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Social Science Review [The Dhaka University Studies, Part-D], Vol. 33, No. 2, December 2016
Tania Haque, Associate Professor, Dept. of Women and Gender Studies, University of Dhaka.
Abu Saleh Mohammad Sowad, Lecturer, Dept. of Women and Gender Studies, University of Dhaka.
Impact of NGOization on Women’s Movement Organizations:
A Critical Analysis from Bangladesh Perspective
Tania Haque
Abu Saleh Mohammad Sowad
Abstract: Women’s movement, an integral part of feminism, ranges from legal
reforms, political participation, gender mainstreaming in public policies, violence
against women, women’s economic empowerment etc. Like in other countries of
South Asia, women’s movement in Bangladesh have been engaged with populist
movements for independence and democracy with some expectation that the
promise of freedom and equality would extend to gender relations. Bangladesh
has a variety of NGOs which majorly increased as the donor funds started coming
out in 1980s and these NGOs are directly working on women’s issues like
ensuring women’s rights and women’s empowerment. The wider international
development and women’s rights discourse changes in funding trends and
epistemic power of the donors have also influenced agenda mobilization
strategies of women’s organizations. The NGOization of the women's development
sometimes turns women’s collective concerns into detached development projects
without taking the social, political and financial connection into thought as
women’s and feminist movements in Bangladesh has in a greater extent been
influenced by the increasing accessibility of donor funding. This paper mainly
deals with the influence of foreign donor agencies and NGOs on the women’s
movement organizations in south Asia with a special focus on feminist movement
organizations of Bangladesh.
Introduction
During the past forty years, South Asia has been the location and the focus of dynamic,
important feminist scholarship and activism. The ‘Woman Question’ has been central to the
nation-making process in South Asia. Through the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth
centuries, it was on the terrain of the ‘status of women’, designated as the symbol of the
‘progressiveness’ or ‘backwardness’ of a society that debates on tradition and modernity were
played out between male elites and colonial powers (Azim, Menon & Siddiqi, 2009). As we
like to see, feminism is an activism, a constant process of devising strategies to transform the
world we live in, to make it more sustainable, equitable, and just. Looking at the world
through women’s eyes is the fact that women are at the bottom of all social, political and
economic hierarchies. Feminism, like most other ideologies, is a discourse, an ideology, a
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way of looking at the world and it is a program of action, activism. Feminism as a movement
in South Asia has asserted the principle of autonomous organization for women, while linking
with broader movements at the same time. It rejects separatism and a narrow focus on
individualism. It has opened the way to look at alternative ways of living, of building
relationships, of an alternative decentralized economy and polity (South Asian Feminist
Declaration, 1989). The NGOization of the women's development alludes to the procedure by
which issues of women’s collective concerns are changed into detached development projects
without taking the social, political and financial connection into thought (Jad, 2004). The
NGOization of the women's development is firmly associated with the advancement of
methods of authoritative structures and practices based on neoliberal values (Alveraz, 2009).
Bangladesh puts forth an intriguing case study in light of the huge NGO sector and the fact
that NGOization of the women’s development began much sooner than in the rest of South
Asia (Nazneen and Sultan, 2012).
NGOs and NGOization in Bangladesh
According to McMichael (1996) NGOization is the process of handing over a program to
NGOs, when a government program fails or attain results far from exception. NGOs jumped
in Bangladesh as significant actors in the development scenario nearly after its liberation.
Bangladesh as in last couple of decades has countersigned a remarkable proliferation in the
number of NGOs (Haider, 2011). Nazneen and Sultan (2012) in their article ‘Contemporary
Feminist Politics in Bangladesh: Taking the Bull by the Horns’ showed that as one of the
most prominent countries of South Asia, the vibrant history of women’s movement in
Bangladesh has its leads to the anti-colonial movements against British empire and the
liberation war against Pakistan (Jahan, 1995). The focus of women’s movements has been
broadened with time and their matters of concern now ranges from legal reforms, political
participation, gender mainstreaming in public policies, violence against women, women’s
economic empowerment etc. (Kabeer, 1989; Jahan, 1995). In Bangladesh, the women’s
movements and feminist groups are very diverse in nature which range from small, local level
to larger membership based associations to mass level national organizations. The state has
always played a contradictory role in promoting women’s rights issues. In recent years’
women’s and feminist movements in Bangladesh has in a greater extent been influenced by
the increasing accessibility of donor funding. As the government of Bangladesh sometimes
has enacted progressive laws and policies and undertaken various development initiatives for
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promoting women’s rights; it also in other times have acted to sustain male privilege (Jahan,
1995).
