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Structures and Strategies in Relationships Between
Non-Government Service Providers and
Governments
Batley, Richard
DOI:
10.1002/pad.606
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Citation for published version (Harvard):
Batley, R 2011, 'Structures and Strategies in Relationships Between Non-Government Service Providers and
Governments' Public Administration and Development, vol 31, no. 4, pp. 306-319. DOI: 10.1002/pad.606
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1
STRUCTURES AND STRATEGIES IN RELATIONS BETWEEN NON-
GOVERNMENT SERVICE PROVIDERS AND GOVERNMENTS
RICHARD BATLEY1
University of Birmingham, UK
SUMMARY
This is an overview of research findings on collaboration between governments and
NGOs in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan in three services: basic education, health-care,
and sanitation. It questions the premise that NGOs that collaborate lose their autonomy
and capacity for policy influence. It finds that, even where NGOs operate in constraining
institutional environments and enter agreements with government, they are able to
exercise strategic choices in response. Most of the studied NGOs depended on
government for less than half their funding; they all had alternative sources, and so could
make strategic choices to some degree. Non-government service providers are not passive
in the face of structural constraints. Even though their strategies are not usually explicit,
they balance the need for financial survival, defence of their organizational identities, and
commitment to their goals - including influencing government. At least for these NGOs
there is no contradiction between advocacy and service delivery.
Key words: NGO, non-profit, government, service delivery, collaboration, advocacy
INTRODUCTION2
This paper examines the factors that affect relations between governments and NGOs
when they collaborate in service delivery. In particular, it explores the interaction
between structural factors – the institutions and organizations that set the framework
within which actors operate – and the ability of organizational actors to make strategic
choices to shape their environment.
As Mcloughlin’s article in this issue shows, the literature on state-NGO collaboration in
service delivery has tended to emphasize the structural factors that affect relations
between them. For some researchers and policymakers, differences of organizational
form and goals provide the basis for complementary relationships between state and non-
state actors: they are seen as having comparative advantages that make them potential
partners. But others have found that these differences may also predispose them to rivalry
and conflict. Moreover, where they enter into collaboration, the very structure of the
relationship establishes rules of the game that are at least as likely to favour the influence
of one side as to be equitable.
1 Correspondence to Richard Batley, International Development Department, University of Birmingham, UK. Email:
r.a.batley@bham.ac.uk
2 The research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council under the Non-Governmental Public Action
Programme (Project Number RES-155-25-0045)
2
Much of the literature finds that, especially where the relationship is organized in the
form of a contract, it establishes the precedence of government over NGOs. Indeed,
NGOs are likely to ingest the subordination into their own systems by a process of
isomorphism that makes them more like government (Ramanath 2009). A widespread
view is that NGOs in a service delivery relationship with government effectively give up
their autonomy by comparison with those that maintain their distance from government
by adopting a role as policy advocates (see Mcloughlin this issue, Brinkerhoff 2002 and
2011).
This article explores the influence of structural factors but balances this with an analysis
of the strategies that non-government service providers use to manage relationships with
government. Mcloughlin’s article indicates that this is a relatively under-explored aspect
of the literature on state-NGO relations, although the idea of ‘strategic choice’ is an
important feature of organizational theory (see Batley and Rose this issue; Rodrigues and
Child 2008 for an account). We propose that, by combining analyses of structure and
strategy, we are better able to explain the effect of relationships on NGOs. The article
demonstrates that, while structural factors have force, NGOs can re-interpret and even
reverse structures of power.
FRAMEWORK OF THE ANALYSIS
Like the other papers in this special issue, this article examines relationships between
government and NGOs in the delivery of basic sanitation, primary education and primary
health care in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. Within these fields of policy, we focus on
three programmes of collaboration that are present in these countries: support by local
NGOs to government primary schools; their management of government primary health
care centres; and their support of government programmes for community-based
sanitation. The argument is illustrated by examples of collaboration by government with
national or local NGOs in each service sector. The research approach is described in
Batley and Rose (in this issue); in brief, it was based on analysis of the programmes at
national level, case studies of specific NGO-government relationships, and the checking
of findings with forums of other NGOs involved in the same programmes.3
The article begins with a comparison of the national contexts within which relationships
have evolved between government and NGOs. It then follows the framework set out in
Table 1 to analyse first the structures that influence collaboration. These include
government’s policy authority and financial control in the service sectors under study, the
levels of financial independence of case study NGOs, and the nature of the agreements
they formed with government. At each point in the presentation of structures, we analyse
their cumulative force in constraining (or not) the options of NGOs, recognizing that
structural factors which constrain some actors’ options may create opportunities for
others.
3 This article draws on working papers and publications written by the research team. For these and further information
on the research approach, see http://www.idd.bham.ac.uk/research/service_providers.shtml#Whose
3
We then examine the strategic behaviour of NGOs, analysing how far they have been
governed by structural factors or have been able to shape their environment. This covers
strategy at four levels: the way their agreements with government have evolved, their
strategies of engagement, their influence on government policy, and their management of
the relationship.
