In an opinion piece looking at the media and peace building in 2010 and prospects for 2011, Sheldon Himelfarb, Associate Vice-President at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), noticed some interesting developments, especially in the area of how new online tools can empower individuals. In a sense, this has been precisely what my own personal project has been about, although Himelfarb also raises the possibility of some concerns which might emerge as a result.

[...] we could well see a big jump in citizen to citizen diplomacy across this next year, as universities and even high schools step up their efforts to integrate international awareness into their curriculum. We are seeing all sorts of interesting uses of Skype, iChat, and other online video platforms to connect students around the world in meaningful international experiences.

 

[...]

 

Will we become the best informed societies thanks to the information available, or the most polarized societies as we gravitate to the networks (media and social) that share our biases? [...]

Berkman's Ethan Zuckerman also shares similar concerns with regards to polarization, and as I pointed out recently, such problems could emerge in the area of Armenia and Azerbaijan cross-border communication and cooperation unless they are factored into a forward-thinking strategy. However, my main concern for now relates to the recent appearance of NGOs on the scene. Failing to innovate, they are now starting to replicate, often poorly, already established grassroots efforts in this area.

Ironically, of course, despite an initial reluctance and even refusal to adopt new tools, that might at least mark some kind of progress. Even then, however, it was only after my own long discussions with the British Embassy's Conflict Pool which saw funding made available for such projects. Unfortunately, donors drove the move into such areas even if the understanding of how these new tools could be used had been absent, as one social media watcher, Micael Bogar, recently explained.

“A significant amount of civil society work within the South Caucasus reinforces status quo policies where governments profit from war and exacerbate cultural differences to their advantage,” says Micael Bogar, Projects Manager at the American University Center for Social Media. “Surprisingly, a notable portion of the non-profit sector plays a role in this corrupt practice. New media tools, with their powerful and cheap ability to communicate across borders, threaten [their] wasteful practices."

 

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”While there is an elite element within civil society with access, but no interest, there is an even larger pool of citizens within the South Caucasus who may have the desire to work towards peace but lack any real long term ability to use these tools towards that end,” she says.

But, even if some NGOs are starting to use those tools, they're not being used particularly effectively. The recent adoption of Skype by one NGO in Yerevan for connecting Armenia, Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabakh, for example, was a step in the right direction, but their use of social media to attract participants outside of their existing circle was non-existent, thus limiting the potential of the project at a time when proving to the wider public that communication is possible is more important than ever.

Unfortunately, donors just seem content that some kind of activity has occurred at all, even if the results are significantly less than they could be. The problem, of course, also extends throughout the former Soviet space, as Primož Šporar explains.

The many millions of NGOs imply millions of raisons d’être, but we are united by one factor – almost all of us think our work is in the public interest, that we are needed and effective. We complain that it is the political, legal and fiscal environment that is not enabling us to play the role we would like to, but is that the real reason for our ineffectiveness?

 

We have to face some facts. The managerial skills of people working in the NGO sector are hardly comparable to those evident among their counterparts in the business world. Many NGOs are less democratic then public institutions, sometimes they are even autocratic and above reproach. It’s also rare that NGO experts possess a similar level of knowledge as experts from universities. NGO breakthroughs are limited compared to research institutions. [...] They are also often top-down organizations largely driven by donors. ...] Can NGOs claim to be using advanced management techniques, e‑NGO systems, participatory foresight exercises, social responsibility standards, benchmarking techniques and open coordination scoreboards? No, largely they can’t.

And that's pretty much the same for most initiatives in the area of new and social media in cross-border communication and cooperation with simply creating a blog or a user account and group on Facebook the most that many do. Issues such as privacy and security, or even assessing the viability of tools over time, analyzing obstacles and working out ways to circumvent them, are never factored in. But perhaps most importantly, most show no inclination to spread the net wider than their own immediate social or political circle.

Again, Primož Šporar sums up the situation.

We seem to be deserting and abandoning our roles. The sector’s energies are being spent on finding our role in the world of capitalism and neo-liberalism, instead of on creating a vision for the ultimate open society. Maybe that’s no coincidence. Filling out forms to create statistics about how good we are is slowly undermining our human face. Implementation is conquering innovation. And I can imagine that many people are not displeased with us for doing the paperwork instead of living in the real world and being the annoyance we used to be. [...]

 

[...] if you listen to NGO representatives [...] you almost get the impression that [...] there is a fear that our work could result in citizens who are so active that they no longer need NGOs. [...] Is social dialogue replacing a civil one? The bottom line is that in an era of information technology, globalization and the financial crisis, NGOs, compared to other sectors, do not seem to be overly concerned about coming up with new approaches. They have no real idea about where to go.

