Beyond Projects: Why Project-Based Development Often Does More Harm Than Good.
An opinion article by BCnet Coordinator Roland Brunner, proposed for discussion.
Foreword: A personal introduction.
I have spent many years working in international cooperation, heading up international programmes at one NGO and acting as CEO at two others. During this time, I have realized uncountable projects and developed, introduced and provided training on a variety of project tools: Project Cycle Management, LOG-Frame, SWOT analysis, participatory budgeting and so on. I found these projects and the tools necessary, useful and helpful. Today, with the benefit of hindsight, I am more critical and not so sure anymore about it. Here an attempt to question this approach.
All about projects?
Project-based development has become the dominant model of international cooperation in the last 50 years. Governments, NGOs, universities and international organizations spend enormous amounts of time writing proposals, preparing budgets, defining indicators, monitoring activities and producing reports. Accountability is important, especially when public money is involved. But we should ask a simple question: How much of this effort actually improves people’s lives?
Too often, the project itself becomes the product. Organizations compete for grants rather than for impact. Months are invested in proposals that may never be funded. Once funding is secured, another significant share of time is spent on administration, reporting and evaluations. Every hour spent behind a computer is an hour that cannot be spent working with communities, protecting watersheds, strengthening public water services or building local capacity. The hidden costs of project administration are rarely acknowledged, yet they consume a remarkable share of development resources.
Projects come and go. Problems stay.
The greatest weakness of project-based work, however, is structural. Projects do not begin when people need them. They begin when funding becomes available. A community may need safe drinking water today, but nothing happens until a donor launches a call for proposals, an application is approved and contracts are signed. In other words, development follows the rhythm of donor budgets rather than the rhythm of human needs.
The same is true at the end of a project. Communities do not stop needing water because the funding period has expired. Rivers do not stop being polluted because the final report has been submitted. Yet many valuable initiatives end precisely when they have built trust, experience and local ownership. Staff move on, partnerships weaken and communities wait for the next project to begin. Development becomes a sequence of disconnected interventions instead of a continuous process of social transformation.
Donor Priorities and Language
This also changes who sets the agenda. Every donor has priorities, whether climate, digitalisation, gender, biodiversity or innovation. These are all important issues. But they are not necessarily the priorities of every community. Organizations gradually adapt to donor priorities because that is where funding exists. Instead of asking, “What do people need?” they increasingly ask, “What is currently being funded?” The logic of money begins to replace the logic of human rights.
Perhaps the most damaging consequence is a subtle change in language. People cease to be rights holders and become beneficiaries. The difference is profound. Rights holders possess rights simply because they are human. Beneficiaries receive assistance because someone has chosen to support them. Water and sanitation, however, are internationally recognized human rights. Access to them should never depend on the success of a funding proposal or the priorities of external donors. Human rights exist every day—not only during the lifetime of a project.
The limited, but important role of NGO
Most importantly, human rights are not the responsibility of NGOs or charities. They are the responsibility of the State. When governments recognize and commit themselves to the human rights to water and sanitation, they accept a legal and political obligation to progressively realize these rights for everyone without discrimination. That duty cannot be outsourced.
NGOs, charities and development agencies play an indispensable role. They innovate, advocate, build capacity, empower communities and often reach people whom governments have neglected. But they can never replace the State. No charity, however committed, has the financial resources, democratic legitimacy or permanent responsibility to guarantee safe drinking water and sanitation for an entire population. If the realization of human rights depends primarily on NGO projects, governments are relieved of the very responsibility that international human rights law places upon them.
This also redefines the role of civil society and the international community. Too often, NGOs and international organizations are expected to compensate for weak public institutions by delivering services that governments fail to provide. While such interventions may save lives during emergencies, they cannot become the normal model for realizing human rights.
Hold the state accountable
Every project that replaces a public service risks creating a parallel system instead of strengthening the one that should exist.
The primary role of NGOs is therefore not to replace the State but to strengthen society’s ability to hold the State accountable. Civil society should organize communities, raise awareness, monitor implementation, expose failures, advocate for better policies and enable citizens to participate in decision-making. The international community should facilitate cooperation, share knowledge, provide technical assistance and support institutional capacity. Donors should invest in strengthening public institutions rather than financing permanent parallel structures.
Together, they should help governments fulfil their obligations—not relieve them of those obligations.
When NGOs become long-term substitutes for public services, an unintended consequence emerges. Governments face less pressure to invest in their own institutions because others are filling the gaps. Citizens begin looking to projects instead of to the authorities responsible for guaranteeing their rights. Gradually, human rights are transformed into acts of charity.
That is neither sustainable nor just.
A village may receive safe drinking water through an NGO project. But if the surrounding hundred villages continue waiting for the next project, the human right to water has not been realized. It has been delivered selectively.
Innovation for showcasing?
Project funding also creates a constant pressure to demonstrate innovation. Every proposal promises new approaches, new technologies and new pilot projects. Yet many communities do not need another pilot. They need continuity: reliable public services, protected water sources, trained staff, strong institutions and long-term investment. Lasting progress is usually built through persistence rather than novelty.
This raises a more fundamental question. Instead of asking “Which project should we fund?”, perhaps we should ask “Which institutions should we strengthen?” Strong public water utilities, capable municipalities, accountable governments, community organizations and universities remain long after individual projects have ended. They provide continuity, accumulate experience and progressively realize human rights. Projects may create activity; institutions create resilience.
Invest in people, not projects
The Blue Community Network has consciously chosen to invest first in relationships rather than projects. We connect municipalities, public water utilities, schools, universities, civil society organizations, faith communities and youth movements that continue working together whether external funding exists or not. When financial support becomes available, it strengthens existing cooperation instead of creating temporary partnerships that disappear once the budget is exhausted. Our objective is not to replace governments, but to strengthen the public institutions, partnerships and civic engagement that make the human rights to water and sanitation a lasting reality.
Projects are not the problem. Many have transformed lives and introduced valuable innovations. The problem arises when projects become the foundation of development rather than one of its tools. Sustainable change requires strong public institutions, long-term partnerships and governments that accept and fulfil their responsibility for guaranteeing human rights.
Human rights, not charities!
The future of development cooperation should therefore move beyond project logic towards partnership logic; beyond donor priorities towards human rights; and beyond temporary interventions towards strong public institutions. Development funding should strengthen the capacity of governments and communities to fulfil rights—not substitute for them.
People do not need projects. They need functioning public institutions that continue serving them long after every project has ended.
The role of NGOs is not to replace governments, but to empower communities, strengthen public institutions and hold governments accountable for fulfilling the human rights they have pledged to guarantee.
The role of the international community is not to build permanent parallel systems, but to support States in developing the capacity, resources and political commitment to realize those rights for everyone.
When projects substitute for governments, human rights become charity.
When projects strengthen public institutions and empower citizens to hold governments accountable, they become catalysts for lasting change.
That is the difference between delivering water and realizing the human rights to water and sanitation.
