Indigeneity and NGOs

The First Conference on Ethnicity, Race, and Indigenous Peoples in Latin America and the Caribbean, sponsored by the Ethnicity, Race, and Indigenous Peoples section of LASA, has just concluded. There were several interesting papers, and I will be writing about this in more detail later.

Meanwhile, we (Anne Kraemer and me) presented a paper "Assessing the role of indigeneity in Guatemalan nongovernmental organizations."

I am pasting in the introduction and conclusion sections of this paper, which was a short and preliminary work obviously, for those who are interested.

Guatemala is one of the poorest countries in the Western hemisphere, performing consistently near the bottom on all social, health, and economic indicators (Pan American Health Organization 2006). In part, this state of affairs can be attributed to the lack of public social spending in Guatemala. In 2004-2005, public social expenditure was only 6.3% of the GDP; only El Salvador faired more poorly in all of Latin America (ECLAC 2007). In turn, the lack of public expenditure can largely be attributed to the fact that Guatemala has one of the most regressive tax codes and lowest tax revenues in all Latin American (Sridhar 2007).

As is the case in many other countries with similar low rates of public expenditure, the private civil sector have expanded to fill some of this service gap. Indeed, in many places in Guatemala, private civil sector organizations are now primary sources of economic, health, and educational assistance. The growth of the sector has been especially rapid in the last decade. In 2001 there were an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 NGO’s operating in Guatemala; today that number approaches 10,000 (Sridhar 2007). The impact of this expanding sector is difficult to measure, however. There is no national registry or legislative mechanism in place at this time for the regulation of NGOs operating in Guatemala. As a result, particularly small and medium-sized NGOs often operate in an isolated, disarticulated fashion without clear accountability to the communities they serve.

Guatemala is a majority indigenous nation, and the bulk of its population speaks one of more than 20 distinct Mayan languages (Richards 2003). K’iche, Mam, Kaqchikel, and Q’eqchi are the four largest languages in Guatemala, with between 350,000 and one million speakers in each of these four languages (Warren and Jackson 2001, England 1993). Despite this fact, there are virtually no governmental health or development services available in these languages. Ethnographic data, both ours and that of others, consistently show that indigenous persons identify these language barriers, and a corresponding disregard for indigenous culture on the part of national-level actors as well as providers, administrators, and field workers, as one of the major factors impeding access to quality health, education, and economic advancement. Quantitative data reinforces these ethnographic assertions. For example, all national surveys conducted by the Guatemalan Ministry of Public Health for decades have shown vast disparities in health outcomes between the indigenous and non-indigenous populations (MSPAS et al, 2003). The World Bank has similarly reported that although approximately 55% of the general population lives in poverty and 15% in extreme poverty, these numbers increase to nearly 80% and 30% for the indigenous population (Gragnolati and Marini 2003). Although, admittedly, the issues of health care access and social and economic advancement are complex and cannot be reduced to a mere discussion of language or cultural difference, the fact remains that, in Guatemala, indigeneity is marked by poor health outcomes, lower social status and higher poverty. This phenomenon of inequality and how it is reflected in international aid demands further, careful analysis.

Indigeneity in the highlands of Guatemala is exhaustively studied and analyzed (see just for example Carmack 1995, Fisher and Brown 1996, Warren 1998, and Fisher and Hendrickson 2003), and the literature on its impact on access, particularly to health care and education, are voluminous, particularly with regard to interactions between indigenous patients or aid recipients and a Ladino provider or administrative class (recent examples include Adams and Hawkins 2007, Hale 2007, and Berry 2008). In addition there are other much less well studied geographic regions in the country, particularly in the Ch’orti’ region along the Honduran border (Metz 2006) and in the Piedmont regions leading down to the Pacific coast, where language and traditional clothing use are fading and where lack of family land holdings has forced most of the population into the day labor industry. In these regions, it is much more difficult to define indigeneity, but marked disparities persist and distinctions such as “gente de vestido” and “gente de corte” or between “gente” and “gente sencilla” are common in daily conversation.

Against this background, we are examining the interactions between small or medium sized international NGOs and their target indigenous communities, to determine the degree of awareness of indigeneity and receptivity to it as a determiner of health or economic well-being. The rational for this approach is that it has already been determined by numerous studies that government-level programs are generally not responsive to this factor. Additionally, as already noted, civil society services in Guatemala are expanding at an incredible rate and could serve to correct some of the attitudinal and logistical deficiencies of official programs. Finally, many international NGOs employ language of solidarity, human rights, sustainability, and communitarianism, and consequently studies of the effects of this language on actual service provision are needed.

Our brief case studies clearly demonstrate how small and medium-sized NGOs in Guatemala, despite their use of the language of solidarity and human and indigenous rights, often fail to acquire the necessary cultural and linguistic sensitivities to allow them to overcome the problems of racism and marginalization that also characterize government-sponsored programs. Antlov, Ibrahim, and van Tujil (in Jordan and van Tujil 2006) outline the following weaknesses of NGOs, which both provide a critical framework for analyzing our case studies and also point the way toward possible solutions:

1. Most NGOs are centralized and urban, even though most of their work may occur in rural settings. On the ground this also manifests as “taking refuge” in NGO compounds or offices, with little contact with the target populations. Solutions will require moving offices and administrative services out of town centers into the rural target settings. Moving into the rural setting also invokes the specter of indigenous language acquisition, as it means moving away from Ladinized centers of power into monolingual contexts.

