DEVELOPMENT AID:

IN AID OF POWER?
GENELA CABURAL-BUHIA

0
May 2004
Contents

Introduction

I. Historical Roots of Aid 2

Legacy of Capitalism and Colonialism 2

The Aid Industry 4

Declining Foreign Aid 5

II. Power: Implication of Aid 7

Intentionality and Non-Subjectivity 8

Practices and Rituals of Power 9

Expansion of Power: The Promise of Normalization 12

III. Saving Power 13

References

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 DEVELOPMENT AID: IN AID OF POWER?
Genela Cabural-Buhia

Our maudlin attitude towards development has long been gone. A post-modern
wave of thoughts is forming. The notion of development has been under attack and
development intervention has been widely criticized. Within some intellectual circles,
the concept of development has been declared dead (Gardner and Lewis 1996). The
death of development may well be illuminated by the fact that across the globe,
marginalization of the poor, gender and class disparities, structural oppression and
aggression persist amidst the outpourings of development aid. The promise of
development aid – economic growth, scientific and technological advancement, social
upliftment – had failed to account for the prevalence of widespread poverty, of the grim
fact that 1.2 billion people over the world lived below $1 a day and that 70% of this
population were women (UNDP Human Development Report 2001).

The only apparent truth is that development continues to be debatable. There are
strings of factors to say why development has failed us and why development became a
subject to a discourse. Deconstructing development revealed the different perspectives
held among actors and observers. Crewe and Harrison (1996) stressed that
development is understood in two very different ways, and these meanings are change
interchangeably. On the one hand, development intervention involves a set of
institutions, policies and practices with an identifiable history – characterizing
development as an industry. The activities of organizations like the World Bank, United
Nations, bilateral donors, and NGOs are described as “development”. On the other
hand, development is clearly also an ideal, an objective towards which institutions and
individuals claim to strive. This aim is seen as inherently good, implying a positive
change, but its content is not necessarily specified.

We may arrive at answers to our questions on why development loses its steam
among those who once believed in the utopia by drawing boundaries of these different
perspectives. Our answer would probably lie on distinctively pointing out the difference
of these perspectives. Maybe, we have been overly engrossed on the aid industry and
actors. Maybe excessive attention and expectations has been placed on the ideals of
development. In practice, however, and seeing through the lens of a field worker’s
experience, it is glaring enough to see that these perspectives overlapped and are
inextricable. The conception of development as an idea and essentially a “good thing”
becomes subsumed beneath the presupposition that it is synonymous with the
development industry, and that this industry is the single most significant powerful
entity to be deconstructed (Crewe and Harrison 1996).

It is not the intention of this paper to scrutinize development per se or examine

why development works and why it does not work for some. Advocating largely the work

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of Michael Foucault on Power and Truth (Dreyfus and Rabinow 1992), this paper will
contribute to the already growing deconstruction on the aspect of development aid and
its hidden or incidental tool which is power. Most of the succeeding discussion will
provide more like ethnographic description of the development aid process and locate
these in the arguments of authors.

I. HISTORICAL ROOTS OF AID

Legacy of Capitalism and Colonialism

In its totality, development is not such a problematic concept. In fact, it has positive
implications to all those who are involved in it. Development almost translates to
positive change and progress. In the Oxford Dictionary, as a verb, development refers to
activities required to bring these changes about, while as an adjective it is inherently
judgmental, for it involves a standard against which things are compared. When the
term was first officially used by President Truman, in 1949, vast areas of the world were
therefore suddenly labeled “underdeveloped” (Esteva 1993). A new problem was
created, and with it the solutions; all of which depended upon the rational-scientific
knowledge of the so-called developed powers (Hobart in Gardner and Lewis 1996)

Even beyond 1949, the notion of development was shaped with the age of competitive
capitalism between 1700-1860 characterized by economic and political changes. With
the emergence of the period of “Enlightenment”, the emphasis on rational knowledge
brought polarities between primitive and civilized, backward and advanced. This
dichotomy translates to contemporary notions of undeveloped and developed.

