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Breakdown in Pakistan: How Aid Is Eroding Institutions for Collective Action
Thirty percent of foreign development aid is channeled through NGOs or community-based organizations to improve service delivery to the poor, build social capital, and establish democracy in developing nations. However, growing evidence suggests that aid often erodes, rather than promotes, cooperation within developing nations. This book presents a rare, micro level account of the complex decision-making processes that bring individuals together to form collective-action platforms. It then examines why aid often breaks down the very institutions for collective action that it aims to promote. Breakdown in Pakistan identifies concrete measures to check the erosion of cooperation in foreign aid scenarios. Pakistan is one of the largest recipients of international development aid, and therefore the empirical details presented are particularly relevant for policy. The book's argument is equally applicable to a number of other developing countries, and has important implications for recent discussions within the field of economics.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published April 25, 2012
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November 17, 2024
Still one of the best accounts of how the Western INGO aid machine that calls itself "civil society" devastates actual civil society organisations worldwide, sapping their capacity for local voluntary action as it turns them into commercial contractors.
But Bano's book isn't just an unsparing, well-evidenced account of that destruction. It also paints a hopeful picture of what's possible for those who refuse the machine, with case studies of successful Pakistani institutions that continue to inspire effective voluntary action for change (including at multi-million dollar scale) without tapping into foreign donor resources.
Should be required reading for everyone in the development sector - especially as the INGO aid machine continues to sputter toward breakdown.
But Bano's book isn't just an unsparing, well-evidenced account of that destruction. It also paints a hopeful picture of what's possible for those who refuse the machine, with case studies of successful Pakistani institutions that continue to inspire effective voluntary action for change (including at multi-million dollar scale) without tapping into foreign donor resources.
Should be required reading for everyone in the development sector - especially as the INGO aid machine continues to sputter toward breakdown.
May 31, 2017
Written by one of my classmates from school.
2.5*, it's a good book but is practically unreadable with all the dense research-jargon and research-modules, definitions from previous works; more than half of it goes into the welfare-related behavior of Muslims in United India and then in Pakistan. The prevailing attitude of people both within the sector (initiator / creator of an organization, and joiner, or even an observer) view NGOs as corrupt or in general negative terms, as opposed to VOs though people deem both the same; the example of Tsangaya schools in Kano, rural Nigeria is good. 'Malams' (religious teachers) okayed foreign aid in broadening the scope of education because they thought that pupils should gain technical skills and provision of lunch once a week would set pressure off them from feeding them - thus restricting access of a foreign agency and their ideas within the scope of their unique cultural and religious identity to forward the better education of students - even though why did it take an outsider to suggest something this commonsensical to the malams and why didn't this rural society think of progress themselves? (There are countless short-sighted and irresponsible projects and the Tsangaya effort is still better than, say, channeling a female scooty in a country where women have much larger and ingrained / indoctrinated issues to contend with throughout their lives than driving a motorcycle ala PKR100 million Women on Wheels project of Punjab government 2015/6/7 funded by Denmark - though the sight of Asma Jehnagir riding one of the scooties was cool! It is an understood assumption that directors and ministers will fatten their pockets through a scheme that has limited scope of success and longevity.)
Quotable Quotes:
- "This concentration of political power in the hands of a few families, in a context where democratic institutions were weak against the civil and military bureaucracy, introduced perverse incentive structures of the political elites. The politicians became more open to entering into pacts with the civil and military elites, which helped them retain and expand their individual status within the government structure but undermined democratic institutions" - Ali, 1970,1983
- "The survey shows that all of the NGOs, including the bigger ones, had adapted their activities to their donor preferences. In the 1980s, donors' funding preferences in Pakistan revolved around women's rights; in the early 1990s they revolved around microcredit; beginning in the mid-1990s donors focussed on community empowerment and mobilization; and at the time of my field work (2010) their focus was on governance and devolution.......Given that donors link NGOs with the promotion of democracy in developing countries, one would have expected the NGOs in Pakistan to resist military rule. The NGOs however were completely silent on the issue.......Due to General Musharraf's support of the 'war on terror' since Sept. 11, 2001, all major donors were very supportive of his regime at the time of the field work, which translated into large aid flows into Pakistan. At that time 'governance' - or more specifically, 'devolution' - was the buzzword in international donor and government circles." - Bano, 2010
True, I remember the white elephant called 'National Reconstruction Bureau'. But as for the recommendations given at the end of the book (Chap. 7: Fixing Incentives: The Way Forward), I don't see why a donor agency would want to change anything when 'why' they are doing something in Pakistan has nothing to do with grass root Pakistani problems or actual long-term uplift of its people - as evidenced in Chaps.2-6 - and neither is it a goal for NGOs.
2.5*, it's a good book but is practically unreadable with all the dense research-jargon and research-modules, definitions from previous works; more than half of it goes into the welfare-related behavior of Muslims in United India and then in Pakistan. The prevailing attitude of people both within the sector (initiator / creator of an organization, and joiner, or even an observer) view NGOs as corrupt or in general negative terms, as opposed to VOs though people deem both the same; the example of Tsangaya schools in Kano, rural Nigeria is good. 'Malams' (religious teachers) okayed foreign aid in broadening the scope of education because they thought that pupils should gain technical skills and provision of lunch once a week would set pressure off them from feeding them - thus restricting access of a foreign agency and their ideas within the scope of their unique cultural and religious identity to forward the better education of students - even though why did it take an outsider to suggest something this commonsensical to the malams and why didn't this rural society think of progress themselves? (There are countless short-sighted and irresponsible projects and the Tsangaya effort is still better than, say, channeling a female scooty in a country where women have much larger and ingrained / indoctrinated issues to contend with throughout their lives than driving a motorcycle ala PKR100 million Women on Wheels project of Punjab government 2015/6/7 funded by Denmark - though the sight of Asma Jehnagir riding one of the scooties was cool! It is an understood assumption that directors and ministers will fatten their pockets through a scheme that has limited scope of success and longevity.)
Quotable Quotes:
- "This concentration of political power in the hands of a few families, in a context where democratic institutions were weak against the civil and military bureaucracy, introduced perverse incentive structures of the political elites. The politicians became more open to entering into pacts with the civil and military elites, which helped them retain and expand their individual status within the government structure but undermined democratic institutions" - Ali, 1970,1983
- "The survey shows that all of the NGOs, including the bigger ones, had adapted their activities to their donor preferences. In the 1980s, donors' funding preferences in Pakistan revolved around women's rights; in the early 1990s they revolved around microcredit; beginning in the mid-1990s donors focussed on community empowerment and mobilization; and at the time of my field work (2010) their focus was on governance and devolution.......Given that donors link NGOs with the promotion of democracy in developing countries, one would have expected the NGOs in Pakistan to resist military rule. The NGOs however were completely silent on the issue.......Due to General Musharraf's support of the 'war on terror' since Sept. 11, 2001, all major donors were very supportive of his regime at the time of the field work, which translated into large aid flows into Pakistan. At that time 'governance' - or more specifically, 'devolution' - was the buzzword in international donor and government circles." - Bano, 2010
True, I remember the white elephant called 'National Reconstruction Bureau'. But as for the recommendations given at the end of the book (Chap. 7: Fixing Incentives: The Way Forward), I don't see why a donor agency would want to change anything when 'why' they are doing something in Pakistan has nothing to do with grass root Pakistani problems or actual long-term uplift of its people - as evidenced in Chaps.2-6 - and neither is it a goal for NGOs.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews