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THE UNIVERSITY OF ZAMBIA

SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

DEPARTMENT OF ADULT EDUCATION AND


EXTENSION STUDIES

NAMES: MUTALE KATONGO

COMPUTER NUMBER: 15070310

COURSE CODE: AED 4915

LECTURER: MR. MULAISHO

Assignment: 2

DUE DATE: 11th October, 2019

QUESTION: Discuss Eloy Annelo framework of delivery services, research and


grassroots actions.

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In its most basic understanding, a Nongovernmental Organization, as the title implies, is an
independent organization that distances itself from government. NGOs rely on outside funding in
order to run their programs and staff; however, they are also not for profit. Despite being non-
state actors, NGOs are not separate from politics or economics and may even work in partnership
with governments (Meyer, 1999). In practice, “non-governmental organizations are not non-
governmental. They receive funds from overseas governments or work as private subcontractors
of local governments” (Petras, 1997). The term Nongovernmental Organization has also
frequently been paralleled as not only representing and actively supporting civil society (Pearce,
1993), but as being part of civil society itself, as seen by the United Nations (Otto, 1996; Annan,
2004), since they aim to “empower” the poor to fight for their own rights. Under
nongovernmental organizations there are some that are involved in development activities these
are normally referred to as Nongovernmental Development organizations hence the main aim of
this essay is to discuss Eloy Annelo framework of delivery services, research and grassroots
actions.

NGDOs are legally established self-directed entities that possess non-profit status and are
organized by ordinary citizens (professionals, technicians and field workers) whose primary
motivation is to improve the well-being of their people. They are concerned with poverty
reduction, social justice, human rights and the problems of marginalization with society
particularly women. (Caruana, 2003)

There are many different typologies of NGDO’s that can be useful for clarifying thought and for
facilitating specific decision making purposes, if the limitations of the typology are kept in mind.
For example David Korten's typology looks at NGDOs from an evolutionary perspective and
identifies three generations of NGDO program strategy development. This typology provides an
interesting lens by which to view NGDOs, unfortunately, it doesn’t incorporate strategies such as
sustainable development but only concentrate on creating effective systems for implementing the
established and deep-rooted development paradigm relatively than searching for a new model of
development that would promote processes of social transformation (Korten, 1986). Another
typology is by Manfred Max-Neef and Antonio Elizalde who developed a typology from the
point of view of NGDO origins within civil society (Max-Neef and Elizade, 1987). This
typology is a helpful tool in attaining clarity of thought and understanding regarding the origins

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of the ideological diversity that exists amongst NGDOs. However, Eloy Annelo proposed an
NGDO typology based on a functional point of view. It is based on three functions of the
NGDO’s which are the framework of delivery services, research and grassroots actions. These
three functions make up seven types of nongovernmental development organizations.

Service can be defined as the performance of work or duty by an official or an act of helping
others, or power to control or make use of resources, or an organisation or system providing the
public with something useful or necessary (The Universal Dictionary 1961: 1394- 1395). The act
of delivery can be defined as producing or performing, handing over, taking goods to the
intended recipient, or producing results as promised or expected (The Universal Dictionary 1961:
413). These definitions are adopted by Riekert (200 1: 90), arriving at a combined definition
which reads as follows: Service delivery is defined as, the provision of a product or service, by a
government or government body to a community that it was promised to, or which is expected
by that community. .The framework of delivery services in an NGDO is involved in providing
services to marginalized urban and rural poor populations that respond to basic human needs
such as those related to health, housing, education, etc.. (Eloy, 1991). The framework of service
delivery by Eloy is different from Korten’s first generation of nongovernmental organizations
alled "relief and welfare" whose aim is to deliver welfare services to the poor and unfortunate
throughout the world.

An example of a delivery service NGDO is Caritas Relief Services. Since 1943, Catholic Relief
Services has been privileged to serve the poor and disadvantaged overseas. Without regard to
race, creed, or nationality, CRS provides emergency relief in the wake of natural and manmade
disasters. Through development projects in fields such as education, peace and justice,
agriculture, microfinance, health, and HIV and AIDS, CRS works to uphold human dignity and
promote better standards of living. CRS also works throughout the United States to expand the
knowledge and action of Catholics and others interested in issues of international peace and
justice. Projects implemented under Catholic Relief Services include the Feed the Future Zambia
Mawa Project in the Eastern Province. Mawa was led by Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in
partnership with Caritas Chipata, Golden Valley Agricultural Research Trust, University
Research Company, and Women for Change. It aims to deliver “solutions” to resource-poor
smallholder households that will achieve significant impact at scale in a cost-effective manner.