 

The cult of laziness and abundance is also influencing our work. How else can we explain the evolution of new, local initiatives, organized by citizens themselves targeting concrete problems? They are informal, ad-hoc and problem-oriented. [...] Unfortunately, not many NGOs are interested in such projects. [...]

Such issues are particularly relevant in the South Caucasus where, as Arpine Porsughyan, a former researcher for the Caucasus Resource Research Centers (CRRC), wrote in a recent paper published by UNDP, NGOs are among the least trusted institutions in the South Caucasus region despite the significance placed upon them by international donors and diplomatic missions.

According to Howard, three factors contribute to the weakness of civil society in the post-communist countries: citizen distrust towards formal institutions; general dissatisfaction with economic and political conditions; and the persistence of strong pre-transition social networks. By applying Howard’s argument to the South Caucasus, this paper shows that serious obstacles to civil engagement remain, that these obstacles pose critical problems, and that quality data are critical for understanding the situation after 20 years of transition.

 

Howard argues that citizens in post-communist countries do not distinguish new voluntary organizations from the mass organizations of the past–both are regarded with distrust. [...] Lacking the impetus of voluntary associations, private engagement in these organizations was limited, and in many cases membership was perfunctory. Today, despite the more democratic setting, citizens of the post-Soviet bloc continue to view public organizations with scepticism. 

 

Civil engagement, therefore, remains very low: only 7 percent of Armenians reported involvement in volunteer work in 2007; 8 percent of Georgians contributed to charity; and 1 percent of Azerbaijanis attended meetings of a club or civic organization six months prior to the survey.

Moreover, as Porsughyan explains, actual social networks, outside of the confines of somewhat closed NGO circles which are usually based on 'elitist' social and political connections, are far larger and therefore far more influential.

Howard’s arguments and public opinion data show that increasing the quantity of civil society organizations and providing them with more assistance will not resolve problems of weak civil societies in the South Caucasus. These countries continue to have sceptical attitudes towards all types of formal organizations and are generally apathetic about the economic and political conditions facing them. Traditional social networks are therefore trusted and valued over state and public institutions. 

Of course, for community specific and non-politicized groups such as NGOs working in the area of gender and LGBT rights, this is not so much a problem, but for those working in other areas, and especially peace building, it's a significant one. And, as mentioned in a previous post, it's probably why most projects in this area do not attract the attention of nationalists or the authorities. In a sense, they are tolerated because they are arguably ineffective.

Nevertheless, what does become apparent is quite simple. In the 16 years since the ceasefire agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan in their conflict over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh, civil society has failed to initiate proper open discussion in the societies of either country. Yet, donors continue to spend exorbitant amounts of money on their projects while ignoring genuine grassroots movements.

In a recent Twitter exchange, and commenting specifically on Himelfarb's reference to a growth in citizen-citizen dialogue, one international aid worker with experience in the South Caucasus agreed.

NGOs are important, of course, but not in an environment of their choosing, especially when they consider, as Šporar says, that they have the 'monopoly' on problem solving. Instead, the two need to work together, and in a region as volatile as the South Caucasus, where talk of a new war between Armenia and Azerbaijan is increasing, the consequences of not doing so are very grave indeed.

Unfortunately, however, the international donor community appears to have become as complacent as the handful of NGOs they continue to fund, often to the tune of millions of dollars. In a sense, it has to be asked, does the international community's obsession with pumping money into a largely ineffective civil society in the Caucasus contribute to change or merely frustrate and delay it? 

Or should they simply re-evaluate the situation and place stronger demand on NGOs to work with wider circles of participants and partners than the few they do so with at present? They might also want to examine whether grassroots initiatives are not only innovating more than NGOs, but also have the potential to reach a wider group of people for significantly less, something that has been very evident in recent years.

Isn't it about time this situation changed, with the objective taking center stage rather than the division and duplication of efforts in this area because of the inherent desire from most NGOs to monopolize the scene? Meanwhile, grassroots initiatives have so much more to offer, especially in terms of ideas and approaches,  and can reach an arguably larger and different target group, as social media guru Dan McQuillan says.

There's a strong interest in developing an online civic space where there can be level-headed discussion of controversial topics across communities. [...] 

 

But like most other places the existing NGO sector seems poorly prepared to make the most of the digital opportunities: "many throughout the civil society and NGO sector are unfamiliar with these new technologies, do not understand how to use them effectively, or lack tools for their particular setting. Despite the growth of new media in recent years, NGOs have yet to adjust their outreach strategies, ignoring the possibility of using platforms such as blogging and social networking sites to promote their activities and research, in the process attracting members of the younger generation".

 

Although online campaigning is of interest to both journalists and NGOs, the real innovations will come from people thinking outside of those disciplines. If the web is going to catalyse in Georgia then people need to to think differently and feel more empowered..

Well, the possibility of creating a collaborative and wider-reaching approach, even without funding, is something that I'll be examining at a meeting in just a few hours.