From Mau Mau to the Third Sector

Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), increasingly known as the ‘third sector’, are a seemingly established force. Yet in the field of international development and international relations, they are a relatively new phenomenon.

Their growing influence has overturned the established statist order by bridging the fissures between states and citizens. Where the state fails to protect the needy from the evils of poverty, disease and famine, the third sector acts to close the breach.

While NGOs are increasingly asserting a newfound influence on developmental economics, they have also provided private individual actors and organisations with the potential to fundamentally transform the global arena. Nowhere is this more evident than in the transformation of Kenya’s third sector.

Independence Chimes, the Kenyan Third Sector Flourishes

The 1952 Mau Mau uprising in Kenya against the British colonial forces gave birth to the ‘third sector’ – that recognisable section of society comprised of volunteers and charity-workers who, through their altruism, provide important services to citizens, business and government alike. The birth of NGOs in Kenya began in a very unfamiliar and unconventional manner.
In the wake of the Mau Mau uprisings, the Christian Council of Kenya (CCK) – a pre-eminent religious NGO – was recruited by the colonial government to run ‘rehabilitation programs’.  In reality, this was a façade designed to intern suspected rebel guerrillas. This NGO, and others like it, formed an apparatus through which the colonial government maintained its power. Conversely, organisations were formed which allowed the Kikuyus people to air their anti-colonial demands, such as the establishment of the Kikuyu Central Association in 1924. By 1952, these organisations posed such a threat that the colonial government banned them entirely.

Historically, Kenya’s third sector has struggled between those organisations looking for reform, and those created to perpetuate colonisation. The third sector aroused both suspicion and praise. While it provided for the needs of many, it also served to perpetuate a quickly disappearing colonial regime. With independence and the rise of Jomo Kenyatta, however, the third sector took on a new face, moulded around the development discourse pressed by the Washington technocrats. To survive, NGOs found themselves in partnership with the new Kenyan government, offering their services and, in some areas, taking up the traditional role of the state.

From 1977 to 1987, the number of NGOs in Kenya proliferated by over 200 per cent. By 1990, the NGO Co-ordination Act was passed, which codified a more effective framework for the Kenyan third sector. There are now 4000 NGOs registered in Kenya, one in 10 of which is international. They employ over 50,000 individuals and account for 3 per cent of GDP.  In partnership with government, Kenya’s NGOs have built the largest third sector in the world.

The immense size of the third sector in Kenya means that it is, in a sense, a form of government. The employees of third and public sectors are economically and culturally intertwined through overlapping employee pools, training and education. These linkages ensure a common sense of purpose and strategic interweaving of government and NGOs. International donors often do not approach government directly, preferring to channel their funds through the third sector to ensure their desired societal outcomes. For example, USAID often favours Mission hospitals over government hospitals to deliver health aid. The preference for third sector organisations has re-framed the social contract in Kenya, meaning that citizens no longer look solely to government for the services they desperately need.

The Third Sector as a Global Trend: an Adversary or Ally of Governments?

Kenya is just one example of the profound impact that the third sector is having globally. Across the world, the sector has become engaged in transforming individual lives at the local level through micro-finance in countries like Bangladesh. Meanwhile, macro-level advocacy has driven the large push toward eradicating malaria and the ‘Highways in Africa’ project.

Within the global arena, this has left developing states with a conundrum: have they found a new ally in the fight against poverty, or are the functions of government being eroded by powerful private foreign organisations? The answer lies somewhere in-between. For all of their power, NGOs still rely on the state more than ever both for security, and to give authority to their programs locally. Likewise, the developing states require NGOs to give them the credibility they need internationally.

It is important to acknowledge that NGOs are principally private organisations answerable to Western donors, and that their development programs lend them enormous influence without the pressure of democratic accountability. The stability of the third sector is also questionable, with the Global Financial Crisis threatening many of their donor bases. Nevertheless in Kenya, NGOs – in partnership with government – have transformed agriculture, primary education and hospitals across the country. Where crops once failed from poor agriculture practices and business failed from a lack of credit (rather than a lack of hard work or ingenuity), Kenya’s NGO-supported reforms have seen an amazing turnaround in these areas.

States like Kenya that have properly harnessed the power of NGOs have seen amazing results. NGOs bring with them a wealth of skills, financial backing and credibility which, in partnership with good local government, give individuals in both the developing and developed world the potential to transform the global arena.