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Mawa’s package of interventions is designed to ease very vulnerable farmers, particularly
women, into experimenting with, and later adopting, new improved technologies and practices
for diversified and intensified production. The project creates a safe space for them to develop
the skills to trial new technologies that will prepare them for engagement with markets and
support their progression out of poverty. Mawa also offers nutritional assessment, counseling,
and support to targeted households, focusing on the critical “window of opportunity” from
pregnancy through the age of 2. From the outset, the project’s Monitoring, Evaluation,
Accountability, and Learning (MEAL) system has advocated an ethos and approach that
encourages individual and organizational learning to support reflective practice and decision-
making. (Buckley et al, 2015)

Another type of NGDO is involved in research activities that may not incorporate community
participation or the delivery of services. These NGDOs seek to generate relevant knowledge for
development purposes, through research in areas related to social sciences, ecology, appropriate
technology, biological sciences, agriculture, etc. If the providing of workshops, seminars and the
teaching of courses is considered to be a service delivered by a research oriented NGDO, then it
would in fact be very difficult to find a research type NGDO that is not providing this service as
a means for the diffusion of their research findings. (Eloy, 1991)

Example of research activities NGDO does include Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection
(JCTR). The Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection was founded in 1988 in order to examine
the Zambian reality from a theological perspective and undertake appropriate research and action
in the spirit of a faith that seeks justice. One of the initial projects of the JCTR was the Economic
and Social Development Project that worked “to promote economic and social justice through
exposing the plight of the poor.” Furthermore, “the aim of the project (was) to gather facts
through research and to use those facts to advocate for change in policies and/or practices that
inhibit attainment of sustainable livelihoods.” In the spirit of exposing the plight of the poor and
with the realisation that the average person was struggling to afford even the most basic of
monthly commodities, the Economic and Social Development Project conducted its very first
“Food Basket” survey in March of 1991. There was concern among church groups within
Livingstone and the Copperbelt about the wages that the Catholic Church was paying to its
employees, and the JCTR took up the challenge of assessing a basic cost of living through this

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initial survey. It was determined that a family of six living in Lusaka at that time needed only
6,375 Kwacha (K) to afford a month-long supply of basic items including mealie-meal, meat,
vegetables, bread, charcoal and soap. (JCTR, 2005)

The Lusaka Food Basket survey was conducted just one more time in 1991 and seemingly
forgotten amidst the flurry of activity surrounding the first years of Fredrick Chiluba’s
presidency. It was the year 1992 that Zambia began embracing aggressive liberalisation of the
economy under the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) prescribed by the International
Monetary Fund. The reforms included reduction in protective tariffs (e.g. textiles, batteries),
removal of subsidies of basic goods (e.g. agricultural inputs, mealie-meal), and abolishment of
price and exchange rate controls. (JCTR, 2005)

The effects of liberalisation were harsh and instant as evidenced through the rapid depreciation
of the Kwacha and skyrocketing inflation levels in the country. To help evaluate how the SAP
was affecting the standards of living of ordinary Zambians, the JCTR returned to its Food Basket
survey again in 1993 to discover that the basic commodity basket had drastically jumped in cost
to K31,075 by January and K49,360 by April of that year. (JCTR, 2005)

From a purely historical perspective, the JCTR Basket speaks to the dramatic story of how living
conditions have rapidly deteriorated in Zambia in relation to the deteriorating economic
situation. The regularly recorded statistics directly correspond with the defining events of the
past fourteen years, including the many economic shocks, the internal political changes, the
external wars, the successful and unsuccessful governmental policies, the collapse of industries
and banks, the varying quantity of rainfall to support agriculture, etc. (JCTR, 2005)

However, the hidden characters in this story told by numbers are the Zambian people who have
faced immeasurable hardships in response to the rising costs of living and simultaneously
declining opportunities to access decent employment, healthcare, education and other social
services. The freedom of people within a society to afford basic needs is essential to the
promotion of dignity within the human person. The JCTR basket has been used extensively in
this dramatic period of Zambian history to expose how families are struggling to afford human

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lives; more importantly, the JCTR Basket has been used extensively to advocate for prudent
socio-economic and political decisions and just relationships between employers and employees
in order to help create more human conditions for the people of Zambia. It is in this way that the
JCTR Basket transforms from a pure statistical record of history to an active protagonist in the
living drama. The Food Basket survey was conducted four times in 1994 and another six times in
1995. In May of 1995 the Economic and Social Development Project organised a team of UNZA
students to carry out basic interviews in the compounds of Lusaka to explore the perplexing
question: “With food alone costing almost K150,000, how are families making ends meet?” The
article, appearing in the JCTR 2nd Quarter Bulletin of 1995, offers a glimpse of life on the
ground both then and now. For example, many families indicated that two meals a day of nshima
and relish is the standard when money is available, yet skipped meals are very common. Also,
many indicated that a “family of six” is misleading with the number of children and other
dependents commonly exceeding ten per family. The conclusion of the impressionistic yet
insightful report was that even a basic standard of living had become impossible for the average
Lusaka family, and that the unfortunate result of the Structural Adjustment Programme was the
structural adjustment of the family. (JCTR, 2005)