In spite of the fact that NGOs were working in conventional structure since the British period
in Bangladesh, they got a radical change simply after the war of liberation in 1971 and
transformed into specialists of development (Haider, 2011). In the late 1970s, a slow move
happened in the working structure of the NGOs as the moved from first generation strategies
that is, relief and welfare services to the second generation procedures characterized by small-
scale, independent, self-reliant local development initiatives for building people's capacity.
All through the 1980s, this shifting progressed. Pressing the third generation strategies that
emphasis on the policy changes at various levels is a contemporary phenomenon perceptible
since the mid 1990s (Karim, 1996). Undoubtedly, the poorest women consist the most
underprivileged segment in the society as they neither have entry to nor have control over
information and resources. Subsequently, they are lagging behind during the process of
development. Keeping this as a prime concern, the majority of NGOs have been propelling
various projects and programs to improve poor women’s’ participation in the development
process (Karim, 1996).
The NGOization of the women’s movement denotes to the practice by which matters of
women’s communal interests are transformed into sequestered development projects without
contextualizing the social, political and economic realities (Jad, 2004). The NGOization of the
women’s movement is intently associated with the raise of practices based on neoliberal
values (Alveraz, 2009). Bangladesh makes a stimulating case study because of the large NGO
sector and the fact that ‘NGOization’ of the women’s movement started much earlier than in
the rest of South Asia.
NGOization as a Major Challenge for Women’s Movement in
Bangladesh
As Seuty Sabur (2013) has written in her piece “Did “NGOization” deradicalize the women’s
movement?” that a large portion of the women's activist associations in Bangladesh began as
movement based, grassroots associations. Amid the 70s and mid 80s, activism stayed genuine,
naturally advancing to address the women’s issues in recently founded Bangladesh. It was not
yet determined by the United Nations (U.N.) or donor organization command. Later, women’s
organizations needed to react to the global powers, like the breakdown of communist
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alliances, bureaucratization of U.N. organizations, and an always developing neoliberal
economy. They likewise needed to enroll as an NGO for their very legal existence in
Bangladesh. It is hard for women’s organizations to get away from the donor driven activism,
or even to legitimately exist without the structure of NGO. One unintended result of this
formalization has been to make parts of the women's movements spiritless, responding just to
instantaneous requirements.
NGOs choose to focus on service delivery, awareness raising and consultation, rather than
structural change and have begun to be seen as an alternative and complementary channel for
service delivery, promoting women’s rights, and empowerment. The merits of NGOization lie
in that donor funding has increased the capacities of some organizations by increasing their
linkages, granting access to policy spaces, improving their organizational capacity and
strengthening their outreach. It also challenges them to raise resources from alternative
sources and focus on mobilization issues. The NGOization of the women’s movement created
new in chain of command amongst pioneers, volunteers, and paid workforces in view of their
class, age, ethnicity, and area (urban/rural). As we entered the new millennium, we saw
exceptionally proficient gender specialists, entering the field, obliging the need of donor
organizations and NGOS. These heightened another level of complicacy in chain of
command. Beforehand, Women’s organization has been firmly working with scholars and
experts (Sabur, 2013). A reasonable effect of NGOization and donor subsidizing can be felt in
the way different generations perceive voluntarism. There has been a decline in voluntarism
among the individuals of younger ages. This decline maybe reflects both attitudinal and
financial actualities (Nazneen and Sultan, 2012). The women's activist organizations need
these youthful women's rights activists to take control over their batons, and the new eras of
women's rights activist would like to be included, yet nearly every women's rights activist
association has been experiencing a gap between the old and new guardians. Their beyond
reconciliation differences graphed new way of (dis)engagement on the ground (Sabur, 2013).