Gardner and Lewis (1996) recount that closely associated with the history of capitalism
is of course that of colonialism. Particularly over later colonial periods (1850 – 1950),
notions of progress and enlightenment were key to colonial discourses, where the
natives were constructed as backward and the colonisers as rational agents of progress.
Notions of development are clearly linked to the history of capitalism, colonialism and
the emergence of particular European epistimologies from the eighteenth century
onwards.

The post-Second World War period clothed development with the meaning of economic
growth and modernity, with economic figures and measurements. With the advent of the
debt crisis in the 1980s and the structural adjustment programs, economic reform and
growth are very much at the top of the 1990s agenda for organizations such as the World
Bank.

Economic growth, at this point, also has its share of setbacks- it does not guarantee and
lead to human development and better standard of living. Economic growth thus by

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definition means that some parts of the world, and some social groups, are actively
underdeveloped (Gardner and Lewis 1996).

Arturo Escobar argues that as a set of ideas and practices, development has historically
functioned over the twentieth century as a mechanism for the colonial and neo-colonial
domination of the South by the North. Aid from the North to the South was without
doubt a continuation of colonial relations (Gardner and Lewis 1996).

The Aid Industry

The preceding sections would strike us with the idea that development aid is a form of
neo-imperialism and simply could be exploitative. Before any generalizations could be
reached, let us turn to development aid.

According to Gardner and Lewis, “the concept of aid transfers being made for the sake
of development first appeared in 1930s, but the real start of the main processes of aid
transfer was taken to be the end of the Second world War, when the major multilateral
agencies were established.” The IMF, WB and FAO of the United Nations were then set
up. Wealthier nations were able to establish various bilateral agencies, among them are
the USAID in 1961 and the British ODA in 1964.

In the Philippine context, development aid plays a pivotal role to the country’s social and
economic development. Within a rather different or positive perspective, the history of
development aid in the Philippines could be aptly described by Alan Alegre, in his article,
The Rise of the Philippine NGOs as Social Movement.

The inflow of foreign funds for development work in the country was in its
peak during the Marcos dictatorship, the time when various levels of unrest
rose as increasing number of Filipinos were mired in poverty and human rights
abuses were widespread across the country. Cleverly publicized in the
international press, the systematic international propaganda work that was
carried out by the political opposition founds its way in the rising of
international solidarity and support and the development work funds was one
of these. Church-based funding organizations, progressive political parties
and foundations, trade unions and small voluntary organizations from the
North all saw the Philippines as deserving of foreign funding. Many Northern
NGOs and funding agencies set up Philippine desks or made the country their
Asian base of operations due to the sheer volume of project being supported
here. It was during this time that the yearly pilgrimage of Filipino NGO leaders
to the North- for solidarity and fund-raising work – became institutionalized.

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 After the People Power revolution in 1986 which ousted the Marcos regime,
the momentum of political and social activism among the middle and lower
classes translated itself into the emergence of a new wave of civil society
organizations, in particular, NGOs and people’s organizations. The perceived
expertise of Philippine NGOs in development work was a key factor that led to
the notable increase of funding support, which further stimulated the
mushrooming of NGOs, especially the period after1986. The credibility of the
civil society organizations rose dramatically in the eyes of donor
communities, and new donor conditionalities for aid required increased
participation of Philippine NGOs in official development assistance
programming and funds utilization. From influencing public policy and
implementing social programs, Philippine NGOs have created significant
impact in various areas of the political and socio-economic spheres. Aside
from successfully forging inter-sectoral partnerships, Philippine NGOs have
also been recognized in their networking activities at the local, national and
international level, which was instrumental in further broadening the options
for development funding.

Declining Foreign Aid

Fernando Aldaba provides the following account in his work “The Future of Philippine
NGOs: No Escape from the Market.”

The significance of development funding for Philippine NGOs cannot be

underestimated, for the history of the movement shows the extent of how
these funds have catalyzed the formation, consolidation, and expansion of
NGO programs and projects. Indeed, after the EDSA revolt captured the
imagination of international Philippine watchers and advocates of democracy
everywhere, great amounts of development funds flowed into the country.