Our conclusion is that, consciously or not, NGOs take into account the limits and the
opportunities that their environment presents and, except in the most extreme situations,
are able to devise strategies to maintain their organizational identity and advance their
policy priorities. Following the framework set out in Table 1, the findings are
summarized in Table 3.
Table 1: Framework for analysing structures and strategies in relationships between
governments and NGOs
Structures affecting relationships
NGOs’ strategies
Governmental authority over policy and finance in
the service under study
NGOs’ sources and types of finance
The form of collaborative agreements between
government and NGOs
Formation of relationships by evolution
Strategies of engagement with government:
avoiding, shaping or adapting to dependence
The exercise of influence on government policy
Managing the relationship with government
NATIONAL CONTEXTS
As Nair’s paper in this issue shows, the particular service sectors and relationships we
have examined are influenced by wider national contexts. Governments’ relations with
voluntary associations or NGOs have evolved historically, and are affected by the
institutional characteristics of states and by the practices of governments. These factors
are too wide to make a formal part of the structural analysis within the limits of an article,
but this section identifies some similarities and differences between the three countries
which are relevant to the later analysis.
Government policy, in all three countries and across service sectors, embraces service
delivery in partnership with voluntary associations or NGOs as well as with firms. This
arose partly in response to the public sector deficits and the recognized failure of public
services in the 1980s, but also in response to policy prescriptions, articulated and
transmitted by governments, international agencies and NGOs. However, the discourse of
partnership has always met with scepticism in practice: our research shows that even
governments and NGOs that formally embrace partnership have remained sceptical about
its meaning and acceptability.
4
There are some broad similarities of basic legal and regulatory frameworks between the
countries. However, practice differs markedly depending on the political régime type (i.e.
its stability, inclusiveness, openness); the location of authority for service provision
between levels of government; the stability of the policy and legal frameworks within
which NGOs operate; the role of donor agencies in influencing national policies; the scale
and organization of NGOs; and the resource dependence of NGOs on governments and
donors. (Nair, this issue. See also Lewis 2004, Mayhew 2005, Sen 1999)
While Pakistan and Bangladesh are overtly more committed to policies of partnership in
service delivery, these rest on a less stable and plural political environment than in India,
and are more driven by donor policies. NGOs’ relationship with government in India is
generally managed at a more decentralized level, particularly by comparison with
Bangladesh, and has little political salience for the state.
Pakistan is a case of changing relationships and policy instability with regard to NGOs,
resulting from abrupt changes in régime and in the balance between military, religious
and external forces. Between 1950 and the 1980s, suppression of left-liberal, advocacy
movements gave way to support for welfare NGOs, takeover by the state of private
education organizations, and periodic support or control of faith-based organizations. In
the 1990s, elected governments also sought to limit the influence of NGOs as a challenge
to their political constituencies. However, in the 1990s and 2000s, commitment to
partnership with NGOs and the private sector grew under donor influence and was then
consolidated under President Musharraf’s military government, at least partly as a way of
bypassing the civil bureaucracy and provincial political leaders. (Bano 2007)
Bangladesh, while also having a history of alternation between military and elected
governments, has maintained a continuous pattern of ambivalent relationships between
government and NGOs due at least partly to the strong presence of donors. NGOs
emerged with strong donor support as an autonomous sector in response to the incapacity
of government to cope with natural disasters in the 1970s and 1980s. With external
funding, they developed parallel systems of service delivery. In the 2000s, donors then
encouraged collaboration between government and NGOs, whilst also continuing to
support each separately. As a consequence, relations between them are ambiguous:
government attempts to regulate NGOs’ access to funds, but at the same time to
incorporate them into policy. NGOs have split on party lines and government has
periodically taken action to limit their political activities. (Alam 2007)
India has maintained a stable and plural political environment, where there is great
variety of modes of action in different political territories and levels of government.
External funding by donor agencies is not an important influence except in specific local
cases. Relationships are therefore less inclined to lurch in response either to external
pressure or to changes of régime. The state has set the parameters of the relationship,
limiting and defining the role of NGOs and the private sector. Since the 1990s, internally
sponsored liberalization of the economy was accompanied by more openness to
partnership with non-state actors. However, recognition of the state’s dominance in
setting policy for service provision is the starting point for NGOs’ attempt to influence
5
service delivery through advocacy and collaboration. Non-government service providers
maintain an ambivalent relationship with government, seeking funding or engagement but
concerned not to compromise their autonomy given the state’s dominant position. (Nair
2007)
In all three countries, operational collaboration in service delivery is formally at state and
local level, but in Bangladesh the approval of higher levels of government is essential and
in Pakistan it is important for most NGOs to maintain networks of influence with central
élites. In India, state and city governments have more fully decentralized powers of
policy-making as well as implementation, creating greater opportunities for negotiation of
local level relationships between state and non-state actors (Sen 1999). Particularly where
agreements or contracts are negotiated above the operational level of government, there is
often a gulf between, on the one hand, the policy commitment to collaboration and, on
the other, the professional and bureaucratic antipathy which has to be overcome by
NGOs’ strategies.
