NGOs and social development

NGOs and social development

By Bambang Ismawan

This article is based on a paper presented at a seminar on
social development organized by the United Nations and the Social
Services Ministry on Feb. 28.

JAKARTA (JP): Attention to the grass roots community, a
disadvantaged people, remains of high priority in our world. In
spite of the high global and national progress of development,
the conditions these people live in gives evidence of the
shortcomings of development and of the latent and vulnerable
situation that continues to hamper any progress achieved by
efforts of development. They are billions in number figuring the
majority of global population. Though our country has been
successful in reducing the number of the poor significantly, some
15 percent of a population of 185 million people still live under
the poverty line. It does call for alleviating action.

All programs of poverty alleviation, however, should not treat
the disadvantaged merely as recipients of help, but rather as
survivors in need of facilitation. Treating these people merely
as recipients of help means on the one hand underestimating their
human dignity and power, on the other hand simplifying poverty
problems to economic matters. The poor are those people
struggling for a better quality of life. Therefore their own
strengths and dignity have also to be respected as having the
capacity of achieving better living conditions: either in socio-
economic matters or in other walks of life. Poverty alleviation
programs should only be aimed to facilitate the maximum exertion
of their strengths and dignity.

The key to success is, therefore, obvious: the poor must
participate actively in the whole implementation of the programs.
Their participation must not be in the form of following orders
to implement a project or program decided upon by others, but in
the first place it must involve them in deciding what program is
to be designed and how it should be implemented. The choice is
not just where the well should be dug, but whether it is
necessary to dig the well at all.

The concrete problem is, then, how to promote the
participation of small farmers, landless workers, ordinary
fishermen, crafts people, sidewalk vendors, and so on in the
development process. As an essential reminder, it is worth noting
that the poor are not the have-nots but "the have-little." Yet,
however little they have, they are willing to participate and
contribute their resources if meaningful chances are given to
them. Our experiences show that meaningful chances are widely
offered in the self-help groups, over which they take the
responsibility to govern, manage and control. Developing these
groups are, therefore, of vital importance. If these groups are
well developed, three goals, which are the focus of the current
Copenhagen Social Summit, could be achieved:

1. Social Integration: In a self-help group, members are given
the chance to identify common problems. By identifying common
problems, they are able to work together in analyzing them and
deciding what actions are to be taken. In this process, group
learning takes place, mutual understanding among members grows
and solidarity flourishes. In other words, social integration
develops gradually. Well facilitated, the members of the group
will build self-confidence, a sense of security and willingness
to cooperate.

2. Poverty Alleviation: The poor economic condition is
undoubtedly one major problem to be solved. Members of self-help
groups will surely take the issue of improving their economic
condition as their major problem. Under good facilitation they
are guided to identify, analyze and find their own solutions to
the problems. Self-help groups will have to design feasible
programs to cope with their poor conditions. Once such programs
are operating, they take one step forward towards poverty
alleviation. Results will follow under close facilitation. As
they gradually improve socio-economically, their groups are
starting to function more systematically to handle a larger
business venture.

3. Productive employment: When alleviation programs develop well,
self-help groups' activities will normally develop too. As
mentioned earlier, their economic improvement will produce a
larger business venture requiring better employment. Their
flourishing small scale businesses will involve more people in
the production process. Well developed self-help groups will,
therefore, provide more employment, either to the members as
self-employment or in the surrounding community. At this stage,
usually linkage with formal financial institutions, such as
banks, starts to be deemed necessary. Further facilitation is
needed to link them to these formal financial institutions.

The development of self-help groups is clearly very effective
in implementing any poverty alleviation program, since they give
the most appropriate atmosphere for multifaceted human and social
development. They not only improve the poor's socio-economic
development, but also other essential aspects of human
development, such as self-confidence, self-respect and self
reliance, which are needed to further motivate them to move on
towards better self development.

In Indonesia, several programs leading to socio-economic
development have been undertaken since the first Long Term
Development, and have been seriously handled in the second and
third Long Term Five Year Development Planning. Yet, only the
Presidential Instructions on backward villages program has unique
characteristics, namely:

1. The village program is designed to give more leeway to
people's own determination and initiatives in what they think is
best to alleviate their poverty, whereas former similar programs
or projects used to rely more on government officials'
determination and initiatives.

2. Financial assistance within this program is directly
transferred to the community in need as a grant to be handled as
additional working capital under a revolving fund scheme to the
benefit of the self-help groups.

3. To secure the success of the program, in which the welfare
of the whole community is given the highest priority and their
participatory and democratic approach is emphasized in the
decision making, this program encourages the establishment of
self-help groups characterized by self-organization and self-
management. The members' assembly is the highest authority of the
self-help groups. This institution is to become the place where a
learning and teaching process is encouraged in order to develop
the capability of the members and to establish sustainable
management of the self-help group's activities.

Bambang Ismawan, an NGO activist, is president of Bina
Swadaya Community Self Reliance Development Agency, Jakarta.