This free flow of funds has not been the case, though, for the past several
years. Without the starkly evil image of the Marcos dictatorship, the
Philippines has slowly retreated as a favored nation for development aid, as
compared to the 1980s. Instead, other areas have attracted these funds from
the North: Indochina and Africa. Other contributing factors to the decline in
aid include the various internal crises and urgent issues that these donor
countries faced during the past several years, such as domestic economic
recession, the rise in internal conflicts in the North, and the creation of the
European Union in 1992, among others.

In a separate study made by Gonzales, there has been significant reduction

of ODA levels since 1992. For the Philippines, total ODA commitments
dropped from US$2.7 billion in 1990 to US$1.4 billion in 1996 (NEDA). In the

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list of the five top bilateral donors of NGOs, the large reductions of ODA
grants, were mainly due to cutbacks by the US and Canada. Among major
reasons why ODA contributions per country have declined include:

• The perception in the developing world that “Asia no longer needs

foreign aid”
• The thrust to promote trade rather than aid in an era of increasing
liberalization
• The frustration of donors with recipient countries that continue to be
underdeveloped because of self-inflicted reasons like poor policies
and thereby wasting aid money

Bennet and Gibbs (1996) attribute the decline in the amount of sponsorships
northern NGOs received from the general public to “compassion fatigue” and
the “desensitization” of a northern public accustomed to ever increasing
news reports of disasters and political problems across the globe.

The decline in both ODA and public giving have very important implications on
the part of the Philippine NGOs, to wit:

• Donors have become more demanding with regard to concrete project and
program output; quantitative indicators and success measurements are
becoming important; NGOs find this difficult given their “process” rather
than output orientation
• Donor now also ask for more effective administrative and financial
systems but sometimes NGOs become bureaucratic and thus, lose their
comparative advantage of flexibility
• Donors have become more selective in searching for partners; NGOs need
to do more networking and be able to package and rationalize proposals
better.
• Donors now have preference for relatively few but higher impact projects
in lieu of many small community based projects; fewer NGOs are able to
tap these types of donor funding and there is an increase in competition
among NGOs.

Some funding agencies that traditionally supported national-level projects

are moving away from this toward more regionally managed ones. This
has emerged due to the localization thrusts of NGO efforts as engendered
in by the LGC and the preference of funders fo greater ground-level impact
and easier monitoring of programs and projects.

Some larger funding agencies are showing an increasing preference for

concentrating funding on fewer medium to large stable partner-NGOs who

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 possess better track records and who are perceived to be more capable of
achieving ground-level impact. This is why more funds are being
earmarked for more network or consortium-led projects. Funding
agencies prefer to see some upscaling of the more successful NGO
initiatives for tangible results that will cover broader numbers of
communities and groups.

II. POWER: IMPLICATION OF AID

The preceding discussion paints us a partial reality that development aid is not entirely a
bad or a good idea or practice. It has its share of feats and setbacks. The objective of aid
is to help bring about change, whether in terms of how a seed is sown or to whose
benefit political power is used (Dudley 1993). In many instances, we see both positive
and negative picture, of successes and failures of development aid. The good intentions
and genuine aims of development projects and programs cannot be simply relegated to
the background of development interventions.

Nonetheless, in the aid equation, there is the concept of “us” and “them”. After all, the
process of development involves a relationship between the developers – the experts,
technocrats, advisors, specialists, volunteers, fieldworkers- and the developed, the
recipients of the aid and advice (Kaufman in Grillo and Stirrat 1997). The dichotomy
does not intend to polarize but only to show there is an interweaving of an “us” and a
“them” agenda.

