Towards Happier Societies - Reflections - Capacity Building for Self-Help Promotion (1995-2000)

This paper presents the details of the implementation of the GTZ-NGO Fund Project in Nepal. The project focused on three basic elements of self-help promotion:

• Development from within;
• Inside out capacity building;
• Organizational development at the grassroots' for their socio-economic and institutional empowerment.

The project was operationalized through two support components:

• Institutional support to local NGOs through NGOs that can operate as resource organizations;
• Institutional and financial support to community groups for complementing their self-help initiatives.

The self-help or community groups, local NGOs and the resource organizations formed the partner structure of the project.

Some of the lessons learnt and the challenges that the report presents are:

• Poor people do not organize most of the registered NGOs, and therefore the project needs to be sensitive so as not end up working with 'not so poor' people;
• Willingness on part of international aid agencies, as well as government, to work with certain NGOs can stretch their capacity and sometimes undermine their self-reliance;
• Local NGO partners of NGOFP have formed a network of like-minded NGOs and this provides a very effective forum for mutual capacity building, experience sharing and lobbying;
• Mutual trust plays and important role at different levels and is a mutual motivation process;
• The project has created a critical mass for self-reliance;
• The strong base of the civic organizations created with the facilitation of the project has influenced the local politics positively.