But what explains the reason why some developing countries possess so few independent organizations while others have a multitude?

Take Pakistan for instance. Whereas in Bangladesh, the former East Pakistan, NGOs have played such a prominent role that they have supplanted the state in some crucial areas, in Pakistan they are far less influential. Despite having 180 million people, the latter has relatively few important NGOs, think tanks, and independent monitoring organizations (IMOs), as pointed out by former ambassador to Pakistan William B. Milam in his book Bangladesh and Pakistan. Despite a generally positive government attitude (at least towards domestic organizations) and much growth in recent years, the number of important institutions pales in contrast to Bangladesh’s total.

There are some excellent organizations (such as Kashf), but there is nothing quite like BRAC, Grameen Bank, and the other huge Bangladeshi NGOs. There is also far less scale and diversity than in India.

The situation is more or less the same when it comes to think tanks, IMOs, and other entities that might monitor, advise, or pressure the government. There are just four or five respectable think tanks, all of which are pretty small. IMOs are so uncommon that members of a working group on state building in Pakistan I chaired in October could not identify a single one.

The weakness of independent organizations even extends to the political arena, where two family-based political parties dominate, and the judiciary, which is often more beholden to local clans and powerbrokers than the law.

Pakistan’s underdeveloped civil society contributes to the country’s flawed political economy and partly explains its low level of human development. Politicians and officials feel little pressure to perform because there is no organized entity able to hold them accountable. The country’s poor are worse off than Bangladesh’s across a large number of indicators even though Pakistan’s income per capita is much higher.

None of this is a reflection on the generosity of Pakistanis, who generally do well on international comparisons of giving. According to the Pakistan Center for Philanthropy, charitable contributions make up nearly 1 percent of GDP, higher than India’s 0.6 percent and not far off from totals recorded in much richer countries such as Canada and the United Kingdom. The rate of giving in Bangladesh is closer to India’s than to Pakistan’s.

But, a relatively small share of this money is going to build institutions that contribute to state building and social development. The poor may be gaining adequate relief from destitution—the streets of Pakistan have far fewer beggars than India—in ways that did little to change the situations.

It is also not a reflection on the creativity of Pakistanis. There are some very innovative and successful civil society projects and NGOs in the country, but these are generally small in size and not well known beyond their immediate area of impact. They have contributed to Pakistan’s development, but not on the same scale as their larger brethren in other countries.

What then explains the weakness of the NGO sector in Pakistan?

One possibility might be the nature of Pakistani society. As Anatol Lieven describes in Pakistan: A Hard Country:

Society is strong above all in the form of the kinship networks which are by far the most important foci of most people’s loyalty. . . . the crucial question for Pakistan . . . is whether it is possible to create loyalties and ethics which transcend those of loyalty to kin.

Societies dominated by clans are more inclined to look to personal relationships for their needs and giving, seeing all impersonal institutions as being untrustworthy. Better to depend on someone you know than an organization run by people you do not know no matter how worthy the latter may seem.

Another possibility is the nature of the institutions that do spring up. As Akbar Zaidi explains in Economic and Political Weekly (subscription required):

Due to the lack of institutional development and institutional deepening, Pakistan’s macro and micro trajectory and development are highly dependent on the whims and fancies of the individual who happens to be in charge, whether at the national/country level, or as the head of a research centre or a public institution. . . .

Dynamic individuals may create innovative projects that have a real impact in a specific area, but unless they can develop a strong organization they are unlikely to ever be able to scale up to cover a large area.

The importance of individuals instead of organizations also contributes to the fragmentation of civil society, weakening its ability to bring about change. In Pakistan’s case, civil society tends to be focused on single issues (such as certain development issues or human rights goals) whereas the country really needs a comprehensive approach to development (that would, for instance, seek to promote both development and rights in an integrated fashion).

Zaidi continues:

For civil society in Pakistan . . . the pursuit of democratic ideals is not a necessary and defining condition. . . . Many of them are the state’s partners, acquiring mutual benefits of some kind or the other. . . Development groups . . . are often co-opted by institutions of the state to become the latter’s “advisors” winning lucrative contracts and getting the publicity they need to further their credentials.

Civil society that cannot exist independent of the state, that hold values that prevent it from challenging those in power (whether for ideological or practical reasons), or that cater to the needs of the elite (as may be the case for some women’s groups in Pakistan) will be limited in its ability to promote progressive change.

A third reason might be the army’s long-standing domination of the political system. During General Zia-ul-Haq’s military dictatorship (1977-1988), for instance, the state sought to eliminate or discredit NGOs that it saw as a threat, leaving Pakistan’s civil society in a state of disarray. Men in uniform have ruled the country directly for roughly half of its existence, and indirectly for much of the rest of the time.

