FUNDAÇÃO GETULIO VARGAS ESCOLA DE ADMINISTRAÇÃO DE EMPRESAS DE SÃO PAULO

MATTIA BORDON

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT, BRAZILIAN NGOS, AND PRIVATE FIRMS: THE LOCATION DECISION PROCESS OF PROJECTS

SÃO PAULO 2020

MATTIA BORDON

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT, BRAZILIAN NGOS, AND PRIVATE FIRMS: THE LOCATION DECISION PROCESS OF PROJECTS

Trabalho de conclusão de curso apresentado à Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo da Fundação Getulio Vargas (EAESP/FGV), como requisito para conclusão do Mestrado Profissional em Gestão e Políticas Públicas (MPGPP)

Orientador: Prof. Dr. Fernando Burgos Pimental dos Santos (EAESP-FGV)

SÃO PAULO 2020

Bordon, Mattia. Community development, Brazilian NGOs, and private firms : the location decision process of projects / Mattia Bordon. - 2020. 83 f.

Orientador: Fernando Burgos Pimentel dos Santos. Dissertação (mestrado profissional MPGPP) – Fundação Getulio Vargas, Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo.

1. Comunidade - Desenvolvimento. 2. Organizações não-governamentais. 3. Investimentos - Aspectos sociais. 4. Responsabilidade social da empresa. I. Santos, Fernando Burgos Pimentel dos. II. Dissertação (mestrado profissional MPGPP) - Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo. III. Fundação Getulio Vargas. IV. Título.

CDU 316.334.52

Ficha Catalográfica elaborada por: Isabele Oliveira dos Santos Garcia CRB SP- 010191/O Biblioteca Karl A. Boedecker da Fundação Getulio Vargas - SP MATTIA BORDON

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT, BRAZILIAN NGOS, AND PRIVATE FIRMS: THE LOCATION DECISION PROCESS OF PROJECTS

Trabalho de Conclusão apresentado à Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo da Fundação Getulio Vargas, como requisito para obtenção do título de Mestre em Gestão e Políticas Públicas.

Data de Aprovação: ___/___/____.

Banca Examinadora:

Prof. Dr. Fernando Burgos Pimental dos Santos (Orientador) – FGV- EAESP

Prof. Dr. Mario Aquino Alves FGV- EAESP ______

Prof. Dr. Patricia Maria Emerenciano de Mendoça ______

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to thank first of all my advisor, Professor Fernando Burgos Pimental dos Santos, for having guided me throughout the realization of this research, having shared with me some contacts and having make me passionate about community development. I thank my family, my parents and my brother for having supported me during my period away from home. I thank all the people that accepted to take part in my interviews since they have been essential for my work. I thank the friends of my fraternity for having supported me during the long hours of work at home.

RESUMO

Meu trabalho trata do conceito de desenvolvimento comunitário e analisa projetos e organizações que atuam neste contexto. Vou me concentrar em duas questões principais de pesquisa baseadas nas 'comunidades' brasileiras como meu ‘case study’. A primeira pergunta aborda a definição de 'desenvolvimento comunitário'. Este é um tema importante relacionado às questões de desenvolvimento e, quanto à definição de desenvolvimento, recomendo que também a definição de 'desenvolvimento comunitário' seja atualizada regularmente. Darei uma definição desse conceito de acordo com as opiniões atuais de organizações que atuam nesta área, e depois compararei as diferenças nas definições de acordo com empresas que realizam projetos sociais e ONGs. Minha segunda linha de pesquisa abordará fatores que levam ONGs e empresas que se envolvem em projetos de desenvolvimento comunitário a agir em algumas áreas específicas. Realizei entrevistas com essas organizações para entender quais são os fatores que influenciam sua decisão de onde realizar seus projetos. Também neste caso irei considerar se existem diferenças em relação aos resultados no que diz respeito ao setor com e sem fins lucrativos. Algumas das perguntas que irei abordar incluem: qual é o significado de 'desenvolvimento comunitário'? por que a organização decidiu executar o projeto nesta comunidade? Qual o peso da necessidade avaliada, política ou contatos pessoais para decidir onde localizar um projeto social? Por fim, incluí um anexo como minha pesquisa acontece no período do Covid-19. Aproveitei da situação para ver como as organizações que se engajam em projetos sociais na minhas entrevistas mudaram sua forma de operar em resposta à pandemia.

PALAVRAS CHAVE: desenvolvimento comunitario, localização, OSC, Covid-19, investimento social privado

ABSTRACT

My work deals with the concept of community development and analyzes projects and organizations which operate in this context. I will focus on two main research questions based on Brazilian ‘comunidades’ as my case study. The first question addresses the definition of ‘community development’. This is an important theme related to development issues, and, as for the definition of development, I recommend that also the definition of ‘community development’ should be regularly updated. The differential of my work is that I will consider current opinions of organizations working in this area, and then I will compare definitions of this concept according to firms carrying out social projects and NGOs1. My second research line will address factors that lead NGOs and firms which engage in community development projects to take action in some specific areas2. I carried out interviews with these organizations to understand which are the factors that influence their decision of where to undertake their projects. Also in this case I will consider whether there are differences concerning results for the profit and non-profit sector. Some of the questions I will address include: what is the meaning of 'community development'? why did the organization decided to run the project in this community? which is the weight of assessed necessity, politics or personal contacts? Finally I included an annex since my research happened in the period of Covid-19. I took advantage of the situation to see how organizations that engage in social projects that participated in my interviews changed their way to operate in response to the pandemic.

KEYWORDS: community development, localization, NGO, Covid-19, private social investment

1 OSCs: Organizações da Sociedad Civil, according to Brazilian legislation 2 With ‘area’ I mean not only a particular geographic area, but also a community which respects some specific characteristics. That could be IDH index, poverty level, lack of energy, attitude of dwellers towards receiving projects from the outside, ecc… TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ...... 11 Topics of research...... 13 Community development ...... 13

Relationship between community development, impact investment and community investment ...... 21

Localization choice for projects and their link with infrastructures ...... 23

Overview of Brazilian actors involved in social projects ...... 27 Non-profit organizations: ...... 27

For-profit organizations: ...... 30

Government ...... 32

Methodology ...... 34 Hypothesis concerning projects’ location choice ...... 39

Comprehensive interview results: community development guidelines ...... 43 NGOs ...... 43

Firms & business foundations and institutes ...... 45

Results: community development definition...... 47

Comprehensive interview results: factors influencing projects’ location ...... 49 NGOs: ...... 49

Firms & business foundations and institutes ...... 51

Results: factors that influence projects’ location ...... 53

Summary and analysis of results ...... 55 Conclusion and recommendations for future studies ...... 60 Bibliography ...... 61 Annex: how organizations interviewed adapted their projects to Covid-19 ...... 71 An introduction on social projects to fight Covid-19 ...... 71

Comprehensive interview results: how organizations interviewed adapted their projects to Covid-19 ...... 76 Summary of results: how organizations interviewed adapted their projects to Covid-19 ...... 80

TABLE OF FIGURES

Figure 1: local territorial system ...... 13 Figure 2: private-social investment alignment ...... 26 Figure 3: map of organizations interviewed ...... 33 Figure 4: community development for NGOs ...... 39 Figure 5: community development for Firms ...... 40 Figure 6: factors influencing projects locations, NGOs ...... 44 Figure 7: factors influencing projects locations, firms ...... 46 Figure 8: adaptation to Covid-19, NGOs ...... 49 Figure 9: adaptation to Covid-19, firms ...... 51

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ABCD - Asset Based Community Development CED - Community Economic Development CEMPRE - Cadastro de Empresas (Register of Firms) CNPJ - Cadastro Nacional de Pessoas Jurídicas (National Register of Legal Entities) FASFIL - Fundações Privadas e Associações sem Fins Lucrativos (Private Foundations and Nonprofit Associations) GDP - Gross Domestic Product GII - Gender Inequality Index GDI - Gender Development Index GIFE - Grupo de Institutos Fundações e Empresas (Group of Institutes, Foundations and Companies) IBRD - International Bank for Reconstruction and Development HDI - Human Development Index IBGE - Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) IBGE - Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) IDC - International Development Cooperation ILO - International Labour Organization MPI - Multidimensional Poverty Index MDG - Millennium Development Goals NGO - Non-Governmental Organization OSC - Organização da Sociedade Civil (Civil Society Organization) OSCIP - Organização da sociedade civil de interesse público (Civil Society Organization of Public Interest) OS - Organização Social (Social Organizations) OEEC - Organization for European Economic Co-operation SUS - Sistema Único de Saúde ( Public Health System) UNEP - United Nations Environment Program ILO - International Labour Organization Introduction

I decided to focus my research on community development due to a personal passion for development issues, and willingness to engage with people working in this field: to understand their experience and how it is like to work with such projects. I also feel that studies concerning development, sustainability and well-being have never been so important as in this historical period. Although there is a lot of literature addressing these topics I think that definitions in this field should be regularly updated. My research deals with two main areas of interest: community development projects and decision making and management in social projects. While the concept of community development has been addressed in past literature, not so much attention has been given to the understanding of why organizations decide to locate social projects in some specific areas. The quantity of these projects around the world has been steadily increasing and professionalizing within the past years. New NGOs start having a complex structure and more developed decision making processes. Following the empowerment of these actors I regard as important to better understand the internal dynamics of social projects. At the same time, following pressures of interest groups and civil society in response to environmental and social issues, the practice of engaging in social projects has been gaining importance also among firms which were not aligned with these practices. Private companies from all sectors recognize the importance of dealing with SDGs and to carry out projects that will have a positive social impact. These private firms often have a better financial structure and are capable of spending a higher amount of resources. It is important to understand which incentives could be developed to influence the location of these projects, to align them with public necessity and make them more efficient. Working with community development is not just about financing an infrastructure or giving resources to low- income groups. The way resources are allocated and the way projects are implemented can strongly impact the final outcome, the durability of the project and the local population. I explored community development projects and talked with experts from the field to understand which are the priorities to consider for a project to be successful. My objective is then to understand whether there is a strategy behind decisions on where to carry out projects, or it is as simple as it appears: projects are

11 carried out in geographical proximity of the organization’s headquarters for obvious logistic efficiency. I expect that there is something more behind this decision, I think that socio-economic and strategic reasons also have a role. Since my research happened in the period of the Covid-19 pandemic I decided to include an annex in my work. I carried out a preliminary analysis aiming at understanding the impact the pandemic had on the organizations that I interviewed. It is important to learn what worked in the response to the pandemic and what can be improved. The world as a whole was not prepared for this calamity, resilience must be built, and lessons must be learnt for future emergencies. I included in my interviews some questions to understand whether organizations that engage with community development projects were able to adopt a rapid response to the pandemic and, if so, in which way they adapted.

12 Topics of research Community development

I will start with a definition of community, a term indicating ‘a group of people, given a territorial base, that has a form of organization that leads to the creation of particular channels of expression’ (SOUSA 1987). An example of this are groups within a certain social class or housing space that have similar interests and goals about living conditions in the common area. It must be clear however that the concept can be defined in a variety of ways. The geographical boundaries are an useful element to better identify a community group (such as an urban neighborhood) but are not essential. Communities could be simply represented by a group of people that share a common identity, deriving from beliefs, such as religion, language or heritage (Catalytic Communities). Some authors argue that the concept of ‘community’ was partially lost through time with the creation of metropolis. This is because the sense of identity and social appreciation that was present in the Greek poles was lost (metropolis seen just as a place of work and not anymore as a place of interpersonal relations) (SOUSA 1987). The idea of community today remains more present in rural areas. This because poverty and living in a situation of necessity recreates situations of identity, where the living area is not just the sleeping, working and consuming place. It is also important to have a notion of what we mean withe the term development, which often carries an assumption of growth and expansion. The institutionalized idea of development started to take shape after World War II with the reconstruction of Europe. In 1947 the Marshall Plan was developed to restore the economy. Following this path, in 1948 it was created the Organization for European Economic Co- operation (OEEC) which then evolved, in 1961, in the Organization for Economic Co- operation and Development (OECD). In this period the idea of development started being associated to economic growth, trade and increase of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Formally, the first institution to explicitly include “development” in its mission was the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), but what was missing was the fact that economic growth is not qualitatively neutral (MISSONI et al, 2019). GDP can be composed of different goods, services and production cycles which affect life condition and wellbeing of people in different ways. Only in 1975 a non-economic reinterpretation of “development” started being considered. The Hammarskjöld Foundation and the United Nations Environment

13 Program (UNEP), concluded that development should be endogenous, thus arising from within society, and, since it is context specific, it cannot be simply imported from the outside (DAG HAMMARSKJÖLD FOUNDATION, 1975). This ‘Basic Needs’ approach (communities should be able to satisfy their basic needs autonomously) was adopted by the 1976 World Employment Conference with a focus upon policies to promote access to clean water, nutrition, appropriate shelter, health-care, education and security to the poorest populations (ILO, 1976). During this period, however, also neoliberal policies started gaining importance, with a growth of inequalities as side effect. The model continued spreading until the 90s, and in the same period, the ‘Brundtland Report’ (1987) introduced the concept of "Sustainable development" defined as: “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. In the same years, Indian economist Amartya Sen, introduced the capability approach, which indicated development as ‘the improvement of peoples’ lives through the expansion of people’s capabilities such as: to be healthy and well fed, educated, knowledgeable, and to participate in the life of the community’ (Sen, 1989). Following this framework, UNDP report of 1990 adopted the concept of "human development", considering whether economic growth and GDP were efficient indicators of a country's progress. This process resulted in the creation of the Human Development Index (HDI) as a new indicator to measure progress, based on longevity, knowledge and decent living standards (UNDP 1990). In its subsequent reports, UNDP updated the HDI index, and currently many new indicators have been developed, such as: the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI), the Gender Inequality Index (GII), the Gender Development Index (GDI) and the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI). Finally, in the 21st Century, the OECD lead to the creation of the the Millennium Declaration (OECD/DAC 1996) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These goals include key policies to reach development in a sustainable way, and, ssince 2015, following the Rio +20 Conference, their momentum has been carried out by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Today it is difficult to disentangle the association of development with economic growth, but new approaches are emerging, such as the idea of "de-growth" (LATOUCHE, 2010). This concept highlights the need to reduce ‘social metabolism’ 1 and replace GDP with wellbeing as indicator for

