyis an array of organizations and institutions locatedbetween the family and the state, then strengtheningcivic organizations, singly and as networks oralliances, should strengthen civil society in general.

The principal aim of efforts to strengthen localNGOs is to build organizations that will continue towork to expand and improve education whether ornot donors or international NGOs remain. Primarilytwo approaches have been used: either local NGOsare hired as contractors to implement projectsmanaged by international NGOs or the government,or a number of local NGOs are supported byinternational NGOs to continue their own activitiesin education. This difference in approach may reflectnational differences in NGO involvement in theeducation sector. One advantage to the latter strategyis that supplementing what local NGOs already doincreases their sustainability.

Some NGOs have found that strengthening localNGOs without building linkages among them isinadequate. A wide range of different experiences

with NGO networks and alliances were reported inthe countries involved in this research. Thesenetworks have engaged in policy dialogue withgovernment and in advocacy campaigns. Creatingnetworks of organizations to engage in advocacy isone of the most recent strategies for civil society-building implemented by NGOs. It has becomesomewhat controversial because they have at timestaken up adversarial tactics vis-à-vis government.

Although NGOs have taken very different paths todevelop civil society in each country, a number ofinteresting commonalities serve as lessons for futureefforts in this area.

Lessons Learned

First, the essential building block of civil societystrengthening is community participation andmobilization. However, experience in all fourcountries indicates that community participation isinsufficient to have an impact on all those factorsthat affect the quality and the efficiency ofeducational opportunities at local levels. It is essentialfor civil society strengthening activities to focus onlinks between community and other civil societyactors located at other levels and the state.

Second, strengthening the institutions that make upcivil society requires implementing concrete activitiesthat lead to tangible results. Building an organizationfor its own sake is never an effective strategy. NGOnetworks have become strong organizations onlywhen they have had specific issues or policy changesaround which to advocate. Organizations need realactivities and reasons for existence other than just tobecome a unit of civil society.

Finally, NGOs and local organizations need anidentity that is more substantial than simply animplementer of donor and government projects. IfNGOs are nothing more than contractors, they willlose their ability to innovate, create new relationshipsbetween community and the state, and transform thenature of the citizen in society.

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E. NGOs and Education: A Continual TensionThat Can Be Constructive or Destructive

Fundamentally in the education sector, NGOs areuninvited “party crashers” who can either be anirritant to all other guests or surprisingly entertainingadditions to what has become a dull party. Whichthey become depends on their comportment andperspective, as well as that of other “guests.”

First, NGOs must understand that they do notnecessarily share the same understanding as otherguests as to who is actually throwing the party.Specifically, in all four cases, government officialsbelieved that they were responsible for taking thelead in the education sector. When NGOs act as ifgovernment is not present, their program objectivesare compromised. Indeed, every major NGOworking in the education sector has changed itsoverall strategy to include more collaboration withgovernment in designing, implementing, andmonitoring education programs. They have allconcluded that it is absolutely necessary to dancewith government.

Second, when NGOs come to the party, somethingabout the venue must change to accommodate theirpresence. NGOs purportedly introduce somethingnew to the sector, and existing education policy willinvariably be strained as a consequence. NGOs haveseveral tools available to engage in policy change,each with strengths and weaknesses that depend onthe policy change objective and the specific policyenvironment. Whereas NGOs have been quitesuccessful in changing specific education policies,they have been less successful in changing the policyprocess. They might be able to influence what musicis played and what is served at the party, but theyhave greater difficulty affecting how and who getsinvited. All international NGOs in the educationsector have concluded, however, that the policyprocess must be the target of real and sustainableeducational change.

In some cases, donors have driven NGOs to theparty. If donors expect to completely control thebehavior of NGOs after they arrive, then onewonders why the donors brought them. Donors useNGOs who are easy to deal with because they expect

NGOs to deliver something innovative to theeducation sector. These two objectives requiredifferent kinds of relationships between NGOs anddonors that are not necessarily compatible. UsingNGOs to simply implement tightly prescribedprojects may have certain benefits, such as greaterassurances of successful implementation. However,the purported benefit of NGO interventions is theirinnovations and flexibility, features that are certainlymuted by an overly strict chaperone.

Finally, NGOs claim that they bring other guestswith them that should have been invited in the firstplace—civil society. However, it is unclear whetherthese other non-governmental actors (communitymembers, local organizations, and others) have trulyjoined in the festivities, or remain at the doorstepovershadowed by the international NGOs who havebecome the life of the party. In all four countries,NGOs and other observers remain perplexed by thefact that little progress has been made on “true”participation or empowerment, suspecting that theymay have created a certain dependent relationshipwith these actors. However, NGOs have increasinglyfocused resources on experimenting with differentways of achieving civil society objectives, recognizingthat this is key to meaningful change in the educationsector.

NGO programs in the education sector havematured over the last ten years. Heralded as thepanacea to education development impasses orlambasted as a force driven to undermine educationalprogress, most actors have reached a morelevelheaded conclusion as to the costs and benefitsof NGO involvement in the sector. One thing isclear—although NGOs have provided manydiscernible benefits, they have not provided the keyto a more sustainable and accountable educationsystem. This said, as a new face on the scene, NGOshave challenged many taken-for-granted notions andhave brought innovation to the field of educationthroughout Africa. As their relationships withgovernments, donors, and other actors become moreinstitutionalized and comfortable, however, will theysimply replicate their existing accomplishments andlose their creative edge? Over time, will NGOs justbecome another regular guest, repeating old storiesto the same old crowd? Or, will they continue to

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innovate and help governments communicate betterwith civil society so as to provide a more sustainable,accountable education system that everyone believesin and supports?

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T h e R o l e o f N G O s i n B a s i c E d u c a t i o n i n A f r i c a

This document was produced by the Support for Analysis and Research in Africa (SARA) Project, operated by the Academy for Educational Development. SARA is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the Bureau for Africa, Office of Sustainable Development (AFR/SD/HRD), under contract AOT-C-00-99-00237-00.

Fundamentally, the question is no longer whether NGOs should play a role in the

education sector, but how NGOs are most likely to fulfill their promise to improve

the quality, equity, accountability, and pertinence of education in African countries.

This paper looks comprehensively at how NGOs have become involved in the

education sector: how their presence and relationships with governments and

donor partners evolved, what implications their presence has caused for

educational systems and civil society, and which contextual factors have affected

NGOs' interventions. The study analyzes four major areas of NGO involvement in

the education sector: the relationship between NGOs and government; the role of

NGOs in education policy; the relationship between NGOs and donors; and the

influence of NGOs on civil society.