Diapositiva 1

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Centro Latinoamericano para el Desarrollo Rural
Latin American Center for Rural
Development Centre Latino-Américain pour le
Développement Rural
Round Pegs in Square Holes Civil Society
Organizations need a new institutional
architecture to do their job Julio A.
Berdegué June 2008
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Contents

• Terms of reference
• Generate discussion on the changing roles (in
  North and South) of actors in development
  cooperation ... the request is you propose your
  vision and recommendations on what these should
  mean in practical terms

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Contents

• Establish a reference point
• Present a simple model to identify constraints
  and opportunities to improve the performance of
  CSOs
• Discuss some practical options

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Human Development Index
Fuente UNEP/GRID-Arendal
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Income level
Source UNEP/GRID-Arendal
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Income inequality (Gini coefficient)
Source World Policy Institute
lt0.25 0.25-0.3 0.3-0.35 0.35-0.4 0.4-0.45 0.
45-0.5 0.5-0.55 gt0.55 NA
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Infant mortality
Fuente UNEP/GRID-Arendal
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Gender differences in education
Source UNEP/GRID-Arendal
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Women in government
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Climate change impact on agricultural productivity
Source UNEP/GRID-Arendal
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Corruption
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Reference point

• Complexity
• Scale

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Reference point

• Do we believe that the current institutional
  architecture of development cooperation
  fundamentally equips us to deal with these
  problems in their real complexity and scale?

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Reference point

• No!
• We need deep changes, that alter in fundamental
  ways the current institutional architecture of
  development cooperation

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A simple model of what makes the system work
Ideas
Capacities
Incentives
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A simple model of what makes the system work

• Consistency among the parts is needed for the
  system to perform well
• Ideas, incentives and capacities need to be
  aligned with each other
• Currently, they are not... and the gaps are
  growing

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Options Ideas

• The development cooperation system has lost its
  focus on the structural causes of poverty and
  social injustice
• Development thought and practice are largely
  depoliticized
• From social change, human rights and social
  justice, to implementers of official policies and
  programs

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Options Ideas

• But, there are important signs that this cycle is
  coming to an end, or at least it is being
  seriously questioned across a broad range of
  political, economic, social and cultural actors
• One such sign
• Policy Memorandum
• Civil Society and Structural Poverty Reduction

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Options Ideas

• Structural poverty reduction is the principal
  objective
• A more integrated concept of poverty
• Interaction between macro and micro issues
• Poverty is the product of denying people their
  rights, opportunities to develop and access to
  resources
• Excessive donor intervention creates our civil
  society
• CSOs are not agents of government policy
• Knowledge partners in the South should be
  encouraged....
• Project-based funding is not conducive to social
  development
• Social development is complex, non-linear, and is
  difficult to ascertain what constitutes a
  positive result
• Increasing the capacity of civil societies in the
  South...
• Work together on an equal footing
• From development aid to international cooperation

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Options Ideas

• More than enough!
• Lets do it!

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Options Capacities
A coalition on fresh water issues
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Options Capacities
A value chain
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Options Capacities
Economic growth, poverty and inequality in a
country
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Options Capacities

• CSOs in the South and in the North are much
  stronger that in the past...
• But many of the capacities we have accumulated
• were useful in the past
• are less useful today
• and will be even less useful in the future
• We CSOs- have grown lazy in our comfort zones
  because the rules reward laziness and compliance
  with the politically correct status quo

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Options Capacities

• The new capacities
• To cooperate with very diverse actors
• To link local-regional-national-global and
  micro-macro dimensions
• To think and work long term
• To resist the mirage of blueprint thinking and
  log-frames and to innovate and take risks
• To link knowledge and practice
• To trust

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Options Incentives

• A fundamental problem of the current system is
  that the incentives are not well aligned either
  with the ideas we proclaim, or with the
  capacities we want to develop
• Incentives - the positive and negative changes
  in outcome that individuals perceive as likely to
  result from particular actions taken in a
  particular physical and social context (Elinor
  Ostrom et al. 2003)

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Incentives - Round pegs and square holes
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Incentives - Round pegs and square holes
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Incentives - Round pegs and square holes
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Aligning ideas, capacities and incentives

• Devolve authority over strategy and program to
  those who live in underdevelopment and to those
  who can effect change
• Donors as enablers
• Strategy and program design by region-based or
  issue-based coalitions extending well beyond NGOs

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Aligning ideas, capacities and incentives

• Programmatic approach
• Theory of change analysis of development
  challenges
• Why (micro, macro North and South)
• What needs to be done about it (North and South)
• Who can do what (North and South)
• How it can be done
• Multi-actor, medium term programs

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Aligning ideas, capacities and incentives

• Reinvent accountability
• Yes! We must be accountable, but in a way which
  is consistent with the ideas we profess, the
  goals we seek, and the capacities we need to
  develop
• Integral third-party certification
• Governance
• Management, finance and administration
• Accountability to society
• Partnerships, collaboration, networks
• Capacity for learning, innovation, analysis,
  risk-taking
• Institutional and programmatic effectiveness

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In summary

• We are in close agreement about the fundamental
  ideas that inspire and should drive the system
• We have greater capacity... but sclerosis is
  setting in due to the rules under which we work
• The greatest need is to radically change the
  system of incentives that shape our behavior

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Centro Latinoamericano para el Desarrollo Rural
Latin American Center for Rural
Development Centre Latino-Américain pour le
Développement Rural
Round Pegs in Square Holes Civil Society
Organizations need a new institutional
architecture to do their job Julio A.
Berdegué jberdegue_at_rimisp.org June 2008
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Population with improved drinking water supply
2002
Source UNEP/GRID-Arendal
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Recent increases in annual temperature relative
to 1951-1980
Source UNEP/GRID-Arendal