STRUCTURES AFFECTING RELATIONSHIPS
Governmental policy authority and financial control
The first level of our structural analysis was to consider the ‘resource dependence’ of
organizations operating in the chosen sectors; specifically, the policy and financial
arrangements under which NGOs were involved in supporting government primary
health care centres, primary schools, and community-based sanitation. The question is
how far governments exercise policy authority and financial control over NGOs.
In organizational theory, ‘resource dependence’ is signified by the degree to which
actors’ discretion is limited by other actors’ authority, control of finance, information and
other inputs. Organizational actors may be able to mobilize resources and establish their
independence, or they may be dependent on resources controlled by others. (Pfeffer and
Salancik 1978; Oliver 1991) In the spheres of policy studied, the level of NGO resource
dependence was considered against the following factors:
1. The authoritativeness of government policy within which NGO collaborators have
to operate
2. The extent to which funding arrangements legitimize and give authority to
government policy
3. Whether NGOs operate primarily in direct individual relationships with
government or in networks with other NGOs
The level of their dependence (high, medium or low) was a matter of degree based on
permutations of these factors. The research found no instances where NGO providers
were wholly dependent on government or donors.
6
High dependency: A strong government policy stance is supported by associated flows of
funding. NGOs are bound into this by formal agreements leading to mainly hierarchical
relations with government, without significant collaboration with other NGOs.
Medium dependency: A broad framework of government policy creates opportunities for
alternative methods of non-governmental engagement, with various sources of funding.
Relations between NGO and government may be more or less formal and contractual.
Low dependency: Government policy is weak or absent and not supported by significant
resources. Programmes and funding are generated through particular relationships
between NGOs and regional or local governments. The primary networks of NGOs are of
mutual support with other NGOs, local governments and funders.
NGOs operating in a more dependent environment have the benefit of clear sources of
funding as long as they conform to national policy. On the other hand, there is a price to
pay: where policy is highly specified, NGOs may be required to act as agents. By
comparison, those operating in less dependent environments have to be more reliant on
their own capacity to mobilize resources and negotiate policy with government, often at
local or regional levels.
A classic example of high dependency is the contracting out of primary health centres in
Bangladesh. Here, unlike the other two countries, in both urban and rural environments
there is a national policy commitment to contracting out. Bangladesh’s Urban Primary
Health Care Project is funded by donors and coordinated by the Asian Development Bank
but the funding is channelled through government. In the poorer areas of the country’s
largest cities and towns, government primary health centres serving a total population of
10 million have been contracted out by open competitive tender to 20 NGOs. The project
is administered through an elaborate structure linking levels of government, and through
contracts that specify in detail the activities and functioning of NGO-managed centres.
NGOs’ dependence arises from their incorporation into a government-managed system of
implementation and from the unity of government authority with donor funding. (Alam,
this issue)
Medium dependency environments offer a more open policy framework and alternative
sources of funding. An example is NGO provision of government sponsored non-formal
education (NFE) in India. Indian education plans recognize the role of NGOs in
supporting government’s objectives. NFE programmes for ‘out of school’ children were
initiated by some state governments in the 1970s, and then adopted in a central scheme
for educationally backward areas. By 2000, more than 300,000 NFE centres were funded
by the national government with both state governments and NGOs receiving assistance.
Donors funded additional centres directly. Government and donor funding were then
consolidated into one Education for All programme through which NGO centres were
fully funded. So government provides a broad framework of policy and funding within
which state and local governments negotiate with NGOs their own form of collaboration,
whether by contracting them to run education centres, or to support government schools.
Many NGOs bring to these relationships their own additional funding. (Rose, this issue)
7
Community-based urban sanitation in Pakistan is an example of low dependency, where
government supports only a very loose policy environment. Urban sanitation has received
low national priority and strong cases have depended largely on the initiative of particular
NGOs with city councils and provincial governments. The national government has
offered limited support for private, voluntary and community actors in the water and
sanitation sectors, giving grants for community-managed schemes. Unlike Bangladesh,
there is no country-wide programme for urban community sanitation but only sporadic
provincial and city programmes. The most significant of these, where large NGOs work
in partnership with local governments, small NGOs and communities, are: the Tareeqi
Foundation in Balochistan and the Orangi Pilot Project in Karachi. Both models have
been replicated: the first with UNICEF and federal government support; the second by
the adoption of the OPP model by other city governments with NGOs. (Bano; Sansom,
this issue)
In general, the Bangladeshi examples are associated with more directive policy
frameworks matched by greater NGO dependence for funding. Although there are many
other cases where donors fund NGOs directly, in our examples donors have chosen to
channel funds through government. Across the countries, the sanitation cases present the
least controlling environment. Sansom, in this issue, explains this sectoral distinction as a
result of the fact that sanitation rarely has a clear ministerial home, and that it has been
neglected as a focus of policy and funding. As he explains, the strongest steps to policy
coherence in sanitation have been taken in Bangladesh.
Sources of funding and the level of NGOs’ financial dependence
The next step in the structural analysis was to consider the general financial position of
the case study NGOs. The previous section showed that NGOs may be more or less
dependent on government in the particular sector programmes that were studied.
