Working WITH, not just FOR, the poor

For a long time now, governments and nongovernment organizations (NGOs) have been working WITH, and not just FOR the poor all over the world. The shift has been an acknowledgment and realization that to really help the poor, they must first be part of the process of helping themselves and must be active participants in improving their lives.

In my long experience along this line of work in different climes and times, governments are more about working for the poor. Initially, so did NGOs. To be fair, governments have had to overcome more obstacles than NGOs to make the shift. As institutions, they are often rigid and conventional, with a lumbering bureaucracy that makes changing established protocols a slow and tedious process. Unlike most NGOs, governments also have other concerns than just working for, and with, the poor.

Stated differently, governments have been used to a top-down approach, making decisions at the top level and implementing them through their employees to reach end-users or beneficiaries. As stated in their mandate, they have to provide services to their constituents, with or without participation from the poor. But NGOs, by working outside the government, have necessarily created a more direct connection to the poor and have used this to get the poor to participate in promoting their own welfare.

In my view, globalization and digitalization have done much to markedly improve processes, though nothing much in achieving desired long-term results like reducing poverty and encouraging empowerment among marginalized communities.

Governments have been working for the poor and the needy since civilization began. NGOs came on board much later, and initially just supplemented much of what governments were doing. But, as mentioned earlier, they changed their tack of working not only for, but with, the poor toward the 1980s. The poor became participatory and has been considered part of the decision-making process in most NGO work ever since. This transformation was dictated by lessons learned from past NGO development interventions that used the dole out or welfare approach.

There is a vast difference between the two modes of helping the poor realize lasting improvements in their lives. Governments are more into resource transfer or service delivery, coupled with capacity building through training sessions here and there. Most NGOs make it a point to listen to the voices and consider the choices of the poor. Thus, NGOs are bent on capacity building or empowerment. Most development interventions by NGOs are conceptualized and actualized through the lens of human rights — the rights of the poor.

Today, there are mountains of information on the success and failures of governments and NGOs in improving lives. These can be inferred from best practices or lessons learned on how well things are done, why certain expectations did not pan out, why the poor may resist change, how to measure success, how to identify agents of change, as well as how to analyze and interpret results to improve future interventions.

The number of the world’s poor has been reduced considerably through the years, and it’s not a remote possibility that extreme poverty could have been wiped out by 2030. But the COVID-19 pandemic has negated this initial success. Hundreds of millions have joined the ranks of the poor to become the new poor. And hundreds of millions more have become poorer. All the resources poured in poverty reduction and for the welfare of the poor have been shaved by unemployment due to lockdowns because of the pandemic, or used up on medical care. Of course, recovery measures are ongoing worldwide.

But what specifically do governments and NGOs desire as lasting results? Well, they are actually simple and measurable. The poor MUST HAVE:

• clean water for drinking all year round;
• sanitary toilets;
• access to information and services, including the internet;
• control over needed resources;
• necessary knowledge, skills, attitudes, and practices;
• livelihood opportunities;
• physical infrastructures like school buildings, health centers, etc.;
• preparations for disaster and immediate assistance after every disaster;
• equal access to education for girls and boys;
• awareness of, and care for, a healthy and sustaining environment;
• awareness of their rights and how to claim them; and
• information on the need to save money, and accessible means to do so.

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Nono Felix used to work with an international nongovernment organization as monitoring and evaluation manager, covering several Asian countries.