The snail pushes through a green night, slowly making its way across the grass and earth. Its movement is described as deliberate and purposeful, though it is unknown what exactly drives its progress. Any traces of its passage would be subtle, like a thin broken trail. Its fury or passion, if any, is slow but persistent. The poem reflects on the snail's mysterious and methodical journey through a nightscape.

1. Considering the Snail
The snail pushes through a green
night, for the grass is heavy
with water and meets over
the bright path he makes, where rain
has darkened the earth’s dark. He
moves in a wood of desire,
pale antlers barely stirring
as he hunts. I cannot tell
what power is at work, drenched there
with purpose, knowing nothing.
What is a snail’s fury? All
I think is that if later
I parted the blades above the tunnel and saw the thin
trail of broken white across
litter, I would never have
imagined the slow passion
to that deliberate progress.
Thom Gunn

2. Organizations in Development
MDP 511

3. Session 1 Plan
A. Introductions and welcome
B. Why Organizations in Development – Review of
the session’s readings
C. Brief overview of the course
• Objectives
• Themes and the snail
• Trajectory of the course
D. Organizational landscape
E. Power

4. Introductions and Learning Influences
Organization and country name
One word that describes your summer
internship experience
Think about the people who were an important
part of your learning over the course of your
field internship.….
Can you identify a specific person or group of
people that you learned a lot from or learned
together with?

5. Paying Attention to Language
Substantialist Words Relationist Words
• Money • Patterns
• Technical assistance • Systems
• Catalyst • Processes
• Aid architecture • Waves
• Incentives • Networks
• Targets • Emergent change
• Mechanisms • Uncertainty
• Outcomes • Relativity

6. RELATIONSHIPS
DRENCHED WITH
PURPOSE HUMILITY
ENDURANCE DESIRE
KNOWING SLOW PASSION
NOTHING FURY
LEARNING DELIBERATE
PROGRESS

7. Trajectory of the course
1. Contexts,
Actors, 2. Effective-
10. Wither
Power ness,
organizations
in Accounta-
development bility
3. Poverty,
9. Contested ORGANIZATIONS IN Social
Perspectives change
DEVELOPMENT
4. Forces at
work (global,
8. Learning, local),
leadership, partners
change 5. Facing
7. Strategic up to
Planning complexity
6. Org
theory

8. Objectives
• Types of organizations in development and how they
relate to each other and operate in different social change
contexts.
• Major issues, challenges and trends facing these
organizations as the operating context and the civil
societies they are a part of evolve, and to explore
questions for their future.
• Introduction to organizational theory, applied to
organizations in development and power in organizations.
• Options for the future, which types of organizations might
flourish best, and forms of interaction between them.
• Your questions concerning organizations in development

9. Key Themes
• Power and power relations
• Engagement in complex processes of social
change (what we say and what we do)
• Effectiveness and accountability
• Organizational learning, leadership and
change
• Diversity and differentiation

10. Organizational Landscape
Group Exercise
Group 1: Anna E, Connor, Kristin, James, Larissa, Miriam, Trinity, Nafisa
Group 2: Aliya, Anna T, Esther, Jiabing, Linling, Sarah, Kalie
Assign a timekeeper and a facilitator
Brainstorm organizations that formed part of the development actor
landscape in the context you worked in over the summer. As you
brainstorm, place them at the appropriate level on the diagram,
clustering them into whatever categories seem relevant. Don’t
forget to draw your office and yourself in there (30 minutes)
Try to cluster your organizations if possible into organization/ actor
types. Label your clusters and get them up on flip chart/s (10
minutes)
Talk about some of the relationships between the various actors/
organizations on your diagram
Present your charts with clusters to the larger group for discussion (15
minutes)

11. Organizational Landscape
Your
Office/
Team
Communities
Local Environment
National Environment
International Environment

14. Understanding Power (JASS)
Dynamic, Relational, Multi-dimensional
• Power over – repression, force, coercion,
discrimination, corruption, abuse. Those who control
resources and decisions have power over those who
do not. (Controlling)
But there are other more collaborative ways of
exercising and using power affirming people’s
capacity to act collaboratively and creatively

15. Understanding Power (JASS)
• Power with: Finding common ground among
different interests to build collective strength.
Engenders mutual support, collaboration,
solidarity, recognition and respect for differences
• Power to: Unique potential of every person/
group to shape his or her life in the world – new
skills, knowledge, awareness.
• Power within: Self-worth and self-knowledge; the
capacity to imagine and to have hope