However, relationships between government and NGOs cannot be understood merely on
the basis of collaboration in particular programmes. They are also affected by the funding
arrangements and options that NGOs have for the whole range of their activities. Most
NGOs operate in more than one policy environment. For example, the core role of the
Punjab Rural Support Programme in Pakistan is to organize community self-help;
managing primary health care was not part of its regular mission. The Bangladeshi
Friends in Village Development organization offers micro-credit as well as basic
education. On the whole, NGOs typically engage in a wide range of activities with
different sources of funding, and some work in more than one service sector (Table 2).
NGOs may therefore have greater independence in their funding and in their relationship
with government than would be implied by their experience in any one programme. The
availability of options about the nature and sources of finance is likely to influence their
strategies and their relationship with government.
Apart from the range of NGOs’ activities and therefore possible sources of finance, they
also had different types of funding to cover their administration and activities. While the
8
literature does identify the risk to autonomy of reliance on official, overseas and single
sources of funding (Brown and Trout 2004, Clayton 1999, Hulme and Edwards 1997,
Lewis and Sobhan 1999), our classification also distinguishes between funding types.
These included membership subscriptions, endowments, charitable donations and grants,
fees paid by individual customers, and payments by governments and donors in return for
services rendered. Funding types carry with them different implications for NGOs’
accountability, motives and levels of autonomy in setting their policy goals. The research
identified three categories of funding types according to their likely impact on NGOs’
ability to determine their own priorities and activities. The categories go from more to
less dependence on funders:
1. Project funding for tied services contracted by governments (national or local)
and international agencies: We took this to be the category that would make
NGOs most dependent in defining their public purpose because it would lock
them into policy priorities determined by governments or donors.
2. Payment of fees for services by individual customers: NGOs respond to the
preference of many clients but are not subject to any. In practice, among the cases
we studied, this was a small category, mainly referring to fees paid by recipients
of micro-credit in a few NGOs.
3. Contributions in support of NGOs’ general objectives: membership subscriptions,
endowments, charitable donations and grants are usually made in support of the
broad objectives and performance of an NGO which retains responsibility for
defining the project or service to be delivered. This is the category that gives
NGOs most independence in defining their purposes.
Taking into account the range of their activities, sources and types of funding, Table 2
classifies the NGOs according to their overall level of financial dependence on
government. Table 3 compares this with their resource dependence on government
funding and policy authority within the specific programmes. We might expect that
organizations with more independent financial sources would avoid participating in very
directive government programmes. With some variations, this is broadly confirmed for
Indian and Pakistani NGOs. But, in the case of Bangladesh, even NGOs with relatively
independent and mixed sources of funding seem prepared to enter highly resource
dependent relationships with government. We will come back to this point when we
consider NGOs’ strategies.
9
Table 2: Financial dependence of case study NGOs
NGO name
and country
Specific
activity
studied
Range of activities
undertaken
NGOs’ funding and financial dependence
Range and types of funding
Level of
dependence
on
government
Bangladesh
Unnayan
Shahojogy
Team
Community
sanitation
Water, sanitation,
and hygiene
promotion. Women’s
empowerment
Funded 85% by one donor
through an INGO; also by
contracted government
projects
High
Population
Services and
Training Centre
Urban
primary
health care
management
Family planning,
primary health,
poverty reduction,
education, training,
disaster management
Mainly direct from multiple
donors, also from government
contracts, and fees for services
Medium-low
Friends in
Village
Development
Support to
non-formal
education
programme
Basic education,
literacy, livelihoods
and micro-credit
Funding for education mainly
from donors, but nearly half of
funding is from payment for
micro-credit and financial
services
Medium-low
Pakistan
Orangi Pilot
Project - RTI
Community
sanitation
Low cost community
sanitation and water
supply
Bank endowment and untied
contributions from
international NGOs
Low
Punjab Rural
Support
Program
Primary
health care
management
Community self-help
for basic services;
micro-credit
Core endowment from Punjab
government plus donor grants
and contracts
Medium-high
Idara-Taleem-
o-Aagahi
Primary
school
management
Own non-formal
education;
improvement of
government schools
Corporate and private
donations; donor grants and
contracts; computer course
fees
Low
India
Shelter
Associates
Community
sanitation
Housing and
sanitation for urban
poor; community
participation; poverty
mapping
Mainly donor grants and
contracts, government
contracts, family support
Medium-low
Karuna Trust
Primary
health care
management
Primary healthcare,
education, micro-
finance, and
livelihoods
More than half state and
national government funding;
over a quarter from donors;
the rest from untied grants and
donations
Medium-high
Door Step
School
Support to
government
primary
schools
Non-formal and
primary education
Multiple individual
contributions, corporate and
bank grants, family trusts,
foreign donors and
government
Low
10
The form of agreements between government and non-government service providers
The next step in the structural chain is that NGOs, with more or less financial autonomy
and operating in policy spheres where government has more or less authority over policy
and funding, may enter into more or less controlling agreements with government. Since
we were interested in agreements as a relationship of control and their effect on
autonomy, we identified two relevant elements of analysis from the small literature that
analyses contracts between government and NGOs in this way (see Mcloughlin, this
issue: Baruah 2007; Batley 2006; Bhat et al 2007; Brown et al 2006; Clayton 1999;
Gazely 2007; Smith and Lipsky 1998).