1 reduce global consumption and production

14 prosperity following three main directions: reducing environmental impact of human activity, redistributing income and wealth both within and between countries, and promoting the transition from a materialistic to a convivial and participatory society (COSME et al, 2017). Following this model, Latouche proposes the idea of abandoning the global economy in the global south to reduce the overconsumption and exploitation of their resources, and to allow people of the South to become more self- sufficient (LATOUCHE, 2004). Up to date there have been two international conferences concerning the degrowth topic. The First International Conference on Economic Degrowth for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity in Paris (2008) and the Second International Conference in Barcelona (2010). We are thus understanding that more isn’t always better, and there is an increasing respect for reducing outside dependencies and lowering levels of consumerism. When talking about development there is also a distinction between what Cowen and Shenton (1995) call immanent or intentional development, or what Hart (2001) refers to as ‘small d’ and ‘big D’ development (SMITH and FRANK, 1999). While ‘small d development’ refers to broad processes of change, particularly under capitalism, ‘big D development’ refers to specific, intentional interventions to achieve improvements or progress. We can see development as something that ‘spontaneously’ happens, or as something that is done with intention and deliberate choice. ‘Big D development’ is not a neutral or natural process, but a normative one, this means that it is based on a specific set of values. This makes it a politicized process because the way in which it is carried out needs to be established through a negotiation between different groups of interest in society. Sometimes dominant actors portray “development” as a neutral process to hide the values which underpin a particular definition or direction. The truth is that intentionality requires planning. We are referring to a type of development that depends on deciding a desirable outcome to be achieved, and this depends on who is able to shape this decisions. Planning takes place at different scales: individual, household, community, city, regional, national, continental level. Relations between these different actors determine which decisions are adopted, and who benefits depends on the power relations. The final outcome will derive from an informal negotiation process. This initial digression on development is useful because also in community development practices it has been understood that the focus can’t solely be about improving the economic condition of communities. There must be a wider

15 process that focuses primary on achieving well-being and enhancing economic outcomes while improving social conditions.

Now lets consider ‘community development’. Since it’s origins this term referred to working with local communities and disadvantaged people. Projects included urban renewal, anti-poverty, wealth, land programs, and in the post-colonial period projects to prepare countries for formal independence. Depending on the country and the historical period projects focused on different type of communities, could it be indigenous groupsin Australia, villages in India or degraded regions of cities in the developed world. Each country has developed its own experiences in its specific contexts. What changed across time was the understanding of the importance of avoiding top-down approaches and the consideration given to social capital. Experience has shown that it is important to have an horizontal dialogue to see what community members think about development processes needed in the context where they live. For what concerns ‘Social capital’, in the 1990s, Muhammad Yunus showed the importance of it with the creation Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. ‘Social capital’, can be defined as ‘the networks of relationships among people, including trust among each other and acceptance of common values and norms’. Basically everything that allows cooperation between individuals is linked to social capital (PINTO, 2014). A Brazilian case study shows the importance of this concept (DONAGHY 2011). The project concerns municipal councils and social housing and shows how the presence of participatory governance institutions improves the efficiency of social programs and pro-poor policies. Incorporation of civil society into decision making through participatory governance institutions leads governments to distribute resources more equitably among the population. According to past literature one of the best approaches to promote community development is through ‘Asset-based Community Development (ABCD)’ (Mathie and Cunningham, 2003). This approach considers that people in communities can organize to drive the development process themselves by identifying and mobilizing local resources. This process avoids the risk of community members becoming dependent and clients of external actors. The 4 major elements of ABCD include: appreciative inquiry, social capital, community economic development (CED), and active citizenship engagement and strong civil society. Appreciative inquiry focuses on promoting change by considering peak experiences

16 and successes of the past. Social capital considers formal and informal associations, networks, and extended families, and treats them as assets and means to further mobilise other assets of the community. CED goes further from simply considering economic growth. It considers economic development ad an endogenous process that spurs from collective action of dwellers. The concept can be easily understood by considering examples of peasant organisations, consumer cooperatives and credit unions. Finally a stronger civil society refers to understanding the distribution of power, and linking citizenship and civil society. This should promote participatory approaches and shift power from external agencies towards community-based organizations.

Analyzing community development projects, we see that they often happen in poor areas that have the characteristics of slums, or in geographically isolated areas where basic services are lacking. Slums can be defined as ‘neglected parts of cities where housing and living conditions are lacking’. They may be called by various names depending on their country of location, ‘komboni’ in Zambia, ‘barrios’ in Venezuela, ’favelas’ in Brazil or ‘kampungs’ in Malaysia (The World Bank Group, 2001). My research will analyze specifically ‘Brazilian slums’ or ‘favelas2’. In this contexts, the interventions carried out to promote development, are called ‘up-gradings’. Upgrading in its simplest form indicates a package of basic services: clean water supply and adequate sewage disposal to improve the well-being of the community, but other fundamental interventions include legalization and regularization of the properties in situations of insecure or unclear tenure. Local development however is not simply about economic growth, but it best works when is carried out through community involvement in decision making.

Some of the community development definitions that have been developed until today include:

• a process where community members come together to take collective action and generate solutions to common problems (United Nations, 2018).

2 there is a debate whether it is correct or not to define favelas as slums since these last ones usually present more precarious conditions as compared to favelas. I won’t however enter in this discussion, but for the purpose of my research I will call them either favelas or communities (from the Brazilian ‘comunidade’)

17 • a pedagogical, technical-methodological process of action with the communities, with social participation as its central element. It is also considered a process of social cooperation, in which the population has common interests and needs, since it occupies the same space (PINTO, 2014). • an endogenous process registered in small territorial units and human groupings capable of promoting economic dynamism and improving the population's quality of life (BUARQUE 1999). • a grassroots process by which communities (SMITH and FRANK, 1999): o become more responsible

o organize and plan together

o develop healthy lifestyle options

o empower themselves

o reduce poverty and suffering

o create employment and economic opportunities

o achieve social, economic, cultural and environmental goals

• a practice-based profession and an academic discipline that promotes participative democracy, sustainable development, rights, economic opportunity, equality and social justice, through the organization, education and empowerment of people within their communities, whether these be of locality, identity or interest, in urban and rural settings (International Association for Community Development) • a planned processes that increase the ability of people, as individuals and groups, to come together and take collective action to common problems. It should be not imposed from the outside and it should lead to improved or enhanced community living (FLO and SMITH,1999). • economic growth and financial stability practices to promoted especially low and moderate income areas. A process that brings together financial institutions, the private sector, non-profits, public officials, government agencies, researchers and practitioners to identify and address challenges. The process typically requires four elements: attention to the needs and desires of the people involved and to the areas where they live and work, control by

18 community members, who become active participant, the concept of self-help, and an holistic view of the community, in which groups take into account one another’s goals and actions as opposed to operating as if each were in a vacuum. We see how this last definition given by the Federal Bank of St. Louis stresses the importance of collaboration among different actors in the initiatives (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis).

Past literature also focused on determining when community development is ‘effective’, it will be so when (SMITH and FRANK, 1999):

• it has a long-term impact

• it is well-planned

• it is inclusive and equitable. This means that the whole process must rely on enhancing social capital. Attention should be given to gathering spaces in the community and the way conversations are hold. Everyone must have the chance to speak and feel listened (BRAUN et al., 2014).

• it is holistic and integrated into the bigger picture. This means that projects should stimulate a sense of hope and improvement of living conditions.

• it is initiated and supported by community members who develop a sense of co- ownership of the project

• it is of benefit to the community

• it is grounded in experience that leads to best practices

• it is based upon cooperation among different actors. Field know-how of NGOs, financial resources of the private sector and enforcement power of the government should work in a synergetic way. NGOs often face financial constraints and rely on volatile budgets (MENA Catalyst Foundation, 2020).

• a clear leadership role is identified

• the process includes an evaluation phase. A project plan that clearly states the goals and outcomes to be met must be elaborated and results must be monitored.

19 Considering these definitions we can understand that community development is about empowering individuals in a participative way, with the skills they need to promote change and wellbeing within their communities. There are then two further concepts that help to understand the way this process can be effective: sustainability and local territorial system. Sustainability is understood as ‘meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (Bruntland Commission Report, 1987). Sustainability is still a concept of secondary importance for people who still have to focus on reaching basic living conditions. What value do the community members give to sustainability in projects carried out inside their communities? Is there preference for a project that doesn’t pollute or doesn’t it matter so much? do people look for a sustainable form of living? This research will try to address also this type of questions through interviews, to understand how the communities perceive sustainability issues. It is possible that the location of the community plays a key role in this way of thinking. A community situated in the periphery of a big city for example could absorb a materialistic and consumerist lifestyle, while a more isolated community in contact with the nature (such as an isolated community in the Amazon forest) could have adapted to a lifestyle that privileges sustainable practices even not knowing what SDGs are. The ‘local territorial system’ concept instead refers to the level of internal organization of the community and the integration that the community has with external subjects, which may simply be outsiders or institutions that operate in the same territory. A community could act like a ‘white blood cell’, thus not accepting any outsider in their territory and perceiving it as someone that could harm, or it could welcome an outsider. This attitude gives us information about the local culture and the experiences that the community had so far with outsiders (for example they could have developed a feeling of being exploited by firms that operate in that area, or envy and anger due to a high inequality level in the region). An attitude that makes it difficult for the community to integrate with local institutions, while by itself it doesn’t necessary imply a lower level of development, could lead to this. If for example researchers are not allowed inside the community to study a way to improve living conditions, or civil servants fear to enter the community, they won’t be able to carry out their job properly. It is also true that a fundamental characteristic that allowed humans to distinguish from other animals was the capacity of social learning. This refers to the ability of being able to replicate what they see. A closed environment is thus limited in the fact that it can’t exploit the advantages of

20 speeding up the process of learning and innovating by looking at something different. We must also consider that the difficulty to integrate in a larger context sometimes does not derive from dweller’s attitude but from prejudices of civil servants. They could for example avoid certain areas because they think they are dangerous. This lack of communication can bring to a vicious circle where mistrust between the community and the outside environment becomes self-enforcing3. I will try to investigate what attitude do people that live in communities have towards outsiders by including some questions concerning this topic in my interviews.

Figure 1: local territorial system, (source: BERZI, 2017)

Relationship between community development, impact investment and community investment

When comparing these three terms we can see community development as the broader concept that includes impact investment and community investment as some

3 Concerning this last point I had the opportunity to assess this type of behavior by participating in a public policy research project at CEPESP – Centro de Estudos de Política e Economia do Setor Público of FGV University. I saw that the lack of communication among the ‘prefeitura’ and the communities of the southern area of São Paulo was evident for what concerned projects in the field of infrastructures and public security. Often the population in the communities doesn’t ask for help to the municipality because they don’t have the right to live/build their houses in a certain area, they fear to be evicted. Help arrives only after a disaster has occurred and no prevention is carried out. There is instead more communication for what concerns projects linked to the field of education, public health and social services. The research project I refer to is ‘Waterproofing Data: Engaging Stakeholders in Sustainable Flood Risk Governance for Urban Resilience’: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/cim/research/waterproofing-data/

21 specific practices. While community development can refer to all projects that concern an improvement of well-being in communities, the other two terms generally look also for an economic return from projects, as the commonly accepted definition of ‘investment’ requires. Impact and community investment also differentiate themselves since a bigger proportion of these projects are carried out by the private sector. The practice of impact investment derives from social responsible investments, and developed to concentrate capital in social and environmental issues, mostly in the fields of renewable energy, basic services including housing, healthcare, education, micro-finance, and sustainable agriculture (GridShare, 2018). The term emerged around 2007, and positioned business and investments in a development function that was commonly thought to be exclusively of social assistance or philanthropy (UNDP, 1999). Impact investment aims at measure social and environmental performance, with the same rigor that is applied to financial performance (KANANI, 2012). It can be defined as ‘investments made by companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate a measurable social and environmental impact alongside a financial return’ (GIIN, 2020). Although some social enterprises are nonprofits, impact investing typically involves for-profit, social or environmental-mission-driven businesses (mostly private sector investors, such as banks, pension funds, development finance institutions, institutional investors and private foundations). GIIN's Annual Impact Investor Survey (2020) shows that the largest sectors by asset allocation are microfinance, energy, housing, and financial services (MORATA, 2017). There are 3 main characteristics that must be considered when talking about impact investment: intentionality (to have a positive social or environmental impact), expectations of financial return, and measurement of impact. When it comes to ‘community investment’, we can consider it as a specific case of impact investment, where the main difference is the target group. While impact investment considers a very broad range of projects, that aim at improving social or environmental conditions, community investment specifically targets economically disadvantaged communities. It can thus be defined as ‘investments intended to achieve social and environmental benefits in underserved communities’ (Kresge Foundation, 2015), and it contributes to make cities more equitable and sustainable. Community investment is carried out mainly by Community Development Financial Institutions (such as community development banks and community development credit unions), which are private

22 sector financial institutions that focus primarily on personal lending and business development efforts in poorer local communitiess.

Localization choice for projects and their link with infrastructures

Most of past literature concerning location choices in development studies, address decisions whether to delegate project management to local actors, the directions and reasons of international aid, and, closer to my research question, the places where new NGOs are born. I found two studies, one referring to Kenya and one to Bangladesh that are strictly related to my research question. The first one (Brass, 2012), studied how need, convenience, and political factors are related to geographical locations in which NGOs work. Brass found evidence for the first two drivers, showing that health-related issues, lack of service provision infrastructures, density of people and elite goods4, and good road network are positively associated with nonprofits’ location. Convenience goods must be considered since they offer higher quality of life to NGOs’ workers on the field. Another study (FRUTTERO and GAURI, 2005), carried out in in Bangladesh, studied determinants of NGOs’ location using household and community level data. The research analyzed three elements of NGO’s decision making: donor funding, complementarities or substitutes with other programs, and community needs. Results do not support the claim that NGOs target poverty (considering correlation with poverty gap, literacy, percentage of landless coefficient not significant). There is mixed evidence for what concerns donor funding: while some types of organizations follow government programs others do not, and finally, the research shows that between 1995 and 2000 NGOs entered areas in which they were not present and/or left communities in which they were already working. Another interesting working paper (but less connected to my research as compared to the other two) is that of Marchesini da Costa (2016), where he studied the location of nonprofit organizations in Brazil. He tried to answer the following question ‘what make nonprofits more likely to be formed in certain areas?’. Previous studies on this topic present two main explanations: community’s location attracts nonprofits, and, nonprofits are established where there are more resources available for their action. The results of Marchesini da Costa’s study indicate that measures of community needs

4 restaurants, entertainment, resorts and high quality healthcare

23 are not strong determinants for nonprofit location in Brazil. Actually, poor socioeconomic indicators (higher levels of income inequality and unemployment rate) are associated with a lower rate of nonprofits created between 2001 and 2010. Among the available resources, only the percentage of rural population (used as a measure of a higher social capital) is positively associated with nonprofit location. The main predictor of the increase of nonprofits in a municipality is the density of nonprofits previously existing in that geographic area, which leads to clustering. Findings, however, vary across regions and non-profit fields of activity (religious non-profits are attracted by municipalities with higher homicide rates, while advocacy and professional associations are created in areas).

We must also consider the location of infrastructure projects as an important determinant for the location of community development projects (HIGUEROS, 2020). This is specifically true when projects are related to indigenous people’s lands and ancestral rights. In the late eighties, the International Labor Organization created the “Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention” (Convention 169), that established the obligation for governments to promote the participation of tribal and indigenous communities in making decisions that could affect their development. This convention was meant as a tool for governments to avoid confrontations with local communities and try to develop communication among the two entities. Unfortunately the project has been often strategically manipulated and seen either as the faculty of the communities to veto projects or as the possibility for external groups to take advantage of the situation by misinforming the communities. Before implementing any kind of infrastructure project in the proximity of communities it is important to pay attention to the sustainability of the project, by studying the type of communities in proximity and the impacts on them. During my interviews some infrastructure companies brought evidence on how these big projects can affect the surrounding environment and communities by developing an informal market around the project site. A report from the Inter-American Development Bank (2017) analyzed 200 infrastructure projects that took place in Latin America and the Caribbean in the last 40 years. It emerged that 36 were canceled due to conflict, 162 faced delays and 116 faced cost overruns. Of these projects, 28 happened in Brazil, mainly in the energy and transportation sectors. In many cases, conflicts escalated due to accumulated complaints and concerns from the local communities since the early phases. An

24 important cause of conflict was identified in the lack of community benefits that would have compensated the negative spillovers of projects (84% of the cases). Usually the major fear of communities was to lose access to agricultural or marine resources or to have an impact on local values. Community development compensatory initiatives mostly include investments in community infrastructure, capacity building, jobs, and direct payments. These measures have been found to satisfy communities in remote rural areas while those in developed and urbanized regions usually demand for further benefits. An example of problems between communities and infrastructure projects in Brazil is the extension of Tucururì transmission line to Roraima. In this case, conflict with indigenous groups lead to a delay in the execution of the project of almost 10 years. As the IDB shows, compensatory measures often haven’t been kept into due consideration (IDB, 2017), and communities were concerned that they would have to bear the negative impacts of the project. Along with ILO 169 convention, other documents that provide guidelines for these projects are: the United Nation’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. From a more practical point of view, past projects have shown the importance of following some principles: finding the correct representation (who to talk to in the communities) identifying legitimate concerns (who is actually receiving the damage and is his claim legitimate?), getting adequate follow up from governments, and determining correct ways to make the dialogue’s conclusions enforceable. An international organization that has an important role in this field is the World Bank, which contributes to the design of community development projects to limit the impact of these big infrastructure projects. The aim is that of establishing an effective and sustainable instrument to improve the living conditions and the economic status of disadvantaged communities’ (World Bank, 2001). Projects supported by the World Bank are articulated through two main components. A first focus on social and infrastructure development. This aims at carrying out social assessments and implementing community development sub-projects as complementary to the main infrastructure project. The second focus is closely related to the first and deals with income enhancement projects to support micro and small entrepreneurs: NGOs providing credit to target beneficiary groups, and vulnerable group empowerment through training with demand-driven specialized skills, that should lead to income and business opportunities. To better understand this process I report a case study from MIGA for a Hydropower Development Project that happened in the Solomon Islands

25 (Solomon Islands Government, 2017). For this project a detailed mapping of the local environment was carried out to determine which could have be the best development practices to support the initiative. Structured community workshops were designed to collect information in each village area. Information collected included: the local way of life of communities living in the area, views on potential project impacts, and individual interviews with local leaders about sacred and important cultural sites and issues. In addition to this, the members of these communities were able to inform project managers about their specific interests and concerns regarding the company operations. In these circumstances, however, there are always some risks that can’t be completely avoided, referring to all that involves individual personal choices such as alcohol and drug consumption. A way to make sure that all research and workshops results are considered is to include independant external organizations to supervise the process and protect the communities. For what concerns this specific project, results showed that electric lighting was the most relevant benefit that would arise from the project, with spillovers including: giving the possibility to children and adults to study in the evenings, increase security at night, and increase levels of community interaction. The report shows that a good strategy to mitigate the infrastructure’s impact is that of organizing job trainings programs for people living in the area of the project. Beside these benefits other in-kind support is also often provided, through preferential employment policies, physical infrastructure (water supply and sanitation, roads, rural electrification, rural irrigation systems, telecommunications), health and education facilities and services (clinics, schools, community centres, libraries, textbooks), and financial literacy programmes (often linked to microfinance programmes or other cash-transfer programmes).

26 Overview of Brazilian actors involved in social projects

There are three main reports that can be consulted to get information about private organizations that carry out social projects. The Group of Institutes, Foundations and Companies (GIFE, 2018) report focuses on institutes and foundations of the business type. GIFE is an association itself5 and it produces a report based on the analysis of its member organizations. It thus includes mostly big organizations and excludes many NGOs. FASFIL report (IBGE, 2019), on the other side, is a more inclusive study which considers most of Brazilian NGOs, including GIFE members as well. The third report is the OSC map (IPEA, 2021), which includes organizations recognized by law n°13.019 (Brazilian Civil Code, 2014).

Non-profit organizations:

The main organizations that work with social projects are NGOs. These organizations end up completing the work of the state and may receive financing and donations from it and from private entities. In Brazil, NGOs have no legal value and they act as “Civil Society Organizations (PENIDO, 2018)”. A civil society organization (OSC) is an institution that develops social projects with a non-profit purpose. Such organizations are also classified as ‘Third Sector Institutions’. OSC can be classified as civil society organizations of public interest (OSCIP) or social organizations (OS) as long as they comply with certain requirements established by law. Qualification as OSCIP or as OS is optional and brings benefits and duties (Instituto Bancorbràs, 2016). The qualification as Social Organization (OS) for example can be granted to entities destined to the exercise of activities directed to teaching, scientific research, technological development, protection and preservation of the environment, culture or health (Brazilian Civil Code, law nº 9.637 of 1998). Mandatorily, an OS must have certain percentages of representatives of both the Government and civil society in the composition of its Board of Directors. Generally OSCs are divided into associations, foundations, and religious organizations6

5 its members pay to be part of it 6 were considered as a third category by Law no. 10,825 12/22/2003, which established these organizations as private legal entities, which previously belonged to the figure of associations

27

Associations: are defined as the union of people in favor of a common objective, who organize themselves for non-economic purposes (excluding the exercise of certain activities, such as paramilitary activities). All income from its activities must be reverted to fulfill its statutory objectives (Brazilian Civil Code, law nº 10.406 of 2002).

Foundations: defined as an asset destined to an end of public or social interest (not for profit) that acquires legal personality (Brazilian Civil Cod, law nº 13.151 of 2015). As compared to associations, this legal denomination allows the organization to pay less taxes, and for this reason it can be submitted to audit from the government.

Religious organizations: considered as legal entities of private law, have the scope of religious activity in its broad sense and must not only be analyzed by worship, but by the practice and experience of a faith, which can be expressed and demonstrated in its Statute, through the provision of worship, religiosity, the formation of its members and believers, religious instruction, the experience of a charism and the practice of the virtue of faith, hope and charity (Brazilian civil code: law nº 10.825, of 2003).

In Brazil there are different organizations carrying out research concerning non-profit organizations7, and all entities adopt a similar conceptual reference with five pillars:

1. the organizations are private, so not legally linked to the State 2. have a non-profit purpose, they do not distribute the surplus between owners or directors, and, if profit is generated, it is applied to the organization's core activities 3. are legally constituted, they are registered with the CNPJ 4. are self-administered and manage their own activities autonomously 5. are constituted voluntarily by individuals, and the activities they perform are freely chosen by those responsible

7 The three main sources I used are OSC map by IPEA, CENSO by GIFE and FASFIL map by IBGE

28 Two sources of information make it possible to identify OSCs: the Central Business Register (CEMPRE8), managed and used by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), and the National Register of Juridical Persons (CNPJ), managed by the Brazilian Federal Revenue Service (SRFB) (ANDRADE and PEREIRA, 2019) and used by the Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA) 9 . Aiming at the construction of internationally comparable statistics, IBGE and IPEA adopt the Handbook on Non-Profit Institutions in the System of National Accounts (UN, 2002) as a reference for defining these organizations (MELLO and ANDRADE, 2019).

In Brazil the term “NGO” was originally used to refer to organisations established among the social movements and the fight against the dictatorships during the 1960s and 1970s. Since then these organizations have undergone several changes (Mendonça, Alves, and Nogueira, 2016). The first wave of changes was linked to the redemocratisation processes after the military regime, when most of these organizations became legal and formal. In this period the main role of NGOs was that of consolidating Brazilian democracy, acting as key players in the extension of social rights. The second wave of changes was instead connected to the transformation of funding trends in the 2000s. At the international level, changes of priorities of the International Development Cooperation (IDC) donors resulted in decreasing funds for Brazilian NGOs. At the national level, there started to be a closer link between NGOs and the state and the corporate philanthropy sector. This resulted in NGOs becoming more project-oriented and dependent on these restricted funds. Past literature concerning NGOs has thus focused on studying their role and structure, and the current debate argues that their funding structure (Fowler, 2000; De Senillosa, 1998) and management model should be revised (Taylor, 2016). Since their origin, these organizations relied on public or private funding that happened to influence their mission and behaviour. Fowler (2000) and Taylor (2016) argue that NGOs should evolve towards becoming social entrepreneursor and civic innovators, since the

8 CEMPRE covers the universe of formal organizations, that is, registered in the National Register of Legal Entities (CNPJ), of the Federal Revenue Secretariat (SRF), which in the reference year declared to exercise economic activity in the national territory in surveys by annual companies of the IBGE or in the administrative records of the Secretariat of Labor of the Ministry of Economy. 9 IPEA manages the CSO Map, a virtual platform for collaborative public transparency, which presents CSO data from CNPJs across Brazil.

29 boundaries between business and civil society are being re-imagined and broken down. New models of pursuing social objectives are being experimented and NGOs should locate themselves in a way that keeps them bonded and accountable to civil society while occupying a space between civil society, the state and the market. This role can be defined as that of a ‘multisector negotiatiator’, that promotes innovation and acts as a watchdog over the state and the market.

For-profit organizations:

Firms sometimes dedicate part of their resources to carry out social projects directly, while often they operate through their foundations or institutes (separate not-for profit entities that arise from the same firm). Firms can also be ‘social enterprises’, having both business and social goals. Social enterprises focus on creating wealth through their projects and are financed also through sales and trade of their products, rather than solely through grants or donations, hence their commercial nature. While no specific legalities surround social enterprises, it is generally understood they use the majority of profits (over 50%) to help their social cause. An important theme when considering private firms that want to have a social impact is the alignment between private social investment and business (PAGOTTO et al., 2016). For some, the synergy between the corporate social investor and the organization it supports (it’s institute) has always occurred and it is something natural in relation to the business role, for others this synergy does not happen and this is reflected in wastes and less productivity. The concern is linked to the possible subordination of private social investment to the business logic of project management and the consequent prevalence of private over public interest (instrumentalization of private social investment). To have a good alignment between business and social projects, there must be convergence between the company's mission and the foundation/ institute's mission without subordination. This way the corporate institute should use the company's expertise when acting for a social cause. Among the positive impacts that an alignment can bring we have10:

10 Some examples of synergies:

30 • governance: strengthening the institute’s role in the company's decision- making processes • partnerships between social investors with expertise in similar projects and territories, thus optimizing the use of resources • guaranteeing institute’s financial sustainability over time, since the maintaining company starts seeing value more explicitly in the social work developed by the social investor.