A fourth possibility is the heterogeneity of the country. Pakistan has much greater ethnic, religious, and linguistic diversity than Bangladesh, making it more difficult for NGOs that do well in one place to expand elsewhere. Needs (including those related to management and dealing with officials) vary between regions, and even within them. India is also very diverse, but it is in some important ways more cohesive than Pakistan, having more established norms of governance and a more integrated elite.

Whatever the cause (and I welcome reader input on the explanation), this is one area where donors should be playing an important role.

Investing much more in researching, documenting, and building up the capacity of the more successful NGOs (whether directly or through the establishment of a local organization to do so) such that they could increase their reach and scale holds much promise. The better these are at management, raising funds from non-state actors, and performing their various tasks, the more influential and independent they will become, and the more likely they will grow into nationwide organizations on the scale of BRAC or Grameen Bank.

Establishing new NGOs in a few critical areas should also be a priority.

For instance, a think tank focused on increasing economic growth (as suggested to me by Haroon Sharif of DFID) could help promote policies (through research, lobbying, media relations, etc.) to achieve this aim.

An IMO focused on gathering and analyzing information related to one aspect of government service (such as education) would shed much needed light on the performance of the state, providing Pakistanis with more tools to hold leaders accountable.

An organization focused on building institutions that cater to the poor, such as the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund, could make society more inclusive.

There are also many organizational models that have worked in India and Bangladesh that could be replicated in Pakistan.

Donors must, however, remember the necessity of nurturing the independence of these organizations if they genuinely want to help them grow. NGOs dependent on donors are unlikely to ever develop the capacity and relevance to make real impacts on their societies. The focus should be on building up organizations run by Pakistanis, fully funded by Pakistanis, and geared to meeting the needs of Pakistan.

* * *

NGOs are not a panacea. Despite the presence of strong civil society actors, corruption has reached alarming proportions in Bangladesh and India, and neither state has a government that is highly responsive to the needs of citizens, especially when they are poor. In Bangladesh’s case, an overdeveloped NGO sector may actually be contributing to the country’s abysmal governance by relieving the state of many of its responsibilities.

They are, however, a crucial element in a much larger system of elements that determine how development oriented a society and state will be. And they are pretty inexpensive to fund, especially given the limited alternative ways to influence the political economy and social development of a country like Pakistan.

Promoting NGOs that were strongly rooted in Pakistan society and eventually mostly self-funding and independent of both the state and foreign actors would ensure the maximum impact at the lowest cost. A lot could be accomplished with a relatively small sum of money, especially when compared to the total budgets allocated by Western governments to aiding Pakistan. $100 million, for instance, could help launch or strengthen a series of independent institutions. This is but one-fifteenth of USAID’s annual allocation for the country.

The biggest challenge may be managerial—some aid agencies are not entrepreneurial enough for these types of projects. But groups such as International Development Research Centre are.

Donors who want to help Pakistan and other fragile states would do well to make use of the NGO sector in a strategic way.

The above is based on my work chairing the working group on State Building in Pakistan during the 2011 Global Economic Symposium.

Nancy Birdsall, CGD’s president, has also issued a series of open letters to the US government, such as the one posted recently.

CGD should be praised for undertaking such an initiative. Getting aid right in Pakistan matters a lot to US national interests, as well as to the idea that donors can contribute to state building. No fragile state is as important as Pakistan. Its governance problems have allowed terrorists to use its territory to plan attacks, and make its growing stockpile of nuclear weapons less secure. On the other hand, its strategic location and growing population (the country will be the 4th largest in a generation) ought to make it an important emerging market.

It is also rare that any think tank so closely examines aid policy in a specific country, though the importance of Pakistan means that two Washington organizations have done so in the last year (the Wilson Center issued a report in December).

But, CGD’s approach is flawed. Although the report makes sensible recommendations (on things like opening markets, promoting investment, engaging reformers, and improving USAID operations), it says almost nothing specific about Pakistan. There is no attempt to understand the drivers of its political economy, and the causes of its weak governance. There is no attempt to delve into the reasons why its leadership has consistently failed the country or why its state apparatus works so badly, especially for the country’s tens of millions of poor people. All its ideas more or less repeat verbatim what could be said about U.S. aid to almost any developing country. There is no context.

