Walking the Fine Line of Democracy

From January to April 2009 Janne Jørgensen visited Tanzania to research for her finals in Educational Anthropology. The frame was 'Conceptions of Democracy within the organisational structure of MS Tanzania' and as an appendix she went to visit Njombe Agricultural Development Organisation (NADO) - one of MS Tanzania's partners.

'After seeing how NADO carries out democracy in everyday life in a rural community I am impressed. NADO walks the fine line of democracy. It is my impression that a great reason for their success is that they are not dealing with an imported concept but are carrying out a concept of democracy that grew from the hard soil under their feet, where developed by grassroots and today is watered and maintained by hard work, training and constant reflections and cooperation' says Janne Jørgensen. Photo: Pernille Bærendtsen

NADO is a member of MS Tanzania’s Building Local Democracy thematic team. NADO works with good governance, empowerment, transparency, and ownership through their agricultural programmes among civil society, which in itself made the organisation interesting for my research. The fact that NADO has grown from many small grassroots organisations to one umbrella organisation on the district level makes it even more relevant to me as NADO, during the transformation, has dealt with many issues in relation to democracy.

From Small-Scale to Umbrella

When you move from small-scale democracy where everybody has a voice in a very direct way – mainly due to the fact that you are geographically in the same place and that there is only a limited amount of people – to an umbrella organisation, it is a great challenge to sustain transparency and the sense of ownership.

If you keep the democratic form where everybody has a direct voice you easily cross the fine line to anarchy, and prevent decisions from being made. On the other hand it requires a delicate balance to stay democratic when the organisation grows. The members easily lose the feeling of ownership if there is too far a distance between members and management.

Visiting NADO, I saw how they have managed to walk this fine line of democracy. NADO has grown, but never lost the feeling of what is important to its members. Through their agricultural programmes NADO has managed to make people, members and non-members aware of the importance of working together, learning from one another, education and the importance of raising one's voice. I saw transparency and cooperation as some of the grand keywords of NADO’s success.

'The chairperson of NADO, John Wihallah, told me how the politicians in the beginning did not like the organisation. It did not play according to their pipe, but after a while the politicians saw how it mattered to cooperate with NADO and follow their example of listening to the people,' says Janne Jørgensen. Photo: Pernille Bærendtsen

Even now, when there is a greater distance between the members and the management due to the size of the organisation, the management puts a lot of work into keeping the organisation transparent to all partners involved. As part of this transparency strategy NADO’s head office is placed in Igwachanya, a village outside Njombe, in a rural area.

Available among the Grassroots

The management considered moving the office to Njombe Town but decided that, being a member-based organisation, they would lose more than they would gain by geographically distancing the office from its members. The office in Igwachanya is not only welcoming all members but also has an open door policy. This means that all documents, budgets, timetables and plans are made accessible to all members. This strategy gives the individual member a chance to follow what the organisation is working with and aiming for, how money is spent and which results are obtained.

NADO, furthermore, cooperates with the local government on village, ward, division and district level. NADO manages to retain a good relationship with the politicians, not by playing the politicians’ pipe but by proving to be an example in itself through transparent and good governance that makes people involve in the community, improving it for all.

By now, according to John Wihallah, NADO has a good relationship with most politicians, but also makes it clear that NADO is a non-governmental organisation. As such, NADO does not support individual leaders at elections - only the concept of good governance. NADO’s voice is not for sale, as it is the united voice of all members which counts.