Figure 2: private-social investment alignment (source: PAGOTTO et al., 2016)

• benefits in concentrating the social investments maintained by the company in groups of people or organizations with which the company relates more frequently, and which can be more easily engaged and open to its initiatives • focus on social investments funded by the company in the regions where the negative impacts of its own operations are most relevant • consumer goods producers promoting packaging recycling • technology companies developing technological initiatives in the service of education • banks promoting financial education • food companies promoting sport or healthy lifestyles • direct or indirect cooperation from the group of actors that are part of the same network. This process can occur on a global scale, making the expected range of investments more comprehensive, but, on the other hand, distancing local actors from the decision-making center of the policies

31 Government

Government, through it’s social policies, is the third type of actor that implements social projects. Since Brazil is a federation we must consider three dimensions at which this type of intervention takes place: federal, state and municipality level. More specifically, the Brazilian federalism has a decentralized orientation11. This model has an important pillar to follow, referred as ‘federative equity’, according to which all federated members are entitled to all assistance necessary to guarantee minimum standards of existence and wellbeing for the individuals who live in them (FERREIRA, 2010). It is according to this principle that the federal government should fulfill its duty of social assistance through mechanisms to redistribute power and fiscal resources among subnational governments. The Brazilian model however has a clear instability in the institutional dynamics of intergovernmental relations, characterized by an alternation of periods of high concentration of power in the hands of the presidency12, and periods of intense decentralization. This model results to be instable, since most states and municipalities rely heavily on some kind of resource transfer to fund their administrative structures and public policies. In the past, the 1988 Brazilian Federal Constitution promoted a model with strong cooperation and federal coordination. Currently however, the “Bolsonaro’s federalism,” is based on a dualistic view of intergovernmental relations13, with little participation of the federal government in reducing territorial inequalities and supporting subnational governments (COUTO et al., 2020). We can see the effects of this in the COVID-19 pandemic scenario, where there was an increase in the conflict with subnational governments. The weakness of this structure is also evident in other social policies, resulting in lack of leadership of the Federal Government, waste of resources, overlapping of initiatives, reduction of the gains of scale that come from federative coordination, and an impairment to the guarantee of social rights (ENAP, 2017). Due to the federal system, the financing of policies through taxes is divided among the three levels of governance. The public health system (SUS) service is offered at the municipality level but organized and

11 as opposed to the centralized orientation in the US 12 especially during cycles of economic growt

13 This model is opposed to the ‘cooperative model’, where shared authority combines sub-national autonomy with national coordination

32 financed at the federal level. Education is divided on the three levels depending on whether it is university, high school, elementary school or kindergarten. Security competence is divided between the three level through different police units. Justice administration is divided between federal/superior and state tribunals, and finally, for what concerns infrastructures, there is as well a triple division of competences. The implementation of grassroot interventions that have a straightforward impact on people’s lives however happens mostly at the municipal level. Municipalities have the responsibility for basic sanitation, public illumination and public spaces, while states are left with the responsibility for popular housing projects (MATTOS, 2017).

After having considered separately these actors it is interesting to understand the ways through which collaborations and partnerships can be built at different levels. A research of 2019 (DE MENDOÇA et al., 2019) analyses the interaction design between nonprofits and the government, suggesting that partnerships should be considered as a public policy instrument. The type of possible partnerships are divided between relationships considered resistant to government interaction, with less potential for effective outcomes, and those more prone to symmetrical relationships and collaboration. Going on a scale from one extreme to the other we have: contempt, conflict, charity, contracting, cooperation and concordance relationships. While contempt partnerships include a restriction in the autonomy of nonprofits through excessive controls, bureaucracy and regulations, on the other extreme, concordance partnerships, entail a high legitimacy and capacity of nonprofits, with share values and objectives with the government. The authors describe a model based on two analytical levels (political-institutional and micro-organizational) to assess of which type is the partnership under consideration. They focus on three policy areas in the Brazilian context to assess their model: AIDS, social assistance and culture. Their conclusion shows that the type of partnership prevailing is of a cooperation type for AIDS and a mix between conflict and contracting for both social assistance and culture. The interesting outcome of the study is that often these models are not of a pure form, and public actions requires much more than the simple intervention of the state, but the cooperation between different actors.

33 Methodology

There are several methodological tips I had to deal with for the development of this project. First of all I considered two groups of interlocutors when addressing my research questions: NGOs on one side and firms, business foundations and institutes on the other. I included results coming from institutes and organizations closely related to firms in the second category. As a matter of fact these organizations often have a consistent part of financing coming from their related firm, and, although they claim to be independent, they often include some firm’s directors in their decisional bodies. My sample includes organizations that considerably differ among them for typology and areas of projects, but I was mostly interested in seeing whether the simple nature of the organization (profit or nonprofit) affected my results. It was also very difficult to contact organizations and getting their availability to participate in interviews since I didn’t have a previous network to take advantage of. I took a sample of 19 NGOs and 14 firms, or firm related organizations. The selection of the organizations depended on the entities that carry out community development projects that answered to my survey. I contacted about 150 organizations and received a response rate of about 25%, higher for NGOs as compared to firms. Another strategy I used to find organizations to contact other than internet research is the snow-ball technique, where every time I carried out an interview I asked recommendations for further organizations to contact. When addressing NGOs I also considered that there are different types of them. For the scope of my research I divided them based on a double bipartition. The first criteria concerned NGOs that deal with community development projects and those who don’t. The second criteria considered a bipartition between territorial and project driven NGOs. Territorial NGOs stick to the area where they were born or where they have been used to operate, and keep engaging the same community. Project driven NGOs instead, every time that they start a new project, face the decision of where to undertake it. They have a headquarter but engage in projects in different geographical locations. It is not easy to classify to which type of organization the NGO belongs. I referred to my interviews and the help of the specialists working in the organizations to decide whether the NGO was of one type or the other. My objective was to identify project driven NGOs which operate with community development projects. There are 4 exceptions of NGOs that I decided to interview despite I consider

34 them of the territorial type. These NGOs answered my interview and the information I got could apply to the sections referring to the community development and adaptation to Covid-19 sections (annex). The interview results of these 4 NGOs however are excluded from the study of factors that lead organization to decide where to undertake social projects. To select private firms I adopted the same criteria as for NGOs. Another criteria to identify the organizations in the sample is the fact that they should be present on the Brazilian territory or carry out projects in it. Only one NGO14 interviewed has its headquarter in Portugal, but it regularly carries out projects in Brazil. Questions were tailored to get a personal definition of ‘community development’, to understand the decision making process and the causal mechanisms affecting the ‘community and geographical location of their social projects’, to see what was the effect of Covid-19 on them, to have a personal opinion concerning the sensitivity to sustainability of dwellers, and to see what is the attitude of people living in communities towards outsiders. I found few literature concerning the location decision of community development projects since most of past studies address factors that determinate the location decision of where establishing the organization’s headquarter rather than the operational project, directions of aid and delegation of project management to local actors. Furthermore most of these studies don’t focus on Brazil as their case study. I conduced my literature review by searching in bibliographies of related studies (MARCHESINI DA COSTA, 2016; FRUTTERO and GAURI, 2005; BRASS, 2012) and browsing key words on google scholar in English, Italian and Portuguese15. At the beginning of my research I started carrying out presential interviews, but, due to the pandemic. most interviews happened to be by telephone or Skype. Since my research happened in the period of Covid-19, I decided to repeat all interviews to see how the organizations I interviewed adapted to the pandemic. While the first round of interviews started in November 2019, I repeated them from July 2020, 4 months after the epidemic started spreading in Brazil (25 February 2020). Concerning this second round of interviews, there were however 2 business institutes that didn’t reply to my request to assess how they adapted to Covid- 19. Once I had collected all interviews, I aggregated similar answers by creating some

14 AMI: https://ami.org.pt/en/ 15 Social projects location, location choice, community development location, dove vengono relizzati progetti di sviluppo comunitario, sviluppo comunitario, desenvolvimento comunitario, localização de projectos de desenvolvimento…

35 small summaries that I report in the section ‘comprehensive interviews results’. I then further divided answers depending on sub-categories reflecting a psychological, social/economic or governance/structural dimension. For what concerns the questions about sustainability and attitude towards outsiders, I decided to include them in my interviews to tailor a more comprehensive definition of community development. The sustainability issue is an indirect assessment, since questions were carried out to people working with social projects in communities, and not directly to dwellers. Attitude towards outsider, on the other side, serves as a proxy for the integration of the communities with the broader territory where they are present. Ideally an open attitude of individuals should indicate that they are used to deal with external people and organizations, and this should derive from a major integration and communication within their geographical territory. I will now present a list of the main questions I asked throughout my interviews:

• why did you choose to run the project in this community? Why in this geographic area? • why did you choose this specific type of intervention? • what is the decision-making process for developing the social projects in which your company participates? • what is the meaning of 'community development' for you? • do you assess the level of development of the communities and the impact of your projects? How you do so? • what is the level of openness of the community and acceptance of external people and projects? • what is the attitude and knowledge of the community members towards sustainability topics? • did the Covid-19 scenario affected your projects and the organization in any way? If so, how?

Here follows the list of organizations I interviewed:

Private sector

36 • Fundação Odebrecht: Thiago Maciel, Coordinator of Sustainable Development • Rocha Farma: Natalia Duez Verzaro Santos, Social and Sustainability Analyst • Instituto Sabin: Lian Carvalho Siquiera, Projects Supervisor, and Fabio Deboni, Executive Director • Instituto Neoenergia: Renata Chagas, Executive Director • Fundacoe Alphaville: Aline Ferreira, Institutional Development Director • Citibank: Guilherme Mancin, Chief of Staff of CitiBnak Brasil and President of Associaçao Citi esperanza • Itaù Social: Milena Duarte Pereira Fortek, Institutional Development Coordinator • B3 Social: Fabiana Frianci, Manager • Instituto Camargo: Tatiana Montorio, Project Coordinator • Instituto Center Norte: Daniela Vidal Garcia Pavan, Responsible for the Institute • Fundação Otacilio Coser: Ana Paula Carvalho, Program and Project Coordinator • Intercement: Kleber Silva, Analista de Investimento Social • Instituto LafargeHolcim: Tatiana Nogueira, Social Responsability Coordinator (didn’t answer to second call) • Instituto Dow: Valeria Batista da Costa, Communication and Corporative Director (didn’t answer to second call)

NGOs

• Unas: Heliopolis e região: Rebecca Zerbinato, Coordination Assistant • Aliança Libertária Meio Ambiente (ALMA): Thabata Ottoni, President • AMI (international NGO with headquarter in Portugal): Tania Barbosa, Director of the International Department • Instituto Phi: Luiza Serpa, Co-funder and Executive Director • Trata Brasil: Edna Cardoso, Social Projects Consultant • Teto: Juliana Simionato, Coordinator of Social Actions • Bem Pro Social Brasil: Mauricio Malcher Amorim Miguel, Founder and Director • Litrto de Luz Brasil: Lais Higashi, President • Fundação ABH: Marina Fay, Executive Director

37 • Instituto Beatriz e Lauro Fiúza: Bia Fiuza, Ex Executive Director, currently member of executive board • Fundaçao FEAC: Jair Resends de Almeida Silva • Fundação Beto Stuart: Valnisia, Ex Administrative Director, currently retired volunteer • Instituto Povo Do Mar: Paolo Eduardo Montenegro, Founder and President • Associação Santa Fè: Marcia Dias, President • Movimento de saude bom jardim: Padre Rino, President, and Natalia Tatanka, Sustainability Project Responsible • Lar de Clara (territorial): Ricardo Miranda, Founding Partner and Vice President • Estação de Luz (territorial): Karin Cordeiro, Social Coordinator • Instituto Alana (territorial): Leila Vendrametto, Coordinator of ‘urbanizar’ project • Societade Santos Mártires (territorial): Padre James

Figure 3: map of organizations interviewed, in blue firms; in red NGOs

38 The guidelines for the community development definition I want to create will be useful to better understand which are the main elements to be included in a community development project and whether there are any difference between the for-profit and nonprofit sector. An important guideline that emerges from literature review and that I strongly support, is the idea that projects should include a process of community engagement and community participation. I consider this a key feature of community development and I hope to find a confirmation of this within my interviews. My contribution to past literature will be that of considering experience and opinions of actors who directly work with projects in this field. I expect to find evidence for an ‘organization’s alignment theory’. I introduce this concept as a spin-off from the private and social investment research field (PAGOTTO et al., 2016). According to this theory I expect the private sector to align it’s definition of community development and the way it carries out social projects to it’s for-profit nature. This theory suggests that while NGOs conceptualization of community development follows general well-being priorities, firms are more aligned to community investment and impact investment approaches, and prioritize projects close to their headquarter (to gain a positive image/limit their negative externalities). Firms thus would see as most important economic growth and entrepreneurship projects that can be measured in financial terms. The ‘understanding of the factors that influence organization’s decision on where to undertake their projects’ section should help to understand the causal mechanisms behind this type of decision for NGOs and firms. By understanding this process it should be easier for the government to predict how social projects are developed, to implement public policies to influence their location and to specify better contracts. This will help to better organize development projects, to sustain a more organized urban development scheme and to incentivize projects to be carried out in the communities that are more in need of it. I expect to find a prominent role of politics and strategic marketing (intended to reduce negative externality perception) as the main motivations accounting for business foundations and institutes decisions. When considering NGOs, instead, I expect bigger priority being given to personal network and social-economic necessity. This would reflect the different values upon which private firms and NGOs are founded: profit vs philanthropy.

