NGO's and Political Parties – Adversaries or Complementary Players?

(July 2-15, 2005)
By Lambert A. Ramirez

Lambert A. Ramirez

A participant in a seminar usually keeps a checklist of expectations to fulfill – both professional and personal. During introductory sessions where expectations are laid out, organizers oftentimes get a consistent set of responses from the participants, which includes learning more to advance one’s career; get to meet, know better and share professional experiences with fellows; visit new places of historical renown and savor such experiences. In my two-week stay in three places in Germany, I could say these objectives were satisfied.

I guess one learns from seminars in two ways: either by gaining new knowledge and insights, or by getting a sense of affirmation that what you’re doing back home is on track. I was enriched in both ways.

Affirmation

Participants in this training were a hodge-podge of representatives from the civil society, political parties and government officials. The civil society groups had members from a policy institute, survey outfit and children and women’s rights institution. On the other hand, the political group included incumbent officials, government functionaries and political party workers. Considering this configuration, a spectrum of sentiments toward political party-NGO relationship immediately surfaced in the opening days of the seminar. From one end, a number of participants expressed mutual distrust and reservation. Very few welcomed an out-and-out cooperation, while the majority, as always, tended to take the middle position of occasional, functional collaboration.

But such wide gap in perspective, I believe, stayed only for a few days. As we waded through the cycle of readings, group discussions, presentations, critiquing and synthesis, most participants started embracing the idea of close cooperation. The inherent differences between NGOs and political parties became increasingly blurred as the participants realized the ideal in fusing efforts to attain common goals albeit in parallel approaches.

For my part, I experienced no difficulty in accepting the idea of a close relationship between NGOs and political parties being a part of an institution that independently opted to work with a political party.

Important Insight

In seminars, when one discussion ends up in more disagreements, participants deem it as a low point. But one module in this seminar proved otherwise. In Hanover, the organizers invited a populist-NGO representative to speak about the prospects for NGO-political party cooperation. A lively discussion immediately followed his exposition, but at the end of the discussion, each one was holding on to his/her original views.

Looking beyond the disagreement, one finds out that exposing participants to different viewpoints is very commendable. For the organizers could have easily invited a slate of liberal-oriented resource persons. This demonstrated the firm conviction of liberal institutions such as the IAF that for the advocates of liberal ideology to further advance the liberal theory and practice, they must continue to engage in discourse and be enriched by it.

Modalities of Cooperation

In hindsight though, one thing we missed is a more thorough examination of the possible modalities of cooperation between NGOs and political parties. My impression is there was a tendency among the participants and organizers to treat NGOs as a homogenous whole, notwithstanding the broad differences and expertise inherent in them. It would have been interesting to find out the nature and bounds of cooperation between a political party and an NGO immersed in livelihood-improving work for marginalized sectors, or a policy institute such as NIPS, or a community-based institution fighting for women and children’s rights. Definitely differences will be many as well as the means and approaches to make the relationship tenable and workable.