Facilitator for NGO-GO Cooperation and Community Forestry
NGOs in developing countries have played a central role in helping the poorest members of the society and complementing the efforts of the governments in this field. Relations between the GOs(Governmental Organizations) and NGOs vary from country to country and from organization to organization.
It has been my privilege to work very closely with tens of NGOs in several Asian countries. I have observed, that often there are situations, where GOs and NGOs can improve their relations and work better for the same objective, if a third party works with them. The important role of facilitator has been many times given to me.
Mozambique
Local NGO movements in the Mozambican forestry sector has focussed largely on the impacts of uncontrolled logging in the natural forests, which has had mainly Chinese links. On my advise the National Directorate of Forest and Lands (DNTF) opened a dialogue with both of them and further improvements are expected.
When international investors became interested in establishing large scale forest plantations in Mozambique, I recommended to DNTF to invite specialists from local WWF and IUCN offices to join the preparatory studies. Their special contribution has been to identify areas, which should be excluded and protected for conservation purposes thus eliminating potential land use conflicts well in advance.
Bangladesh
In Bangladesh, which is famous due to the achievements of about 20,000 NGOs, I worked on a daily basis with several NGO-partners, which were contracted by Bangladesh Water Development Board and the Forest Department to help in community development and afforestation. Their strength was in gaining confidence of rural poor – especially hundreds of housholds led by testitute women – acting as their advocates and in patience to deal with government officials and local influentials. The contributions of my team included training the NGOs in afforestation, PRA-, and community development techniques. We helped them to learn systematic planning, budgeting and the timely implementation of the plans. Our task was also to inspect the quality and the quantity of the field work done under NGO guidance and check the financial claims of the NGOs and train their accountants in bookkeeping. The training was planned and executed according the findings from the field.
By definition, there tends to be a certain tension between GOs and NGOs. In my role as a neutral third party, I planned and organized several facilitating workshops and sessions to promote mutual understanding and joint planning efforts.
Laos
In Laos, which is a socialist country, GO- and NGO-relations had a different flavor. There were no domestic NGOs in early 1990s in Laos. Some international NGOs started to gain acceptance and were followed by some regional NGOs – mainly radical fractions from Thailand. It was a delicate time to defend the role of NGOs there. Our project could not proceed effectively without NGO cooperation, however. The breakthrough came when we were allowed to contract CARE to help the project in various village development schemes. Nowadays the NGO activities have been accepted in Laos and they are doing a good job in close cooperation with GOs in many fields.
Thailand
In Thailand the NGO-front is wide. Their participation in the master plan process was very fruitful. Moderate NGOs worked directly with our teams. The radical ones contributed through a heavy criticism. The input of both the radical and moderate NGOs was most significant in the field of community forestry, protection of forest resources, forest-based rural development, conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity and watershed management.
Nepal
Nepal was still an absolute monarchy when the Master Plan was in the making there. There were no NGOs in the modern sense in the country that time. However, the royally sponsored NGOs worked closely with my team and we established productive working relations e.g. with King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation.