Clues in the Labyrinth

As noted in my previous post, during the coming weeks I will be travelling in the Balkans focusing on civil society development from an organization development perspective. I will be looking at peace and human rights organizations, that have grown from an initiative into a mature and sustainable organization.

The issue has been on my mind for a long time. In recent years there have been several studies over the impact of civil society development initiatives and support programmes. Here are some examples:

• The upcoming publication evaluation of the civil peace service programme carried out for the German federal ministry for economic cooperation (link as soon as published)
• The Hivos Vision Paper on Civil society building
• Thania Paffenholz, Civil Society and Peace building
• Martina Fischer, Civil Society in Conflict Transformation: Ambivalence, Potentials and Challenges
• The evaluation of the EU CARDS programme, carried out in 2006.

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Original uploaded to Flickr
by: michaelknights83

In May I will travel once again in the Balkans to implement a research project related to civil society development from an organization development perspective. I will focus on peace building and human rights organizations.

My main question: what is lost and what is gained, when a peace building initiative makes the transition from a small scale initiative to a larger sustainable organization?

Peace building projects are often related to civil society development. The idea is simple: if you have an idea for change, you organize yourself to get it done. To implement it and to create some impact you need more people. For building bridges in society, it is most effective to work with people that are organized and represent some clear interests: networking is a key component of peace building initiatives.

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Yesterday’s blogosphere storm of criticism on the MSF video hit a soft spot in the humanitarian aid crowd. MSF wanted to change the way they’re showing what they’re doing. Some links to where the discussion took place: Osocio, The Road to the Horizon, Duckrabbit, Aidwatch and Aidthoughts.

MSF was aware of the change in portaying their work and asked for feedback, which they dealt with through engaging in the blogosphere. I myself largely agree with the criticism that MSF has crossed a line towards cheap tearjerking, but I especially like the point made in Aidthoughts that this is not the way we should talk about crisis zones.

Although I am critical towards the video, as far as I am concerned the real criticism should not target MSF alone, but also those who decide to donate to MSF because of cynical videos like these. After all, listeners and senders tune in to each other.

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