Shaping Our World

Making a case for…Sovereign local

organisations and social movements

By Doug ReelerCommunity Development

Resource AssociationSouth Africa

(illustrations by Andy Mason)

?

What kind of civil society

organisations are making a difference?

How are they transforming

power relations in the world today?

In three parts…

A.Two contrasting approaches to working with organisations in development…

B.The idea of… “Sovereign Organisations”

C.Phakama’s Story

Everyone sees local organisations and social movements as important for social change…

…working through or with “local partners”

is big

But we see two contrasting

approaches…

The Conventional Approach:Which asks:

How do we make change happen?

PROJECTS (or outcomes-based programmes)

local organisations O O

Many Governments, Donors and larger NGOs use or work through local organisations…

… to deliver their development agenda(increasingly around the Millennium Development Goals)

local organisations = outsourced service providers

… funded to fulfil the aims of others

Organisational “Capacity Building” becomes very

important…Project management systems and skills M and E systems and skills Finance systems and skills Personnel systems and skills Governance systems and skills ICT systems and skillsTo fix up local organisations to be more accountable Project delivery vehicles…

local organisations O O

Project management systems and skills M and E systems and skills Finance systems and skills Personnel systems and skills Governance systems and skills ICT systems and skillsTo fix up local organisations to be moreaccountable Project delivery vehicles…

local organisations O O

To what effect?

More specifically: this “Capacity Building”

(under an external project delivery approach)

… often undermines hidden local knowledge

… imposes a foreign managerial culture and systems…

… creates cloned organisations copying “Best Practice” models

… professionalises community-based organisations

The result?… a sector plagued with uncreative, obedient, local CBOs and NGOs

... doing what they are told to do, badly

… not being themselves!

Supporting local organisations and social movements… …as the core purpose

…starting from a different place

A different approach…

… and the people making choices and decisions about the future are those who have the power of organisation behind them…

Some donors and NGOs are paying more attention to Civil Society Organisations… not as Project delivery vehicles used to deliver external outcomes…but strong, local organisations and social movements, as outcomes in themselves…perhaps the truest measure of significant change…

Instead of local organisations delivering Projects as service providers for others…… we have approaches which are focused primarily on supporting the development of local organisations and social movements…… who will themselves lead the change needed, driven by their own aims and initiatives

“My sense is that people see organisations as vehicles through which to do things in the world, not realising that in building organisation they are shaping the world.”

James Taylor, CDRA

If we want to talk of sustainable development, we might ask…

Who will sustain it...?

… it can only be sustained if it is embedded in strong, sovereign local organisations and social movements…

… possibly supported by the others - donors, NGOs, solidarity networks etc.

If we want to talk of rights…Who will win and defend rights…?

Sovereign social movements…… made up of strong local organisations

So instead of asking…

How do we make change happen? …we could ask:

How do effective local organisations and social movements emerge and develop? How can we best support them? (in whichever field we work in)

In our minds…

The ability to understand and work with organisations is a discipline (like adult learning) that should be a core capability of leaders and facilitators… in all fields of development

Not the sole preserve of professional Organisation Development (OD) Consultants

…the idea of “Sovereignty”Small farmers movements talk about… … self-reliance, local

ownership… decision-making

out of consciousness and free-choice

… free from outside interference, domination or exploitation

local organisations and social movements… suggests:

… the same home-grown resilience … an inside-out identity

… the idea of an organisation being the expression of the free will of its own constituents

… but open to collaboration, support and solidarity

Applying “Sovereignty” to…

It should be clear that rights like food and seed sovereignty can only exist if they are embedded in strong sovereign organisation

Defining a sovereign organisation:

Works with its own purpose and principles Mobilises and expresses the will and voice of its own constituentsNot an outsourced service providerCulturally and structurally unique (not a “Best Practice” clone)Politically conscious, asks its own questionsAble to cooperate and collaborateAble to continually learn and adapt, from its own experience

A story fromPhakama Pyoos

An activist with the Treatment Action

Campaign in South Africa and a member of the Barefoot Collective…

From an interview October 2008,

Cape Town

Phakama’s Story (not a slide to show – only to be read out)Being a member of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) by Phakama Pyoos, a volunteerThe TAC is the largest national social movement in South Africa. It has successfully engaged the State in a number of areas, most importantly winning access to ARV treatment for people with HIV/AIDS. It is currently working with government to ensure proper implementation of the policies it successfully advocated for.