2. Most NGOs are elitist and middle class, often encouraging a too dominant role for the founders. As a result, decisions are often top-down and do not involve field staff. On the ground this usually manifests as not placing community collaborators onto governing boards. Sometimes this move is justified because all board members might not speak the language of the community collaborators. Additionally, this also often translates into excellent compensation for upper and middle management, while field workers and community coordinators are expected to volunteer their time. Solutions will include placing community members in positions of true decision-making, as well as addressing salary disparities. In addition, as our case studies clearly show, it will require sensitivity to Ladino-indigenous politics. “Elitism and middle class” often implies Ladinos in all administrative positions, even though the populations they serve may be entirely indigenous.

3. Most NGOs are free-floating with detachment from the communities they serve. In our case studies, this generally implies lack of coordination between various NGOs working in a single area, with consequent duplication of services and wasting of resources. This consideration again invokes the issue of indigeneity, as centralization and vertical management generally leads to the marginalization of indigenous practitioners, such as midwives and health promoters. Successful projects must learn to value, coordinate, amplify, and compensate the services provided by these community members.

4. Most NGOs lack of focus, ideology and managerial skills. In our studies, this is demonstrated by failed and mistargeted programming, as well as more frank negligence (such as the provision of medical care by unskilled providers and potable water systems developed by plumbers). NGOs must learn to attract qualified personnel and to focus their energies on areas in which they are actually skilled. Failure to do so constitutes an ethical lapse, consistent with objectification of the indigenous Other, which denies the same standards of excellence and accountability to community targets as would be demanded in the home countries of the various NGOs.

5. Most NGOs lack accountability. This is demonstrated in our studies by abrupt switching or discontinuation of program activities, threats of disenfranchisement for dissent. Although national level regulation would go some way toward addressing these deficiencies, the most critical and immediately attainable goal at present is the incorporation of community and indigenous actors at all levels of governance and oversight of the respective organizations.

Adams WR and Hawkins JP (eds). (2007). Health Care in Maya Guatemala: Confronting Medical Pluralism in a Developing Country. University of Oklahoma Press: Norman.

Barrera Nuñez JO. (2005). Imaginaries and Desires: Transcultural “Love Affairs” in Guatemala. Dissertation, UMI 3163369.

Berry N. (2008). Who’s judging the quality of care? Indigenous Maya and the problem of “not being attended.” Med Anthropol 27:164-189.

Carmack, Robert M. (1995) Rebels of Highland Guatemala: The Quiche-Mayas of Momostengango. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman

ECLAC. (2007). Social Panorama of Latin America. Retrieved 15 May 2008 from http://www.eclac.org/.

England, Nora C (1993) Mayan Efforts Toward Language Preservation in Endangered Languages. Eds. Lenore A. Grenoble and Lindsay J. Whaley. Cambridge University Press.

Fisher, Edward F. and R. McKenna Brown (1996) Maya Cultural Activism In Guatemala. University of Texas Press, Austin.

Fisher, Edward F. and Carol Hendrickson (2003) Tecpan Guatemala: A Modern Maya Town in Global and Local Context. Boulder, CO. Westview Press.

Gragnolati M and Marini A. (2003). Health and Poverty in Guatemala. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 2966.

Hale, Charles R. (2007). Mas Que Un Indio: Racial Ambivalence and Neoliberal Multiculturalism in Guatemala. Santa Fe, NM, School of American Research Press.

Jordan L and van Tujil P. (2006). NGO Accountability: Politics, Principles, and Innovations. Earthscan Publications.

Metz, Brent (2006). Ch’orti’ Maya Survival in Eastern Guatemala: Indigeneity in Transition. University of New Mexico Press.

Ministerio de Salud Pública y Asistencia Social (MSPAS), Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, et al. (2003). Guatemala, Encuesta Nacional de Salud Materno Infantil 2003. Guatemala City, Guatemala.

Pan American Health Organization (2006). Health Situation in the Americas: Basic Indicators. Retrieved from HYPERLINK "http://www.paho.org" http://www.paho.org on 23 September 2007.

Richards, M. (2003) Atlas Lingüístico de Guatemala. Editorial Serviprensa: Guatemala City, Guatemala.

Sridhar, Archana (2007) Tax Reform and Promoting a Culture of Philanthropy: Guatemala’s “Third Sector” in an Era of Peace Fordham International Law Journal. Vol. 31:186

Warren, Kay (1998) Indigenous Movements and Their Critics: Pan Mayan Activism in
Guatemala. Princeton: Princeton University Press

Warren, Kay and Jean E. Jackson (2001) Indigenous Movements, Self- Representation, and the State in Latin America. University of Texas Press, Austin.