by Marcos Kisil

21 June 2001

New York, USA: The past ten years or so has seen a rapid increase in the number and size of non-profit organizations involved in development work in Brazil. They are commonly known by different names as NGOs (non-governmental organizations), PVOs (private voluntary organizations), CBOs (community-based organizations) and CSOs (civil society´s organizations). It is the Third Sector as far as development is concerned. There is an immense variety of organizations that are placed under the same label. In Brazil there is no single figure that could count the size of this sector. It is estimated that exist 750,000 entities, from which 250,000 reached some level of legal formality, and 50,000 that are active participants of the social and political life of Brazilian society.

It is clear that one critical problem is the diversity of organizations that are operating under the label of the Third Sector. For the sake of this paper, one way to facilitate an understanding about such a diversity is to classify them into three categories, according to the kind of services that they deliver most. The three categories of organizations in the third sector are: (1) advocacy organizations, when the major purpose of the organization is to lobby for specific interests, or specific problems, or specific groups of the society; (2) technical support, supplying know-how, information, advisory or counceling services, when the objective is to help other organizations, or social groups to get the appropriate level of resources to operate. Normally, they are called intermediate organizations; and (3) human services organizations, that tends to concentrate on a limited number of areas, particularly in the human services development, as education, health, social welfare; or integrated rural and urban development. They purpose is to delivery services that normally are expected from government. They play a complementary role with government in attending public needs.

In general, the nature of activities of some organizations can be intertwined in a way that we cannot use a single type to classify them. The same organization works in delivering a human service, in building information systems and technical expertise about a particular area of social concern, and is very active in lobbying for the best interest of people in its area of concern.

In resume, there is no doubt that there exists an immense array of efforts on the part of common people to deal with a great variety of recognized problems. But, the question is: what are the motivation or reasons for such explosion of citinzenship in Brazil?

In looking for the existing organizations of civil society, one can find the following characteristics:

•  They are non-profit-making and are voluntary in the sense that they are non--statutory bodies;
• They are staffed, wholly or partly, by volunteers
• Their staff often join the organization for personal reasons, which involve religious beliefs, philosophical and ideological creeds, social activism
• They are action-oriented, flexible, innovative, rapid and close to local communities
• They often plan an intermediary role: on the one side, they provide some kind of service to the community and, on the other side, they have to seek funding for their programs from external souces (the general public, donors, government

This sector is also characterised by:

• The compassionate nature of its involvement with development issues;
• A non-hierarchical, non-bureaucratic organization
• An ability to work with people-in-need, which has not been developed to the same extent by government and the private for-profit sector; and
• An ability to deliver development services at a relatively low cost to a larger number of people

From the above characteristics two main elements emerge: Volunteerism and Entrepreneurship.

The Third Sector relies more on voluntaristic mechanisms, appealing to people's sense of interest and values. Volunteerism is a must for the sector, where there is no other incentive than the desire to serve and to help others in order to make life better through solidarity.

The second element is Entrepreneurship. A basic element of a capitalist society, the "free initiative" of individuals in pursuing their criativity, searching for opportunities to initiate a "business", looking for results that could be measured are characteristics that have been applied by individuals, or groups of individuals acting as "social entrepreneurs".

Today, we can affirm that organizations of civil society are playing a leading role in transform Brazilian society. But, what can explain such explosition of participation?

