For every large, well-known international organisation working in development, there are hundreds more tiny local ones. They may not have as much brand recognition, but these small NGOs are crucial to the short-term responsiveness and long-term sustainability of development work.
This importance isn't reflected in the way such organisations are funded. Money is already tight: overseas development aid (ODA) fell by 4% in real terms last year, having first fallen by 2% in 2011 - the first reduction in aid for 15 years. But the structure of funding is just as much of a concern, with small frontline NGOs often finding themselves acting as project-based "subcontractors" in development, unable to exercise much control over how they operate.
The Stars Foundation, which supports organisations working at the frontline of children's health, education and protection, sees this as a real challenge in the practice of development. Its annual Impact Awards give unrestricted funding of $100,000 to small organisations proven to be effective in what they do, to give them the chance to work more autonomously. It has also surveyed previous award applicants to find out just how much (or little) financial control they have.
"Out of 650 polled applicants to the 2012 Impact Awards, only 14% declared they had enough unrestricted funding to support strategic decision-making based on local needs rather than donor priorities," says Muna Wehbe, chief executive of the Stars Foundation. "More than half of respondents reported receiving no unrestricted funding in the previous financial year."
There are, in fact, some signs of change at the highest levels of development policymaking that may help empower local organisations. The idea of "ownership" is one of the most significant features of a paradigm shift seen in development policy over the past decade, with developing countries increasingly being recognised as active partners in development.
This shift has been punctuated by several important policy milestones, notably the Paris Declaration of 2005, which spelled out a commitment for developing countries to be responsible for creating and executing their own national development plans.
Further commitments made in Accra in 2008 brought us to Busan, South Korea in 2011, and the Busan Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation, which formally casts developed and developing countries as partners working towards the common goal of development.
That language was echoed in the recent post-2015 development agenda report – entitled "A New Global Partnership" – which stated that developing countries have a "vital role to play in the transformative shifts that are needed". These changes to the architecture of development should see developing countries take a more leading role in their own development, which may also lead to greater empowerment of local organisations.
This is encouraging, but paradigm shifts don't percolate through overnight, and local NGOs are still disempowered at present. That's why the Fund the Front Line campaign is asking the public to donate directly to six highly effective local NGOs, the 2012 winners of the Stars Impact awards. Through this campaign, the Stars Foundation aims to take the lead in showing how important ownership of development is, and how effective it can be in achieving progress.
"It's about equity and transparency, demystifying complicated international development funding mechanisms, and incentivising more direct participation with – and empowerment of – local NGOs," says Wehbe.
"We're treating the campaign as an important experiment, providing the public with both the rationale and the platform to easily and directly support award-winning local NGOs in the developing world. We want to see if there is traction for this kind of head-sell in an environment that almost exclusively exploits the heart-sell. Because it's not just about who you give your money to that matters. It's also about how."
