Chapter One
The Rise of NGOs
The Goals of Local NGO Development
The Forced Migration Projects believe that NGOs can play a more active role in the development and observance of humanitarian law in the countries of the fSU-addressing issues of citizenship, refugees and migration. The reasons are many. Local NGOs, even in their formative stages, are in a unique position to perform very useful functions in both the short and long term.
For the immediate future, as international resources dwindle, small-scale local NGOs can be highly efficient at providing some services that the economically strapped states cannot-or simply do not-provide.
In the matter of forced migration and refugees, these services must address the pressing needs of hundreds of thousands who have already fled their homes during the last nine years and furnish creative support to help those who want to stay where they are. Examples of such local NGO initiatives are the "self-help" migrant enterprises which have appeared among the returning Russians and citizen-based conflict prevention programs that have emerged in ethnically tense regions.
Local NGOs also have a potential role to play in providing independent information and encouraging critical thinking among the general population, whose main access to information is often state-run television. Again, in matters of refugees and forced migration, lively NGO publications and creative media programs could raise awareness of the laws that exist in their country as well as the rights of citizens and others. Through the media and the burgeoning electronic mail networks, NGOs could aim to dispel dangerous rumors and propaganda which can spiral with frightening speed into conflicts and dislocation.
In addition to becoming new sources of information, local NGOs in fields encompassing human rights and forced migration should strive to participate in policy making and planning, areas that were previously the exclusive domain of the government. In those republics where large numbers of the population are contemplating emigration, local NGOs can work with the authorities to forge programs aimed at inducing people to remain. In regions where immigrants have already arrived, local NGOs can often be more effective than the state in easing resettlement and adaptation to new surroundings.
In the long term, a maturing NGO sector can urge the government to be more accountable to its people, and eventually strengthen the rule of law and civil society. Only through such a process, which likely will be lengthy, will concepts such as human rights, freedom of expression, and tolerance of diversity come to be put into practice. Putting them into practice will, in turn, mark an important step in the prevention of forced migration.
With relation to foreign donors, independent local groups are often excellent guides to many close-up issues pertaining to migrants and refugees, and can be of great assistance to outsiders whose exposure to the former Soviet republics has been limited until only recently. Their insight into the local social, economic, and political reality can help identify and address the preconditions to conflict or environmental disaster, which can lead to population displacements.
Antecedents to the NGO Sector
As former Soviet citizens will repeat like a mantra: the Soviet state ran everything, including the social safety net. But to newcomers that fact can be hard to visualize. This is particularly so for veterans of international aid programs accustomed to working in settings where some form of community-based voluntarism functions-be it in constructive counterpoint with a democratic state or in open opposition to a repressive regime. The significance of this "missing sector" cannot be overstated. Nor can the legacy of the centralized Soviet state, party, and security apparatus be discounted, with its baffling maze of overlapping, competing, and contradictory jurisdictions at the federal, regional, and local levels, throughout the former USSR.
Period One: Forced Volunteerism
Until the end of the 1970s, community participation for Soviet citizens was obligatory. Everyone "volunteered" to clean up their neighborhood on Saturdays in the state-organized Subbotnik rituals; everyone "voted" in general elections; and everyone joined the Young Pioneers in grammar school and graduated to the Communist Youth League in secondary school. Dependence on the Communist party and Soviet government was simply inescapable, and some now say they performed these required functions with only half-hearted enthusiasm and cynical distrust of the state.
Those who were sincere about their participation-and there were many indeed-were still taking part in a structure that was organized from the top down. Loyalty to state and party certainly inspired many of them, but it is a mistake to think of this impulse as stemming from the same roots as the Western notions of citizens' rights and duties. These concepts of citizenships took shape in societies which were defining themselves in part by their independence from the state apparatus. In the USSR, by contrast, the development of individual initiative was not a goal of state and party-sponsored organizations.
Nevertheless, there were, albeit under some "all-Soviet" umbrella, shades of local initiative in the form of local stamp collectors' clubs, pet enthusiasts, and even groups who slipped away to the forest during summer weekends to hold folk-music fests. But a more consequential development for the future NGO sector proved to be the early association for environmental conservation, founded in 1960 by university graduate students concerned about protecting Eurasia's abundant natural resources. Known as the Druzhina movement, these conservationists planted the seeds of the future environmental movement which flourished in the late 1980s as nuclear and chemical disasters struck cities, remote villages, and towns.
Period Two: Glasnost Spawns the Neformaly
The mid-1980s heralded another phase of the Soviet regime, which began with the social and political "openness" inaugurated by Mikhail Gorbachev and continued until the decisive year of 1991. Members of local NGOs recall the close of that decade as a time when the state began to feel its weakness and permitted small community groups, albeit with suspicion, to supplement diminishing social and health services. A flurry of groups appeared, called at the time neformaly, ranging from political discussion clubs and environmental activists to associations of Afghan war veterans.