NGOization has further irritated the generational partition inside the development arena
through "professionalizing" women's rights activism for urban professional middle class
women. Urban youth and young experts feel detached with the development as a result of
time pressure, and disappointment to the set up of women's activist association to recognize
what they consider as precedent issues and viable utilization of new modes and spaces for
activation. Be that as it may, the financial class conformation of the development is changing
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with young female professionals in the semi urban and residential communities joining
women's activist systems. New sorts of associations made by regular working class ladies
have additionally risen and playing a dynamic role (Nazneen and Sultan, 2012).
Feminists of the North vs. Feminists of the South: Impact of
NGOization on Women’s Movement Organizations in Bangladesh
Chandra Mohanty's influential essay 'Under Western Eyes' (1991) points out how Third
World women tend to be depicted as victims of male control and of traditional cultures. The
Eurocentric gaze privileges Western notions of liberation and progress and portrays Third
World women primarily as victims of ignorance and restrictive cultures and religions. The
lack of voice given to Third World women remains a problem, as does the failure of Western
women to problematize the role of the West in the issues discussed. Western, middle-class,
women have diversified to the point where human rights have been placed at the center of the
agenda for a global feminist (Weedon, 2002). South Asian feminist researchers also feel
sidelined by the citation practices of Northern feminists, which tend to exclude the theoretical
contributions of researchers and activists of the global South. The wider international
development and women’s rights discourse changes in funding trends and epistemic power of
the donors have also influenced agenda mobilization strategies of women’s organizations. The
availability of donor funds has over the years created a dependency on our part. It has made
us unadventurous in our ways of “thinking” and “doing”.
Women in Bangladesh have engaged with populist movements for independence and
democracy with some expectation that the promise of freedom and equality would extend to
gender relations (Hossain, 2006). But the status of women in Bangladesh is still ambiguous.
The constitution stipulates the equality of men and women, and Western international aid has
often been contingent on women’s involvement in development schemes. However,
persistence of inequality could be seen in women’s life expectancy, bucking international
trends, women trailing behind men’s, dowry deaths, bad workplace conditions, and other
forms of gender oppression that have been protested by women’s non-governmental
organizations. On the other hand, most of the people in south Asia don't really understand
what feminism means. Some think it’s about hating or punishing men. People also tend to
believe that feminism is about making women the dominant gender. A lot of men get very
defensive when women talk about the patriarchy and oppression. That is another reason for
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many men to think that fabricated allegations of rape are much higher than they essentially
are.
As mentioned earlier, donor funding is one of the most important factors to get women’s
movement organizations get going these days. As Rauh (2010) suggested, in the past two
decades, the women’s movement NGOs in Bangladesh has been experiencing an increase in
donor-driven standard practice of program planning, reporting and accountability exercises
(Mawdsley et al., 2002, Wallace et al. 2006). Funded by donor agencies based on global
north, Women’s rights NGOs in Bangladesh perform community-based works to alleviate
poverty, deliver social services to women, and advocate and campaign for the marginalized
and poor women. Nonetheless, in many cases, such procedures, apparently intended to
maximise accountability and transparency, and protect against the misuse of funds have
moved focus of the NGOs away from their most significant work, to support women’s
movement and ensure women’s empowerment (Henderson 2002; Jellinek 2003; Markowitz
and Tice 2002; Mawdsley et al. 2002; Perera 1997; Wallace et al. 2006). As the donor funding
mechanism comes with program planning, reporting and accountability exercises, despite the
importance on the beneficiaries of development, most of the Bangladeshi NGOs’ dependence
on resources provided by donors inclines to focus their accountability efforts upwards, with
their priorities being defined by donor demands (Chambers and Pettit 2004). Due to the
funding agency’s priority areas, donors may be limited as to which of their Bangladeshi
NGOs’ projects they can fund. NGOs frequently have to make compromises to satisfy both
donor requirements and their beneficiaries simultaneously, and often end up concentrating
their accountability upwards.
Donor agencies provide access to resources and consequently sits in a position of power.
