The Missionary Position: NGOs and Development in Africa

The Pambazuka Newsletter

(This article is a description of “The Missionary Postion: NGOs and Development in Africa” by by Firoze Manji and Carl O'Coill.

(August 2002)  Development NGOs operating in Africa have inadvertently become part of the neo-liberal global agenda, serving to undermine the battle for social justice and human rights in much the same way as their missionary predecessors, argues a paper in the July issue of International Affairs. The paper says that the contribution of NGOs to relieving poverty is minimal, while they play a "significant role" in undermining the struggle of African people to emancipate themselves from economic, social and political oppression. In this compromised position, NGOs face a stark choice: They can move into the political domain and support social movements that seek to challenge a social system that benefits a few and impoverishes the majority; or they can continue unchanged and thus become complicit in a system that leaves the majority in misery.

Entitled 'The Missionary Position: NGOs and Development in Africa', and co-authored by Firoze Manji and Carl O'Coill, the paper traces the emergence and role of NGOs on the continent from their missionary beginnings through to the discourse of 'development' that emerged in the post-independence period and the later influence of structural adjustment programs and globalization. Beginning in colonial Africa, the paper argues that missionary organizations played a key role in winning the ideological war that supported the colonial apparatus. "While colonial philanthropy may have been motivated by religious conviction, status, compassion or guilt, it was also motivated by fear. In Britain and the colonies alike, politicians frequently alluded to the threat of revolution and actively encouraged greater interest in works of benevolence as a solution to social unrest. In short, charity was not only designed to help the poor, it also served to protect the rich."

In some cases, charitable organizations "actively" helped to suppress anti-colonial struggles, as was the case in Kenya, where the Women's Association, Maendeleo Ya Wanawake (MYWO) and the Christian Council of Kenya (CCK) were both involved in government-funded schemes designed to subvert black resistance during the 'Mau Mau' uprising.

But independence created a crisis for these organizations because they had in many cases opposed nationalistic tendencies. However, instead of dying a natural death they were in fact able to prosper - a result Manji and O'Coill argue was due to the emergence of the 'development NGO' on the national and international stage.

Independence, they argue, had forced missionary societies and charitable organizations to reinvent their attitude of 'trusteeship' associated with colonial oppression. They did this by replacing white staff with black and revamping their ideological outlook by appropriating the new discourse on 'development' in place of overt racism.

The difference was in name only, say the authors. Development discourse was flawed from the beginning because non-Western people were defined by their divergence from Western cultural standards. "While the vision of 'development' appeared to offer a more inclusive path to 'progress' than had previously been the case, in fact the discourse was little more than a superficial reformulation of old colonial prejudices."

However, during this time period NGOs were regarded by development agencies as playing a peripheral role in development, with the state assuming overarching responsibility for this role. This meant that the role of NGOs in the post-independent period remained marginal.

This was set to change with a new set of political circumstances that led to a boom in NGOs on the continent. The late 1970s saw the rise to power of Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Reagan in the US, with both leaders championing the concept of the minimalist state. According to this outlook the state had to take a backseat in development and create the economic conditions for the accumulation of wealth by a minority. The rest of society would begin to benefit when growth "trickled down" from the wealthy. This neo-liberal agenda "radically" altered the landscape of development practice say Manji and O'Coill.

African countries were at this time heavily in debt and this gave the multilateral lending agencies the leverage they needed to impose their neo-liberal policy demands, something that was not always popular with African people. Manji and O'Coill argue that unhappiness with economic adjustment and its polices was often widespread and led to demonstrations that were sometimes violently suppressed. The protests in turn led to an attempt by lending agencies to present a "human face" to their policies. What emerged was the 'good governance' agenda of the 1990s and the decision to co-opt NGOs and other civil society organizations to a repackaged program of welfare provision.  

NGOs suddenly found themselves in the situation where they usurped the state as the provider of social services to the 'vulnerable' and became the beneficiaries of funds intended to mitigate the inequalities of adjustment policies. This had a "profound" impact on the sector and together with an increase in their function as a conduit for government aid led to dramatic growth in the number of NGOs in Africa.

Globalization therefore led to a "loss of authority" by African states over social development and policy. At the same time, Manji and O'Coill point out, social conditions worsened because of external controls over areas such as health, education and welfare measures and social programmes, tax concessions on profits, liberalisation of price controls, and dismantling of state owned enterprises.

In fact, development appears to have failed, says the paper, with real per capita GDP falling and welfare gains achieved after independence reversed. Per-capita incomes in Sub-Saharan Africa fell by 21 percent in real terms between 1981 and 1989. In 16 other Sub-Saharan countries per capita incomes were lower in 1999 than in 1975.

The situation in which NGOs thrived, was therefore one of continued poverty and an increase in armed conflict. "As African governments increasingly become pushed into becoming caretakers of what might be described as the peripheral Bantustans of globalization, are we seeing a return to the colonial paradigm in which social services are delivered on the basis of favor or charity and their power to placate?"  

Manji and O'Coill state that NGOs have come to be preferred to the state as providers of services. "Development NGOs have become an integral, and necessary, part of a system that sacrifices respect for justice and rights. They have taken the 'missionary position' - service delivery, running projects that are motivated by charity, pity and doing things for people (implicitly who can't do it for themselves), albeit with the verbiage of participatory approaches."

Manji and O'Coill use the example of apartheid South Africa to illustrate the choice open to NGOs. NGOs either supported the emerging movements that aimed to topple the Nationalist regime or they kept quiet -- a position tantamount to complicity with a system of exploitation.

"The challenge that both local and Western NGOs face in making this choice will be that funding - at least from the bilateral and multilateral agencies - will not necessarily be forthcoming to support the struggle for emancipation. But then, one would hardly have expected the apartheid regime in South Africa to have funded the movement that brought about the downfall of the regime," the paper concludes. (Published in International Affairs, 78:3 (2002) 567-83.)

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