"The Moshi Dialogue"

North/South NGO meeting surfaces a paradigm of power

50 NGOs from North (Netherlands and Denmark) and South (East Africa) met in Moshi, Tanzania, from 8-12 November to discuss issues related to their partnerships in promoting social development and strengthening institutional capacities in the South. The Moshi Dialogue, as it became popularly known, was planned over a one year period, complete with preparatory meetings of NGOs in both North and South.

The agenda was established around the need to examine current capacity building practices, with an aim to creating sustainable strategic institutions that are developmental and delivering not only financial resources to the South, but also strengthen ownership and confidence to initiate and sustain local activities and projects in ways that are transformational. Specific areas identified for assessment and sharing in the dialogue included 1) meaning of capacity development; 2) building our common identity as civil society organisations; 3) advocacy to influence development values, policies and partnership management instrument.

Dialogue?

The meeting itself turned out to be rather chaotic. It started with an open space process in which people were invited to say whatever they had in mind, or burning questions they had as they came to this meeting. The first contributions generated two high profile reactions between Northern and Southern participants: silence and anger. "Do we need this relationship?" How dare you ask such a question? How come you are so silent? Can you feel our pain? How is pain relevant here? "What is your own pain-can you open up and share it?

The meeting seemed to be extremely successful in demonstrating that there is currently hardly any dialogue in Northern and Southern "partnerships". At the same time, if the get-together could provide such a stark lesson and possibly redemption by piercing to the heart of things, it seems a good assessment that the meeting-if not "dialogue" itself, was a great success.

Real learning

Moments of truth came at specific moments when we went into processes that were not even in the plan-as evidenced by the initial, unplanned open space. Southern NGOs had expressed the need to be better informed about what is happening in the northern context-all the instruments of partnership normally gather information about the South, without sharing what is going on in the North. Fortunately, Northern NGO participants had sufficiently prepared themselves to address this concern. They conducted a role play that clearly demonstrated the challenges they face in their own context as they struggle to sustain partnerships with Southern NGOs.

It was a splendid role-play. This man on a chair called Richard was tied to not less than 10 strings that were constantly pulled by different forces at the end of each. The forces represented various government departments, ministers, UN agencies, World Bank, European Union, etc. Richard furiously struggled to respond to all the demands. After the role play, a number of Southern NGO people responded with expressions of genuine sadness at the sight of Richard:

• "Richard is about to die", said one, "the strings are going straight to his heart, and by the look of things, not to inspire, but to kill it";
• "I am really sorry", said another, with added emphasis, "it is no laughing matter...I am really saddened by the scenario." She continued, "I sincerely want to thank our Northern colleagues for a wonderful role-play.... but...where is your civil society agenda?"

The face of power was clear in that role-play-power exercised disproportionately by the back donors to Northern NGOs. The overriding power paradigm is clearly in place by the time the Northern NGO receives its funding.

A number of metaphors emerged in our moments of confusion, particularly around money and relationships. A particularly responsible looking gentleman said, with a hint of frustration: "I don't care what you think, but I know that money is to be managed. Relationships are nurtured." Another noted in a group discussion: "we seem to have a pathological relationship with money, which is blocking our ability to effectively manage areas specifically related to human and social development."

Taking it forward

EASUN and PSO have done their best to initiate a dialogue process between Southern and Northern NGOs under the current realities of deeply entrenched top-down power manifestations in the relationships. That is an effort that we need to be proud of. At the end of the meeting in Moshi, another, relatively more structured open space activity (world cafe) was able to generate the will of various participating organisations and individuals to plan and share how they were going to take the dialogue agenda forward through their own work.

Many from the South showed concrete action plans for strengthening their South/South institutional development platforms as a way of building up a North/South transformational civil society agenda for shifting ways in which power is held. What stood out from the North at that point was a commitment to strengthen online communication platforms for sustained information sharing and to involve more people in the dialogue. At the same time, EASUN and PSO committed themselves to do more clarification of their assumptions, conceptual frameworks and expectations as the basis for effective collaborative work in the future.

For more information, contact: nyantito.machota@easun-tz.org and Verhagen@pso.nl
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NGO network discovers its identity behind programme objectives and targets

From October 26-29 in Morogoro, Tanzania, EASUN facilitated a strategic planning process for a gender and sustainable energy network in Tanzania, whose purpose is to engender energy services in Tanzania, through knowledge, skills and experience sharing in productive small and micro enterprises. The workshop took place in Morogoro, Tanzania and was attended by 21 member institutions and individuals (12 women and 9 men).

In addition to helping the network position itself consciously in its environment and develop objectives and targets related to activity implementation, EASUN facilitators worked with processes that enabled the network to clarify, establish and commit to its identity around its core purpose of energy and gender. This included:

• Clarifying its identity as an organisation type i.e. a network, and what are the specific questions related to sustainable organisational development of NGO networks.
• Clarifying its identity as a CSO and therefore put its own energy and gender purpose in the context of its Civil Society agenda.
• Generating the will, in the strategy making process, to be courageous and open to ideas, objectives and targets that truly embrace the agenda of empowering communities around the use of energy in ways that protect the environment.

Identity is at the core of any organisation's strategic process. With that understanding, EASUN considers strategic thinking and planning as an intervention for institutional development.

For more information on the network and its activities, contact: energy@tatedo.org (ATTN: Gisela)

For strategic planning support from EASUN, contact: mosi.kisare@easun-tz.org
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Board takes responsibility for managing leadership transition

A two day board training workshop brought together the management of a street child NGO and its Board to a shared understanding about responsibilities in managing leadership transition on the eve of departure by its founder Executive Director. The workshop, organized by the NGO itself, based in Moshi, Tanzania, was conducted by EASUN from 14-15 November 2009.

The training provided an opportunity for the Board to review its roles and leadership questions generally, but particularly noting the urgency of managing organisational stability, in view of expected departure of the current ED in a year's time. A transition committee was put in place to manage various transition process identified. In addition to next steps identified, the training was particularly valued for enabling the Board and staff to clarify their relationships around shared responsibility in what was perceived to be a common platform of leadership.

EASUN has organized workshops on Transition Challenges for pioneer leaders since 2005 and conducted training for NGO Boards since 2007. For more information on board training, contact: atieno.olwal@easun-tz.org
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EASUN Centre for Organisational Learning
P.O. Box 6120 Arusha, Tanzania
Tel: +255-(0)27-2548803
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