16. Dimensions of Power Over
• Visible power: Observable unrepresentative
decision making
• Hidden power: Controlling who gets to make
decisions. Excludes/ devalues concerns of less
powerful groups. Framing the narrative and
process behind the scenes
• Invisible power: Shapes the psychological and
ideological boundaries of change. Prevent
issues from being put on the table

17. Intersecting Realms – Understanding
layers of experience with power
PUBLIC: Women, men at work and in their
communities
PRIVATE: Relationships/ roles among family,
friends, sexual partners, marriage
INTIMATE: Sense of self-worth, confidence,
relationship to body

18. Preparing for week 2 – Readings
Effectiveness and Accountability
Required:
Edwards, Michael, 2005, ‘Have NGOs “Made a difference”?
From Manchester to Birmingham with an elephant in the
room’, University of Manchester, 27-29 June 2005
Eyben, Rosalind, May 2008, ‘Power, Mutual Accountability
and Responsibility in the Practice of International Aid
Ho, Wenny, 2011. From Reimagining to Repositioning
Accountability, IDS Bulletin, September 2011
Brown, David L. and Mark H. Moore, Accountability,
Strategy and International Nongovernmental
Organizations, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly
2001 30: 569

19. Field Internships in a word
(Class comments on September 4th, 2012)
Short Layered
Confusing
Organized
Two-sided Independent
Office Multi-faceted
Process Delayed
Stifling
Communications
Mismanaged European
Transitory Influence
Stifling Unproductive

21. "I know a planet where there is a certain red-faced gentleman. He has
never smelled a flower. He has never looked at a star. He has never
loved any one. He has never done anything in his life but add up
figures. And all day he says over and over, just like you: 'I am busy
with matters of consequence!' And that makes him swell up with
pride. But he is not a man--he is a mushroom!"
"A what?"
"A mushroom!"
The little prince was now white with rage.
"The flowers have been growing thorns for millions of years. For
millions of years the sheep have been eating them just the same.
And is it not a matter of consequence to try to understand why the
flowers go to so much trouble to grow thorns which are never of any
use to them? Is the warfare between the sheep and the flowers not
important? Is this not of more consequence than a fat red-faced
gentleman's sums? And if I know--I, myself--one flower which is
unique in the world, which grows nowhere but on my planet, but
which one little sheep can destroy in a single bite some morning,
without even noticing what he is doing--Oh! You think that is not
important!"
The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint Exupery

22. Session 2 – Accountability and
Effectiveness
A. Continue our discussion on power (40 mins)
B. Discussion on power, accountability, and back
to substantialist and relationist (40 mins)
C. Break (10 minutes)
D. The Moore Framework – Strategic Triangle..
Move to mutual responsibility (40 mins)
E. Group work and presentations (30 minutes)
F. Journaling – Top three insights – top three
questions

23. Ways to understand Accountability
DFID understands ‘accountability’ as one of the
three requirements of good governance and
briefly defines it as ‘the process by which people
are able to hold government to account’
The World Bank’s Social Development Department
describes it as ‘the obligation of power holders
to account for or take responsibility for their
action’

24. Ways to understand Accountability
Answerability for performance is also how official
aid agencies tend to see it, associating it with
the ‘managing for results’ commitment of the
Paris Declaration. Accountability is about
holding organizations responsible for
performance against pre-established objectives.
Tend toward a focus on PRINCIPAL – AGENT
ACCOUNTABILITY

25. Ways to understand Accountability -
The Paris Declaration
A set of commitments by donor governments, multilateral
agencies, aid recipient governments, to make
international aid more efficient and effective
Recipient government ownership of the policies they are
implementing
Donors aligning policies and resources in relation to these
Donors harmonising procedures and strategies
Mutual focus on time bound and measurable results
Donors and recipients accountable to each other and to
constituents for use of resources and securing results
Assessing progress on commitments through mutual
country level mechanisms

26. The Paris Declaration - Accountability
Horizontal Accountability: Between institutions of the
state
Vertical Accountability: Between citizens/ societal
actors and the state
External Accountability: Between state and
international actors (donors, treaty bodies)
NGO discourse – Upward Accountability (to donors)
and Downward Accountability (to program
participants)

