Mainstreaming disaster mitigation: Challenges to organisational learning in NGOs

This paper discusses the implications for organisational learning of recent research on NGO activity in natural disaster mitigation and preparedness. It identifies several institutional and other barriers to NGO learning. However, personal networks in NGOs are often strong, and determined and well-placed individuals can push significant innovations through. Greater emphasis on this human factor may be the key to mainstreaming disaster mitigation and other new or marginal approaches to development.     

Biofuels and inclusive development: the Brazilian experience

This article addresses the question of whether the production and use of biofuels could be appropriate to support productive inclusion. After an overview of the main drivers of biofuels development in the last decade, the article analyses the Brazilian experience, the most ambitious programme to promote inclusive development through biofuel policy. It focuses on the institutional settings and its distributional effects, as well as the organisational dynamics in a semi-arid region, and concludes that even in a country like Brazil, with a long and successful tradition in biofuel policies, the productive inclusion of small-scale family farmers faces severe difficulties.     

Managing institutional change in the science and technology systems of Eastern Europe and East Africa

This paper is a comparative study of institutional change and efforts to create networks and linkages in the science and technology (S&T) systems of Poland and Tanzania at a time of market-led economic reform. It argues that, in both countries, S&T has been hampered by linear approaches to technology transfer and that future efforts should focus on non-linear approaches involving multiple actors. Discussion focuses on a consideration of organisational goals and agendas, the resource base of different organisations, and fostering organisational capacities to learn, adapt, and change.     

Working with children as stakeholders in development: the challenges of organisational change

This article considers the challenges of promoting children's participation in development programming. It argues against the tendency to see the main obstacle to achieving this aim as technical. Instead it explores the institutional dimensions of change that may be required. The experience of a four-year process of training and organisational review within Save the Children Denmark provides the substance for reflection about the kinds of cultural and structural change that are implicated in enabling a development organisation to become capable of engaging young people as stakeholders in a meaningful and sustainable manner.     

Engendering organisational practice in NGOs: The case of Utthan

In the late 1970s, feminist social scientists began to challenge some of the assumptions underlying the dominant paradigms on organisations, arguing that they reflect and are structured by the values articulated within the larger institutional arenas in which they are embedded, thus reproducing gender-discriminatory outcomes. This paper unpacks the 'deep structure' of one NGO, Utthan, based in Gujarat, India, to understand the extent to which it is an engendering organisation. It suggests that, while gender-sensitive leadership, training, and resources play a critical role in addressing gender equity in development practice, organisational transformation is a much harder and longer process requiring sustained commitment from the leadership, staff, and funding partners.     

Explaining institutional Europeanisation in security and defence: the German administration under Schröder and Merkel

Abstract

Participating in EU crisis management operations has affected institutional actors on various levels. As the main deliverers of civilian and military resources to EU operations, national ministries and agencies have been particularly confronted with the need for administrative adaptation. A big member state like Germany is expected to make substantial contributions, but it also faces a rigid administration. This article uses a combined hypothesis of historical institutionalism and organisational learning to explain administrative Europeanisation in German government institutions involved in civilian and military crisis management deployments. The empirical data on the German administrative trajectories under Schröder and Merkel show an explanatory link between political learning and overcoming institutional path dependency.     

The Effects of Global Policy Networks on Peacebuilding: Framework of Evaluation

International organisations and non-governmental organisations involved in peacebuilding often form networks with one another and transplant themselves into war-torn territories with divided communities, weak governments, and little trust between the public and the government. This study examines how this network mechanism of governance orchestrated by international actors can have a political effect on the institutional development of the post-conflict state. The article argues that, superiority in mobilising resources and organisational flexibility notwithstanding, networks pose unique challenges to peacebuilding initiatives: because of the diversity of their members, networks tend to link up to various sectors within the post-conflict entity, thereby perpetuating often pre-existing schisms between the post-conflict government and the society. The study cautions that networks can be prone to parochial political influences from local and international actors, thereby fragmenting the state and the society in a given post-conflict country. But it also highlights that networks can effectively mobilise resources while maintaining political autonomy and independence from their donors, elites from the post-conflict state and the grassroots communities. The enhanced political autonomy is a measure of enhanced problem solving and bureaucratic prowess of the network, which is associated with networks with particular institutional attributes, discussed in the paper.     

