Neighbourhood Programme - view from Belarus

How can we develop the effect of the Danish strategy for Neighbourhood countries? - Here are the views of local civil society actors in Belarus. Civil society development process in many ENP countries directly connected with foreign aid programs and...

How can we develop the effect of the Danish strategy for Neighbourhood countries? - Here are the views of local civil society actors in Belarus.

Civil society development process in many ENP countries directly connected with foreign aid programs and international cooperation.

Simultaneously, the sustainability of the changes are mostly dependent on the capacity of local actors as well as the local environment's readiness for change. This situation makes the programs developed and / or implemented by only one side of the cooperation weak and less powerful.

Success and failure of civil society development in Neighbourhood Countries are mostly reflections on the efficiency of donor economic policy.

The main challenge is how to build program and strategy as langtidsindput as an equal and balanced process that supports the desired changes. Views of local actors is more than important.

The following was written by Ulad Vialichka, president of "EuroBelarus", an International Consortium of Belarusian and European NGOs.

Posted by Lene Petersen, "Det Europæiske Hus", a member of International Consortium "EuroBelarus".

The importance of foreign programs of support for development of civil society of Neighborhood countries is difficult to overestimate.

During all contemporary history, such programs have been essential, and during some periods - the only source of financing of independent public work.

The situation of strong dependence of civil society of Neighborhood countries on external financing forms some kind of complementary relations between the condition of civil society and programs of its development.

Successes and failures of civil society are to a great extent reflections of the efficiency of the financial policy of donors.

Problems with Civil society’s development and even weakening in some Neighborhood countries, which has taken place for the previous 10 years tells not only about strategic blunders of its leaders, but also about comparatively low efficiency of support programs in general.

In spite of the fact that the EU programs of cooperation in the last years have been and still are one of the most relevant, it is not deprived of some common drawbacks characteristic of the international programs of development. Among these drawbacks there are the following:

1. Delay concerning social and political changes which happen in the Neighborhood.

Mechanisms of implementation of development programs are often late in allotting help for solving concrete problems; they do it when these problems become not so relevant to the local situation.

2. Reorientation of activity of public organizations from current local problems to the tasks considered to be important from donors’ point of view.

International development programs set a choice of directions and a subject of activity to civil society organizations. The organizations start to write projects aimed not at solving current problems of the country and the sector, but choose the subject domains and directions which are most intensively financed by the international funds and organizations.

3. Local actors are excluded from the system of planning programs and strategies.

CSOs from Neighborhood countries, for different reasons, are excluded from processes of development and planning of donor programs. As a rule, they deal with already accepted decisions and established priorities and at the stage of the launch and implementation of programs they cannot influence their relevance to the situation in the country. As a result, these programs either are too late with their assessment of the situation and allocation of priorities, or poorly correlate with interests and conditions of local civil society.

4. Increasing role of external intermediaries.

There is a set of redistributing funds and organizations established around Belarus. Such intermediary structures accumulate the means of large international funds and redistribute them for local organizations. In case of Belarus, significant means for programs for Belarus and its civil society go through neighboring countries, as well as international funds and NGOs. Thus, there is a special system of redistribution of financial means for the solution of purposes and tasks which satisfy interests of funds and intermediary structures, but which, as a rule, are not coordinated with interests of civil society of the country.

5. Narrow spectrum of programs and their possibilities for Neighborhood countries.

Today Neighborhood countries need to get more support of innovational decisions in view of specificity and features of the local situation, rather than export of traditional social transformation methods that have successfully been used in other countries.

6. Exclusion of infrastructural financing from development programs.

When there are no investments into «basic means» such as buildings, offices, personnel, etc. - then organizations become weak and totally dependent on external financing. As a result, the majority of CSOs lose their ability to act independently in critical situations.

Principles and bases of formatting development programs

We are deeply convinced that efficiency of the future development cooperation strategy with Neighborhood countries can be much higher if it is reoriented on other principles and bases.

The prototype for formation of such principles can be the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, but with an obligatory inclusion of civil society as a third party, alongside with national governments and international donors.

EU experts have come to the same conclusion when analyzing quality of development cooperation programs: “Civil society will also be participating in the international discussions on making aid more efficient. It is generally considered that civil society was the "missing element" in the Paris declaration on aid effectiveness”.

International assistance programs for Neighborhood countries based on ideas of Paris Declaration on aid effectiveness, Accra agenda and Structured dialogue should provide implementation of the following principles:

1. The principle of partnership assumes that all decisions concerning Neighborhood countries cannot be accepted without participation of the local side.

