Networking development organizations to foster global sustainable development.

• Author: Mudacumura, Gedeon M.

Abstract

Achieving sustainable development has been a challenge to social scientists interested in the development field. This paper suggests a network development process that links all development organizations policy stakeholders for the purpose of sharing the information and resources. To effectively deal with multifaceted development issues, the author recommends networking these organizations at the local, national, and global levels, and taking advantage of the current information and communication technologies to devise policies that foster sustainable development.

INTRODUCTION

Lindbolm (1990:p.167) questioned the extent to which social scientists have been successful in shaping society reach the challenging goal of solving social problem and improving people's lives. He remarked that:

Whether one is concerned with stabilizing the economy, improving schools, or effecting other societal ends, the troubling prospect persists that with no or only a few exceptions, societies could perhaps continue to go about these and other activities if social scientists vanished, along with their historical documents, findings, hypotheses, and all human memory of them ... The value of social science to social problem solving remains clouded to a degree that should shake any social scientist's complacency. The above quotation makes sense when one realizes how achieving sustainable development has been a challenge to the international development community for the last four decades. For instance, the technical and financial assistance to poor countries has not resulted in substantive social and economic development. While traditional economic development focused upon the roles of government and private business, traditional social development concentrated upon the role of government and voluntary organizations. Development strategists paid more attention to technical solutions such as better planning, better trade and pricing policies, and better macroeconomic frameworks (Stiglitz, 1998).

Furthermore, driven by the desire to promote rapid economic growth, development economists suggested development policies that overlooked other key development dimensions such as social, political, cultural and ecological. Overlooking these dimensions not only is imposing exorbitant costs on government and private agencies, but also is threatening human lives. As Lyonette (1999) puts it, such costs are now coming back to haunt governments with a vengeance and will cost much more in compensatory expenditure than if they had been factored into the equation from the start.

This paper looks at networking, an organizational approach that can create an enabling environment for people to enjoy long and healthy lives while solving complex development issues. This approach rests on the premise that active collaboration among organizations engaged in furthering development can take advantage of creative synergies to achieve outcomes that are impossible for anyone to achieve alone.

The first part of the paper provides a general overview of development issues, stressing their interconnectedness as one major characteristic that makes these problems impossible to solve by simple means. The second part highlights networking as the underlying concept applied to a wide variety of inter-linked organizations that share resources and information striving to reach a common ultimate goal. Emphasis is also put on the creative tension that must exist between network members who are like-minded enough to share a vision, but who are also diverse enough to truly develop new ideas that can work in solving complex problems. The third section presents the technical details of the network development process, broken into four stages: problem identification, planning, envisioning the future, and organizing for action.

The discussion before the concluding remarks centers on the practical application of this organizational approach. The author suggests the key functions and members of the network of development organizations at local, national and global levels. Bringing together all interested policy stakeholders to identify development issues, design, and implement development policies that fit the needs of the local, national, and global community may be the best organizational strategic approach that would foster sustainable development.

GENERAL OVERVIEW OF DEVELOPMENT ISSUES

Poor countries are confronted with a series of complex development problems. The latter include, but are not limited to, building strong local democratic institutions, developing effective educational and health care systems, building social capital, fighting corruption, increasing food production, and struggling to compete in the global economy while living under the unbearable weight of foreign debt. Chisholm (1997) identified four common features of these high level complex problems:

1) The interconnectivity and dynamic nature of these problems make them impossible to solve by simple solution. Any attempt to solve one aspect of the problem that fails to account for impacts on other organizations and groups that are interconnected most likely fails. For instance, striving to increase food production without considering farmers' training, the availability of agricultural inputs (selected seeds, fertilizers), use of adequate farming systems (soil conservation, crop rotation), food producers' associations, availability of food storage, food market prices, food distribution systems, to name a few, would not solve the food production issue.

2) The complex, inter-linked character of these problems mandates an inter-organization action. Searching for concrete, absolute solutions for these meta-problems is impossible. Only progress toward a more desirable future that requires many different organizations become involved in designing implementing ways of improving the situation. Lack of coordination to improve the situation may often cause the action of one organization to create problems for other organizations involved. Focusing again on the food production example, consider government agencies, local and international Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) involved in promoting farming systems, initiating farmers' associations, training agricultural extension agents, coordinating food product marketing associations, promoting rural development banks along with small scale food processing industries. Could food production increase if these agencies fail to coordinate their activities?

3) Multiple sector and organizational levels that involve active participation and collaboration by a broad range of actors in different sectors of society to add to the complexity of dealing with large-scale socioeconomic and environmental problems. Bringing together institutions of democratic governance, business, and civil society actors at the local, national and global levels may lead to a better coordination of activities.

The above characteristics of development issues are calling for a different organizational approach to effectively deal with them. Networking all development organizations could be the correct and timely organizational approach leading to progressive search of solutions to complex development issues for the following reasons:

* The current trend toward globalization offers a golden opportunity for all individuals interested in development to join efforts through a network organization to fairly assess the multiple dimensions of development and collectively work toward adequate and relevant policies.

* Active collaboration among organizations engaged in furthering development can take advantage of creative synergies to achieve outcomes that are impossible for anyone to achieve alone.

* The interconnectivity, multi-dimensionality and dynamic nature of development problems make them impossible to solve by simple solutions. Only by joining efforts through a network organization can development strategists devise multiple development solutions.

* Multiple sector and organizational levels involve active participation and collaboration by a broad range of actors in different sectors of society. Networking institutions of democratic governance, business, and civil society actors at the local, national, and global levels, can lead to democratic governance and the progressive eradication of poverty and civil wars, the major development constraints in many developing countries.

The World Bank, for more than half a century, has dealt with developing countries' development issues. Focusing on the region of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the World Bank statistics reveal the following facts:

* 47% of the population in SSA (280 million) lives on less than $1 a day.

* 15 countries (out of 48) enroll less than half of their children in primary school

* 25 countries have adult literacy rates below 40% i.e.. 60% or more adults are illiterate.

* 4% of the relevant group has access to higher education.

* More than 50% of all African women are illiterate.

Source: World Bank Annual Report, 1998.

The above statistics convey a clear message that the global community has not created an environment conductive to enjoyable, long, healthy and creative lives. The 1999 HDR highlights the increasing inequality between the "haves" and the "have-nots." In 1960, the income gap between the fifth of the world's people living in the richest countries and the fifth in the poorest was 30 to 1. In 1997, it increased to 74 to 1. The rich have become richer and the poor have become poorer. The same report (HDR) reveals that the assets of the top three billionaires are more than combined GNP of the 48 least developed countries and their 600 million people. Thirty-three of those countries with their total population of 357 million are in SSA.

Networking all development organizations can enhance stronger global cooperation and action needed to address growing development problem that are beyond the scope of local and national...