How NATO remembers: explaining institutional memory in NATO crisis management

This article introduces an argument for how institutional memory of crisis management operations develops in North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Scholars of European security and of international organisations have examined organisational learning, but have yet to explain its precondition: institutional memory. In a context of increasing turnover due to defence budget cuts, it remains unclear how shared knowledge of strategic errors is acquired. This article finds that the NATO secretariat facilitates practitioners’ use of informal processes for contributing to institutional memory in response to the constraints of existing formal learning processes. These formal processes, including a lessons learned centre and a lessons learned database, inadvertently disincentivise practitioners from contributing such knowledge as using them can incur reputational costs. Drawing on NATO documentation and interviews with 27 NATO elite practitioners, the paper provides evidence that practitioners instead share knowledge through three informal processes: interpersonal communications, private documentation and crisis simulations.     

Perceptions and practices of monitoring and evaluation: International NGO experiences in Ethiopia

This article explores attempts by eight UK-based international NGOs currently engaged in rural development interventions in Ethiopia to employ monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems as a means of strengthening accountability and institutional learning. Premised on the conviction that such NGOs comprise loose coalitions of interest groups at different organisational levels within them, the study explores how respondents in head offices, Addis Ababa, and field offices perceive and practise M&E. It was found that perceptions of M&E vary considerably between hierarchical levels and can have a significant impact on practice. Such perceptions are also framed by individual interests and thus frequently fail to reflect the reality of M&E practice. The story that unfolds offers valuable insights into the current myths and realities of M&E among INGOs.     

Making the organisation learn: Demystification and management action

The learning organisation (LO) is both a concept and a particular methodology within the larger domain of organisational development (OD). To fully appreciate the premises of LO, it is necessary to fall back on the main premises of OD, beginning with the view of the organisation as an open system. Many of the established concepts of systems science as applied to organisational systems--such as system robustness, system intelligence, and system proactivity-- have a direct bearing on the capacity for continuous learning in the organisation. Moving on from concepts to action, an organisation needs a set of working practices to acquire the characteristics of a learning organisation. One particularly useful 'gateway' for the LO process is a comprehensive performance management system that compels the organisation's membership to re-examine ideas of performance and the assumptions about organisational processes underlying management practices. The gateway follows the action-research paradigm and appears well suited to non-profit development NGOs.     

The Capacity-building Paradox: using friendship to build capacity in the South

This article proposes a theoretical framework, the Capacity-building Paradox, which defines individual relationship work as the basis for capacity building. It explains why capacity building has hitherto been largely unsuccessful. ‘Relationship work’ is central to the functions of practitioners. It consists of both ‘dependent work’ and ‘friendship work’, the latter synonymous with capacity building. To do relationship work, practitioners require power, in order to overcome environmental obstacles. Financial resources emerge as the predominant environmental influence, often prompting practitioners to use dependent work rather than friendship work. This results in a reduction in capacity and does not contribute to sustainable development. Most of the current literature provides organisational and institutional tools for capacity building. While there is an increasing recognition of the centrality of personal relationships in this work, there is as yet no theoretical framework within which to locate it. The article presents original research into people's experiences of capacity-building work in a development context and proposes a conceptual model that may have important implications for capacity-building practice.     

The human organisation: challenges in NGOs and development programmes

It is frequently contended that NGOs and the wider context of development are intrinsically different from other organisational settings within which Human Resource Development (HRD) is believed to play an important role. The author outlines the basic concepts underpinning human development within organisations, and organisational development, and sets out the arguments for greater investment in people. While this can raise ethical and practical issues in organisations that depend on external funds rather than generating their own income, the failure to develop the staff on whom a development organisation ultimately depends carries far greater risks. Management and specifically HRD are not desk-bound activities that can be pursued through the application of protocols and sanctions, but require vision, leadership, and hands-on engagement.     

The Path of Least Resistance: Mainstreaming “Social Issues” in the International Monetary Fund

This article traces efforts to mainstream social issues in the institutional architecture of the IMF, attributing the lack of progress in this area mainly to the Fund's organisational culture, which steers the IMF towards the path of least resistance when it comes to policy innovation. Whereas the IMF is frequently portrayed as a puppet of powerful member states, this article identifies the Fund's organisational culture as the central factor explaining the slow pace of mainstreaming social issues in the Fund’s architecture. In the absence of member state leadership on this issue, and in light of committed management’s limited room for manoeuvre, IMF staff enjoyed much leeway to pursue an approach that was most suited to their skill set, ideological orientations and the Fund's core mandate. Due to the Fund's strictly hierarchical structure, its recruitment policies, insufficient self-evaluation and reluctance to seriously engage with reform initiatives emanating from civil society, social issues are far from being mainstreamed in the Fund's daily operations.     