We identify alternative forms of contract and agreement according to whether they are (i)
formal or informal and (ii) hierarchical or horizontal/mutual. By ‘formal’, we mean that
there is an overt agreement in writing about the way roles and responsibilities are divided
and disputes are resolved - at the extreme, the relationship is fully prescribed as a legal
contract. Formality might apply in the case of either a hierarchical or a mutual
relationship, but it is more likely in the case of a hierarchical arrangement - where one
actor (the principal or purchaser) procures a service or product from the other (the agent)
- because of the financial transaction this implies. On the other hand, a horizontal or
mutual agreement is based on shared responsibility where neither party funds or
subordinates the other:
A classical (hierarchical) contract is one where the provider is expected to
execute the requirements of the purchaser who controls the flow of finance, as set
out in an agreement enforceable by law.
Mutual agreements do not involve a transfer of competencies or delegation of
authority between a purchaser and provider. They are arrangements whereby state
and non-state actors decide voluntarily to plan and act together, contributing
separate funding to shared or complementary ends and taking on distinct roles in
the provision of a service. Agreements are often set out in a memorandum of
understanding, probably not enforceable by law. (OECD 2010)
Half of the case-study relationships between NGOs and government were contracts where
one party (the NGO) was to be funded by and act as the agent of the other. This was
clearest in the Bangladeshi cases, where government drew up elaborate contracts to pay
NGOs to perform a service. The other half were mutual agreements, where government
and NGOs each contributed separate funds to shared ends.
There was a general trend towards the formalization of agreements in the shape of
memoranda of understanding if not fully legal contracts. Even some NGOs that had well-
established relations of mutuality with government were moving in at least some of their
activities towards legal contracts. There was one NGO that stood resolutely against this
trend. In its work on community sanitation in Karachi, the Orangi Pilot Project (Bano;
11
and Sansom, this issue) has maintained a strong informal, mutual relationship with the
City Government, the Water Supply and Sewerage Board, and community organizations.
OPP has deliberately avoided written agreements in the belief that these would make their
relationship rigid and have the effect of undermining trust.
Whatever the nature of the agreement, in practice many of the relationships we examined
did not belong clearly to any of these ideal-types. Apart from the three Bangladeshi
classical contracts and the informal agreement of the Orangi Pilot Project, arrangements
rarely conform to the pure types. The field we researched was one of incomplete
contracts, loosely specified agreements, verbal understandings, and often written but not
legally registered documents. Moreover, we will see in the next section that the hierarchy
of classical contracts may be inverted in practice, while ‘mutual’ agreements may in fact
be manipulated to give control to one of the parties.
The mutual agreements and most of the contracts were built on relational
understandings. By this we mean that, even in the case of legal contracts, agreements are
not purely formal, impersonal or legal. They also depend on unwritten understandings
about obligations, are built on trust, and sustained by the wish to preserve the relationship
(Macaulay 1963). They allow terms to be adjusted in the light of experience. The three
exceptions are the Bangladeshi cases where funding for some of their work is channelled
by donors through government departments to contracted NGOs. Donors’ requirements
for the delivery of measurable results have been passed on by the Bangladesh government
to NGOs in the form of rigid contracts that specify in detail the inputs and activities
required of them, allowing little flexibility.
From the perspective of NGOs, hierarchical contracts with governments threaten their
autonomy, unless they can discover ways to manage the relationship. NGOs often
compare the experience of working in hierarchical contracts with the more positive
experience of relational and mutual agreements, usually with donors. The question is
what factors and strategies have led them to accept hierarchical arrangements, and what
room they have for managing them in a direction they would prefer.
Table 3 summarises the NGOs’ structural dependence and their strategic response. The
second column clusters the case study NGOs according to their level of overall financial
dependence - based on the range and type of their sources of funding. The third and
fourth columns refer to their engagement with government under the specific
programmes of activity that we studied. The third column summarizes their resource
dependence on government (through its control of policy and funding) in the sectoral
programmes within which they operated. The fourth column refers to the nature of their
agreement with government within those sector programmes. Finally, the fifth column
summarizes the next section by typifying NGOs’ strategic response to the structures of
their relationships with government
The table shows that NGOs that were more financially independent were more likely to
enter into mutual rather than hierarchical relationships with government. Conversely, in
the sector programmes where government had more policy authority and financial
12
control, it was more likely to enter into hierarchical contracts with NGOs. There is
therefore some concordance between the structural factors, but there were also exceptions
that may be explained by the strategic behaviour of actors.
Table 3: NGOs’ structural dependence and their strategic response
NGO names, countries
and sectors
General level
of financial
dependence
(Note 1)
Relationship with government in specific agreements (Note 2)
Resource
dependence on
government for
policy and
funding
Form of agreement
with government
Strategic response
to the relationship
Unnayan Shahojogy Team
(Bangladesh, sanitation)
High
Medium
Formal hierarchical
contract
Adapt
Punjab Rural Support
Program (Pakistan)
Karuna Trust (India,
health)
Medium-high
Medium-high
High
Medium
Formal hierarchical
contract with relational
understanding
Mutual agreement
shifting to contract with
relational understanding
Adapt and shape
Shape
Friends in Village
Development
(Bangladesh, education)
Population Services and
Training Centre
(Bangladesh, health)
Shelter Associates (India,
sanitation)
Medium-low
Medium-low
Medium-low
High
High
Low
Formal hierarchical
contract
Formal hierarchical
contract
Formal mutual
agreement
Adapt but seek to
avoid by gaining
donor funding
Adapt but seek to
avoid by gaining
donor funding
Avoid and shape
Door Step School (India,
education)
Idara-Taleem-o-Aagahi
(Pakistan, education)
Orangi Pilot Project
(Pakistan, sanitation)
Low
Low
Low
Medium
Medium
Low
Mutual agreement
shifting to contract with
relational understanding
Formal mutual
agreement
Informal mutual
agreement
Adapt
Shape
Avoid
Notes: (1) The second column refers to NGOs’ general financial dependence for all their activities. (2) The third,
fourth and fifth columns refer only to the specific agreements with governments that were studied.
THE STRATEGIES of NON-GOVERNMENT SERVICE PROVIDERS
The previous analysis has established that actors operate within the framework of
structural constraints: contractual agreements set out the roles of actors and the rules of
their relationships, within policy spheres that are more or less authoritative and backed up
by finance. In this section we ask to what extent actors can, nevertheless, exercise
agency, that is make strategic choices to manage their structural dependency and pursue
their organizational interests and policy goals. The answer is that they can make choices
but within limits.
13
Trajectories in the evolution of relationships
Literature on contracts between government and NGOs in North America (Gazely 2007,
Van Slyke 2006, Brown et al 2006) suggests that formal contracts precede the
development of trust and of relational contracts. This research indicates an opposite
evolutionary path. In most of our cases, formal agreements had evolved out of informal
relations between governments and NGOs. Sometimes the original trust-based
relationship was displaced by formalization, but more often it carried on as a relational
adjunct to the written agreement. In one case – the Orangi Pilot Project (OPP) in Karachi
– the relationship had remained wholly informal in the sense that it was unwritten.
Apart from OPP, three linked trajectories of evolution in the relationship with
government can be identified:
i) The NGO has a long track record of providing services and working informally
with government. On the basis of its reputation, it is invited to formalize an
agreement as a memorandum of understanding. For example, Door Step School,
an NGO in Mumbai, collaborates with the municipal corporation to improve
educational provision for poor children in government schools and education
centres. This was first within the framework of a mutual agreement for school
improvement. After many years it entered into a contract for the supply of non-
formal education with the municipal corporation and later the national
government (Rose, this issue). A similar track would apply to most of the other
NGOs that we studied.
ii) Similar to (i) but international agencies support the transition. Having supported
an NGO for a long period, a donor awards project funding that encourages joint
working with government. In the case of Shelter Associates in Maharashtra, India,
the same donors have funded separately both the NGO and the municipal
corporation with which Shelter works, on the understanding that they would
collaborate in the improvement of community sanitation in slums. (Sansom, this
issue)
iii) Once established, the formal agreement is deepened and extended by NGOs’
cultivation of working relationships with government officials. As will be shown
below, NGOs commonly invest in building relationships so as to deepen formal
agreements, and win official and political cooperation.
A counter case to these examples of evolutionary relationships is that of the formal
contracts between government and NGOs in Bangladesh. These are supported by
international agencies (the Asian Development Bank and the United Nations Children’s
Fund together with bilateral donors) but their funds are channelled through government.
In each service sector, government consulted leading NGOs on the design of projects and
on the terms of their involvement. Thereafter, these NGOs had to compete with others for
the award of contracts. These are the only cases in our study where the award of contracts
was based on formal competitive tendering rather than on the evolution of relationships.
Those that won were then faced with strict and scarcely alterable contractual conditions.
Supported by donors, government sees itself as properly applying contractual terms, but
14
NGOs, ill-equipped for a contractual relationship, see themselves as trapped in a one-
sided relationship. Channelling aid in this way deliberately upset the established pattern
of parallel government and NGO service delivery systems described in the first section of
the structural analysis.
If the common experience of evolution from informal to formal relationships is distinct
from western country experience, why should this be? The explanation may be in the
prevalence of formal contracting and unacceptability of private deals in more developed
countries. Another is in the history of government/NGO relationships in service delivery
(Nair, this issue). India, Bangladesh and Pakistan have long histories of civil society
organizations acting as significant providers of basic services with their own sources of
funding; governments have never been universal in their provision. There was therefore a
ready-made field of collaborators for governments seeking to extend public services. To
work with a few reputed providers and then to collaborate increasingly formally with
them gave governments more security of outcomes than a competitive tendering process
would allow. The selected NGOs also gained: they could enter formal agreements on the
basis of established trust and privileged access.