Inclusion of national experts in definition of purposes, reference points, and indicators of progress for development programs, as well as in the system of their monitoring and estimation is necessary. While development of programs concerning civil society of Neighborhood countries, the voice of this civil society should be taken into account by programs’ developers.

2. The principle of coordination.

Activity of funds and assistance programs concerning Neighborhood countries should be coordinated. Coordination of donors’ strategies should be done concerning national strategies and programs of development. Existing lack of coordination and inconsideration of actions of separate subjects leads to the situation when there are no unique logic of actions and no certain strategic orientation of changes. It leads to a change of the situation in the direction which is opposite to the declared one.

3. The principle of publicity.

At the level of development of assistance programs there is a need of public discussions about forms, methods and contents of any activity. It will not only help to achieve a better quality of accepted decisions, but will also increase openness and trust and will allow to adjust a system of the proved control over accepted decisions.

4. The principle of efficiency evaluation.

It is necessary to carry out monitoring and evaluation of development programs on the basis of the precise and transparent indicators which allow evaluate adequately the productivity and efficiency of development programs. Results of this evaluation should be open and accessible not only to Danish actors but also to civil society of Neighborhood countries.

Actual challenges

We understand that it takes time to introduce new principles. It will demand a long process of communication and coordination, which nevertheless needs to be started already today.

The result of such communication can become a frame document (declaration, agreement), normalizing and regulating partner interaction (dialogue) of donor states and civil society institutions with states’ authorities and structures of civil society.

In the short-term period the efficiency of the cooperation strategy can be increased due to a number of steps in the direction of the implementing principles mentioned above, which do not demand a global revision of the existing approach:

1. Reorientation of the strategy on support of civil society of Neighborhood countries as a whole.

As the state in these countries often occupies (monopolizes) significant fields of activity in the country, all other (non-state) players, sometimes including political parties, are in an identical position. Therefore, it is important to support not only separate initiatives or separate sectors of civil society (trade unions, parties, NGOs, media, churches, etc.), but civil society as a whole. It means stimulation of large coalition programs (alongside with projects within the framework of these or those sectors) and organization of a regular dialogue between experts working for different network and donor organizations in Europe: trade unions, NGOs, churches, grass-root organizations, foundations, media, universities etc.

2. Coordination of the country-oriented strategy with the Eastern Partnership initiative.

Today, the Eastern Partnership is the strongest initiative which can in the long term influence the approach of Neighborhood countries to the European norms and standards. National programs of the EU member states and other international donors focused on development of democracy and civil society should be directed on support and development of mechanisms and structures of the Eastern Partnership, in particular on strengthening the role and value of civil society institutions.

3. Maintenance of participation of civil society in interstate programs at the level of monitoring and estimation.

Civil society should have an opportunity to represent its own "shadow" reports on the problems which development programs are aimed at. Organization of public expert examination can be built on the basis of open tenders; implementation of monitoring and estimation can be carried out by both local and Danish (EU) NGOs.

4. Amplification of monitoring and control of activity of “intermediate donors” (intermediaries between the basic donor and the recipient of aid) from the EU programs’ side.

Our supervision and experience show that the use of intermediaries (who ostensibly know better the situation in the country) during implementing development programs (for example, international organizations, funds and other actors in neighboring countries etc.), not always leads to the implementation of the initial strategy of the main donor. Therefore, understanding necessity to carry out international obligations on financing these structures, we suggest to carry out monitoring of these programs and projects more carefully and, probably, to reconsider the volume of the means directed through some of them (in particular, the United Nations and some countries-intermediaries that often have common border with Neighborhood countries).

5. The use of experience of local expert community during planning and implementation of development programs.

The things that seem important and current in Denmark are not always duly and possible in Neighborhood countries. Therefore, it is important to be based on the analysis of problems made for the given country. National experts, as a rule, understand the specificity of the country situation more deeply and react faster on any (even minor) situation change.

6. A change of the approach for financing: there is a need in transition from palliative programs to investment programs.

Investments are to be directed both on people, the real estate, and the creation of institutions. All these efforts in aggregate should lead to achieving higher level of sustainability of both CSOs and results of their activity.

Practical implementation of these recommendations may significantly support civil society organizations in the Neighborhood countries in the nearest future by implementing their projects and programs in the respective countries and also in development of cooperation with international partners.

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