Many of the groups were extremely informal, as the title suggests, operating out of the members' small apartments, and adamantly striving to be independent of the state. In contrast, others were not so independent and had considerable budgets and spacious offices allotted by officialdom. In time, these came to be dubbed "GONGOs": government-organized non-governmental organizations.
GONGOs came into existence in a variety of ways. Some were formed by the state in an attempt to co-opt the more independent-minded elements in society. Others were formed as parallels to the more independent groups, to compete with them for invitations to international conferences in the relevant field.
Still other GONGOs evolved from the myriad extra-curricular organizations sponsored by the state and party, such as the Komsomol, which recognized and seized the emerging opportunities for contact with foreign delegations and potential for funding and travel. Their staffs were often quite polished, highly competent in Western languages (atypical for the average Soviet citizen), and had impressive ties to people in the powerful state and local ministries. Consequently, they were often the Soviet citizens most accessible to visitors to the USSR during the days of glasnost.
Period Three: Entering the Post-Soviet Age
Toward the end of 1991, with the approaching demise of the Soviet Union, NGOs took off in a sprint, especially anticipating the massive Western aid promised to ease the transition to a market economy. As local NGO officials describe it, the early 1990s ushered in a more cooperative relationship with the state, which was weaker than ever, acknowledging the need for charities to help fill big gaps in services. During the chaotic period from mid-1991 through the first year of President Boris Yeltsin's rule, the state even provided office space in public buildings to selected NGOs.
Some of the local non-governmental groups which sprang up like crocuses during 1992-93 gradually came to approach the Western notion of voluntary organizations, and a few began working with members of the Russian parliament to draft new legislation on the status of charities and non-profit organizations.
Strangers Meet
During this period, Western donors seeking to work with the new NGO sector discovered sharp cultural and legal distinctions between the Western voluntary sector and the muddle of post-Soviet organizations. Against the backdrop of the "new Russia," where nearly every prominent political figure was regularly cited in the local press as profiting from state-owned real estate and foreign joint-ventures, no one had ever set standards for drawing a clear line between public and private, commercial and charitable interests. (Some difficulties which arose from this disjuncture in perception are discussed in Chapter Two.)
Since 1992, the loosening of state control over matters of public life has reduced some of the prevalence of the "GONGO" phenomenon (at least in Russia), but as a former human rights monitor recently remarked on returning to Moscow, a new phenomenon is the "Potemkin NGO," i.e. those which are merely facades. A Potemkin NGO's staff may also appear extremely professional, proficient in several foreign languages, and impressively connected to key officials in the administration.
Without exception, the warning from dozens of experts in the field is: Know with whom you are dealing! It is worth taking the time to establish this clearly, even if it takes months to meet with the local group being considered, and to consult with experienced local and international people.
One should not presume, however, that every group with a polished staff is a Potemkin NGO. The majority of the more active local NGOs are true NGOs in spirit, even if many lack the administrative and fundraising characteristics common in the West. But a hybrid sort of NGO has evolved as well, generally regarded as a medium-term phenomenon, which combines small-scale entrepreneurship with more traditional non-profit service activities. If once subsidized by the Soviet state, or able to support their community activities on the state salaries they collected, many local NGOs now find themselves adrift and feel compelled to introduce a profit-making element to raise money for their programs.
To complicate matters, perhaps in reaction to a past of totalitarian control, many ordinary people tend to apply the label "non-governmental" to any activity that is not organized by the state, including local small enterprises. In Tajikistan, a foreign aid official described some groups as being "more like small business clubs, trying to clean up the shambles of the war and get some sectors of the economy running-not 'do gooders' or humanitarians per se." The result is that, for the time being, local and international NGO officials seem to have settled for the fuzzy line between pure voluntarism and entrepreneurism. But again, they are quick to warn prospective donors to get to know their potential partners carefully.
The Future
The preceding has been a brief summary of the telescoped evolution of NGOs in a society that had no real precedents for public charity and voluntarism. As described in Chapter Three, this process is rolling like a tremor across the continent, with the bulge still mainly located around Moscow, and barely a ripple felt in the farther reaches of Russia or the former republics. There is great turnover every few years and, in the Darwinian competition for dwindling foreign funds, some organizations will thrive, others will merge with like-minded groups, and others will fold.
It is crucial to bear in mind that in a population of nearly 300 million, the notion of voluntary participation is still a foreign idea. Those who expect a huge surge of participation in grassroots organizations will be disappointed. But the activity has been impressive, nonetheless, and some building blocks to more diverse and open societies are in place.
