DEVELOPMENT-BRITAIN: 7.5 Billion Dollar Govt Aid to NGOs

By Sanjay Suri Reprint | | Print |

Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Dec 17 2002 (IPS) - At 7.5 billion dollars a year, what the British government gives non-governmental organisations is more than what most expected, but less than what civil society groups say they need.

"That figure is growing a little, not a lot," Cathy Pharoah, director of research at the Charities Aid Foundation in Britain told IPS. Government funding represents about a third of the income of general charities in Britain, which means that many non-governmental organisations still have to depend on private sources for most of their funding.

The figure of 7.5 billion dollars has been something of an eye-opener because no figures at all on central government funding to the voluntary sector were published between 1995 and 2000.

"But this is not too much money from government," Pharoah says. "In certain sectors, particularly in international aid and development, it is all too obvious that funding is desperately short."

The total central government funding to the sector has only begun to grow slowly within the last three years, after a long period of stagnation and even decline in some areas, she says. "There has been no Big Bang in government funding support – the big bang has been in government interest in, and expectation of, the sector."

Money for international development is only a small part of all British government funding for NGOs, she says. Funding from the Department for International Development (DFID) to British NGOs represented about 270 million dollars in 1998/99, grew to about 300 million dollars in 1999/2000, and is likely to have fallen back slightly in 2000/01, she says.

The amount of funding is considerably less than levels of individual donor support for international NGOs in a comparable period. In 1998/99 that was close to 600 million dollars and has continued to grow since then.

The DFID is trying to encourage other donors. It has established the Development Awareness Fund to help civil society organisations whose work aligns with DFID’s strategy paper, ‘Building Support for Development’.

The programme is aimed at organisations or networks undertaking one to three year projects, which seek to raise awareness and understanding of development issues, of global interdependence, of the need for international development; and of the progress that has been made and that is possible.

DFID has also produced a number of joint publications, entitled ‘Target 2015’ on the International Development Targets. Versions have been produced in collaboration with Christian Aid, with Catholic development agencies, and with the Jewish, Sikh and Muslim communities.

Strategic Grant Agreements (SGAs) are jointly negotiated agreements between DFID and new partners from within UK civil society, for whom international development is not their primary focus. SGAs aim to contribute to a stronger, better informed and more effective UK community for international development.

This level of income from independent sources might seem to put international organisations in a strong position but this is not the case, Pharoah says. "Firstly, international causes receive the lowest proportion of their income from legacies which means that they are on a treadmill of constantly having to raise small amounts from large numbers of donors," she says.

"Secondly, funding for international causes is particularly vulnerable to shifts in public opinion," she says. "For example, the current bad press about the needs of asylum seekers and the issues surrounding immigration might have a fairly negative impact on levels of public support for international causes."

Also, although public support for international charities has continued to grow, the rate of growth itself has declined, she points out.

The uncertain and often shifting source of aid determines in turn the kind of work many of the NGOs can do in the field. "A part of our funds come from the government and we are trying to make that money work much harder," Simon Trace from Water Aid told IPS.

As it turns out, much of government funding goes back to government departments in other countries through NGOs. "We have many different levels of relationship with local and district government in 15 countries we work in," Trace says. "The end product is often to make sure how government delivers services. Developing local capacities is our fundamental tenet."

In Zambia, Tanzania, Mozambique and Nigeria, Water Aid works directly with local partners. In India it works through well-placed NGOs, particularly in the states of Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, Trace says.

"There has also been a big movement in many places over the past five to ten years of government withdrawing from services provision to make way for NGOs to provide services," Trace says. "NGOs are usually more flexible than government, more willing to try things out, and persuade government of the benefits often of doing things differently."

But NGOs are aware of their limitations, Trace says. Water Aid has helped to provide water services to seven million people over the last 20 years, but there are 1.5 billion people who need clean water facilities, he says. Patchy funding is at least partly responsible for patchy results.

There is no equivalent in Britain to GTZ, a major German organisation that works independently but with government resources to support development projects around the world. In Britain government departments provide grants through processes that are often lengthy and tedious. A new outcomes-based approach to funding proposals and projects has meant that funding for new and innovative efforts is threatened, a senior manager with an NGO says.

Members working with BOND, a network of more than 270 UK based voluntary organisations working in international development and development education say that direct funding from government to NGOs comes often with far too many strings attached.

The World Development Movement (WDM), a major watchdog on issues around development accepts no government or private sector money on principle. "We want to be as free and as political as we like," Dave Timms from the WDM told IPS. "That is why we are registered as a company and not as a charity."

But many NGOs look to government funding for much of their needs. With very little growth in what the government offers, and unpredictable fluctuations in what can be raised privately, there is little certainty about funds to back long-term projects.

DEVELOPMENT-BRITAIN: 7.5 Billion Dollar Govt Aid to NGOs

By Sanjay Suri Reprint | | Print |

Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Dec 17 2002 (IPS) - At 7.5 billion dollars a year, what the British government gives non-governmental organisations is more than what most expected, but less than what civil society groups say they need.
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