Michael Kirk (1996):
Land Tenure Development and Divestiture in Lao P.D.R.

VI. Resource Tenure and the role of Donors and NGO's

1. Donors and NGO's: Catalysts or secret shadow governments?

The area of influence of intentional donors and NGO's on the development of resource tenure in the Lao PDR were and are very varied and have far-reaching effects. As in other countries in the process of transformation, donors with their large pool of resources at their disposal have played a significant role in influencing the new resource-related legislation, the content of macro-economic policies including land policy and in reforming basic state institutions which are related to land administration and resource tenure issues (Myers 1995:45). With this, their dealings are at first concentrated at the central state level; their influence is continually growing at present nation-wide with newly conceived technical projects at the regional and district levels.

Donors find themselves more and more in a state of tension rich in conflicts: after an extensive exertion of influence on the resource legislation, they often see themselves forced into a successful continuation of their policies, and having to replace the lacking implementation capacity of the State (or the lack of access to local self-help groups!) with their own structures. They fill in gaps or weak points of their own accord, and run the risk of building up long-term parallel structures. They are only slowly able to make good their officially worded claim of strengthening the capacities of the Laotian Administration and the personal responsibility of the objective groups. Unclear framework conditions of their work create increasing donor-internal voting and co-ordination problems that bind a growing part of personnel and financial means.

From time to time, international donors have functioned as a "shadow government" in that they replace lacking concept and personnel experts within the Laotian State so as to channel the wave of external funding in the sectors, and to create minimal standards for an implementation and monitoring of the application of funds, above all in the area of resources management (Kaosa-ard et al 1995). [FN 98] With hindsight, this first phase of transformation between 1986 and the beginning of the 90's has been judged very critically by the donors: on the one hand, the necessity for massive, technical, staff and financial support of the transformation process is undisputed; on the other hand, a lack of national framework planning, impractical legislation and weak, incompetent organizations for the uncoordinated dissemination of multiple donor initiatives have led to unnecessary double financing, paternalistic behavior on the part of the donors towards the Lao partners, and at times to massive internal co-ordination problems.

Especially the increasing domination of a small externally dependent State through models, procedures and through ideology of the donors formed the starting point of a very critical dispute between the internationally working NGO's and donor policy. As examples, attention must be drawn to the following: the initially unreflectedly carried over model of the private ownership of land as the central precondition for market-economy structures and for "development", the ignoring of indigenous institutions in property questions and project and programme approaches with a top-down approach.

The NGO's working internationally have organized their work starting at the local level in accordance with their often narrow objectives and intervention levels. NGO's have had solid and sometimes very successful influence on the process of reformation of the statutory resource legislation and the land administration, especially in Laos. This has been possible since smaller, bilateral functioning NGO's have also built up topic-specific networks and action alliances alongside their specific objectives and procedures, have appeared outwardly united (e.g. in the dispute over customary rights) and have purposely included the expertise of international environmental NGO's (IUCN, WWF, Forest Peoples).

In view of the success of the NGO's, development cooperation in Laos will encompass a greater spectrum of actors and bring new challenges in coordination and conflict arbitration: between donors and the State, between the NGO's and the State, and between donors and NGO's.