However we may deny it, development aid prefigures the presence of power. History
reveals to us that development aid is also essentially brought about and wrought by the
asymmetry of power relations – between the donor and beneficiaries, the developer and
the developed, the supplier and the recipient, the planner and the target, the us and
them, the others. It implies one having the resources and the other lacking of them. Aid
is predicated on the existence of outsiders with resources- and resources mean power
(Dudley 1993). The one having the resources to initiate development oftentimes
conditions or dictates the manner how resources or funds should be spent – or in
donor’s jargon, within or according to its program policies and priorities, geographical
focus, sectoral targets, eligibility criteria and the like.

But is the element of power in aid intentional? Is aid a benevolent exercise of power by
highly politicized and well-resourced individuals and institutions? Where is power
located in the process of giving and receiving aid?

Before proceeding, the case below, which is shared on account on personal experience,
will be central to the analysis of power in the succeeding discussion.

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 Fdn Saus is an international social development agency with its head office
based in Melbourne and has 20 field offices operating across the globe. Fdn
Saus has been supporting program in the Philippines in the past ten years.
Three years ago, the head office pushed for the development of a Country
Indigenous People (IP) Program from where support to IP development
projects of local partner organizations with the indigenous communities will
be anchored. After barely two years, the head office decided to close down
the Philippine field office citing reasons which are influenced primarily by
the assessment made of the East Asia regional strategy team.

Intentionality and Non-Subjectivity

Foucault claims that power relations are intentional and non-subjective. There is no
power that is exercised without a series of aims and objectives. At the local level there is
often a high degree of conscious decision-making, planning, plotting and coordination of
political activity. Power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain
strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical
relationship in a particular society (Foucault in Dreyfus and Rabinow 1992).

In undertaking development intervention, development agencies designs and follows a

certain framework well within their vision, mission and goals. Fdn Saus has its grand
design in development work embodied in its vision, mission, corporate and strategic
change objectives. There’s an endless conduct of political activities within and outside
of its structure to translate the vision and mission into specific plans and programs. The
agency is driven into effective action by the organizational and program objectives, goals
and targets. Alongside its internal activities, Fdn Saus is involved in networking with a
host local partner NGOs to reach and provide funding and technical support to
community-based organizations and groups by virtue of memorandum of agreement or
working agreement. On one hand, Fdn Saus also coordinates well with its umbrella Fdn
Saus - International structure where the regional strategy team is based for a more
cohesive development undertaking with fellow Ox agencies operating in the East Asia
region.

In this dynamics alone, a face of power appears but it’s too superficial. Foucault states
that the exercise of power is not simply a relationship between partners, individual or
collective; power exists only when it is put into action. The intentionality nevertheless
gains direction in the “local cynicism of power” carried within the political activities. But
how does intentionality occurs without the subject? To quote Dreyfus and Rabinow,

The answer lies in the practices…. There is logic to the practices. There is a push
towards a strategic objective but no one is pushing. The objective emerged
historically taking particular forms and encountering specific obstacles,
conditions and resistances. Will and calculations were involved. The overall

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 effect, however, escaped the actors’ intention, as well as those anybody else.
People know what they do; they frequently know why they do what they do; but
what they don’t know is what what they do does.

When Fdn Saus and development aid comes into contact with the local development
organizations’ vision, mission and goals, a different direction is created – the unintended
consequences. The result of the implementation of the Country IP Program did not
augur well to the institutional intention of the regional strategy team of Fdn Saus -
International – it cites the lack of linking of the micro development of IP groups to the
broader national and regional advocacy. For the field staff and local partners, a different
level of impact and outcome is felt and visible.

In other cases, the unintended consequences may come in the form of project failures.
Crewe and Harrison presents that accounting for the failure and improving practices
usually entail looking to the recipients, the supposed beneficiaries who are not behaving
as expected. It is common within aid agencies for advisers or planners to emphasize the
need for better consultation with and understanding of intended beneficiaries. The Fdn
Saus field office have in numerous instances have taken this route. It has treaded on the
path of the tendency to root explanation in the culture of the recipients. Crewe and
Harrison (1998) further relates that those who argue for self-reflection and a change in
professional attitudes tend to acknowledge that developers have made serious
mistakes, but rarely question the project of development itself. Clearly the situation
realizes what Foucault had raised. Rather, at the level of the practices, there is
directionality produced from petty calculations, clashes of wills, meshing of minor
interests. These are shaped and given a direction by the political technologies of power
(Dreyfus and Rabinow 1992).

