Enhancing the effectiveness of governmental and non-governmental partnership in natural resources management

This is a difficult task for large donor agencies and personnel-strapped government extension services. There is increasing interest, therefore, in developing cooperative arrangements with nongovernmental organizations (NGO"s), which have a history of experience at the grassroots level and are thus in a good position to address farmer needs in natural resource management. However, the relationship between NGO"s and donors has been sometimes uneasy. Donors complain that NGO"s often have trouble absorbing the large amounts of money that donors want to program. For their part, the NGO"s resent being excluded from the development planning and project design process and complain that financial reporting requirements are overly burdensome, requiring NGO"s to spend an inordinate amount of time on nondevelopment related activities. This report examines the role of NGO"s as resource stewards and explores the relationship between NGO"s and donors in the environmental field, with particular reference to experiences from the Natural Resources Management Support Project for Africa and from the literature. Practical guidelines for enhancing the effectiveness of donor- collaboration are suggested. Annexes present case studies of Cameroon, Madagascar, and Mali.