Quo Vadis NGOs? ( Whither goest thou?)

I am preparing to cross over to politics and governance and so I thought I would share some snapshots of my work that I have been doing for a quarter of a century. Non government organization (NGO) work is about social development work and it is midway between state and the market or midway between the public and the private sector engaged in pure profit. It is about working to create mechanisms and institutions or changing structures to bring about development and people’s empowerment. Although, it is related to social work, emergency relief work and the like, NGO work is a much more sustained work across time and so the impact of our work is not immediately discernable. Examples of work to create or change structures is NGO work in the policy arena. Results come after engagement with a lot of groups and agencies in a very engaged advocacy or lobby process. Successes are few and far between but long lasting. Examples of these are: efforts of the women’s movement to enshrine a gender equality movement in the Philippine constitution, rewriting the rape law, passage of the Sexual Harassment Law, passage of the Anti- Violence Against Women And Their Children Act, the Davao City Women Development Code, the Urban Development & Housing Act (UDHA) by NGOs and networks working with the urban poor sector - to name a few landmark legislations.

I am also part of the older generation which must work consciously to increase our tribe and more importantly to nurture a successor generation. One of our efforts to develop a successor generation is to bring NGO work to the level of theory and academia and as well to bring the academic community ( mentor and students) to our development sites in the hope that students will be introduced towards a career in social development work.
Another track is influencing curriculum development and education in general to be relevant and responsive to the Philippine problematique.

In recent times, many NGOs have folded up to due to drying up of donor funds or due to changing priorities of funding agencies. Ideally, donor agencies must work with the NGO community and other stakeholders in defining the Philippine problematique and then call for projects addressing the identified problems. This way, NGOs can position themselves strategically in influencing or identifying sharply and incisively the development issues, themes or sites.

Funds are also created to respond to global issues and events. For example, after 9/11, there was focus on social justice development themes which was fine because most NGO work in the Philippines are under this development area. After all, poverty reduction, human rights ( social, cultural, economic, political rights) work, judicial reform, good governance projects can be packaged under this theme.

Then came, the world financial crisis of 2008 which is now affecting the prognosis of NGO work. NGOs have responded to this development by, among others, setting up social enterprises such as scaling up of micro finance enterprises in the hope of weaning from donor agencies at some point in time.

Anyway, amidst a changing economic landscape and amidst a not so glowing future in NGO work, my message to the younger generation who must be harnessed to make this world a better place is : Social development work will always be relevant for as long as there is poverty, social inequality, human rights violations, environment degradation, or corruption in government.

Particularly at this unspeakable horror in Mindanao, when a heinous crime against humanity has just been commited against more than fifty Mindanaoans who were massacred on their way to filing an election certificate of candidacy, there is urgent work to address violence related to elections, land conflict, unresponsive justice system, insurgency, clan wars or rido and warlordism. We have civilians arming themselves much like a private army in the service of powerful political dynasties. And for a long time now, we have tolerated abusive civilian voluntary groups (CVOs and paramilitary elements) who are doing police and military roles. There are so much arms in Mindanao used to sow terror in order to gain or maintain political hegemony. All these have been allowed with impunity.

As we women say, work never ends. The task is gigantic and NGOs could use a lot of help.