Practices and Rituals of Power

Foucault used the Panopticon to show a clear example of how power operates. It shed
light on the practices and rituals, which those involved in the affairs of extending
development aid were beholden to. In Foucault’s term, the Panopticon brings together
knowledge, power, the control of the body and the control of space into an integrated
technology of discipline. It is a mechanism for the location of bodies in space, for the
distribution of individuals in relation to one another, for hierarchical organization, for the
efficient disposition of centers and channels of power (Dreyfus and Rabinow 1992).

Fdn Saus’ tale of partnerships with partner NGOs demonstrated the convergence of
knowledge, power and control of body and space. Certainly, it is without doubt that a
donor and a partner-recipient collaborate to achieve its noble aims and objectives with
the local actor recipient progressively taking the lead. It is a mutually favorable means of
development intervention. However, the discipline technology however came about
when Fdn Saus attached policies, conditions and terms to the aid it transferred to local
partners through its field office. The country IP Program, which contains situational

9
analysis of IPs done according to the framework of Fdn Saus head office, was not just a
document. It became a rule whereby project funding are decided and approved by the
Fdn Saus head office. Project proposals from partner NGOs are evaluated according to
the targets and priorities espoused by the IP program and not solely on what the
community beneficiaries’ perception of the kind of development required. As Crewe and
Harrision (1998) pointed out, the aid industry continues to rest on an assumption of
inadequacy on the part of the institutional recipients in poorer countries.

Crewe and Harrision (1998) further stress that the ideal of partnership may be laudable
in some ways. But it emerges in a context where, whatever is said, there are structural
inequalities. A glaring example is the decision of Fdn Saus to close down its field office
and drastically cut off funding to local partner NGO within an eight-month notice. Such
decisions are out of control of the recipients and are relatively indicative of the control
orientation of the donor.

Another point of Foucault is that the new power (brought about by the Panopticon) is
continuous, disciplinary and anonymous. Through the use of this mechanism, one
could also control the controllers. Those who occupy the central position in the
Panopticon are themselves thoroughly enmeshed in a localization and ordering of their
behavior. They observe, but in the process of so doing, they are also fixed, regulated and
subject to administrative control (Foucault in Dreyfus and Rabinow).

Fdn Saus country field office is comprised of three people; two staff is involved in
program and fieldwork and one in finance and administration. Major program activity of
field staff involves project appraisal, monitoring and extension of consultancy and
technical assistance to local partners’ NGOs. Approval of endorsed project proposals,
program planning, strategizing and resource allocation are domains of the Fdn Saus
head office. The field office specifies and recommends in great details on where funds
will go but the head office decides on aggregate amount it will allocate for the country
program. As any field offices, it must be able to meet the demands of accountability,
efficiency and effectiveness. In almost all instances of reporting, it usually succumbs to
the pressure of painting a glossy picture of a cost-effective program and well-spent
funds.

Dudley (1993) presents that field workers has been largely ignored in the literature of
development aid. The “them” are more pronounced. When development flounders,
self-criticism is often limited to an acceptance that insufficient attention has been paid
to the recipients of the aid (Crewe and Harrison 1998). Little attention has been paid to
the developers and how they construct development reality against the backdrop of
poor families and communities. Developers are also trap in their normal
professionalism. Chambers (1997) presents professonials as like others, they seek to
order and make sense of their experience. They develop a set of dominant ideas and
methods out from the agency policy mandates.

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Developers may have desks and large budgets at their disposal, but like the developed
they are also bound and disciplined by constraints. The political framework within
which they operate is powerful, and often at odds with their professed goals. Their need
for anonymity and the tone of their re-writing of their spoken words shows how they too
are vulnerable (Kaufmann in Grillo and Stirrat 1997).