NGOs’ strategies of engagement: managing resource dependence
Organizational theory presents two classic responses of organizations to their dependency
on other organizations’ resources of authority, materials and finance: they may seek to
dominate the environment or adapt to it (Pfeffer and Salancik 2003; Greenwood and
Hinings 2006). Analysis of our cases suggests these responses can be further broken
down into three broad strategies of engagement: avoid resource dependence, shape it, or
adapt the organisation to the resource environment:
1. Avoid resource dependence:
Two types of avoidance strategy present themselves. The Orangi Pilot Project in Karachi
(Bano; and Sansom, this issue) avoids financial support from government or donors
(except for allied international NGOs), has an untied endowment, avoids written
agreements, and pursues its own approach in informal, relational agreements with
government and communities. Other NGOs studied in this research avoid over-
dependence on government by maintaining multiple sources of funding. The Bangladeshi
Population Services and Training Centre is explicit about this, describing itself in its
Annual Reports as
a not-for-profit organization… committed to long-term sustainability through
multiplying its revenues and sources of funding and charging fees for services,
consistent with its social commitments.
2. Shape the environment of resource dependence:
Two NGOs in particular - Idara-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA) in Pakistan and the Karuna Trust
in India - have embraced the opportunities presented by the partnership paradigm and
established themselves as knowledge brokers between government and external agencies.
They are able to explain and ‘sell’ new approaches to collaboration and even take on the
role of drafting for government the framework of agreements between them. ITA enters
15
into mutual agreements with government for the support of government schools, but in
practice it takes charge of shaping the relationship (Bano; and Rose, this issue). Karuna
Trust, which manages primary health centres under contract to the state government of
Karnataka in India, is formally financially and contractually dependent on government.
However, in practice, it has shaped the policy of contracting out, effectively reversing the
roles of principal and agent.
3. Adapt the organization to the resource environment:
Other organizations’ response to the external environment can be characterized as
adaptive. Willingly or reluctantly, they accept the terms of engagement that are offered
by government – financial dependence, hierarchic agreements and government policy
leadership. Although all the NGOs in this category had alternative sources of funding,
most felt that their choice was constrained. The Bangladeshi NGOs were concerned that
funding was increasingly likely to come through government and that donors expected
them to work in partnership; it was important to show willingness and, at least for now, to
accept very detailed contract specification (Alam, this issue).
Door Step School in Mumbai is an apparently anomalous case, with a high degree of
financial independence based on untied contributions and endowments. Its relationship
with Mumbai Municipal Corporation for support to basic education has evolved from
purely informal understandings through mutual agreements to more formal, hierarchic
contracts funded by state and national governments. It was prepared to enter into these
more formal relationships because it trusted the corporation to operate sensitively. (Rose,
this issue)
As the final column of Table 3 shows, higher levels of resource dependence generally
evoke more adaptive behaviour. However, this is not always the case. NGOs’ response is
not wholly determined by their structural position of resource dependence or
independence. The Karuna Trust shows that it is possible to behave with autonomy in
what is objectively a constrained environment. On the other hand, the Door Step School
case illustrates that an organization may choose to adapt without being constrained to do
so, when it has confidence in the underlying relationship with government.
NGOs’ influence on policy and practice through collaboration with government
The NGOs involved in these programmes of collaboration seek to influence government
policy but not by adopting an oppositional posture. They share a common broad stance of
seeking to improve public services provided by government. They have grown up in
relation to government and donors, and have responded continually to changing policies
and sources of funding.
To varying degrees, these NGOs exercise influence not only on policy but also on
practice by example and interaction, while avoiding confrontation with government. The
boldest cases of influence are those that generally have more autonomous sources of
finance, and that exercise some control over their relationship with government – by
avoiding or shaping it. However, the ‘adapters’ too may exercise influence. By
16
comparison with the blunt view of much of the literature - that collaboration in service
delivery undermines NGOs’ freedom to undertake advocacy - our evidence supports the
view (Najam 2000; Brinkerhoff and Brinkerhoff 2002) that it affects how, not whether,
they influence policy and its implementation.
Some NGOs have influenced the general framework of government policy and practice:
o The Orangi Pilot Project, after 10 years of working on sanitation in slum
communities in Karachi, in 1992 lobbied the city authorities against taking a large
loan from the Asian Development Bank for infrastructure investment, persuading
the mayor to accept an incremental, community-supported approach that is now
influential nationally and internationally. (Sansom, this issue)
o The director of the Karuna Trust initiated a donor-supported programme of NGO
partnership in primary health centre management in remote areas of Karnataka
State using community-oriented preventive medicine. He then advised on its
extension to state and national levels. He also chairs a task force which has
developed an integrated health policy for the state. (Nair 2008a)
o The leader of ITA has the explicit aim of influencing education policy and raising
public education standards not only in Pakistan but also Southeast Asia. Her
influence is based on her technical knowledge and the networks she developed as
an adviser to government and UNESCO. (Bano; and Rose, this issue)
In addition to these explicit and larger-scale cases, influence is also asserted more
implicitly and incrementally through day-to-day practice. As one of the founders of Door
Step School in Mumbai argued, provision of services ‘is itself advocacy, providing
evidence of what can work’ (Rose 2008), and can lead to ‘policy and system level
changes’ (Nair 2008b). DSS has facilitated children’s access to state schools, pressing for
changes in governmental documentary requirements that poor families could not fulfil,
and developing teachers’ capacity to support these children in the classroom. Shelter
Associates, also in Maharashtra, India, has deliberately avoided becoming involved in the
direct provision of sanitation in order to focus on influencing government: identifying
need, organizing community demand, lobbying the state government for changes in
policy, supporting municipal staff, and generating local political support (Sansom, this
issue).
