Development, NGOs, and civil society: the debate and its future

Jenny Pearce

Introduction

In reviewing the contributions to this Reader, I was struck by three things. First, by the wealth of empirically informed conceptual analysis that they offer, succinctly addressing many of the key issues that emerged in the 1990s on the theme of development, NGOs, and civil society. Second, by the mix of scholar-activist-practitioner authors, for whom the issues discussed really matter, because if they were clarified the world might become a better place. But third, and despite the quality and relevance of the papers selected for this volume, by the difficulty of generating wider debate about their content.

This is certainly not the fault of the contributions: on the contrary, they cover the range of issues admirably. The problem is that they are appearing in a world in which the collapse of intellectual and political reference points has prompted an eclectic outpouring of ideas and views, without organised and coherent debate. As a result, good thinking and writing is lost; much is duplicated and reinvented; people talk but do not listen; people write and do not read; and vice versa. At the start of the new millennium, development debates — if they can be called that — are like concentric circles, orbiting each other but without touching. These circles appear to share a centre, in that the same language and concepts are used by all, from the World Bank to Southern NGOs and grassroots movements. The reluctance to clarify the distinct meanings invested in these concepts, however, reflects collective collusion in the myth that a consensus on development exists, or even that some clear conclusions have been reached about how to deal with global poverty. Take, for instance, a headline in the International Herald Tribune of 7 January 2000: 'Concept of Poverty Undergoes Radical Shift: Now a Solution Seems Possible'.

Not only is there very little consensus, but the real world of development NGOs and official donors is characterised by mistrust, and by fierce competition over resources and protagonism, all of which are very damaging to the anti-poverty cause. The inadequacy of responses to global poverty is only too apparent. UNDP's 1997 Human Development Report gave a measured overview of progress and setbacks in addressing global poverty in the twentieth century, and a quantitative and qualitative picture of the scale of the problem still to be tackled (UNDP 1997, especially pp24–60). While there have been notable achievements, these have been neither continuous nor equally distributed. The economic restructuring of the 1980s and 1990s reflects what UNDP calls the 'ascents/descents' character of development processes. The suggestion is that economic liberalisation has widened existing inequalities, even when it encourages growth and accumulation for those already strong in the marketplace. Such strength may derive from legally acquired wealth, but also from coercive power and illegal dealings. Criminal mafias, of which there are now many in the South and in post-communist transition countries, have expanded with the relaxation of global financial and trade controls. Between 1987 and 1993, the number of people with an income of less than US$1 a day increased by almost 100 million to 1.3 billion people, one-third of the population of the 'developing world'. Yet, between 1989 and 1996, the number of billionaires increased from 157 to 447. The value of their combined assets exceeded the combined incomes of half of the poorest of the world's poor (UNDP 1997: 38 and 110). Since the early 1980s, more than 100 developing and transition countries have suffered cuts in living standards and failures of growth more prolonged than anything experienced by the industrialised countries during the Great Depression of the 1930s (UNDP 1997: 7).

If one looks at the global picture, rather than that of the 'developing world' in isolation, the problem of human poverty assumes much greater proportions than is suggested by statistics which show that one-third of the population in the South is income-poor and one-quarter is poor in terms of the UNDP's Human Development Index. More than 100 million people in the industrialised countries, for example, also live below the income-poverty line (UNDP 1997: 34). But human poverty is not just a question of the number of people living below an agreed minimum: a category of poor on the wrong side of the relatively recent exclusion/inclusion dichotomy. Nor is it enough to consider that millions who are not in fact below the 'line' live on its borders in constant fear of crossing over, suffering not just the threat of actual indigence but conditions of daily exploitation. Rather, the issue is whether the 'inclusion' side of the border is worth preserving, and whether what it claims to offer can really be made universally available. There are cogent thinkers in the South today who, along with their Northern intellectual allies, argue for an end to 'development' as an idea. Majid Rahnema suggests that 'development' could never offer a sustainable option to all the people on the planet, even if it were successfully delivered:

The failures of development can no longer be attributed solely to the inability of the governments, institutions and people in charge of implementing it. In fact, if they had been successful in fulfilling all the promises they made to their peoples, and had there been enough money and resources to bring about the development of all the so-called underdeveloped countries of the world to the level of the 'most advanced', the resulting deadlocks and tensions would perhaps have taken an even more dramatic turn. For example, it has been estimated that a single edition of the New York Times eats up 150 acres of forest land. Other figures suggest that, were the rest of the world to consume paper, including recycled paper, at the same rate as the United States (with six per cent of the world's population),...