I interviewed four NGO administrators implementing European Commission-funded projects. This included the Justice and Liberty Association, which was conducting a project to monitor and prevent torture in the Georgian military; the Georgian Young Lawyer’s Association (GYLA), an enormous organization that does a lot of pro bono human rights advocacy; and the South Caucuses Network of Human Rights Defenders, which is establishing a network to keep human rights defenders safe from persecution. I also interviewed two EU officials, the projects coordinator for the EIDHR and an expert on human rights and civil society.
Between Georgian NGOs and their donors there seemed to be a more dense social network than in other countries I’ve visited. For example, the executive director of GYLA explained that in the donor institutions, “There is a lot of people who are my friends, because they used to work here. We keep contact all the time. We consider ourselves as partners.” Speaking about Georgian NGOs, the official from the Network of Human Rights Defenders described the civil society community as a “closed circle. We’re maybe 100 people and we all know each other.”
These relationships seemed to be important for project implementation as well. The GYLA executive director and the Network of Human Rights Defenders both talked about the EU’s dense bureaucracy, in which personal relationships can make the difference: “There are people working within the European Union. You have to find the right person and it may take ages. If you are with the wrong person, you are stuck.”
Regarding whether these projects are grassroots movements of top-down interventions, these NGOs seemed to be working more for the EU than for their local constituents. The Justice and Liberty Association‘s project funding, which includes office supplies, printers, and a car, is for an idea that came from within the organization rather than demand of the general public, and the EU has funded the NGO extensively because of the importance of torture for the EC.
When I asked the director of the Justice and Liberty Association how he knew that Georgians--rather than only he and the EC--cared about this project and wanted it to be part of their development, he explained that generally in Georgia: “The trust to NGOs is big from society because we are trying to protect human rights, support democracy in Georgia, and people in Georgia love democracy . . . We have good experience, education, and people trust us.” While his perception of Georgian society may be true, it leaves a very broad mandate to seek any project that the organization feels is good for democracy on the basis that Georgians want democracy. The director did not offer any evidence or data about public support for his organization or this particular project.
GYLA was a little stronger in this regard. Their executive director explained that, “We do conduct sometimes surveys. Every year we conduct various surveys, we purchase this service from a specific company. We ask about legal aid, what is needed.” This response was a little vague, but it represented the greatest effort I could see by anyone in Georgian civil society or the European Commission to find out what is needed from the general public, rather than assuming that their own priorities are necessary and popular.
Importantly, on this topic I am criticizing the European Commission by my criteria, not theirs. The EC’s method may in my view be undemocratic, since they do not seem to ask for or heavily value how Georgians might like EU funds to be spent in their country. To them human rights is a foundation of democracy, and a basic requirement for getting into the EU, which of course Georgian people do want.
Moving to my primary research interest, sustainability of the civil society sector was neither a priority for NGOs nor the European Commission. That is to say, in my view sustainability for NGOs would mean that they are financially self-sufficient, through some balanced combination of their own commercial activities, private donations from their society, and last of all funding from foreign donors. But Georgian NGOs entirely depend on grants from foreign donors, and they are resigned to the fact that private society will not support them. The director of the Justice and Liberty Association felt that private companies could not support NGOs because it would bring investigations from the government. The executive director of GYLA, an enormous organization with multiple offices and hundreds of staff, explained that “We are donor driven, grant-driven, as a majority if not all NGOs in Georgia are because local philanthropy is not developed in this country. We have a membership fee, but it’s symbolic. 2% of budget comes from dues.”
The project coordinator for the Network of Human Rights Defenders also emotively explained how Georgian civil society became donor dependent:
“They came in with quite a large amount of money, but they did not come in with an explanation of what is an NGO, how an NGO should be run, what are NGO ethics. They did not start a public discourse about that. They just gave money to people who were poor, who were struggling to survive. We did not have electricity, water, food, and you see that if you open an NGO and start doing some work you can get money. That brought negative consequences, and we have to get rid of that legacy. Civil society has to step up which is a painful process.”I asked the EIDHR projects coordinator in Georgia why the EC did not lobby the government to be more supportive to NGOs or fund projects to encourage Georgian private companies to donate more money. First, she rejected the premise that the government is hostile toward NGOs, saying,
“Whatever the EU does with the government is obviously a negotiation of priorities. Government is already somehow indirectly involved in identifying priorities for NGOs. Government is not against NGOs. I would not take the argument that the government would investigate private companies if they donate to NGOs.”Then she explained that NGOs complain that they cannot raise money or conduct their own commercial activities, but seem to make little effort to test that belief. GYLA’s admittedly “symbolic” 2% membership dues certainly confirmed this for me. An organization or lawyers struggling to be financially (and therefore ideologically) independent could provide more than this if there was not such an abundance of grants from foreign donors available to them.
The same EU official said that she could not “recall anyone putting this issue strongly on an agenda in public debate.” It seems that NGOs have not asked for the EC’s help in securing more support from government or local donors, even though they lightly lament that civil society is dependent on foreign grants.
What was most interesting was how the two EU officials conceived of sustainability in the Georgian civil society sector. Much like the grants specialist for the US Embassy Democracy Commission Small Grants Program in Moldova, the EIDHR projects coordinator felt that grants and civil society sustainability did not really go together. She said the strength of Georgian civil society,
“is certainly a goal, but we cannot provide it through our funding. The European Commission funds actions, which means we do not pay for any organization--we pay for action. We do not ourselves provide any support to help NGOs become self-sustainable. Even though the European Union would like to see NGOs be more sustainable. We fund actions. We would, but we try to have as many actions funded as possible.”It’s clear that the EU does not see the sustainability of Georgian civil society as its goal, but rather the completion of projects that align with the EU’s values and can be implemented by local NGOs. Likewise, the human rights specialist in the EU Delegation to Georgia explained that the EU encourages sustainability of the NGOs they fund by giving them experience in applying for and executing grant projects. By that logic, Georgian NGOs implementing projects for the European Commission and other foreign donors is the ideal stage for Georgian civil society.
I personally find the EC’s view of this to be refreshingly honest, but unfortunate. I presume that Georgia’s society would most benefit from NGOs that are primarily funded by the Georgian public and represent the wants and needs of the Georgian public. The ideal scenario is that if Georgians wanted to address some issue in their society they’d be entirely free and able to do it themselves and mold their society in a way that best serves their interests. The EC seems to view things the other way around--as long as Georgian NGOs can get money from us, we can help them become a strong society.
What’s most strange is that the dangers of this donor dependency are entirely understood by the local NGOs. In 2003, Georgia experienced its Rose Revolution, in which a new democratic, pro-Western regime came to power. Every NGO administrator I talked to described how civil society was crippled after this because donors concentrated their efforts on supporting the new government. Civil society was sent years backward in development as a result. And yet, the consensus among the NGO administrators was: this is why we need donors to consistently give us money no matter what they think is happening in the country. I of course am an outsider, but to me the logical reaction would be to tell the donors: help us become self-sufficient, so that the next time you decide to leave we can survive.
Maybe I’m wrong.
This issue came up in a recent Kosovo project meeting. Apparently, some Kosovar NGOs reject local funding on principle, because of the (admittedly quite awful) issues of corruption in Kosovar society. They just don't want to get involved in the morass of local politics and all the strings that would come with that money.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that self-sustainable charities are much more common in countries that do not have a history of communism. I often hear or read about Turkish charities that seem to actually be funded by Turks. I almost never hear about such charities in the former USSR. Of course, Turkey is also more developed than most of the countries I have lived in.