The cultivation by NGOs of an insider status as a means of defending the relationship
and achieving policy influence with government
The relationship in the three countries between government and NGOs has passed
through a series of historical changes that have each had enduring effects that persist into
later phases. As a result, different and contradictory narratives infuse the relationship
between government and NGOs.
A widespread background narrative of distrust and accusations of corruption are traded
between governments and NGOs. On the other hand, in all of the cases we studied, there
is also a long history of informal working relationships and understandings.
Formalization and contractualization may suit donors that channel funds through
17
governments, governments that seek control of NGOs, and NGOs that seek a clarification
of roles and obligations. However, formalization also leads to discomfort on the part of
many NGOs about being treated as ‘mere contractors’ or ‘arms of government’. Entering
into a contractual relationship is at odds with many NGOs’ value premises and view of
what partnership should signify. In response we have seen that NGOs try to reconstruct or
preserve informal understandings as a relational aspect of their formal agreements.
Efforts to maintain the relational aspect of contracts or agreements are largely initiated by
NGOs. They seek a special relationship, based on their status as insiders who are not a
threat to government but bring complementary advantages.
NGOs’ role as trusted insider serves the dual functions of winning the confidence of
government and defending the relationship, and of using this to achieve policy change.
The general strategy is to avoid conflict or confrontation with government - not only
because the NGO would lose business but also because it would sacrifice influence.
In regard to the first function of defending the relationship, NGOs are objectively the
weaker partner even in mutual agreements, because government has choice about
whether and with which NGOs or private organizations to collaborate. To obtain and
retain the insider relationship, NGOs therefore need to find ways of winning official trust.
This implies, on the one hand, establishing their credibility as useful partners and, on the
other, demonstrating their willingness to work collaboratively with government.
Credibility can be established on the basis that the NGO contributes something that is
lacking in government: capacity to work with communities, specific technical skills and
professional expertise, access to the finances and the language of funding agencies. For
example, ability to work with community groups and technical capacity to undertake
poverty mapping and use geographical information systems are particularly important in
the sanitation NGOs (Sansom, this issue). Reputation in educational circles, ability to
network between government and donors and to understand the policy agendas of
funding organizations are the basis of the legitimacy of Idara-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA) in
Pakistan (Rose; Bano, this issue).
All the organizations put great emphasis on cultivating relations with officials and
politicians, and giving credit for any achievement to governments rather than claiming it
for themselves. For example ITA, like most NGOs, is careful to invest time in developing
relationships at both senior levels of government and at operational levels – following the
‘normal channels’ and avoiding giving offence to officials. Entering into dispute with
government officials damages reputation and makes the NGO vulnerable in the event of
senior administrative or political changes.
The second reason for developing an insider relationship is to achieve the changes in
policy and organizational arrangements that were described in the previous sections.
NGOs are outsiders to government but, through contracts or agreements, become insiders
to a relationship whose structure gives them more or less influence. While playing the
‘insider role’ may carry the risk of compromising actors’ independence, it also gives
them increased leverage to assert influence. (Semi-) insiders have the opportunity to
18
understand the rules and the constraints on change, and therefore to develop convincing
explanations for why change is necessary, offering support rather than a threatening
challenge to government.
CONCLUSION
While NGOs are subject to external constraints and the rules of relationships, they also
exercise strategic choice about how they respond to these pressures.
Relationships of NGOs with government, though formally often hierarchical, were less
formal and hierarchical than at first appears because they usually emerged from
established informal relations, and these remained an important basis of trust. Moreover,
most of the studied NGOs depended on government for less than half their funding; they
had alternative sources, so all could make strategic choices to some degree. Non-
government service providers are not passive in the face of structural constraints. Even
though strategies are not usually explicit, their tacit strategies balance the need for
financial survival, defence of their own organizational identities, and commitment to their
goals - including influencing government policy and practice. Organizations that are
more structurally dependent on government are more likely to adapt to government’s
terms, but there are cases where apparently dependent NGOs in practice take the lead in
shaping the relationship and others where more financially independent NGOs choose to
adapt. Successful strategists understand the constraints and opportunities in their
environment and choose to adapt to them, exploit, shape or avoid them – depending on
their own values and interests.
There are common elements in NGOs’ strategies. While avoiding confrontation with
government, to various degrees the case-study NGOs exercise influence on both policy
and practice by demonstration and engagement. To achieve this, they seek a role as
trusted semi-insiders. At least for NGOs in the programmes of collaboration analysed
here, there is no contradiction between advocacy and service delivery. Engagement in
service delivery embeds them in government, makes them credible and gives them
opportunities for influence. This is a form of ‘persuasive advocacy’ (Najam 2000) or soft
lobbying rather than oppositional advocacy.
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