NGO Poverty Projects Evaluated

Boiling Point
Issue 35 (1995) How Much Can NGO’s Achieve
Article	NGO Poverty Projects Evaluated
Author	R Riddell, M Robinson

For the past two years a team of researchers at the UK Overseas Development Institute has been evaluating the social and economic impact of rural poverty alleviation programmes of non-governmental organizations in India, Bangladesh, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

In each country, four projects were selected as case studies. with a focus on credit, off-farm income generation and skills training. The research project had three main objectives: to produce a rigorous, cross-country comparison of NGO impacts and effectiveness, to demonstrate to official donors the strengths and weaknesses of NGO approaches to poverty alleviation, and to produce a methodology of evaluation which could be replicated easily and at low cost.

This paper begins with a summary of the main findings of the research, drawing attention to factors which contribute to successful outcomes, as well as weaknesses in several of the projects and explains the rationale for the choice of countries and projects.

The main body of the paper examines the results of the evaluation, focusing on distributional impact, the involvement of women, the role of groups, management and staffing, innovation and replication, credit, sustainability, cost-effectiveness, and the constraints posed by the external environment.

Twelve out of the sixteen projects broadly achieved their objectives, and had a positive impact in alleviating poverty.

In contrast, only two of the sixteen projects can be said to have failed to meet their overall objectives and to make much headway in reducing poverty (See Chart 1).

Chart 1: Benefits for poorest - 16 studies

[top] [end]Participation

The sixteen case studies confirmed the importance of participation by the beneficiaries in the planning, design and implementation of projects and of their involvement in decision-making at all stages of the project cycle. Although there was some evidence of success in projects lacking in participation, the benefits derived are unlikely to be sustained over a longer term, without more direct involvement. Most of the NGOs placed a high premium on the formation of new groups or the strengthening of existing groups.

No loans for the poorest farmers!

[top] [end]Reaching the poorest

Conventional wisdom asserts that NGOs are better at reaching the poorest than are government and official agencies. The evidence from the sixteen evaluations shows - positively - that the projects were not set up for the rich, and that few direct and exclusive benefits were obtained by the non-poor. Equally, however, no projects were both set up for and exclusively benefited the poorest.

Almost without exception, the poor benefited to a greater extent than the poorest, and men to a greater degree than women, by virtue of having prior access to land and other assets. In only a quarter of the projects evaluated (four out of sixteen) were the incomes of the poorest raised significantly; in eight, they were either bypassed or the benefits that they received were limited in comparison to those of individuals who were less poor (see Chart 1).

These results lead to the important question - why NGOs find it difficult to reach down to and improve the lives of the poorest?

A large group of the poorest consists of landless labourers, marginal farmers, those with few durable assets and little or no education, and households headed by women. Almost by definition the poorest tend to be scattered, disorganized, and living in resource-poor areas, or heavily dependent on NGOs for employment and credit requirements. It is no easy task to devise programmes aimed at raising the incomes of such people who tend to produce products that sophisticated consumers do not want to buy, or which the poorest have no money to buy.

However, the four projects where the poorest did benefit directly were the CASA Phase III Programme in coastal Andhra Pradech the Action Aid credit programme in southern Bangladesh, the Simukai collective farming cooperative, and the Campfire project in Zimbabwe. The first two used rigorous targeting of beneficiaries. and worked hard to ensure that the poorest were well represented in beneficiary groups. They made small loans which were directed towards activities selected by the beneficiaries in consultation with and subject to careful monitoring by project staff who helped to ensure that the poorest could cope with the small amount of assistance provided. In the case of the Campfire project, the poorest gained because the project embraced everyone living in the designated areas, but the administrative costs of the project and of NGO assistance were high in relation to the numbers of people that benefited and the benefits generated.

Small farmers assisted by crop loans provided by RDT in India expanded the area they cultivated, increased their share of cash crops and in some cases started to cultivate several crops in a year; all these activities led to expanded employment opportunities for the poorest. Similar employment expansion in the UWFCT and ActionAid projects in Uganda was generated by small businesses set up by individuals who received credit and skills training.

Other ways of alleviating poverty are well recognised in the broad set of objectives of the projects examined. These include a range of social benefits which are less amenable to quantification, but can be of great significance to the poor. Examples are reduced dependence on moneylenders and local political elites, greater independence in decision-making, lower season-out migration, improved ability to cope with contingencies such as illness and natural disasters, greater political participation and awareness, reduced social discrimination, and increased self-respect and mobility for women.

[top] [end]The role of groups

The 16 case studies broadly confirm the view that most NGOs make a high priority of the formation of new groups, or the strengthening of existing groups, as a means of raising awareness, empowering the poor and promoting the goal of self-reliance.