Hypothesis concerning projects’ location choice

39 Some examples of causal mechanisms behind the localization choice that I selected both from my literature review and personal intuition suggests that factors that play a key role in this decision include:

• assessed necessity: socio-economic indicators such as poverty rate, unemployment, presence of vulnerable groups could predict the likelihood of intervention in determinate communities. • demographic characteristics: projects that impact a higher number of people could be preferred • local/personal contact: personal network could help to understand where community development projects are mostly needed • political reasoning: an example is the 2016 security policy during Olympic games in Rio. It was needed to develop the right policies to ensure a safe environment during the games • lack of government presence: this way the NGO could operate as a substitute for lack of basic services • convenience: considering facility to reach operation site, such as a good road connection • action location asked by a private firm (firm’s decision): select the location of projects to maintain a good relationship with the community, limit the effects of its externalities or gain a positive image • property rights (adverse possession): this could work for housing projects since once the property is acquired a reform/upgrading of the house could start • complementarities with other nonprofit actions/clustering effect: Marchesini Da Costa (2016) found that the higher the previous nonprofit density in a municipality, the more likely nonprofits are to be formed in that municipality. This can be due to shared structure, access to specialized resources, knowledge spillovers, information about demand/feasibility, and reduction of search-costs • fiscal incentives (LEWIS, 2019): the principal laws to deal with this issue concern the fields of culture, health and sports. The ‘Lei Rouanet’ (Brazilian civil code: law 8.313 of 1991, concerning projects in the domain of art), the ‘Lei de Incentivo ao Esporte’ (Brazilian civil code: law 11.438 of 2006, concerning

40 projects incentivizing sports) and the ‘Lei do Audiovisual’ (Brazilian civil code: law 8.685 of 1993, concerning projects for the production of movies, documentaries and other similar products). We must keep in mind that these incentives change depending on the municipality. The Imposto Predial e Territorial Urbano (IPTU), the Imposto Sobre Serviços (ISS) and the Imposto de Renda (IR) are at a federal level, while the Imposto sobre Circulação de Mercadorias e Serviços (ICMS) is at a state level. Physical persons can donate up to 6% of IR, while firms up to 9% to social causes. Most incentives target the vulnerable part of the population, such as kids and old or sick people (BRITTO, 2015). Considering the 116 associates who responded to a survey, GIFE found that for the donations of individuals and the economic sustainability of civil society organizations, there are some regulatory limits: the lack of tax incentives for donations of individuals (for 26% of respondents), and the lack of knowledge and difficulties in using the currently existing tax incentives (13%). Looking at the investments carried out in social projects through incentives, we see that there was a slight reduction, from 17% to 14% between 2014 and 2016, remaining stable since then (GIFE, 2018). • reduce negative externalities and gain a positive image • commitment by the community to engage in the project and a calm internal environment: security level and willingness to help in the realization of the project by community members generate a more feasible environment to carry out social projects • language spoken: being able to communicate with locals is a clear advantage for what concerns international projects or isolated communities • dimension and occurrence of natural disasters (ROCHA, 2000): the entity of damage caused by a natural disaster could attract medias’ attention and resources to carry out projects • strategic marketing and media coverage: for example the presence of an important athlete in the community could attract medias’ attention which then would help firms to gain a positive image with consumers. Also preferences of consumers must be considered. A research conducted by IPSOS institute found that 79% of people prefer firms that support projects against poverty and

41 hunger, 69% prefer basic sanitation projects and 63% prefer projects in the field of education16 (IPSOS, 2019).

16 interview carried out among 1200 Brazilians

42 Comprehensive interview results: community development guidelines

Results here presented summarize answers to my question concerning the meaning of community development:

NGOs

1. must listen to people

2. must take action all together, promote social engagement of dwellers. A process that starts inside of the people, who must feel listened and engaged within the community. The evolution that is attained by each individual then spreads rapidly to other members of the community. Need to discard the ‘superman theory’ 17 and carry out an internal participatory process where people organize themselves to satisfy their needs (this way they gain a community social capital to manage themselves)

3. must promote environmental awareness and connection between people and the place where they live

4. must strengthen the local culture, dwellers must identify themselves with the community where they live

5. must increase income and professionalization of individuals.

6. must consider that the main channels to attain community development are education and technical formation, that can give more outside options to dwellers

7. the whole process must start within family groups

17 someone who comes from outside to help

43 8. must teach to dwellers their legal rights and the instruments they can use to obtain them. Consider the difference between a social project and a citizenship projects. The second ones, other than the simple social intervention, include showing the citizen that he has social and institutional rights

9. must increase security, life expectancy, a healthy lifestyle, the sense of inclusion and self-esteem, and reduce inequality.

10. must let dwellers gain awareness that the situation can be changed

11. must carry out projects depending on local knowledge and resources. Every person has some resource, whether in the form of social or financial/material capital

12. must collaborate with external members. This must happen on a horizontal level following a principle of equality. It is also important to have an interdisciplinary approach and continuity when starting development projects

13. must elaborate a long-term solution to the problem18

14. must contract people from the same community to work on the projects, creation of an economy within the community

15. must improve financial management knowledge for community leaders

16. must have public policies that are integrated among different areas (ex: living conditions, security, education). There must be partnership between private, civil and public society. Must stress the participation of all three actors because when there is a change in government you also loose the continuity of the process. This is why it is important to have the participation of agents which don’t depend upon the current government

18 ex: not just delivering a basic basket of goods. Residents must get a basic knowledge of the project and maintenance must be carried out throughout time

44

17. must help community members not to remain dependant on public money, they must become independent, autonomous and free

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT GUIDELINES: NGOS 12

10

8

6

4

of times factor is mentioned offactor is times 2

° N 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Factor considered as relevant

Figure 4: community development for NGOs

Firms & business foundations and institutes

1. must develop already existing opportunities in the community through communitarian entrepreneurship and ‘entrepreneurship for necessity’. Must understand which are the natural opportunities for the community and give the possibility to the local community to get a better life by taking advantage of their local resources and know-how19

2. must have an horizontal and egalitarian communication between the community and the organization delivering the project

3. must consider that there are different types of communities, urban and rural ones. Communities mustn’t be seen just as fragile places with lot of violence

19 ex: a touristic place, area where there are particular species of plant that could be commercialized

45 and where only bad things happen. Each territory has its values and its potentiality (ex: fruits, culture, history)

4. people must be proud of belonging to their community and if they decide to exit it must be because of a choice and not for lack of opportunities

5. must improve the gathering of data and analysis of projects by organizations which engage in community development projects

6. must avoid a top-down approach

7. must make the community auto-sufficient. ‘Don’t give the fish to the people, must teach them how to go fishing’. Communities can’t get to this stage by themselves, they need help for financing and knowledge

8. must consider other public policies and work of other NGOs in the same territory for possible collaboration. Have a joint participation of different actors, public- private institutions and citizens.

9. must understand the local reality

10. must work with long term impact projects

46 COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT GUIDELINES: FIRMS 3.5

3

2.5

2

1.5

1 of times factor is mentioned offactor is times

° 0.5 N

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Factor considered relevant

Figure 5: community development for firms

Results: community development definition

While for NGOs definitions such as the ones presented in points 2, 9 and 12 result as the most relevant, firms considered points 2, 7 and 8 as the most important ones.

Overall answers by the two type of organizations present similar results. Participative processes and horizontal dialogue are perceived as salient elements as expected. Both types of organizations stress the importance of having an horizontal dialogue with people from communities and engage them in the project decision-making and implementation process. The ‘superman theory’, consisting in delivering turnkey projects, is thus rejected in both contexts. Both organizations also consider as important having long-term projects allowing the community to become auto-sufficient and discard assistentialist type of projects. While the financial autonomy element appears to be important for both organizations, NGOs give more attention also to the improvement of social indicators, such as security, life expectancy, healthy lifestyle, sense of inclusion, self-esteem and reduced inequality. Finally both organizations think that collaboration with external actors of the area, other NGOs, firms or the government would improve projects outcome, by allowing share of knowledge and resources. The government would be able to resolve some structural problems that

47 include risk of eviction and other urbanism issues by implementing the correct public policies. It is also true that often dwellers have a feeling of mistrust for public authorities (and vice-versa) and feel as isolated from society. Dialogue between these two actors would probably transmit to dwellers a feeling of belonging to their region. Considering all answers that have been given It is possible to divide them according to 3 dimensions. I thus created three categories depending on the fact that answers referred to a psychological (answers 1,4,8,10), social/economic (answers 5,9,11,15,17) or governance/structural (answers 2,7,12,14,16) component. In definitions given both by firms and NGOs, the structural/governance component appeared as the most relevant, followed by the economic/social and for last the psychological component (I leave a comprehensive definition of the community development concept in the analysis part). Contrary to expectations there is no clear evidence for the ‘organization’s alignment’ theory in this section.

48 Comprehensive interview results: factors influencing projects’ location

NGOs:

When analyzing the answers given by NGO’s workers, we can see that 20 different factors emerge as influencing the decision of where to carry out community development projects. These factors are:

1. analysis of community social indicators and questionnaires: take action where these indicators are lower, the most considered ones are unemployment, HDI, violence, and degraded public space

2. personal contact of members working in the organization: often NGOs include among their employers members of the communities

3. number of communities concentrated in the same area: if this number is high it means that a social project can have a bigger impact

4. financing entity decision: sometimes private donors have the interest of realizing projects in specific areas

5. consider kid’s priorities: ‘kids come to the association mainly for legal custody, we consider where they come from and their stories as means to understand the needs of their communities’ (Marcia Dias, president of Associaço Santa Fé, 2020), or again ‘to decide the appropriate interventions and engagement process we start in schools, we try to understand by talking with most disadvantaged kids where they come from, what soft skills lack from school teaching and which activities can be carried out to keep them away from the street’ (Paolo Eduardo Montenegro, president of Povo do Mar, 2020)

6. possibility to make partnership with local organizations which can prove to be integrated and collaborative with other actors of the area

49

7. receptive community attitude: dwellers that want to learn and show commitment for the project to continue

8. ask suggestions to other NGOs to discover where a certain type of action is needed20 in the area

9. local language21

10. possibility of developing fast impact projects

11. receive application from people who come in contact asking for help (usually through social medias such as Facebook or Instagram)

12. dimension of damage22: higher damage means higher people impacted and higher necessity for intervention

13. media’s coverage: this way it is also easier to obtain donations

14. probability of receiving funding23

15. social engagement method: ‘works well in small cities. You must talk to people and create a network. You go around the city by foot, sit in a bar and offer a beer to everyone. People will start talking, giving information on who sells drugs, what are the dangerous areas, what projects they need’ (Mauricio Malcher Amorim Miguel, director of Bem Pro Social Brasil, 2020)

16. look for areas with many protests, this is probably symptom for a problem.

20 for example to discover which are the communities which lack energy access 21 this is a particular case that concerns international NGOs 22 prioritize intervention in emergency projects where big disaster occurred and many countries are affected by it 23 for example if a place affected has many white people, the chance of getting funding is higher

50 17. possibility of developing leadership in the community, to engage dwellers in the project and be sure that they will contribute. A problem is that of recognizing who can be a good community leader since they are often informal roles. You must also consider that these figures change rapidly through a dynamic process: ‘you don't always have to work with the same leaders, because these are constantly changing’.

18. possibility of implementing a project that respects the SDGs

19. consider if there are dangers in implementing the project and if groups in the area could be annoyed by its implementation

20. juridical analysis: maybe the community is at risk of being evicted soon, it thus makes no sense to start a project that will have a very short-term impact.

FACTORS INFLUENCING PROJECTS LOCATION: NGOS 8

7

6

5

4

3

2

of times it isof itmentioned times °

N 1

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Factor number

Figure 6: factors influencing projects locations, NGOs

Firms & business foundations and institutes

When looking at results obtained from firms or firm’s related organizations, I identified 10 relevant factors:

51 1. opportunity cost method: see where you can have a big impact for projects, where you can impact the great number of people with the same project funding

2. areas with highest economic vulnerability. Consider: financial/economic analysis, low education index, possibility of developing entrepreneurship projects

3. possibility of allowing employers to get involved in first hand volunteer work and not just through donations

4. location of NGO asking for funding which will partnership with the firm to develop the project. Some firms analyze the governance structure of the NGO, while others adopt a model similar to a venture capital selective process: select some NGOs, give them a formation period and then develop their social project

5. communities close to firm’s operations: it is important to be in a good relationship with communities close to the firm’s headquarter to make sure there is no disturbance

6. laws and incentives: most concern tax exemptions, especially for cultural and educational projects

7. possibility of implementing a project that respects the SDGs

8. looks for long-term partnerships with NGOs. Projects must be sustainable without a continuous help from the firm

9. choose communities where there are entrepreneurial opportunities and where dwellers have an attitude to take advantage of them

10. limit negative externalities24

24 ex: social programs for women, since often the prostitution rate increases in proximity of the project location since most of the workers are men (company that creates big infrastructures)

52

FACTORS INFLUENCING PROJECTS LOCATION: FIRMS 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

2

of times it isof itmentioned times °

N 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Factor number

Figure 7: factors influencing projects locations, firms

Results: factors that influence projects’ location

We can see that the most relevant factors considered by NGOs are: the analysis of community socio-economic indicators (unemployment, HDI and violence, degraded public space), personal contacts of members working in the organization, the decision of the financing entity and requests from people that enter in contact with the organization. When it comes to firms instead, main factors include: the opportunity cost method, economic vulnerability and opportunity indicators, request of funding from NGOs and distance of communities from the operation site of the industry.

