ARRO #1: Localisation and transformation within the civil society sector in Asia
The GEOFORMATIONS team recently launched the Action Research Roundtable (ARRO) series, a platform for collaborative dialogue on key themes and questions within the realm of development practice. The first session in the series, held in December 2024, explored the theme of localisation and the transformation of civil society relations and capacities from within and beyond organisations. The event brought together a diverse group of participants, including practitioners from development NGOs and CSOs in Ireland and internationally, donor institution representatives, and academic experts. The event had two key aims:
- To share and discuss insights from civil society leaders on their experiences of operationalising locally led civil society action in Asia, particularly through demand-led capacity development initiatives and innovative participatory evaluation methodologies.
- To facilitate a structured roundtable discussion on key questions relating to organisational transformation and related governance processes.
Principal Investigator, Dr Susan Murphy, opened the event with an overview of the GEOFORMATIONS project’s positioning, investigative scope, and sectoral relevance. Raising vital questions surrounding justice models and the adaptation of development cooperation to socio-political crises, Dr Murphy highlighted the significance of global shifts in practice post-2008 whilst simultaneously emphasising the importance of tracing ongoing contemporary transformations across sites and scales.
Following the introduction, guest speakers Dr Kaustuv Bandyopadhyay (Participatory Research in Asia – PRIA) and Dr Aruna Rao (Oxfam International and Gender at Work) each shared their experiences of and reflections on operationalising locally led civil society action in Asia through multi-scale initiatives and innovative participatory evaluation methodologies.
Dr Kaustuv Bandyopadhyay on building capacities and addressing challenges in localising civil society action
Dr Bandyopadhyay’s presentation, entitled ‘Accelerating Capacities and Expanding Civic Space through Organizational Development’, discussed PRIA’s work across India, acknowledging the transformative phase the country is currently undergoing and emphasising the challenges faced by the civil society sector.
Introducing PRIA, Dr Bandyopadhyay provided an overview of the contemporary civil society landscape in South Asia, highlighting its diversity in terms of organisational origins, motivations, and reach. Stemming from such diversity, the audience heard how CSOs in the region take on multifaceted roles, including delivering essential services such as health and education, facilitating governance and decision-making, advocating for transparency, policy reform, and accountability, and promoting participation from marginalised groups.
The sector is also experiencing significant shifts, including regulatory pressures due to the introduction of stringent and often undemocratic legal frameworks, funding challenges due to declining resources and growth-oriented, market-driven approaches, and the proliferation of private philanthropy with limited capacity for transformative work. Additionally, Dr Bandyopadhyay noted that in India, shifting demographics have led to declining interest among young workers, while the influx of experienced professionals from the private sector has reinforced a narrow focus on organisational scale and impact.
Offering a practical example, Dr Bandyopadhyay concluded by outlining his experience spearheading PRIA’s Capstone Programme, which aims to build organisational capacity for social transformation and empowerment across the sector. With 67 participating organisations working across 16 Indian states, the program is focused on small, new, and resource-constrained CSOs, including many led by women and/or with a strong youth-focus.
Key takeaways
- Challenge: Market-driven service delivery constrains transformation within the sector and disincentivises local, grassroots involvement.
- Need: A greater emphasis on multisectoral partnerships and alternative approaches to development across the CSO space
- Concern: There is an over-reliance on single metrics – such as organisational size – when measuring impact.
- Question: (How) Can grassroots organisations actively and sufficiently participate in development processes in resource-constrained contexts?
Dr Aruna Roy on contextualising, questioning, and evaluating organisational transformation
Dr Aruna Rao delivered the second presentation of the afternoon, ‘Organizational Transformation : Key Questions for the Sector,’ opening with a succinct and timely reminder that understanding the political landscape in which organisations operate is crucial when assessing transformation, as neither decision-making nor organisational functions occur in a vacuum. The discussion also emphasised the significant and ongoing decline in resources available for gender work since the mid-2000s.
Dr Rao introduced Gender at Work’s framework for evaluation, which assesses both individual-to-systemic structures and informal-to-formal norms, ensuring a more holistic assessment of organisational change.
Walking audience members through a detailed example of a recent assessment, Dr Rao emphasised the need to understand and question how impact is looked at within organisations and the broader development sphere, providing useful prompts and questions to pose when considering organisational transformation. The presentation concluded with a powerful call to action regarding the mounting challenges and a note on the importance of building networks of alliance and solidarity within and across organisations.
Key takeaways
- Challenge: Organisational transformation requires reshaping social norms alongside and beyond policies, as well as reshaping both rules and the cultural fabric within CSOs.
- Need: Systemic organisational issues must be addressed through a feminist lens.
- Concern: Entrenched power dynamics and “deep structures”, such as social norms, continue to shape power dynamics within organisations.
- Question: How can funding trends be tracked more effectively to uncover the power dynamics influencing organisational change?
Audience Discussion
Guest presentations were followed by a brief audience discussion, allowing representatives from various organisations within the donor and NGO/CSO space to respond to some of the questions, prompts and issues highlighted by each of the speakers. The discussion is summarised below:
- Several audience members expressed frustration around how much time and energy are spent on defining terms.
- There was some audience disagreement with what some participants perceived as a generalisation regarding a lack of organisational accountability to beneficiaries, highlighting the existence of effective complaint mechanisms in-house and noting significant progress regarding the developing of complaint mechanisms.
- Some audience members took issue with what they perceived as a generalisation regarding the colonial roots of contemporary development practice, emphasising the Irish case as a nuanced context from and within which NGOs operate. Other respondents noted that – in a broader sense – organisations often operate within an arguably (neo)colonial system. This was followed by a brief discussion around the use of the term ‘decolonisation’ and its differentiated interpretation.
- Several audience members emphasised the relevance of questioning how to work beyond cycles of governance.
- Many audience members concurred on the necessity of facilitating these kinds of conversations, which pose and address difficult questions relevant to both individuals and organisations. Many audience members stated their willingness to explore such themes further in a collaborative manner.
Looking Ahead
ARRO #1 sparked rich and insightful dialogue on localisation, organisational transformation, and the politics of contemporary development practice. The discussion highlighted the importance and complexity of these topics and reinforced the critical value of practitioner engagement. Building on this momentum, the GEOFORMATIONS team is currently planning the next session to deepen discussions on the key themes and questions raised.