Such mistakes are unfortunately all too common in the aid business, even for an organization staffed by as many talented people as CGD has. Research has consistently shown that understanding politics and context matter tremendously for the effectiveness of aid, especially in fragile states. As a large number of reports (such as the appropriately named “The Politics of Poverty” from DFID) have consistently argued for at least a decade:

Evidence shows that in order to deliver sustainable international development we must be able to understand and work with its politics. . . . Research has shown that political context and process is central to shaping the way politicians and policy makers decide for or against progressive changes that can deliver legitimate, capable, accountable and responsive states. It has helped explain why some countries achieve economic growth and political stability, while others remain locked in conflict and poverty. . . .  We still need a better understanding of the politics of development and how to influence it for faster poverty reduction. Donors need to invest in their own capacity to address this new governance agenda.

The Wilson report does much better. Its 28 recommendations include a number that are highly specific to the Pakistan context, and show far greater understanding of the issues hampering the country’s development. It, for instance, talks about the country’s diaspora, rapidly growing urban areas, and need for vocational training. It discusses the need to catalyze small-to-medium sized businesses and to fill the government’s “most critical expertise gaps at the federal and provincial levels.” It attempts to make clear choices on priorities based on its understanding of the local situation when, for instance, it argues that money should not be spent on revamping water management systems because of the complex political and sociocultural obstacles, and that the power sector should be left to “multinational donors such as the Asian Development Bank that have more funds, expertise, and experience.” You may not agree with all its conclusions (and I disagree with how it approaches the country’s governance and leadership problems), but you must applaud its attempt to delve into the specifics in great detail.

Part of the difference in these two reports lies in how they were organized. Whereas CGD’s group is led by and filled with a large number of people who may not necessarily know Pakistan’s political economy well, Wilson’s is led by a South Asian expert and staffed by many Pakistanis and others who know the country on intimate terms. There is a real attempt to understand the country from the inside out, instead of simply using one-size-fits-all solutions. The Wilson team could have gone one step further and organized the group around people working on development issues inside Pakistan itself (something I did at the Global Economic Symposium in October), but that may be asking too much for a Washington based think tank. The latter would probably have produced results that focused more on improving how the state works and on how the intellectual climate within the country might be changed (as my group did).

If aid agencies want to contribute to state building (as opposed to just delivering aid that helps individuals), they will have to first understand the context in which they operate, and, second, come up with ideas on how to make countries actually work better. These things are much harder than building schools and vaccinating children, but they are the only ways to make countries self-sufficient–which should be the aim of all aid programs.

Although the CGD report is worth reading to understand how aid might work better in general, I cannot recommend it as a source of information for those trying to figure out how aid might work better in Pakistan. The Wilson Report, on the other hand, is well worth reading. I would also recommend studying closely Maleeha Lodhi’s edited book Pakistan: Beyond the “Crisis State.” It offers an excellent introduction to Pakistan’s most pressing problems.

Remember that “terrible phrase”, Winning Hearts And Minds (WHAM)? Using development programs as a tool for counterinsurgency? PRTs and Money as a Weapons System? So last decade, right? Well it’s back, and there’s some new evidence to show that it might actually work – for certain things, and when done right. From Afghanistan, of course. It’s only taken 10 years.

Yes, Tufts University’s Andrew Wilder has already done quite a bit of research in the area, and highlights the National Solidarity Program (NSP) (largest development program in the country) as the only program with a positive reputation, mainly due to perceptions of equality and community involvement.

Winning Hearts and Minds: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Afghanistan goes a step further in looking at the NSP. Randomly sampling 500 villages across 10 districts, it finds that the NSP has had positive effects on perceptions of; economic wellbeing, all levels of Afghan government, NGOs, and ISAF soldiers. It also reports improved perceptions of the security, but the shift does not necessarily translate to the occurrence of security incidents in and around villages.

A word of warning before the donor chequebooks come out – although the NSP is funded by foreign donors, it is provided and administered by the Afghan government. Therefore, the lessons here may not be transferable to development projects delivered by foreign powers.

So, development programs (when run by host governments with local buy in and plenty of engagement) can create conditions which improve perceptions of wellbeing and government. But, the jury is still out on the security / stabilisation effect. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait another decade for that chestnut.

It’s hard to find a happy diplomat at the United Nations Security Council these days. Western officials grumble about the difficulty of negotiating with India, Brazil and South Africa (the IBSA countries) over the Syrian crisis, to say nothing of China and Russia. The non-Western powers, they suspect, are all plotting to frustrate the U.S. and Europe.

Piffle, reply the supposed plotters. The bleak mood in the Council is a result of the West’s distortion of the UN mandate to protect civilians in Libya. If NATO hadn’t used that as a basis for regime change, there might be real cooperation over Syria. Even the unhappiest European officials accept that other powers’ anger over Libya is genuine.