Both type of organizations consider communities’ needs when deciding for the location of their projects, but we can see that, while firms give priority in considering economic/entrepreneurial dimensions, NGOs give more importance to social indicators. This difference weakly emerged also in the previous section, but here it is more evident. It could derive from an alignment between the type of organization and social projects carried out. While NGOs focus on improving social indicators and following a mission according to their values, firms prefer actions to limit their negative externalities, to keep good relationships with communities close to their sites of operations and to promote economic activities. It is interesting to see that both type of

53 organizations are dependent upon each other, firms for lack of field knowledge and NGOs for scarcity of financial resources. The importance of personal contacts for NGOs derives from the fact that most of these organizations have community members among their employees which can give advice concerning the necessities of their regions. NGOs then face financial limitations, and, for this reason, they are often constrained in their action and must be accountable to their donors. Generally firms prioritize projects close to their sites of operation to provide a safe environment to their workers, to get a positive image with the public and sometimes because they have a genuine interest in achieving economic development. I noticed that most of social projects are not carried out by the firms themselves, but by creating apposite institutes defined as separated and autonomous NGOs. These organizations face the decision of where to carry out their social projects. Often, however, they receive most of their funding by the parent firm. Athough they are independent in most of the processes concerning projects’ location decisions, they are limited in the sense that, usually, they must act close to firm’s sites. Furthermore their governing bodies often include firm’s managers that influence the decision making process. There was just one firm active in the infrastructure sector and, as expected, it reported the importance of implementing social projects in the site of operations. An NGO working with house provision mentioned the risk of eviction. Clearly projects must be carried out aligned with the law, and it makes no sense to build a house in a territory that could be evicted at any moment. Some factors mentioned only by NGOs that deserve attention are natural disasters, kids priorities, receptive communities and dialogue with community leaders. These last two elements are particularly important factors. They show how NGOs understand the importance of the governance structure of the communities where projects are undertaken.

54 Summary and analysis of results

1. A community development definition:

Results from this section show that the concept of community development is considered in similar terms by firms and NGOs, and there is no strong evidence for the ‘organization alignment’ theory. What emerges is that development mustn’t be thought solely in terms of economic growth. When this concept is applied to communities we must consider three different dimensions.

We can define community development as a planned process, where community members take collective action and generate solutions to common problems, with the objective of improving quality of life. The whole process should be sustainable, and the final outcome must be evaluated considering three dimensions: a psychological, a social/material, and a structural/ governance one.

All three dimensions are equally important and only a synergy of the three can give optimal results. The local territorial system dimension, through a governance/structural approach (how people interact among themselves and with the external environment), proved to be of fundamental importance according to interviews. Community development should be a horizontal process where social capital plays a key role, participation by all members is promoted and outside actors act solely as catalyzers (they ask questions, promote discussions among community members and promote interest, energy and motivation for action) (FLO and SMITH,1999). The whole process starts within family groups and their values. Collaborations with public policies and external actors can play a key role in the process, but this should happen avoiding top-down approaches. It is important to generate trust and communication with public authorities so that dwellers feel included in the society. Throughout this process we must consider that communities have an internal organizational structure, it is thus important to empower the correct actors. Recognize a good community leader, who cares for the wealth of the

55 community is of fundamental importance. The second dimension concerns social and economic factors. Dwellers must learn financial management skills and ways to be auto-sufficient and not rely on public funding. Community development projects must develop local entrepreneurs by considering local resources. Within every community there are natural25, human26, financial27 and infrastructure 28 resources. ‘Nothing should be given, everything should be taught’. Finally it is important to consider the psychological dimension, which refers to the feeling that people have for themselves and for their condition. Developing a sense of inclusion and self-esteem is fundamental. People must feel listened and understand that their situation can change, they must feel proud and empowered by understanding their legal rights and their role as citizens.

2. Main factors influencing projects locations:

Most of the initial hypothesis proved to have a role either for firms or NGOs when deciding project’s location. Marchesini da Costa (2016) predicted that new NGOs were likely to be created where there was a high concentration of previous existing NGOs, and three firms reported to consider this condition as important when undertaking their projects. Answers also supported Brass (2012) results against Fruttero and Gauri (2005) regarding the fact that communities’ needs are taken into account when deciding project’s location. Also density of people affected, according to an opportunity cost vision, supports findings in past literature (BRASS, 2012), since both firms and NGOs take this factor into consideration. Contrary to Brass’ results instead, elite goods and convenience factors, such as a good road connections, didn’t emerge from interviews. I believe this is because the organizations interviewed operate mostly in urban areas or in peripheries. I would expect the convenience factor to play a key role when operating in rural/isolated settings instead.

25 community in proximity of an extraction site that could offer jobs to dwellers 26 must have the people with the right skills in the right jobs and focus on increasing social capital. It is important to focus on wellbeing on people through: healthy lifestyle, skills building through education and training, career planning and employment, effective and legal hiring practices, workers compensation and pensions, and human rights 27 includes fundraising abilities to be able to find financial help to start development projects 28 refers also to local governance and policies, laws and leadership

56

Summarizing results of the interviews we can see that both type of organizations examine communities’ social and economic indicators as well as the possibility of impacting the highest number of people. NGOs consider mostly personal contacts of members working in the organization, requests from financing entities when it is the case of an external founded project and requests from people entering in contact through social medias. Firms instead give more importance toward requests for financing from local NGOs and distance of communities from the operating sites of the industry. An important difference that emerged is that firms often try to implement projects that have an economic return. This partially confirms the ‘organization’s alignment theory’. Firms privilege community investment projects and try to act in proximity of their industries.

There are then some factors that, despite being mentioned by few organizations, I consider as extremely relevant. Particular attention should be given to the role of community leaders. This is because, by talking with people working in community development projects, It was possible to see that the role of these leaders is really important: residents trust leaders, who thus have the capacity to mobilize people and engage them in social projects. Clusters or organizations and local networks are also very important. Collaboration of different actors allows to achieve economies of scale, pool more resources and share know-how. There is also one factor mentioned by the only international NGO interviewed that deserve some attention. It mentioned the importance of media coverage over the sites of operations. This factor is very likely to be connected with the probability of receiving funding, especially when considering firms that have an interest in getting a positive image. Media coverage could also be influenced through the implementation of correct public policies. Finally it is important to consider how dangerous is the environment where projects take place, and whether there are interest groups that could harm people working in the field. The NGO that mentioned this factor is an organization that works with labor rights enforcement in areas of the city where refugees are active mainly in the informal job market.

57 Contrary to expected It was surprising to see that some of the initial hypothesis weren’t mentioned in answers. Both type of organizations usually don’t take advantage fiscal incentives. It would be interesting to understand if the reason behind this is a lack of knowledge concerning this possibility or the type of projects that fiscal incentives are connected to. Marketing reasons didn’t emerge as a driver for firms, but it is reasonable that, even if it was the case, they wouldn’t have mentioned it as an important factor. Political reasoning as well wasn’t mentioned, but this factor is more related to policies implemented by the government. Organizations didn’t explicitly say that they consider commitment of the community as a decisive factor to carry out interventions, but this is definitely something to consider for a project to be efficient. I had the possibility to test this directly by working in a Brazilian NGO29. Our field work consisted in installing solar energy lights in communities. When community members don’t participate in the project or don’t feel the utility of it, the lights are often stolen shortly after their installation, or no maintenance is carried out. Finally, despite lack of government presence wasn’t directly mentioned in interviews, It was possible to see that many social projects carried out by interviewed organizations have the objective of providing services that should be publicly provided, such as illumination, housing ecc..

3. Sustainability awareness within dwellers: as expected most people don’t have a clear view or interest in sustainability. As an example they don’t understand the importance of recycling and they often burn their wastes creating pollution. It is difficult to create awareness for these concepts since people understand and have much more interest in peace and life. When project leaders are chosen from communities to develop the projects, however, they show a basic knowledge and understanding of these concepts. Also younger people show more understanding and interest for such topics. Interestingly it seems that awareness for sustainability and nature increases if people live in a clean and welcoming environment. For this reason the geographic location and time of the year also influence the relationship between

29 Litro de Luz Brasil: https://www.litrodeluz.com/

58 dwellers and the environment. People who live closer to rivers, for example, happen to see nature as an ‘enemy’ during periods of floods.

4. Openness level of community towards external people: this question was included as a proxy to measure the ‘local territorial system’ integration of communities. Answers to interviews reported often a welcoming environment. This attitude however is conditioned on the fact that interventions are carried out according to a specific procedure. Leaders must be contacted and consulted prior to any intervention and dwellers must be involved in project’s decision making structure. This last point is fundamental since situations of initial mistrust can often be solved by creating workshops within projects to involve dwellers and be accepted by the community. The size of the community also affects the way outsiders are seen, since in a bigger and more dispersed environment it is harder to recognize outsiders. A problem that has been evidenced in some interviews is the fact that there is a lack of communication between communities and public officers30. Public servants sometimes don’t recognize community members as part of the society, they feel like they’re making a favor to them when it comes to any kind of service delivered. Community members on the other side have a feeling of submission and mistrust with respect to public authorities. Public policies should aim at filling this gap of communication, since dialogue among different actors is fundamental for community development.

30 Some organizations engage public officials to explain to dwellers how to access some public services works (education, healthcare)

59 Conclusion and recommendations for future studies

The research started from a literature review concerning community development and integrated current definitions with opinions from peoples directly involved with this type of projects. Community development guidelines were created considering three dimensions, the social/material one, the psychological and the governance dimension (which proved to be the most considered one by actors in the field). While community development is seen in a similar way by firms and NGOs, results considering the location choice of projects have evidenced a difference reflecting the nature of the two organizations and partially supporting the ‘organisation’s alignment’ theory. While there is alignment when considering the final objectives of community development, firms see in economic growth and entrepreneurship the mechanism to achieve so, while NGOs prioritize improvement of social indicators, such as the HDI index, violence levels, degraded public space, art, culture and kid’s priorities. When factors influencing the location of social projects were addressed, results show that organizations do consider the necessities of communities. Generally firms prefer to act close to their sites of operations and consider the presence of NGOs on the territory, while NGOs try to balance donor’s and dweller’s requests. Overall I see these results as offering an interesting insight in the topic but just as a starting point for further analysis due to my main limitation: the small amount of data available31. For what concerns future research there are several recommendations that emerged from this study. It would be important to compare the monitoring and evaluation process of profit and non-profit organizations. It looks like most organizations are not used to evaluate the impact of their projects or do so in a superficial way. Following a similar line of research it would be also important to highlight possible synergies between firms and NGOs. Another recommendation concerns the study of the effect of engaging police officers in social projects. This way they would get the chance to know dwellers through a ‘natural’ process and better integrate in the community. Finally I would suggest future research to focus on projects location’s decision when considering international projects.

31 due to the difficulty of receiving answers from organizations and proceed with interviews

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70 Annex: how organizations interviewed adapted their projects to Covid-19

When the pandemic started I had just started conducting the interviews. Given the situation and the network of contacts I had developed until then, I decided to take notes concerning how these organizations were adapting to the pandemic. Although this section is not strictly related to the scope of my research I decided to include it as an annex. I believe it could contribute to the understanding of best practices to be adopted in an emergency situation.

An introduction on social projects to fight Covid-19

When analyzing social projects adopted to fight the pandemic of Covid-19 we see that independently of the location there was a common line of action, and the real strength was given by partnerships and share of resources among different actors. I identified 7 main typology of response adopted (FundsforNGOs, 2020):

• Health: research-based initiatives undertaken by organizations with experience in projects related to HIV, SARS and other contagious virus. These organizations were able to implement their know-how to elaborate best practices. Of course another important line of projects were all types of medical care and psychological support.

• Countering Fake News: this has to do with spreading community awareness. Proposals for community education to dismiss fake news about the virus and prevention were developed and spread mostly through telematic way (radios, social medias). The problem in this case was that of some populistic leaders who deliberately spread fake news, and often low-income groups give more importance to the president’s words rather than to doctors advises.

• Human Rights: in these situations of crisis a special attention must be given to vulnerable groups, such as the LGBTQI community, minorities, children and the poor, as they often become targets of hate speech and boycott or are not duly considered. A specific attention must be given to women since, due to public restrictions imposed by governments, there can easily be a rise in sexual

71 corruption, child abuse, domestic violence, gender discrimination and violation of basic rights.

• Livelihood Development: these initiatives include loans, grants, in-kind donations and other forms of support to families and small businesses to help them revive the economy.

• Partnerships and collaborations: government leaders who are committed to good intersectoral relationships, both with the private sector and NGOs, are a valuable asset in this context. Governments should maintain a constant dialogue and recognize the importance of NGOs in the communities in which they operate.

• Transportation: during lockdown governments often banned the use of public transport. This had a big impact on rural communities, since it made accessing vital services such as markets and healthcare facilities challenging. Initiatives that provided for alternative transportation means, or strategies to alleviate the problem were thus particularly valuable.

• Advocacy initiatives: to monitor needs and push for adequate government responses.

Just to mention some effective projects that have been implemented around the world so far by NGOs, In Myanmar, the Kachin Baptist Convention (KBC) developed initiatives to make sure people living in refugee camps had access to clean water, to practice hygiene and protect themselves from the virus. They have worked with local communities to install a network of handwashing stations with soap (OCHA, 2020). Another example are the ‘Quarantine Rooms’ suggested by the Brazilian NGO ‘Minha Sampa’, which aimed at using hotels as temporary shelters for the homeless or other vulnerable segments of the population during the pandemic. In northern Uganda, trained volunteers listened for Covid-19 rumours in refugee camps and created podcasts to help people to know that Covid-19 is real and how to avoid it. Again in Uganda an NGO which specializes in using bicycles as a tool for development,

72 provided regularly sanitized bicycles for rural communities so that they could continue their access to basic services even with the lack of public transportation. In Freetown radio programs are trusted and used to fight the spread of misinformation (Bond, 2020).

A variety of actors made an effort to fight the pandemic (government, NGOs, firms, IOs) and we can see how important was the role of NGOs in a situation where the government capabilities weren’t enough to face such a major disaster. While on one side the government has the resources necessary to enact public policies and emergency responses, NGOs can often take advantage of a strong penetration in the territory, and are more agile when it comes to deal with social projects. For this reason it is important to foster collaboration and partnerships between civil society organizations and the government. In Brazil, GIFE association, which represents institutionalized philanthropy, rapidly developed an on-line platform to support civil society projects (https://emergenciacovid19.gife.org.br/), while the Brazilian Association of Non-Governmental Organizations (Abong) launched a “Solidarity Network” (https://www.redesolidaria.org.br/) to deal with civic engagement, advocacy and donations. M. Aquino-Alves and M. Marchesini da Costa in a recent study (AQUINO-ALVES and MARCHESINI DA COSTA, 2020) propose a series of recommendations to be implemented by governments in this sense. These include an effective communication between governments and NGOs. This refers not just to keep constantly updated communication channels, but also to have government leaders committed towards intersectoral relations and a constant relationship between government agents and NGOs representatives in public policy councils. Another important line of action they recommend is that of focusing on grants of institutional philanthropy to expand the capacity of NGOs .

