So what happens when 200 young professionals on personal capacity pursue their passion? Well they redesign a sector.
I believe that aCall2Action is more than welcome. The development sector is in urgent need to re-invent it self. But innovation is hard. Especially because it means challenging what you take for granted.
I believe Development Cooperation as we know it in the Netherlands suffers from a structural problem and I believe that the initiatives developed by the 6 groups of aCall2Action addresses this problem quite adequately. How? I’ll come to that later.
First of all, what is the structural problem? The problem of the Dutch Development Cooperation is far from unique. It is shared which other parties in our civil society who have a Big Story to Offer and try to influence or change the world through collective action such as: Labor Unions, Churches, Public Broadcasting Corporations, Political Parties and Churches etc.
Support for these institutions and organizations in word and action is diminishing. It looks like their most obvious problem is a decrease of financial resources. But believe me, this is not their biggest problem.
In the last 30 years Labor Unions, Developing NGOs and others all have become professional expert organizations, which is of course a good thing! There is only one tiny little problem…..and the problem is that it comes inevitably with a down side. Within professional institutions privileged professionals tend to speak for others or about others. The others are: the workers/ employees, idealists, religious people, poor people etc.
The current problem of these organizations is that the workers, donators, beneficiaries all have a diminishing trust in the professionals who are representing them. It is therefore essentially a “Crisis of Representation”. This Crisis of Representation erodes the fundamental legitimization of professional NGOs as force in the civil society to be reckoned with.
In other words the obvious exclusive license of the development sector to speak for the marginalized and the idealists has expired. The counter argument of organizations that they still have large numbers of financial supporters is though valid ….. but somewhat thin and only part of the story.
The simple facts that there has been no substantial public protest against governmental budget cuts in the development sector, is an strong indication that this sector lacks strong rootedness support from Dutch citizens. If an idealist sector in tough times does not have strong of advocates who fights for its interests then it has a serious problem.
A major reason for this lack of public support, in my opinion, is the fact that the Dutch NGO sector has been deeply affected by the ideology of New Public Management. NGOs may not have been asking for it but it was certainly bestowed upon them and seldom resisted. This influence was part and parcel of increasing governmental funding during the ’80 and ’90 and the first decade of this millennium.
The ideology of New Public Management is obsessed with efficiency and steering towards predictable outcomes. It sees beneficiaries of public goods as customers. And it considers individuals primarily as shareholders not as citizens or stakeholders.
The doctrine came up in the ’80 at the time that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher spoke her famous words “There is no such thing as society” And it still flourished when former President Clinton spoke his line:… “It’s the economy stupid!”
I believe this specific ideological management perspective has been counterproductive for the real quest of Development Cooperation. Its technical management speak and its fetish for numbers and has alienated many citizens and even some experts themselves from the essence of development cooperation. It has disconnected and de-vitalized the movement and eroded the public support.
New Public Management cannot comprehend, and therefore cannot tolerate the obvious notion that development is a long term wicked problem. A problem which needs decennia of committed involvement of many. It neglects the fact that the only real fuel for pursuing the goals of development cooperation are the passion, hopes, dreams and constructive outrage of concerned citizens worldwide.
The ongoing financial crisis and the problems within the European Union today have clearly shown the shortcomings of reducing citizens to merely consumers and shareholders. Large numbers of present day Europeans are conditioned to redraw their support as soon as they suspect that their wallets might suffer negative consequences.
But there are also other currents in present day society. The Occupy movement might lack a concrete program, but their message is clear. With their sweeping statement: “We are the 99%” their message says “You are wrong mister Clinton. In the end it is the people who dictate the economy”.
I believe that the biggest challenge for Development Cooperation today is the need to ‘re-embed’ the expert-systems of development sector back into the vibrant parts of civil society world wide.
And it is exactly this quest of re-embedding development cooperation back into womb of civil society which I believe is the common denominator of the 6 initiatives which have been co-created by aCall2Action this year. I give you three reasons.
Firstly their contribution to the re-designing of development cooperation can be characterized as institutional anti-design. The initiatives are organic answers to practical issues. They are hybrid and open.
Secondly the potential and possibilities of new technologies are almost subconsciously incorporated in a natural manner within these initiatives.
Thirdly most important of all, the initiatives consider citizens worldwide not merely as donators or beneficiaries. They place people not at the consuming end of development cooperation but consider them as agents of change.
Institutional anti-design, comprehensive integration of new technologies and considering the citizens and others outside the sector as agents of change are important elements for the much needed innovation of development cooperation.
I will wrap up with one last remark. In an article published last week, the people behind aCall2Action stated that the aim of the movement is to get its ideas embedded within established structures….well …..
I think it would be wise to turn this aim upside down.
As a director of an NGO, Oikos I strongly feel the urgency to link the capabilities of Oikos to the energy of movements just like Call2Action. And I would advise other organizations to do the same.
So let us get to work!
Thank you.
Gerhard Schuil – Director Oikos
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