Does anyone gain anything from the stalemate? Russia arguably does. Earlier in the year it failed to halt Western interventions in not only Libya but also Côte d’Ivoire. As Russia’s main claim to leverage at the UN is its willingness to act as a spoiler, these set-backs made it look a shadow of itself. On Syria, its blocking power returned as it resisted – and in October vetoed – EU and US efforts to pass a resolution sanctioning Syria.

For China, the benefits have been less clear, as it prefers to look pragmatic on the Security Council. Nonetheless it felt obliged to side with Russia over Syria. But the real losers have been the IBSA countries, which have often looked trapped between the West and the Russo-Chinese axis as they have tried to respond to events in the Middle East.

But at least IBSA has emerged as a semi-credible diplomatic force in UN affairs, right?  I’m not so sure:

The fact that IBSA voted as a bloc can be interpreted as a success – it is generally recognised that the trio of powers have been significant swing voters in the Security Council this year. But this may only be a temporary phenomenon. Brazil is approaching the end of its two-year term on the Council, and South Africa continues to have a greater stake in acting as the leader of the African bloc than in aligning with India. IBSA’s brief moment of importance in the Council could soon be forgotten, and India’s leverage duly reduced.

The United States had earlier agreed to exit Iraq by the end of the year and leave 3,000 to 5,000 troops in Iraq as trainers, with some members of Congress advocating the retention of a reduced fighting force as well. But Pentagon lawyers insisted that the Iraqi Parliament grant immunity from legal prosecution to the troops if they were to remain. In recent weeks American negotiators in Baghdad concluded that it would be impossible to obtain that immunity, essentially scuttling any chance of a substantial troop presence here next year.

I can understand the Pentagon’s position.  But what if a country’s troops enjoyed immunity from prosecution while operating on domestic soil?  That, as Sushant K. Singh points out in a WSJ op-ed today, is the case for Indian forces who operate in Kashmir under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA).

Enacted by India’s parliament in 1958 to facilitate a counterinsurgency in northeastern India, the law allows the army greater scope to operate in those areas state governments declare to be “disturbed.” It gives armed forces the power to shoot to kill in law-enforcement situations, to arrest without warrant and to detain people without time limits. The act also forbids prosecution of soldiers without approval from the central government, which in practice is rarely granted. It was extended to Kashmir in 1990, after the Pakistan-backed insurgency overwhelmed local police.

Every national government needs legal cover to fight insurgencies, but the devil in AFSPA lies in its particular draconian details. Not surprisingly, the continued application of this law to Kashmir has been a massive political problem.

Meant to protect soldiers who may kill a civilian by mistake during an operation, the act has ended up blocking all state-level attempts to prosecute soldiers for alleged charges of rape and murder. Separatists point to the law as an example of Delhi’s “imperialist designs” to occupy Kashmir. India’s reputation abroad suffers for its use of a law which arguably violates its international human rights obligations. But for the army’s insistence that it can’t do counterinsurgency without AFSPA, the law would have certainly been repealed by now.

But now, as Sushant has emphasized before, things are looking up in Indian-controlled Kashmir.  The number of militants on the loose has dropped, and terrorist incidents have declined.  The protests that shook the region last year have not been repeated.   Now Omar Abdullah, Kashmir’s admired Chief Minister, wants to end the application of AFSPA in the most stable districts of Kashmir.   There’s a good case for this:

Scaling back AFSPA’s application would bolster the standing of pro-India leaders in the state, allowing them to seize the political space in separatist strongholds. By taking away their strongest rallying cry, more separatists will be forced to seek negotiations with New Delhi, so that they can join the political mainstream.

This political change could have security implications. Many Kashmiris, egged on by separatists, resent the army and New Delhi as “occupying” forces. In the long term, insurgents can keep surviving in Kashmir only as long as some locals assist them. Here, a normal political situation can reassure locals and help the security forces. Encouraged by the security turnaround, New Delhi is already considering withdrawing 10,000 central security forces this year—that will reduce the sense of “siege” some Kashmiris feel.

President Obama has said that he wants “normal” relations with Iraq after U.S. forces depart.  It’s good to see that India is in a position to establish normal relations with some long-troubled parts of itself.

He’s back!

How does the world look to New Delhi’s top policy-makers?  Hobbesian, according to a speech this week by Indian National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon:

In other words, while domestic societies have evolved or are evolving towards rule of law, international society is still much closer to primeval anarchy, where to a very great extent “the strong do as they will and the weak do as they must.”