For what concerns measures adopted by the Brazilian government, the Congress approved a legislative decree that recognizes the state of public calamity until December 31, 2020 (Brazilian Ministry of Economy, 2020). This means that the government is not obliged to meet the fiscal primary balance target this year. The Chamber of Deputies also approved the “War Budget” Constitutional Amendment, which allows the separation of expenses incurred to combat COVID-19 from the budget of the Federal Government. This allows an extraordinary regime and the

73 expansion of public expenditures during the current pandemic. As stated before, a central element for the response is cooperation among different actors, and in this sense the government should take advantage of NGOs for improving its response (OCHA, 2020). This last point however didn’t work well in Brazil since there has been a large reduction in resources emanating from international cooperation and destined for Brazilian NGOs since the early 2000s (AQUINO-ALVES et al., 2020). Past governments often proceeded with hostile discourses towards NGOs and by limiting their funding, discrediting the seriousness of their activities. Looking at the response adopted by the government we can see that there was a lack of coordination and conflicts between the federal government and the territories. The Bolsonarist model of governance is based on a slogan that states ‘more Brazil, less Brasilia’, meaning less involvement of the central government in local public policies. This resulted in the divergence between the President and the Ministry of Health, the fact that it was only at the end of May that the Federal Government decided to organize the distribution of resources (COUTO et al, 2020), and different views concerning the necessity of social isolation.

Still considering the Brazilian context, an unexpected actor that had an important role during the pandemic were criminal groups (Bond, 2020). These groups have also adapted to coronavirus, by providing services to fight the virus. The side effect of this is the fact that the situation gave these non-state actors the possibility to increase their power and legitimacy in situations where communities are neglected by the state. In normal times these groups often operate by simulating states and providing key public goods, such as trash collection and basic infrastructure, cable TV, electricity provision, and even justice and policing services. During the pandemic they adapted their role, by imposing curfews, using mobile loudspeakers to broadcast public-hygiene announcements, going door-to-door to ensure compliance with quarantine measures, controlling the price of goods on the open market and postponing large social gatherings. In some of Rio’s biggest favelas such as Rocinha and Vidiga, entry to outsiders was also prohibited. All of these practices thus had a double effect, on one side they slowed the transmission of the virus while on the other they legitimated gangs’ socioeconomic role as service providers.

74 Studies concerning the pandemic also focused on tracking donations for Covid projects. In a study of the ‘Associação brasileira de captadores de recursos’ (Associação brasileira de captadores de recursos, 2020) we can see that, since March, the amount of donations for Covid-19 related projects has been steadily increasing. Donations come for the major part from private companies, specifically operating in the financial, food & beverage and mining sectors. Most of these donations went to projects in the health sector, thus decreasing donations for entities that don’t work in a strictly field.

75 Comprehensive interview results: how organizations interviewed adapted their projects to Covid-19

NGOs:

1. reduction in resources for social projects

2. same resources for social projects

3. increased in resources for social projects

4. increased donations for the organization

5. reduced number of projects/focused on ongoing ones

6. change in people behavior. In a moment of necessity, community members developed a stronger sense of unity and collaboration among them32

7. started assistentialist/emergency projects consisting in food and hygiene product distribution33

8. start entrepreneurship projects. This is because Covid-19 scenario strongly impacted the unemployment rate. These projects consisted in giving some credit to dwellers that they could spend only within the community area, in food- markets and pharmacies or for internet access

9. various online training projects. While some NGOs felt that these projects didn’t work well due to lack of internet access in some communities, others were surprised by the high level of participation

10. communicate and spread information concerning Covid-19

32 ex: if some receives a basket of basic goods in excess he will share it with other community members 33 some NGOs instead of preparing the food and giving it, gave the material and let the people of the community to cook and administrate it

76 11. assist families through frequent phone interviews to control wellbeing and what they needed

12. psychological support project

13. increase partnerships with other NGOs

14. problem is that many dwellers don’t understand the situation and listen more to what the president says rather than to a doctor

15. explain laws and how to get government assistance

16. improve hygiene conditions through construction of toilets

WHAT CHANGED WITH COVID-19: NGOS 14

12

10

8

6

4

of times change is ofmentionedchange times 2

° N 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 What changed with Covid-19

Figure 8: adaptation to Covid-19, NGOs

Firms & business foundations and institutes:

1. reduction in resources for social projects

2. same resources for social projects

77 3. increased in resources for social projects

4. increased donations for the organization

5. map vulnerable groups in communities

6. focus on ongoing projects and cancel new ones

7. developed on-line training courses. One of the strategies used was to implement simple training videos on whatsapp, or courses for community leaders to teach how to get funding through on-line donations. Some NGOs also used local radios to send messages concerning health prevention methods

8. fostered relationship and network with NGOs

9. started assistentialist/emergency projects consisting in food and hygiene product distribution

10. many dwellers don’t know which authority’s recommendations to follow. They don’t have the same trust in a doctor as they do in the president

11. helped with laws translation, many dwellers didn’t know how to apply and whether they were eligible for government support

12. make loans to micro-entrepreneurs

13. elaborated strategies to increase donations: mobilize employees, possibilities of food donations through supermarkets

78

WHAT CHANGED WITH COVID-19: FIRMS 12

10

8

6

4 of times change is ofmentionedchange times

° 2 N

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 What changed with Covid-19

Figure 9: adaptation to Covid-19, firms

79 Summary of results: how organizations interviewed adapted their projects to Covid-19

By analysing interviews’ results it is possible to notice how NGOs and firms adopted similar responses to the pandemic. It was necessary to adopt an assistentialist approach since basic elements, such as food and hygiene products, started lacking. Both firms and NGOs started distributing basic needs baskets in communities. Both type of organizations also shifted to remote-managed projects when this was possible. Many organizations introduced on-line training programs concerning financial management to attract donations or to carry out healthcare prevention. Only few organizations however implemented training to understand how to get assistance from the government. It was reasonable to expect an increase in the funding of projects by firms. This is because, a moment of crisis such as the pandemic, is a perfect moment to increase visibility through social projects. Firms also rely on a more solid financial base, and thus are able to divert more resources towards social projects if the situation requires to do so. The information I have however is not enough neither to prove or discard this hypothesis. In general, more firms as compared to NGOs reported an increase in financial resources allocated to social projects. It is also interesting to see which was the effect on the number of projects, we can see that comprehensively their number was reduced for both NGOs and firms. This is because funds were concentrated on fewer assistentialist projects. Comprehensively results show that the main strategies adopted were in-kind assistentialist projects and on-line training courses. No projects to improve internet connection were implemented in communities, despite they would have had a strong impact to allow more people to participate in trainings. There are some other type of responses that deserve further attention. Primarily the practice of making sure that community leaders take part in the on-line courses, since, this way, it is easier to spread knowledge across the whole community. Something interesting that emerged the fact that people reacted in a different way to messages communicated by different authorities. Most people trusted more the recommendations of the president rather than doctors. This fact shows how important is the influence of the president in these low-income contexts. The way entrepreneurship projects were implemented also deserves some attention. Giving credit to spend for basic services in determinate areas was a better strategy as compared to merely assistentialist projects. This way, not only people had access to

80 basic goods, but the local economy received a boost. Interesting were also strategies adopted to increase donations. These include the possibility for people to leave or buy some products in shops to be successively redistributed to other people, or agreements where sellers would allocate a part of in kind resources as donations for each % of products bought in their shop. A type of intervention that was mentioned only once by an NGO is the psychological support to families. It should have been given more attention to this type of programs since many people passed through difficult situations during the pandemic, with severe consequences on mental health. Finally It would be interesting to investigate the mechanisms working behind the increase in financial resources for some organizations. Which strategies were adopted in the fundraising departments? Was it about an increase in donations or simply a decision of the organization to dedicate more of its own resources to social interventions during the pandemic? Despite most organizations have adopted some emergency projects, it is true that the pandemic is not over yet. Depending on the moment of response, a different typology of projects would be more effective. Research should understand how organizations adopted to Covid-19 and which lessons were learned some time after the virus is completely defeated.

81

82 Introduction

I decided to focus my research on community development due to a personal passion for development issues, and willingness to engage with people working in this field: to understand their experience and how it is like to work with such projects. I also feel that studies concerning development, sustainability and well-being have never been so important as in this historical period. Although there is a lot of literature addressing these topics I think that definitions in this field should be regularly updated. My research deals with two main areas of interest: community development projects and decision making and management in social projects. While the concept of community development has been addressed in past literature, not so much attention has been given to the understanding of why organizations decide to locate social projects in some specific areas. The quantity of these projects around the world has been steadily increasing and professionalizing within the past years. New NGOs start having a complex structure and more developed decision making processes. Following the empowerment of these actors I regard as important to better understand the internal dynamics of social projects. At the same time, following pressures of interest groups and civil society in response to environmental and social issues, the practice of engaging in social projects has been gaining importance also among firms which were not aligned with these practices. Private companies from all sectors recognize the importance of dealing with SDGs and to carry out projects that will have a positive social impact. These private firms often have a better financial structure and are capable of spending a higher amount of resources. It is important to understand which incentives could be developed to influence the location of these projects, to align them with public necessity and make them more efficient. Working with community development is not just about financing an infrastructure or giving resources to low- income groups. The way resources are allocated and the way projects are implemented can strongly impact the final outcome, the durability of the project and the local population. I explored community development projects and talked with experts from the field to understand which are the priorities to consider for a project to be successful. My objective is then to understand whether there is a strategy behind decisions on where to carry out projects, or it is as simple as it appears: projects are

11 carried out in geographical proximity of the organization’s headquarters for obvious logistic efficiency. I expect that there is something more behind this decision, I think that socio-economic and strategic reasons also have a role. Since my research happened in the period of the Covid-19 pandemic I decided to include an annex in my work. I carried out a preliminary analysis aiming at understanding the impact the pandemic had on the organizations that I interviewed. It is important to learn what worked in the response to the pandemic and what can be improved. The world as a whole was not prepared for this calamity, resilience must be built, and lessons must be learnt for future emergencies. I included in my interviews some questions to understand whether organizations that engage with community development projects were able to adopt a rapid response to the pandemic and, if so, in which way they adapted.

12 Topics of research Community development

I will start with a definition of community, a term indicating ‘a group of people, given a territorial base, that has a form of organization that leads to the creation of particular channels of expression’ (SOUSA 1987). An example of this are groups within a certain social class or housing space that have similar interests and goals about living conditions in the common area. It must be clear however that the concept can be defined in a variety of ways. The geographical boundaries are an useful element to better identify a community group (such as an urban neighborhood) but are not essential. Communities could be simply represented by a group of people that share a common identity, deriving from beliefs, such as religion, language or heritage (Catalytic Communities). Some authors argue that the concept of ‘community’ was partially lost through time with the creation of metropolis. This is because the sense of identity and social appreciation that was present in the Greek poles was lost (metropolis seen just as a place of work and not anymore as a place of interpersonal relations) (SOUSA 1987). The idea of community today remains more present in rural areas. This because poverty and living in a situation of necessity recreates situations of identity, where the living area is not just the sleeping, working and consuming place. It is also important to have a notion of what we mean withe the term development, which often carries an assumption of growth and expansion. The institutionalized idea of development started to take shape after World War II with the reconstruction of Europe. In 1947 the Marshall Plan was developed to restore the economy. Following this path, in 1948 it was created the Organization for European Economic Co- operation (OEEC) which then evolved, in 1961, in the Organization for Economic Co- operation and Development (OECD). In this period the idea of development started being associated to economic growth, trade and increase of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Formally, the first institution to explicitly include “development” in its mission was the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), but what was missing was the fact that economic growth is not qualitatively neutral (MISSONI et al, 2019). GDP can be composed of different goods, services and production cycles which affect life condition and wellbeing of people in different ways. Only in 1975 a non-economic reinterpretation of “development” started being considered. The Hammarskjöld Foundation and the United Nations Environment

13 Program (UNEP), concluded that development should be endogenous, thus arising from within society, and, since it is context specific, it cannot be simply imported from the outside (DAG HAMMARSKJÖLD FOUNDATION, 1975). This ‘Basic Needs’ approach (communities should be able to satisfy their basic needs autonomously) was adopted by the 1976 World Employment Conference with a focus upon policies to promote access to clean water, nutrition, appropriate shelter, health-care, education and security to the poorest populations (ILO, 1976). During this period, however, also neoliberal policies started gaining importance, with a growth of inequalities as side effect. The model continued spreading until the 90s, and in the same period, the ‘Brundtland Report’ (1987) introduced the concept of "Sustainable development" defined as: “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. In the same years, Indian economist Amartya Sen, introduced the capability approach, which indicated development as ‘the improvement of peoples’ lives through the expansion of people’s capabilities such as: to be healthy and well fed, educated, knowledgeable, and to participate in the life of the community’ (Sen, 1989). Following this framework, UNDP report of 1990 adopted the concept of "human development", considering whether economic growth and GDP were efficient indicators of a country's progress. This process resulted in the creation of the Human Development Index (HDI) as a new indicator to measure progress, based on longevity, knowledge and decent living standards (UNDP 1990). In its subsequent reports, UNDP updated the HDI index, and currently many new indicators have been developed, such as: the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI), the Gender Inequality Index (GII), the Gender Development Index (GDI) and the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI). Finally, in the 21st Century, the OECD lead to the creation of the the Millennium Declaration (OECD/DAC 1996) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These goals include key policies to reach development in a sustainable way, and, ssince 2015, following the Rio +20 Conference, their momentum has been carried out by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Today it is difficult to disentangle the association of development with economic growth, but new approaches are emerging, such as the idea of "de-growth" (LATOUCHE, 2010). This concept highlights the need to reduce ‘social metabolism’ 1 and replace GDP with wellbeing as indicator for

