scale of impact while simultaneously strengthening the funded organizations in their distinctive roles? Again a comparative case study approach is the research method of choice. There is need to pull together the available data on a variety of different approaches to public funding of different types of NGOs, applying the conceptual framework proposed by this paper to discriminate between development and welfare interventions, as well as between VOs, PSCs, and POs. There should be no presumption that a funding mcrhanism appropriate to one or another of these will prove equally satisfactory for the others because both the natuie of the ornzation and the task are likely to differ.

A ars step would simply be to do an inventory of the many mehbanisms presently in place. These include specialized organizations such as the InterAmerican Foundation, the partnership funding mechanisms being established by Canadian CIDA in a number of countries of Asia, the efforts of USAID to expand family planning service coverage in Bangladesh through grants to NGOs, and the experience of European governments in channeling public resources through international NGOs to indigenous organizations.

Once the inventory is complete, a number of experiences that represent a range of approaches and outcomes should be documented and analyzed from a comparative perspective in relation to the issues identified in this paper. Much of the necessary information might be compiled from existing evaluation and assessment documents.O The resulting cases should provide a basis for a contingency analysis suggesting the circumstances under which different funding mechanisms are appropriate. It wiOl be important to assess these mechanisms from a variety of perspectives. Those that are effective at developing VOs as a dynamic force for social innovation may not be the same ones that demonstrate effectiveness in contributing to smal-scale development on a large-scale.

reshaping global policy and programs on population and family planning.

At the more micro-level it would be useful to examine the use of formal mechanims for achieving direct grassroots input and feedback into both donor and host government policy and programm_g. Examples might include MYRADA's role in improving the design and implementation of World Bank funded projects in India involving resetlement of displaced populations and the Philippine experience with the participation of VOs on regional and provincial planning councils.

One output of the country studies suggested earlier might be an assessment of the extent to which VOs and POs in the country in question have played useful roles in shaping development poicy and programming, and why.

# S. Development Partnerships

There are numerous experiences that may lend themselves to documentation and analysis to achieve better understanding of the dynamics of development partnerships, the special role of VOs in their formation and maintenance, and the conditions conducive to their formation. Examples include the experiences briefly described in Boxes 8 and 10 in this paper, the LSP initiatives in Indonesia described in footnote 62; and the coOlaboration of Philippine Business for Social Progress with government, the banking system, and a variety of VOs in Negros Occidental in a locally initiated and controOed land reform initiative.

It is important to be clear here that the interest is in cases that involve joint inter-sectoral problem solving, often in situations that demands expenditure of considerable voluntary energy. This is not the same as the case of the multi-sectoral project implementation committee charged with implementing a project blueprint.

# 4. VO/PO Policy Partidpation

There is growing interest among donors in the roles of VOs and POs as sources of grassroots feedback in the design, implementation, and evaluation of projects. Here again documentation and comparative analysis of experience, particularly of sucessfl experience, is likely to result in useful lessons. At the macro-level it might be useful to examine the role and strategies of environmental VOs in reshaping the environmental policies of the multilateral development banks Going further back in history the same questions might be asked regarding VO roles and strategies during the 1960s and 70s in In relating to NGOs there is a danger that donors may equate small with simple. Most individual NGOs are quite small by donor standards, but they are not simple either in their organizational form or in their development roles. They are particularly complex in the aggregate, in part because the term NGO does not define an organizational type.

NGO defines only a broad range of types of organizations that have little in common with one another except that they are non-governmental and are legally registered as non-profits. They indude market-oriented PSCs, values driven VOs, and member accountable POs.

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