27. Ways to understand Accountability
NGOs are accountable to multiple stakeholders
to whom they owe some accountability. These
stakeholders have different amounts of
effective power. Who is the principal? How to
make this decision?
Moral or
Legal
ethical
Key
Prudential strategic
issues

28. Linking Accountability and Strategy:
Moore’s Strategic Triangle – Creating Public Value
Political, legal, financial
support needed to achieve
goals; Political and social
recognition
Not organizational
capacities – includes NGOs need to accomplish
partnerships, alliances, some public purpose
coalitions
NEED TO SATISFY ALL THREE

29. Working through accountability dilemmas
(Different stakeholders and different
organizational purposes)
How do stakeholders and accountabilities shift for
different kinds of organizations? (Brown and
Moore: Service Delivery INGOs, Capacity
Strengthening INGOs, and Policy and institutional
influencing INGOs)
Who are the different stakeholders in different
corners of the triangle? How do we align
interests?

30. Ways to understand Accountability
(Eyben - Aid is interdependent dynamic relations)
Aid as Mutual Accountability Aid as interdependent and dynamic
SUBSTANTIALIST PLUMBING relations (mutual responsibility)
RELATIONIST PLUMBING
• Holding each other to account for
performance against pre- • Understand relations and the effect
established objectives we have on each other and the wider
system
• Aid as a contract
• Effectiveness of aid a function of
• View of the world as a collection of
relations
entities. Focus on resources ($) and
architecture • Entities as mutable, shaped by their
position in relation to others (patterns
• Involves strengthening mechanisms
of social relations)
to regulate behavior between
autonomous parties • Focus on process and complexity to
understand the messy and
• Power inequities are a constraint to
contradictory quality of aid relations
this
• Acceptance of the political nature of
• Work is technical – avoids political
development

31. Eyben – Six Steps Toward Mutual
Responsibility
• Encouraging diversity of views for tackling
unbounded problems
• Tackling spatial operations of power in donor –
recipient events
• Highlighting notions of solidarity that broaden
the circle of mutual responsibility for making aid
work better
• Mutual monitoring of aid relations
• Mutually assessing process outcomes
• Supporting double-loop adaptive learning

32. Understanding Adaptive Challenges
Technical Challenges Adaptive Challenges
(Bounded Problems, Difficulties) (Messes,
• Solutions are known, and • Gap between aspirations and
often straight-forward reality. Narrowing the gap
involves difficult learning
• Can apply technical knowhow • Learning involves distinguishing
• Problem solvers are usually from what is expendable and
authorities or experts what is essential (involves loss)
• Requires skills and
• Solution is clear competencies outside current
• Does not usually require deep repertoire
thinking of systemic change • Problem solving responsibility
shifts to wider stakeholders
• Need to mobilize people’s
hearts and minds to operate
differently
• Value laden

33. Preparing for session 3 – Readings
Addressing Poverty and Social Change
Required:
• Harriss, John, 2006, ‘Why understanding of social relations
matters more for policy on chronic poverty than measurement’,
CPRC Working Paper 77, Simon Fraser University
• Reeler, Doug, ‘A Theory of Social Change – and implications for
planning, practice, monitoring and evaluation’, CDRA
• Hamilton, K. and Shutt C. (2008) ‘Review of the State of the
Debate on Whether and how INGOs can be Social Change
Agents, unpublished discussion paper
• Kabeer, Naila. 2010. Can the MDGs Provide a Pathway to Social
Justice? The Challenges of Intersecting Inequalities, IDS, Sussex
University and MDG Achievement Fund, UNDP

34. Assignments
Assignment 1: Short analysis of organization you have
worked with recently (preferably summer
internship)
Present an analysis of the organization (or sub-unit in
the organization) drawing on the themes, topics and
tools used in MDP 511. Your voice/ analysis and
questions must come through
No recommended format
Length: 6-8 pages, single spaced but no more
Submission – electronic, by October 1st to my email
(arodericks@yahoo.com)

36. The Elephant in the Room
• NGOs lacked innovation in levering change in systems and
structures
• Little change in power relations (gender, class, race) at scale
• NGOs have not faced up to challenges of internal change
(attitudes, behaviors, values)
• Have not established strong connections with social movements
• Have not come to grips with religion as a powerful force of
change in the world
• Lacked innovation in form and nature of organizational
relationships (downward accountability, local diverse sources of
funds for NGOs, spreading functions appropriately)
• Institutional imperatives of growth and market share still
dominate the development imperatives of individual,
organizational and social transformation