At least three main factors should be mentioned. They are:

1. In recent years, in Brazil, government is showing greater openness to cooperation with citizen groups that are part of the third sector. Two main reasons explain such behavior: first, the government's recognition that alone cannot cope with a growing public demands for more and best human services; and second, government recognition that the provision of public services by government agencies can be facilitated by more accurate and representative information about the needs, and priorities as they are set by local community organizations. For instance, the Pastoral da Criança, a leading institution in promoting healthy childhood, and in preventing common diseases, are operating a network of approximately 150,000 volunteers that act as health promoters at community level. The quality of the work, and the impact in lowering infant mortality rate made this organization a natural candidate for the Nobel Prize this year. This organization is maintained by private and public funds from the own Ministry of Health that recognizes that the organization is better suited for the work than their own agencies and offices.
2. It is also necessary to recognize that corporate social responsibility has also gained space on the agenda of private business and corporations. They also become more interested in becoming part of their communities, supporting public and private initiates for the betterment of people's life. In Brazil, several good examples of corporate social investment have been recognized as essential for betterment of communities. A recent study shows that 63,4% of the corporations are making social investment in a regular way, 69% said that their social investment have growth from past year; and 66% said that give incentives to employees to serve as volunteeirs at the community (SENAC, march 2000). They also bring their strategic thinking for planning and management in setting a more professionalized civil society organization.
3. The redemocratization of the country from 1985 on, mobilized the society to move from a representative democracy to a more participatory democracy, where organized groups of the society play a more active role in setting the stage for societal changes. Freedom to get organized became the an essence of democracy.
4. The own interest of civil society in get organized to play as a sector for the society. Progressively, a group of Brazilian leaders for the third sector have been playing the critical role of setting organizations that are representatives of spefici interest of groups and entities. Such process required patiency, compromise, political will, and maturity from those leaders. Today Brazil counts with a true infra-estructure for representation of important segments that mobilizes the Third Sector. Among others: the Brazilian Association of NGOs -ABONG; GIFE -the Brazilian Association of Grantmakers; Volunteers Centers; ETHOS -- Business for Social Responsibility; CEATS - Center for Studies of Third Sector. Such organizations are placed to catalyse and give expression and lobby for the sector. And, they provide leadership for an harmonic growth of the sector.

Such relations are taken into consideration in the Brazilian society under the following five ethical "pillars": human rights and responsibilities; democracy and the elements of civil society; the protection of minorities; commitment to peaceful conflict resolution and fair negotiation; and intergenerational equity.

We should also recognize that theses changes of behavior and practice from the part of governments, business people and civil society are paving the way for broader, innovative forms of interaction and partnership for the betterment of Brazilian society.

For instance, President Cardoso, and our First Lady, Ruth, gave a clear direction about the way that government should understand, and enter in partnership with business and civil society through the Program called Solidarity. To enter in partnership is the right way to understand the co--responsibility of members of a society.

But, it is necessary to recognize that such a process is not easy. Conflicts of interests, power struggle, different understandings about needs and possibilities to solve them, are some of the common problems faced by specific communities in getting to the development process in which the three actors should act in partnership for a sustainable process of development. Also, the growth of third sector has not always been accompanied by an improvement in their performance. In fact, there are signs that a rapid expansion of the CSO sector may be lowering its quality overall, partly because organizations are started by people with strong activism, but with limited or no experience in organizational development, and in basic needs of managerial accountability. In reality, many of such organizations are under the responsibility of charismatic leaders that have put their personal values, and social trust, as the basic endowment for the organizations. If for some reason, they become absent, or the organization growth requires more leaders, an imbalance occurs between the expectations that the organization arises, and the society's expectation.

In the Brazilian circumstance that we described above it is clear that the International community can, and must play an active role in sustaining the development of civil society. Efforts like the one that UN is playing in valuing Volunteerism are essential. I am personally involved with the Brazilian Committee for the International Year of Volunteer, and I have had the opportunity to follow very close the efforts of UNV in Brazil. It has been a tremendous opportunity for mutual benefit of UN family and Brazilian civil society organizations.

The mobilization and effective use of resources from within the identified institutions and organizations, and from outside, is essential. Conducting a developmental process requires people, time, and money resources. The view that increased citizen participation is important not only in the re-democratization of process, but also in trying to find solutions and taking responsibility for social and economic problems, is quite a recent one. The emerging "Third Sector" therefore can be seen as the best expression of a new societal organization, which channels citizens' initiatives for the public good.