‘Listening to the rice grow’: the local–expat interface in Lao-based international NGOs

Generally speaking, NGO studies have focused their attention on the organisational unit and its role in shaping development outcomes. With few exceptions, the analysis of development partnerships, in which NGOs play a crucial role, has largely been confined to examination of ‘donors’ and ‘receivers’ and not the dynamics within organisational settings. This article is concerned with the interface between local and international staff operating within Lao-based international NGOs. The research relied on interviews with local and international staff and sought to examine how staff themselves interpreted the process of ‘localisation’ in the context of their own professional experience.     

Meeting the demand for skilled and experienced humanitarian workers

The humanitarian aid sector faces a growing skills shortage, at a time when it aspires to expand the scale, quality, and impact of its response to humanitarian needs. Rapid staff turnover has been identified as one of the major constraints on both staff capacity building and organisational learning. A study undertaken for Oxfam GB supports previous findings that traditional human-resource practices in the humanitarian field, with many staff employed on short-term contracts, have inhibited skills development and constrained programme and organisational learning.     

Can bilateral programmes become learning organisations? Experiences from institutionalising participation in Keiyo Marakwet in Kenya

The concept of learning organisations is gaining prominence in the non-profit sector. Most organisations see the concept as a means of attaining organisational change for greater impact on development. While the principles of organisational learning (i.e. team learning, shared vision, common goal, and strategy) seem to have produced impressive results in the private sector and some non-profit organisations, the question is whether these principles can be adopted with similar results in complex bilateral programmes. This article explores this question in relation to a programme between the Dutch and Kenyan governments in Keiyo Marakwet, Kenya. It analyses the process of institutionalising participation as both a learning and a conflict-generating process. In the highly politicised context of bilateral programmes, learning is not necessarily carried forward from one phase to the next due to rapid changes in actors, national politics, diplomatic considerations, and the international development agenda.     

NGO workers’ internalisation of the human rights-based approach in Bangladesh

The Western origin of human rights raises the question of how the human rights-based approach to development (HRBA) is understood in non-Western countries. This article explores individual practitioners’ perceptions of the HRBA in an NGO working in Bangladesh, drawing on interviews with its workers. The data suggest that participants accept the universal values of human rights and make sense of the HRBA influenced by their organisational and national contexts. Conceptualising this process as “internalisation”, this article argues that the organisational support and workers’ field experience are critical for incorporating contextual consideration into their interpretation and practice of the HRBA.     

An institutional approach to service-provision partnerships in South Asia

Radical approaches to introduce public–private partnerships (PPPs) for infrastructure provision in South Asia have been largely unsuccessful. Yet the region is home to a thriving informal private sector and several regional NGOs have become engaged in efforts to involve communities in improved infrastructure provision. Many line agencies and local authorities have devolved some responsibilities for service delivery to the private sector through small-scale service and management contracts. This paper explores the possibilities for expanding and building on these activities, bearing in mind institutional factors, including both organisational structures and the attitudes and assumptions of the various stakeholders. Particular attention is paid to the options for regulating the private sector and the balance to be struck between encouraging competition and promoting improved stakeholder cooperation. Options for moving to ‘higher’ forms of PPP are considered, and brief concluding remarks summarise key findings and suggest some possible directions for the future.     

Organisational learning in NGOs: An example of an intervention based on the work of Chris Argyris

The research work of Harvard professor Chris Argyris gave rise to much of what is today called organisational learning, an approach subsequently promulgated by Peter Senge and his team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The first section of this paper argues the relevance of organisational learning to NGOs, despite its origins in the study of the private sector. The second section describes a particular project intervention based on organisational learning theory which is currently underway in a Brazilian NGO.     

The PIRA,D-Company,and the Crime-Terror Nexus

This article compares and contrasts the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) and D-Company, two seemingly dissimilar organisations that nonetheless share some striking commonalities, especially in regards to the use of tactics that contradict their declared ideology in pursuit of a larger goal. First, the growing relationship between organised criminal syndicates and terror groups is discussed and Makarenko's well-known “Crime-Terror Continuum” introduced. Following this, a historical overview and an analysis of the organisational structure of the PIRA is provided and organisational models proposed. Further, the founding and development of D-Company is addressed in addition to the syndicate's intricate involvement in the 1993 Bombay Blasts. Similarly, organisational models are offered and conclusions drawn. This work then moves to a comparative analysis of the organisational and operating structure of the PIRA and D-Company and finishes with a brief conclusion. This article argues that although criminal syndicates and militant groups may have different organisation structures, the line that distinguishes their activities has begun to blur and the space between Makarenko's graduated levels is becoming smaller and less discernible, thus rendering her model obsolete.