Non-governmental organizations in managing decentralization of rural development

This paper examines problems that donors face in planning and managing small-scale, decentralized rural development projects. After providing background on the recent donor shift toward small-scale, rural, decentralized projects, the authors examine features of voluntary organizations that may impede cooperation with local systems and describe some of the organizational forms that can be found at the local level. Various difficulties that are associated with decentralized, local-participation project management are pointed out. For example, decentralization often benefits the existing local elite and not the targeted poor. Also, the priorities of rural communities and those of their governments and of international donors do not always coincide. The authors conclude that rural development technologies cannot simply be transferred. They can only develop within a congenial, people-centered, organizational and cultural context, through development programs that match the scale and interests of existing rural organizations and form genuine partnerships with these organizations.