Village women prefer help from an NGO rather than from a government programme

Even though five of the sixteen projects lacked community participation, they were clearly successful in raising incomes. Groups only appeared to play a significant role in achieving the objective of a sustained improvement in the lives of the poor when they genuinely represented their interests (rather than acting as a front for elite groups) and where they provided effective channels of communication with the NGO. Even with projects which resulted in higher incomes or increased status of the beneficiaries, fear of losing the gains achieved often pushed group members towards exclusivity and a reluctance to open up membership to the poorest. In some projects, where members were self-selected (such as the Silveira House farmers' groups in Zimbabwe or the fishermen's associations in India), the beneficiaries introduced strict entry requirements. In such projects, membership became conditional on the ownership of land and assets, which resulted in the poorest being automatically excluded.

[top] [end]Innovation and replication

As the role of NGOs in development has gained prominence, so the issues of project replicability and NGO influence have become of increasing importance. The Zimbabwe case studies provide good examples of project replicability and NGO innovation. Thus the Silveira House group loan scheme was taken over by the government and 'replicated' almost throughout the country. Poor subsequent performance was in large measure due to the fact that some of the core benefits of smallness and group cohesion were lost in the process of scaling-up. The Campfire project of the Zimbabwe Trust provides an example of a project which, although still in its infancy, is already being used as a model for a completely new way of marrying income generation and wildlife management objectives. It involves both official aid agencies (the USA and Canada) and several NGOs.

However, most of the case study projects were not introduced with the intention of being replicated; the majority were started in the hope that the project members would benefit directly from the intervention. Indeed, the studies confirm the view that where lessons are learnt, they tend to play a larger role in improving the organisational capacity of the implementing NGOs than in leading to a redesign of the project approach.

Thus the most common form of replication is for NGOs to repeat in one area what it, or sometimes another NGO, did in another, with modifications in accordance with local circumstances. The strong impression was gained that far more could be done in this way.

[top] [end]Sustainability and self reliance

Institutional sustainability is essentially a function of the capacity of groups and individuals to organise and manage all project activities. Successful NGO withdrawal therefore depends on the existence of some organisational structure to which it can hand over responsibility for project management.

Most of the projects examined were still functioning under the auspices of the NGO promoters of the project; so the issue of sustainability of the project after NGO withdrawal was more a matter of speculation than of analysis. Of the sixteen projects examined, at least five are clearly not sustainable in their existing form, while seven exhibit limited potential for sustainability. Scarcely any could be expected to stand on their own feet financially without continued donor support or the payment of some sort of subsidy.

Most of the evaluated projects indicated that the NGOs often underestimated or failed to take into account, the wider environmental context in which they were operating: they tend repeatedly to underplay the significance of economic and social factors outside the individual projects. In particular, any improvements in the lives of the poor are primarily attributed to the development projects initiated by the NGOs, even though they might result more from factors external to the project.

[top] [end]Cost effectiveness

NGOs pride themselves on the low costs of their projects, frequently comparing them with the costs of projects promoted by official aid agencies or with government programmes. In terms of the resources devoted to them, the 16 case study projects certainly appear to cost less than similar types of official interventions.

However, NGO projects tend to be smaller-scale and their cost per beneficiary, appears to be either broadly equivalent to, or even higher than that of similar programmes run by host governments. One reason for this is that NGO projects tend to be more staff intensive than similar government projects, and expatriate NGO personnel are often paid more than equivalent government salaries.

Nevertheless NGO projects do appear to produce greater benefits for the poor than government programmes, and are certainly more favoured by the poor than are government projects.

Chart 2: Cost-benefit assessment of 76 projects

Broadly, the sixteen projects fall into three groups. For five of them, it was judged that the resulting benefits clearly outweighed the costs of the intervention. In five others, the objectives were certainly achieved but at a high cost in terms of resources, staff provided, and administrative overheads. Two were evidently not cost effective since they did not succeed in generating significant benefits. For the remaining four projects no firm conclusions could be drawn about their cost effectiveness (see Chart 2).

[top] [end]Conclusions

The 16 case studies illustrate that NGO projects are normally inserted into very complex societies, and that there are many different internal and external factors which influence project outcomes. They show the difficulties NGOs face in their attempt to assist in poverty alleviation, as well as helping us to understand better what might or might not 'work'. It is to be hoped that the openness to serious analysis which the ODI study has found, may continue, for there are clearly other, and perhaps even more important, lessons to be learnt from the files and experiences of the increasing number of NGOs in the north and the south who are seeking to contribute to the alleviation of poverty across the developing world.

Extract from Working Paper 68 (Nov 1992, pp39) The impact of NGO poverty alleviation projects: results of the case study evaluations, by Roger Riddell and Mark Robinson for the Overseas Development Institute

[top] [end]Contents: Boiling Point 35: How Much Can NGO’s Achieve

Scaling Up NGO Impacts - From Chulo Group to NGO in Nepal - Women and Energy Project - Kenya - Senegal Stove Success Story - The Senegal Diambar Stove Project - NGO Poverty Projects Evaluated - NGOs - Whats Behind the Initials - The Zambia Charcoal Industry - Trees For Fuel - The Foresters View - Fuelwood - A South African View - Energy and the Household Environment in Accra - Hoods and Chimneys to Reduce Indoor Air Pollution from Wood and Coal Fires - Testing of Charcoal and Coal Briquette Stoves

Categories: Boiling Point 35| NGOs| Poverty

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