One final point about the Panopticon is that it is regarded as an exemplary technology
for disciplinary power, its chief characteristics are its ability to make the spread of power
efficient; to make possible the exercise of power with limited manpower at the least
cost; to discipline individuals with the least exertions of overt force by operating on their
souls; to involve in its functioning all those who come in contact with the apparatus.
(Foucault in Dreyfus and Rabinow 1992).

Fdn Saus espouses community participation or the principles of participatory

development. The approach is an anti-dote to the traditional top-down approach of
development intervention and is found mostly to give favor to the agenda of the intended
beneficiaries or communities. Fdn Saus consults its local partners and listens to their
views and plans. The information feeds into the formulation and implementation of the
country IP Program. Under such program, the community through the local partner NGO
submits a project proposal that is and must be consistent with the program thrusts and
directions.

Gardner and Lewis (1996) posit that participation is often desired by development
agencies for the ideological legitimacy it brings. Yet the notion of participation is itself
problematic and loaded with misconceptions. Gardner and Lewis says,

In practice, the rhetoric of participation can easily be misused while real power
remains in the hands of outsiders:

1. It can legitimize a project by gaining the sanction or formal approval of key

people in the community, which then feeds back into project appraisal criteria
and helps to make the project a “success”.
2. “Participatory discussion” can provide an opportunity for local people to
“understand” what it is that the development agency seeks from them.
Certain people can then, in return for promise of a supply of resources to the
community, tell developers what they want to hear.
3. It can open up an opportunity for certain interest within the community to be
“written in” to the project design, or to gain control of its implementation,
which tends to skew benefits towards better-off sections of the population.

In Fdn Saus case, probably the important message is that participation may well be
reflected in program and project documents and may take place in dynamic discussion
with the men and women members of the community. Yet experience reveals the fact

11
that espousing participation does not necessarily lead to the transfer of planning and
decision-making power on the ground.

It is also important to note, at this point, the effects of the declining foreign aid in the
country that although it should be taken as challenge of sustainability, it nonetheless
perpetuates the disciplinary power. With donors becoming more demanding on project
and program outputs and impact and asking more effective administrative and financial
system, NGOs and community organizations are forced to adjust their pace and quality
of work.

Grillo and Stirrat (1997) disclosed that there is increasing pressure on aid budgets and
the growth of various critiques, and also fatalism, about the aim of global poverty
reduction through aid. Aid administrators are required to demonstrate that the money
they are allocated has actually been spent and that it has been spent wisely. They are
increasingly subject to indicators of effectiveness, accountability, disbursement and
visible impact. These pressures are transmitted into increasing demands for rationality
and clarity in the definition of project aims and aid use.

Expansion of Power: The Unseen Promise of Normalization

In the words of Foucault, disciplinary technology works to set up and preserve an

increasingly differentiated set of anomalies, which is the very way it extends its
knowledge and power into wider and wider domains. This seems to posit that there is a
cycle of power comprising largely of anomalies and actions that grows and grows over
time. The cycle is promoted with the spread of normalization. Foucault says,

The spread of normalization operates through the creation of abnormalities

which it then must treat and reform…This effectively transforms into a technical
problem—and thence into a field for expanding power…. When there was
resistance or failure to achieve its stated aims, this was construed as further
proof of the need to reinforce and extend the power of the experts.

The power of normalization is perhaps most established in the success of development

aids and projects supported by donors. It implies the assumption that development aid
and projects will work because of the noble intention and presence of well-thought-out
plans, focus and priorities. Considering as well the fact that people will not refuse aid,
or will not refuse something that promises better future and rewarding improvements.

Fdn Saus had continued to justify its operation in the Philippines by the reason that the
country has sectors and areas where there were greatest needs for interventions
towards growth and development. The country IP Program holds a promise to respond
to the growing marginalization and poor plight of indigenous men and women who
comprised twenty percent (20%) of the country’s population. There was an anomaly
that Fdn Saus sought to treat and reform.

