From: pambazuka-news-admin at pambazuka.org Date sent: Fri, 16 Aug 2002 13:28:03 -0500 (CDT)
EDITORIAL
THE MISSIONARY POSITION: NGOS AND DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA http://www.fahamu.org.uk/links/resources.html 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 programmes and globalisation.
Beginning in colonial Africa, the paper argues that missionary organisations 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 organisations "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 organisations 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 organisations 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.
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