Another type of NGDO is grassroots action. This type of NGDO is involved in activities that
promote community actions that change or create local structures that sustain processes which
facilitate social transformation. These NGDOs are not involved in research or delivery of
services. Their main activities are related to processes that promote critical consciousness,
community organizing, capacity building, empowerment, etc. (Eloy, 1991)

Examples include ActionAid which is a global movement of people working together to further
human rights and defeat poverty for all. ActionAid Zambia is a member of the ActionAid
International Federation. Its vision is to see a just and poverty free Zambia in which every person
enjoys the right to a life of dignity. ActionAid believes that democratic deepening is the right
choice for Zambia. Our experience, spanning five decades of work across 45 countries, shows
that poverty and exclusion are only overcome when people living in poverty are able to organise,
claim their rights and hold their governments to account. Without freedom of expression,
association and assembly, this is impossible. What is more, these rights also provide an

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important avenue for people to peacefully speak out, contribute their talents, share their ideas and
help society work towards solving its problems (Maina, 2016)

These three types of NGDO’s can be mixed to form other types of NGDO.A mixture of
grassroots action and delivery services is an additional NGDO that emerges when an NGDO that
is involved in delivering services sees the need to assist the community in strengthening existing
local structures or in organizing new ones for grassroots participation in local management for
the delivery of services. The complex process of community organizing has a great deal to do
with capacity building and empowerment processes. This type of NGDO also emerges when a
grassroots action NGDO realizes that it must begin to respond to the felt needs of the community
in order to maintain credibility. Grassroots action NGDOs may also decide that they must
complement their long-range social transformation activities with some immediate (tangible),
result producing services that the community values. (Eloy, 1991)

Grassroots Soccer Zambia is an example of a nongovernmental development organisation that is


involved in research and providing a service to the community. In 2006 GRS designed a
curriculum and sport-based teaching model to build resiliency, targeting boys and girls in
Lusaka, Zambia, and Johannesburg, South Africa, where most children are reminded daily of the
devastation caused by AIDS and where many face chronic and acute hardships. In these settings,
an estimated 17 percent of the adult population in Zambia and 18.8 percent of the adult
population in South Africa are infected with HIV, (UNAIDS, 2017) and ministries of education
in both countries have identified delivering effective HIV/AIDS education as a major challenge.
Collaborating with curriculum specialists, evaluation specialists, and, perhaps most important,
Zambian peer educators, GRS created interactive activities designed to resonate with youths’
interests in sport while teaching boys and girls between ten and eighteen years of age skills to
build resiliency and prevent infection of HIV. With the support of the U.S. Agency for
International Development through CARE, GRS enhanced its existing activity-based curriculum
by adding resiliency concepts, created the resiliency program logic model, conducted training-of-
trainers courses, launched a six-week resiliency-focused HIV/AIDS education and life skills pilot
program for the boys and girls in Zambia and South Africa, and conducted an evaluation study of
the pilot program. (Banda et al, 2006)

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Additionally, delivery of services and research action NGDO surface when a delivery of services
NGDO realizes that it must generate new knowledge in order to improve the quality and
effectiveness of its services. This type of concern often motivates NGDOs to embark on research
activities. When identifying research topics they want to follow, the case NGOs do not just
consider their service delivery experience; they also consider other sources of ideas and
additional criteria unrelated to service delivery. In relation to other sources, some research
questions selected as priorities are identified by NGO staff through involvement in non-service
delivery activities such as advocacy. The idea that NGOs can generate research questions
through their service delivery suggests that service delivery staff can and do identify topics
where research is needed. However, some case NGOs experience difficulty in eliciting research
ideas from service delivery staff. Partly because of this, topics are often identified by senior
managers and research staff rather than staff directly engaged in frontline delivery. For example,
some rural health projects have done extensive research into the methods of diagnosis and
remedies used by traditional practitioners. On the other hand, an NGDO that is involved in
research may enter into the delivery of services in the form of technical assistance or the
provision of products such as seeds or technologies. This is often done as a means of
disseminating their findings and of securing their practical application in the development
process (Eloy, 1991).

Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia (CIDRZ), is an NGDO not only performs
ground breaking research to more effectively prevent and treat deadly infectious diseases in
Zambia, we are on the front lines of providing health services to those most in need in public
clinics, while training the next generation of African researchers, health care providers and
leaders in public health. For instance, CIDRZ has a newly established Enteric Vaccine Research
Unit whose goal is to provide a platform for coordinated development and deployment of state-
of-the-art technologies and analysis. This can be effectively utilised for vaccine discovery, and
early development and testing of clinical products. The unit has added, to its portfolio, three of
the top five aetiological agents of childhood diarrhoea namely (i.e. Enterotoxigenic E coli
(ETEC), Shigella and Salmonella) from the two (Rotavirus and Vibrio Cholerae) it had been
working on in the past. (Savory et al, 2017)

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Furthermore, a mixture of research and grassroots action type of NGDO materialized when a
research oriented NGDO begins to apply action research or participatory research methodologies
for the generation of knowledge that is relevant to grassroots development processes. These
approaches have been used in diverse types of research efforts, such as those related to small
farm production, appropriate technology, social analysis, etc. Also, some grassroots action
NGDOs become grassroots action and research NGDOs when they feel the need to understand
more deeply the processes that they are involved in and realize the importance of systematically
documenting the methodologies developed and the results achieved. This group of NGDOs
combines the capacities for carrying out relevant research with development action (Eloy 1991)

Lastly, a mixture of all three types of NGDO’s is another type. This type of NGDO blends all
three functions into its modes of action. Very few NGDOs have the capacity to effectively
integrate the three functions in a strategic way. Most NGDOs basically complement a main
function, which is the thrust of their activity, with activities related to the other two functions. As
an NGDO matures and grows in capacity, it learns how to integrate these functions in ways that
are appropriate to the development strategy it is pursuing with a specific population. (Eloy, 1991)

If this typology were applied to the community of NGDOs in various Latin American countries,
one would probably find a different proportion of each type of NGDOs in every country. This
diversity of proportional configurations of the various types of NGDOs is relative to the socio-
economic condition of the country and the degree of political space available to NGDOs for
social action. For example, in countries that have authoritarian regimes and limited availability
of political space, it is likely that there will be very few (if any) NGDOs openly involved in
grassroots action for social transformation.

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REFFERENCES

Annan, Kofi A. (2004)"A/58/817 Strengthening of the United Nations system." United Nations
General Assebly.

Anello, Eloy,( 1991 ) "NGOs in Latin America". Occasional Paper Series on Non-Governmental
Organizations. 3. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cie_ngo/3

Banda P.S, Peacock-Villada .P, DeCelles. J (2006) Grassroots Soccer resiliency pilot program:
Building resiliency through sport-based education in Zambia and South Africa

Buckley, J., Archibald, T., Hargraves, M. and Trochim, W. (2015). ‘Defining and Teaching
Evaluative Thinking: Insights from Research on Critical Thinking’. American Journal of
Evaluation. December.

Catholic Relief Services. (2012) The AIDS Relief Zambia Partnership: Transitioning to the
Churches Health Association of Zambia

Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection. (2005) The JCTR Basic Needs Basket: JCTR Food
Basket (1991-2001) (Cost of Basic Items f or Family of Six in Lusaka). Retrieved
https://www.saprn.org

Maina Kiai, 2016, “Statement by Maina Kiai, Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of
peaceful assembly and of association at the 71st session of the General Assembly”,
https://www.ohchr.org

Max-Neef, Manfred, Antonio Elixalde, (1987) Las ONGs y Ia Paradoja de su Impotencia,


document presented at Seminar on The Organizations of Civil Society and the Construction of a
Democratic Culture, sponsored by IDRC at Villa de Leyva, August 2-6,

Meyer, Carrie A (1999). The Economics and Politics of NGOs in Latin America. Westport:
Praeger Publishers,

Otto, Dianne. (1996) "Nongovernmental Organizations in the United Nations System: The
Emerging Role of International Civil Society." Human Rights Quarterly 18.1 107-141.

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Pearce, Jenny. (1993) "NGOs and Social Change: Agents or Facilitators?" Development in
Practice 3.3 222-227. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4029270 .

Petras, James. (1997): "Imperialism and NGOs in Latin America." Monthly Review 49.7 10-27.

Savory T, Mwanza M, Lumpa M, Chitala M. (2017) Keep our future generation alive:
Reinforcing routine HIV testing and treatment among children in Zambia. Health Press Zambia
Bull; 1 (2)

Riekert, D. 2001. Batho Pele/Customer Care. Course in Effective Service Delivery: Enhancing
the Capacity of Existing and Emerging Public Service Managers for Effective Service Delivery.
Unpublished course notes.

UNAIDS. (2007). AIDS epidemic update. Retrieved December 3, 2007, from


http://data.unaids.org/pub/EPISlides/2007/2007_epiupdate_en.pdf.
Wyld, H.C. (Ed). 1961. The Universal Dictionary of the English Language. London: Routledge
& Kegan Paul.

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