Do NGOs help the poor or aid state nonchalance? Evidence from a rural community in western Uganda

• In Event: In a collaborative pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals? Reflections on development CSO-practices in Africa

Abstract

Debate on the role and capacity of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in poverty reduction among poor citizens of the Global South is fraught with tensions and paradoxes. On one hand, is the argument that NGOs mobilise citizens into self-help efforts and proffer grassroots interventions that create incremental changes in the material lives of the poor, yet on the other, is the notion that in so doing, NGOs depoliticize poverty and let government ‘off the hook’ of citizens’ scrutiny and agitation. In this paper, we delve into this paradox by drawing on a) our extensive research and publication on NGOs citizenship strengthening experiences in rural Uganda (Ahimbisibwe, 2022; Alava et al., 2020; Holma & Kontinen, 2022) and b) debates of depoliticization of poverty and development (Hammett, 2018; Williams, 2004). We establish an argument that when the state is repressive, uneven and populist, NGO interventions can tap into and enhance citizens’ self-organising agency to boost their material development and engagement with certain power asymmetries, even though this (agency) may remain sporadic, scattered and fleeting. To address these issues, we analyze interview and focus-group discussion data were collected from a rural community in western Uganda where a local NGO implements livelihoods interventions with the aim of ‘localizing’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), supplemented with first author’s stay and co-living in the community. Findings show that the NGO’s interventions strengthened citizen’s livelihoods, enabling them to learn and adopt increasingly innovative ways, improve their material conditions, and assume active roles in their communities. In our discussion, we reflect on the question of whether within the context of an authoritarian polity, NGO’s visibly impactful interventions aid the poor out of poverty and, in doing so, create a façade of development that encourages the state to remain unbothered by and obstinate to citizens’ pressing needs. We conclude that this paradox should not be treated and resolved simplistically as an exclusive binary but as a continuum wherein addressing basic needs may lead to gradual acquisition of agential power to deal with and question some of the prevailing structural constraints.

References
Ahimbisibwe, K. F. (2022). ‘Poor citizens cannot advocate’: Learning citizenship in constrained settings of Uganda [PhD Thesis, University of Jyväskylä]. https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/83967
Alava, H., Bananuka, T. H., Ahimbisibwe, K. F., & Kontinen, T. (2020). Contextualizing citizenship in Uganda. In K. Holma & T. Kontinen (Eds.), Practices of Citizenship in East Africa: Perspectives from Philosophical Pragmatism (pp. 57–72). Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9780429279171-5/contextualizing-citizenship-uganda-henni-alava-twine-bananuka-karembe-ahimbisibwe-tiina-kontinen?context=ubx&refId=5efe38c4-bc75-4bc9-bcd0-b6086257e6e2
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Holma, K., & Kontinen, T. (2022). Learning, Philosophy and African Citizenship. Palgrave Macmillan.
Williams, G. (2004). Evaluating participatory development: Tyranny, power and (re) politicisation. Third World Quarterly, 25(3), 557–578. https://doi.org/10.1080/0143659042000191438

Author

• Karembe Ahimbisibwe, University of Jyväskylä