Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have a long history of
promoting grass-roots membership organisations, but have made few
attempts to document this experience in ways that are accessible to
external audiences. Academic analysis has partially filled this gap by
identifying the characteristics of strong organisations, but has had
relatively little to say about how they develop, or the specific rôle
which
NGOs might play in helping them to emerge. This issue has recently
assumed greater importance in the light both of donor wishes to
strengthen civil society, and the more specific concerns of NGOs to
scale-up their activities by helping the organisations with which they
work to become more self-sufficient.
This article is drawn from a wider study which explores the strategies
employed by NGOs in promoting membership organisations, and asks
whether this can be done in ways which are both broadly equitable and
reasonably cost-effective. It describes a programme mounted by the
pan-African NGO consortium known as ACORD (Agency for Co-operation and
Research
in Development) to initiate a process of
institutional development in the Nebbi District of Uganda. The case
is of particular interest as an example of an attempt to introduce new
institutions into a highly volatile environment, and provides a basis for
arriving at a number of more general propositions about good practice.