These donors put up the programs and sets up conditions mandatory to receive a grant and
there are tangible costs if NGOs lose this funding (Markowitz and Tice 2002). As the holders
of the resources on which Bangladeshi NGOs are largely dependent, donors often put
conditions on how aid is used and how programs are implemented (Chambers and Pettit
2004). The difficulty is that donor agencies often generate program objectives in very
different contexts than the location they will be executed, and hence, these programs often do
not ensemble the cultures that receive them (Lindenberg 2001). Donors often impose their
own values and standards, and their priorities often vacillate concerning areas of development
that are presently prevalent (Degnbol-Martinussen and Engberg-Pedersen 2003). These
Impact of NGOization on Women’s Movement Organizations
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recurrent vacillations in the priorities of donors intensifies hesitation and the pressure to
implement programs that are prospectively to be perceived as successful rather than
concentrating on the root of the problem, which typically includes multifaceted, longstanding
procedures. Donors habitually support programs with straightforwardly measureable results,
but these often are not able to promote longer-term, sustainable projects (Lindenberg 2001).
Correspondingly, donor agendas may limit to specific political strategies, even when they lead
to greater long-term and meaningful social change (Markowitz and Tice 2002). Furthermore,
the economic uncertainty in recipient countries like Bangladesh, makes remunerated
employment at an NGO a much greater opportunity than what would otherwise be available,
and therefore, safeguarding funds at any cost becomes a prevailing focus of many
organizations (Henderson 2002; Petras and Veltmeyer 2001). These features of power and
dependency have resulted in some NGOs shifting their focus from important areas for their
beneficiaries, towards areas of donor interest that will attract a large amount of funding
(Edwards and Hulme 1998).
Still, not all women’s rights NGOs in Bangladesh submissively accept such conditions. These
organizations are occasionally able to select approaches to obtain essential resources whilst
upholding a degree of autonomy. These approaches fall within a range that varies from
submissive acceptance to negotiation and cooperation, and even challenging and rejecting
certain donors or donor requirements.
Concluding Remarks
Just about everybody identified with women's movement organizations are pretty much
disappointed with the cut off points of a NGO-based feminist movement model, and have
started to comprehend that executing hard-won rights that will require public pressure. South
Asian feminisms, especially the women’s rights activists in Bangladesh, cannot be held within
an easily identifiable or singular framework, but nevertheless there are enough characteristics
in common to justify a volume that looks at feminist activism and thinking in the region
(Azim, Menon & Siddiqi, 2009). Description of women’s movement in Bangladesh definitely
gives a clue to the capacity of agency and activism in Bangladeshi women and the role they
played towards the achievement of justice and peace (Qayyam, 2004).
Whether local or national, women's activist associations have been influenced distinctively by
NGOization relying upon their size, assets, administration and area (Nazneen and Sultan,
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2012). The motivation, independence, and responsibility of smaller-local level women’s
associations were more influenced by the NGOization procedure contrasted with the national
level association who dealt with the procedure in a more tactical manner. Acceptance of the
NGO model and acknowledgment of external funding expanded organizational capacity,
prompting the advancement of more formal financial and administrative strategies and
procedures inside the women’s associations. NGOization furthermore expanded outreach and
access to complementary spaces. Then again, NGOization has weakened the political message
of the women’s movement and influenced the way women’s rights schema is framed and
enters the more extensive social movement coliseum. In the post NGOized stage, with scarce
external subsidizing, women's activist associations have been compelled to reconsider their
mobilization and financing procedures. NGOization has likewise connected women’s
movement associations to various societal actors, access to policy spaces, better
organizational capacity, and expanded outreach. In the post NGOized stage, women's activist
associations have attempted to raise resources from alternative sources and concentrate on
mobilization to counter financing limitations and over the top approach in connection to
movement building; and have been to some degree successful in negotiating these spheres.
The women’s movement in Bangladesh continues with different levels of activism and
ideological directions. Hence it makes us believe that no matter how different ideological
courses these movements may adopt, women in Bangladesh are there to bring about a change
for peace and justice (Qayyam, 2004).
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