I joined the TAC in 2001 when I was at school. Comrades from the TAC Branch in Site B, Khayelitsha, came to visit us to get us to join, though it was banned at the school. This did not worry us.

The TAC has lots of youth cultural events and the songs really bring us together because when someone sings a song and we join them then it explains why we are really here. People add verses and the song and the message grows.

In the TAC we are given a chance to play a role, each one of us. There is trust and love and freedom. When I walk into TAC offices it is like a liberated area. It reminds me of a candle and an open door.

Though you won’t see it we are sometimes quite disorganised but its OK because we are all together. We have lots of different thinking, especially amongst the youth. We are mostly volunteers and some full-time coordinators.

The Head Office said that each Branch should meet every Friday afternoon to share what has happened and plan. We share a lot. We sit, we share and learn from each other. We always start with a song and a game, sometimes a prayer for those who have died. One by one we share whatever, but we don’t force experiences. We say what we did, what went right and wrong and we try to fix these. Each one of us carefully writes down what was said to tell those who were not there. The coordinator writes a short report for Head Office. When we plan we go with the mood of the people. We really enjoy the meetings. TAC provides bread and tea and sometime a little transport money.

In the TAC we stay alive and connected. It is a community centre. The spirit is fire, warm.

Question to work withWhat strikes you in this story? How important is the culture of the TAC to the way it is organised? How would you describe the learning culture? Practically how does the organisation learn and how important is this to the life of the organisation? What do you learn from this that might be useful for your organisation or practice?

Phakama’s story illustrates something very crucial – how it is possible for effective organisation to lie not primarily in efficient systems, but in human, even somewhat disorganised simplicity. What the TAC branches lack in structured processes is more than compensated for in sheer commitment.

This is not an organisation that has had its capacity built by OD consultants like me.

The TAC has a learning rhythm: every Friday it meets and reflects, learns and plans, as much part of its work as any other aspect.

At one level there is nothing remarkable about this, after all, organisations meet. But at another level this is what is remarkable, that it can be quite simple, and simply human – here an organisation, in every branch, gathers itself together, every week to think about itself, to re-form and re-think and re-ignite itself. Its meetings are cultural occasions, unique to itself, starting with a song and a game, a prayer, a time of camaraderie. It shares its own stories and thinks about them. No great technique here. And that is the point. It does not need impressive learning or knowledge-management systems designed by a consultant. No M&E officers here – everybody is responsible for gathering evidence, learning and documentation. Indeed its slight messiness and disorganisation possibly enables an emergent quality, in looser, human spaces, and an atmosphere of shared freedom, in which all individuals feel at home and valued enough to bring their diverse contributions.

And all of this makes possible a wonderfully powerful orientation, to quote Phakama: ”When we plan we go with the mood of the people.”

Questions…What is our role in supporting sovereign organisations?

What do we have to learn and unlearn to be able to play this role?

What about our own organisational sovereignty?

This presentation comes from Chapter One of…

“The Barefoot Guide to Working with Organisations

and Social Change”

To be released in February 2009 by the Barefoot Collective.

This is a do-it-yourself guide to Organisation Development for leaders, facilitators and field practitioners in civil society

You will be able to download it, for free, from:

www.barefootguide.org

… from 11 February 2009

Email contact@barefootguide.org if you want to be personally notified.

See also a short article "Sovereign Local Organisations and Social Movements - holding rightful power“ by Doug Reeler, July 2008, from www.cdra.org.za

Some sample pages from the

first 4 chapters…