Local NGOs in national development: The case of East Timor

influence on state policies, they soon became excluded from these opportunities and
became program implementers, at risk of losing their original visions. At the same
time, their relationships with popular organisations were also being challenged, with
critiques of their effectiveness, transparency, and legitimacy, and greater reliance on
the state and outsiders for their funds. In response, NGOs were developing a variety of
sustainability strategies, among them, development consulting through subcontracting
with the state and/or donors, becoming a social enterprise or assisting the poor with
market access, including through credit and financial services, and returning to the
campesino economy. But financing such work was not easy, and the alternative visions
needed an economic base (Bebbington 1997). Similar challenges are likely to be
emerging in East Timor, where the nature of the NGOs’ relationship with the state has
changed and the identities and strategies of NGOs will have to alter.
Research on local NGO policy and advocacy efforts is limited except where the focus
has been on international campaigns and the dynamics of local-international
partnerships in these contexts (Chapman and Fisher 2000, Clark 2003, Collins, Gariyo
and Burdon 2001, Edwards 1993, Gaventa 2001, Keet 2001). The experience of the
Uganda Debt Network, a ‘southern’ partner within the international ‘Jubilee’ debt
campaign network, describes efforts of northern NGOs to build the local campaign’s
capacity and linkages between the local and global campaigns. It shows how capacity
building of the Uganda Debt Network by international NGOs enhanced the
effectiveness of the local campaign but also broadened the perspective of international
NGOs’ work. Thus a process of mutual capacity building occurred (Collins, Gariyo
and Burdon 2001). A related area in which NGOs, as part of civil society, have been
involved in trying to expand their impact has been through influencing development
policy in the preparation of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) as part of the
World Bank’s approach to the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative.
Mercer (2003) however, showed that civil society participation was extremely limited
in developing Tanzania’s PRSP.
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