OK, that’s from Thucydides, but you get my point.  Menon pulls no punches:

We live in a time where international law remains underdeveloped, international governance is non-existent or weak, and international society is fundamentally anarchic. As a result the role of force in international relations has been magnified. But the age of weapons of mass destruction and newer technologies make it essential that we consider new ways of regulating the use of force in international relations.

Now that technology has made the spectrum of conflict wider than ever before, it is more than ever a political call whether and how to use force. Societies that have not followed this simple rule have suffered as a consequence. Militaries will have to strive to close the gap between their military capabilities and desired political outcomes. This will require flexibility and agility.

India as a society and nation has by and large made wise choices in the past on matters relating to the use of force, showing strategic restraint and realism. We have contributed force to internationally legitimate uses such as UN peacekeeping, while limiting its domestic deployment. Today we are in a position to make a greater contribution to global public goods in areas such as maritime security. At the same time we are moving towards an Indian doctrine for the use of force, though this is a work in progress.

If the ultimate doctrine is anything like the NSA’s speech, it will be a bracing read.

In a joint statement issued the same day European nations were to seek a vote on a UN Security Council resolution condemning Syria’s crackdown on protests, EU leaders and visiting Brazilian President Dilma Roussef said the two sides “expressed grave concern” at the current situation in Syria.

“They agreed on the need to continue urging the Syrian authorities to put an end to the violence and to initiate a peaceful transition to democracy.”

The well-informed David Bosco predicts that India and South Africa will also vote for the resolution, although the Indians were fighting a rearguard action against it last week.  He thinks that China and, in the end, Russia will abstain.  Meanwhile, Turkey is giving the resolution full support from outside the Council:

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan voiced support for the proposed UN resolution and said he would soon announce sanctions on the neighbouring country.

“The draft resolution before the council today is in the nature of sending a warning. We hope there will a positive outcome of this vote and that there will then be further discussions about whatever further steps need to be taken,” Erdogan told a news conference during a visit to South Africa.

The political picture could change again before the vote, and it can’t be repeated too often that the EU’s resolution has been watered down a lot , with a threat of sanctions reduced to near-invisibility.  But I think that this episode underlines the point Franziska Brantner and I made in our recent update on human rights and the UN for ECFR: many non-Western powers, especially rising powers like Brazil, want to distance themselves from Russia’s obstructionism in UN debates.  Even China is ready to step away from the Russians, as it did over Côte d’Ivoire.   As we noted in our paper, and I repeated here last week, this opens up the EU’s options for coalition-building in New York.  It looks like the EU is finally finding ways to use those options…

On Friday, India will use its month-long presidency of the United Nations Security Council to convene a discussion on the state of peacekeeping.  This is timely, as UN operations have been through a turbulent year, navigating crises in Côte d’Ivoire and Sudan.  There is talk of a new mission in Libya.  But this meeting is likely to be a bore.

And why did I think that the debate would be a snooze-fest?  Demonstrating a remarkable degree of foresight, I guessed that “Security Council diplomats will be thinking of how to beat the traffic from New York to Long Island’s beach resorts once the debate is finished.”  Er, no.  With Hurricane Irene almost literally on the horizon, everyone was probably wondering when they could go and stock up on bottled water and black truffles, or whatever ambassadors consume during hurricanes.

The debate was also overshadowed by the tragic attack on the UN offices in Nigeria.  Nonetheless, a quick read of the summary of the discussions suggests that they were every bit as tedious as I had predicted. Let’s get a quick taster:

Most speakers in the ensuing discussion stressed the continuing importance of United Nations peacekeeping and the need for increased engagement by the partners involved.  In that context, many welcomed more regularized consultations with troop- and police-contributing countries and urged continuous improvement in cooperation among all stakeholders.  Many also called for innovative thinking in closing resource gaps, particularly in supplying such enablers as helicopters, and in implementing the recommendations of previous peacekeeping reviews.

Enough already!  When multiple speakers are highlighting the  importance of “implementing the recommendations of previous peacekeeping reviews”, you know that “innovative thinking” is probably in short supply.  I’m afraid that I fault the Indian conveners for not shaking up the discussions:

A background paper prepared for the Security Council’s meeting contains a solid but all-too-familiar litany of diplomatic statements about how peace operations are resourced and managed.  It fails to grapple seriously with the hardest cases facing the UN or offer a serious framework for resolving them.

As I’ve argued before, peacekeeping is an issue on which New Delhi can show global leadership, but holding debates in New York in which everyone says more or less exactly what they’ve always said isn’t the way to achieve that.