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Now, Fdn Saus decided to close down its operation in the country not because that the
IP program failed to achieve its aims but rather the whole country work failed to meet the
expectation of the head office- that of broader linking of micro- IP development work to
national and regional advocacy for human rights. Fdn Saus is now exploring and
embarking into another type of engagement – that is to work with other Fdn Saus -
International affiliates operating in the country for a more cohesive intervention. Fdn
Saus perceives that other Fdn Saus - International affiliates in the country have stronger
links and broader work with the more technically capable NGOs in the country.

Similar situations in other areas may not probably have the same result but definitely
there are unintended consequences. As mentioned earlier, donors now have preference
for relatively few but higher impact projects in lieu of many small community based
projects; fewer NGOs are able to tap these types of donor funding and there is an
increase in competition among NGOs. The effect may extend to the beneficiaries who
are usually at the receiving end of the development process.

It is also important to note what Grillo and Stirrat (1997) articulated - that the danger is
that the pressures on development aid will be tuned into pressures on social
development specialists for methods which give more and more control over aid supply
and over the management of popular consultation by government and other aid
agencies.

III. SAVING POWER

It should not be misconstrued that the discussion above may well project such a dark
despotic image of donors or oversimplify the power relations of donors and
beneficiaries. Although the fact remains that there is inequality being reinforced in the
development aid, the case discussion does not impose a representation of what is
taking place in the aid industry.

The power processes described in the case above would probably be depicted by some
as power stored in economic and political position, of authority and dominance; that it
underpinned the actions and intentions of donors and developers. Power, at this point,
becomes subsumed in the unbalanced power relation that exists between the donors
and recipients of aid. The imbalance of power gets more deliberate and conspicuous in
the development practices and actions, regardless of the nature of intentions.

But just as a development program has it share of success and failures, power has its
merits and demerits. The positive side of power is the sense of order and stability. As
earlier said, power processes comes into life in the relationship and confluence of

13
actions and interaction. Absolutely it is not just vested alone in an institution or
individual. Scoones and Thompson (1994) argue that:

Power also implies struggle, negotiation and compromise. Even those

categorized as oppressed are not utterly passive victims and may become
involved in active resistance. Likewise, the powerful are not in complete control
of the stage and the extent to which their power is forged by the so-called
powerless should not be underestimated.

This is the kind of power that we must cultivate. This is what actors should be conscious
about and where the actors’ practices must be premised. Community participation or
participatory development is not all lost to the jungle of development jargon or merely
reduced as just a strategy. Actors can painstakingly ensure that community
participation will exert influence on the development aid and interventions of the
donors. This should be demonstrated in actors’ development practices and rituals.

This does not of course advocate for a tug-of-war of power between the one who holds
the purse strings and the one whom the strings shall be handed over. As earlier said, it
lies as well in the relationship that both parties agreed to enter into. Rather than homing
in on the perspective of one set of stakeholders in development (the developers or the
beneficiaries, for example), it is more useful to look at the relationships surrounding
interventions practices as they actually take place (Crewe and Harrison 1998) .

Finally, Foucault mentions the non-causal relationship of knowledge and power and that
knowledge is one of the defining g components of the operation of power in the modern
world. I think further understanding the dynamics of knowledge and power processes
within development context will bring about enlightened judgment of the development
aid industry and all that it comprised – donors, beneficiaries and their relationship.
Knowledge processes are embedded in social processes that imply the aspects of
power, authority and legitimation; and they are just as likely to reflect and contribute to
the conflict between social groups, as they are to lead to the establishment of common
perceptions and interests (Scoones and Thompson 1994).

To say the least, there is still a long way to go and there are manifold opportunities on the
horizon.

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 REFERENCES

Aldaba, Fernando. 1999. The Future of Philippine NGOs: No Escape from the Market,
Ateneo Center for Social Policy and Public Affairs.

Alegre, Alan. 1994. The Rise of Philippine NGOs as Social Movement.

Chambers , Robert. 1997. Whose Reality Counts? Putting the First Last. London:
Intermediate Technology Publications.

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