1 reduce global consumption and production

14 prosperity following three main directions: reducing environmental impact of human activity, redistributing income and wealth both within and between countries, and promoting the transition from a materialistic to a convivial and participatory society (COSME et al, 2017). Following this model, Latouche proposes the idea of abandoning the global economy in the global south to reduce the overconsumption and exploitation of their resources, and to allow people of the South to become more self- sufficient (LATOUCHE, 2004). Up to date there have been two international conferences concerning the degrowth topic. The First International Conference on Economic Degrowth for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity in Paris (2008) and the Second International Conference in Barcelona (2010). We are thus understanding that more isn’t always better, and there is an increasing respect for reducing outside dependencies and lowering levels of consumerism. When talking about development there is also a distinction between what Cowen and Shenton (1995) call immanent or intentional development, or what Hart (2001) refers to as ‘small d’ and ‘big D’ development (SMITH and FRANK, 1999). While ‘small d development’ refers to broad processes of change, particularly under capitalism, ‘big D development’ refers to specific, intentional interventions to achieve improvements or progress. We can see development as something that ‘spontaneously’ happens, or as something that is done with intention and deliberate choice. ‘Big D development’ is not a neutral or natural process, but a normative one, this means that it is based on a specific set of values. This makes it a politicized process because the way in which it is carried out needs to be established through a negotiation between different groups of interest in society. Sometimes dominant actors portray “development” as a neutral process to hide the values which underpin a particular definition or direction. The truth is that intentionality requires planning. We are referring to a type of development that depends on deciding a desirable outcome to be achieved, and this depends on who is able to shape this decisions. Planning takes place at different scales: individual, household, community, city, regional, national, continental level. Relations between these different actors determine which decisions are adopted, and who benefits depends on the power relations. The final outcome will derive from an informal negotiation process. This initial digression on development is useful because also in community development practices it has been understood that the focus can’t solely be about improving the economic condition of communities. There must be a wider

15 process that focuses primary on achieving well-being and enhancing economic outcomes while improving social conditions.

Now lets consider ‘community development’. Since it’s origins this term referred to working with local communities and disadvantaged people. Projects included urban renewal, anti-poverty, wealth, land programs, and in the post-colonial period projects to prepare countries for formal independence. Depending on the country and the historical period projects focused on different type of communities, could it be indigenous groupsin Australia, villages in India or degraded regions of cities in the developed world. Each country has developed its own experiences in its specific contexts. What changed across time was the understanding of the importance of avoiding top-down approaches and the consideration given to social capital. Experience has shown that it is important to have an horizontal dialogue to see what community members think about development processes needed in the context where they live. For what concerns ‘Social capital’, in the 1990s, Muhammad Yunus showed the importance of it with the creation Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. ‘Social capital’, can be defined as ‘the networks of relationships among people, including trust among each other and acceptance of common values and norms’. Basically everything that allows cooperation between individuals is linked to social capital (PINTO, 2014). A Brazilian case study shows the importance of this concept (DONAGHY 2011). The project concerns municipal councils and social housing and shows how the presence of participatory governance institutions improves the efficiency of social programs and pro-poor policies. Incorporation of civil society into decision making through participatory governance institutions leads governments to distribute resources more equitably among the population. According to past literature one of the best approaches to promote community development is through ‘Asset-based Community Development (ABCD)’ (Mathie and Cunningham, 2003). This approach considers that people in communities can organize to drive the development process themselves by identifying and mobilizing local resources. This process avoids the risk of community members becoming dependent and clients of external actors. The 4 major elements of ABCD include: appreciative inquiry, social capital, community economic development (CED), and active citizenship engagement and strong civil society. Appreciative inquiry focuses on promoting change by considering peak experiences

16 and successes of the past. Social capital considers formal and informal associations, networks, and extended families, and treats them as assets and means to further mobilise other assets of the community. CED goes further from simply considering economic growth. It considers economic development ad an endogenous process that spurs from collective action of dwellers. The concept can be easily understood by considering examples of peasant organisations, consumer cooperatives and credit unions. Finally a stronger civil society refers to understanding the distribution of power, and linking citizenship and civil society. This should promote participatory approaches and shift power from external agencies towards community-based organizations.

Analyzing community development projects, we see that they often happen in poor areas that have the characteristics of slums, or in geographically isolated areas where basic services are lacking. Slums can be defined as ‘neglected parts of cities where housing and living conditions are lacking’. They may be called by various names depending on their country of location, ‘komboni’ in Zambia, ‘barrios’ in Venezuela, ’favelas’ in Brazil or ‘kampungs’ in Malaysia (The World Bank Group, 2001). My research will analyze specifically ‘Brazilian slums’ or ‘favelas2’. In this contexts, the interventions carried out to promote development, are called ‘up-gradings’. Upgrading in its simplest form indicates a package of basic services: clean water supply and adequate sewage disposal to improve the well-being of the community, but other fundamental interventions include legalization and regularization of the properties in situations of insecure or unclear tenure. Local development however is not simply about economic growth, but it best works when is carried out through community involvement in decision making.

Some of the community development definitions that have been developed until today include:

• a process where community members come together to take collective action and generate solutions to common problems (United Nations, 2018).

2 there is a debate whether it is correct or not to define favelas as slums since these last ones usually present more precarious conditions as compared to favelas. I won’t however enter in this discussion, but for the purpose of my research I will call them either favelas or communities (from the Brazilian ‘comunidade’)

17 • a pedagogical, technical-methodological process of action with the communities, with social participation as its central element. It is also considered a process of social cooperation, in which the population has common interests and needs, since it occupies the same space (PINTO, 2014). • an endogenous process registered in small territorial units and human groupings capable of promoting economic dynamism and improving the population's quality of life (BUARQUE 1999). • a grassroots process by which communities (SMITH and FRANK, 1999): o become more responsible

o organize and plan together

o develop healthy lifestyle options

o empower themselves

o reduce poverty and suffering

o create employment and economic opportunities

o achieve social, economic, cultural and environmental goals

• a practice-based profession and an academic discipline that promotes participative democracy, sustainable development, rights, economic opportunity, equality and social justice, through the organization, education and empowerment of people within their communities, whether these be of locality, identity or interest, in urban and rural settings (International Association for Community Development) • a planned processes that increase the ability of people, as individuals and groups, to come together and take collective action to common problems. It should be not imposed from the outside and it should lead to improved or enhanced community living (FLO and SMITH,1999). • economic growth and financial stability practices to promoted especially low and moderate income areas. A process that brings together financial institutions, the private sector, non-profits, public officials, government agencies, researchers and practitioners to identify and address challenges. The process typically requires four elements: attention to the needs and desires of the people involved and to the areas where they live and work, control by

18 community members, who become active participant, the concept of self-help, and an holistic view of the community, in which groups take into account one another’s goals and actions as opposed to operating as if each were in a vacuum. We see how this last definition given by the Federal Bank of St. Louis stresses the importance of collaboration among different actors in the initiatives (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis).

Past literature also focused on determining when community development is ‘effective’, it will be so when (SMITH and FRANK, 1999):

• it has a long-term impact

• it is well-planned

• it is inclusive and equitable. This means that the whole process must rely on enhancing social capital. Attention should be given to gathering spaces in the community and the way conversations are hold. Everyone must have the chance to speak and feel listened (BRAUN et al., 2014).

• it is holistic and integrated into the bigger picture. This means that projects should stimulate a sense of hope and improvement of living conditions.

• it is initiated and supported by community members who develop a sense of co- ownership of the project

• it is of benefit to the community

• it is grounded in experience that leads to best practices

• it is based upon cooperation among different actors. Field know-how of NGOs, financial resources of the private sector and enforcement power of the government should work in a synergetic way. NGOs often face financial constraints and rely on volatile budgets (MENA Catalyst Foundation, 2020).

• a clear leadership role is identified

• the process includes an evaluation phase. A project plan that clearly states the goals and outcomes to be met must be elaborated and results must be monitored.

19 Considering these definitions we can understand that community development is about empowering individuals in a participative way, with the skills they need to promote change and wellbeing within their communities. There are then two further concepts that help to understand the way this process can be effective: sustainability and local territorial system. Sustainability is understood as ‘meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (Bruntland Commission Report, 1987). Sustainability is still a concept of secondary importance for people who still have to focus on reaching basic living conditions. What value do the community members give to sustainability in projects carried out inside their communities? Is there preference for a project that doesn’t pollute or doesn’t it matter so much? do people look for a sustainable form of living? This research will try to address also this type of questions through interviews, to understand how the communities perceive sustainability issues. It is possible that the location of the community plays a key role in this way of thinking. A community situated in the periphery of a big city for example could absorb a materialistic and consumerist lifestyle, while a more isolated community in contact with the nature (such as an isolated community in the Amazon forest) could have adapted to a lifestyle that privileges sustainable practices even not knowing what SDGs are. The ‘local territorial system’ concept instead refers to the level of internal organization of the community and the integration that the community has with external subjects, which may simply be outsiders or institutions that operate in the same territory. A community could act like a ‘white blood cell’, thus not accepting any outsider in their territory and perceiving it as someone that could harm, or it could welcome an outsider. This attitude gives us information about the local culture and the experiences that the community had so far with outsiders (for example they could have developed a feeling of being exploited by firms that operate in that area, or envy and anger due to a high inequality level in the region). An attitude that makes it difficult for the community to integrate with local institutions, while by itself it doesn’t necessary imply a lower level of development, could lead to this. If for example researchers are not allowed inside the community to study a way to improve living conditions, or civil servants fear to enter the community, they won’t be able to carry out their job properly. It is also true that a fundamental characteristic that allowed humans to distinguish from other animals was the capacity of social learning. This refers to the ability of being able to replicate what they see. A closed environment is thus limited in the fact that it can’t exploit the advantages of

20 speeding up the process of learning and innovating by looking at something different. We must also consider that the difficulty to integrate in a larger context sometimes does not derive from dweller’s attitude but from prejudices of civil servants. They could for example avoid certain areas because they think they are dangerous. This lack of communication can bring to a vicious circle where mistrust between the community and the outside environment becomes self-enforcing3. I will try to investigate what attitude do people that live in communities have towards outsiders by including some questions concerning this topic in my interviews.

Figure 1: local territorial system, (source: BERZI, 2017)

Relationship between community development, impact investment and community investment

When comparing these three terms we can see community development as the broader concept that includes impact investment and community investment as some

3 Concerning this last point I had the opportunity to assess this type of behavior by participating in a public policy research project at CEPESP – Centro de Estudos de Política e Economia do Setor Público of FGV University. I saw that the lack of communication among the ‘prefeitura’ and the communities of the southern area of São Paulo was evident for what concerned projects in the field of infrastructures and public security. Often the population in the communities doesn’t ask for help to the municipality because they don’t have the right to live/build their houses in a certain area, they fear to be evicted. Help arrives only after a disaster has occurred and no prevention is carried out. There is instead more communication for what concerns projects linked to the field of education, public health and social services. The research project I refer to is ‘Waterproofing Data: Engaging Stakeholders in Sustainable Flood Risk Governance for Urban Resilience’: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/cim/research/waterproofing-data/

21 specific practices. While community development can refer to all projects that concern an improvement of well-being in communities, the other two terms generally look also for an economic return from projects, as the commonly accepted definition of ‘investment’ requires. Impact and community investment also differentiate themselves since a bigger proportion of these projects are carried out by the private sector. The practice of impact investment derives from social responsible investments, and developed to concentrate capital in social and environmental issues, mostly in the fields of renewable energy, basic services including housing, healthcare, education, micro-finance, and sustainable agriculture (GridShare, 2018). The term emerged around 2007, and positioned business and investments in a development function that was commonly thought to be exclusively of social assistance or philanthropy (UNDP, 1999). Impact investment aims at measure social and environmental performance, with the same rigor that is applied to financial performance (KANANI, 2012). It can be defined as ‘investments made by companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate a measurable social and environmental impact alongside a financial return’ (GIIN, 2020). Although some social enterprises are nonprofits, impact investing typically involves for-profit, social or environmental-mission-driven businesses (mostly private sector investors, such as banks, pension funds, development finance institutions, institutional investors and private foundations). GIIN's Annual Impact Investor Survey (2020) shows that the largest sectors by asset allocation are microfinance, energy, housing, and financial services (MORATA, 2017). There are 3 main characteristics that must be considered when talking about impact investment: intentionality (to have a positive social or environmental impact), expectations of financial return, and measurement of impact. When it comes to ‘community investment’, we can consider it as a specific case of impact investment, where the main difference is the target group. While impact investment considers a very broad range of projects, that aim at improving social or environmental conditions, community investment specifically targets economically disadvantaged communities. It can thus be defined as ‘investments intended to achieve social and environmental benefits in underserved communities’ (Kresge Foundation, 2015), and it contributes to make cities more equitable and sustainable. Community investment is carried out mainly by Community Development Financial Institutions (such as community development banks and community development credit unions), which are private

22 sector financial institutions that focus primarily on personal lending and business development efforts in poorer local communitiess.

Localization choice for projects and their link with infrastructures

Most of past literature concerning location choices in development studies, address decisions whether to delegate project management to local actors, the directions and reasons of international aid, and, closer to my research question, the places where new NGOs are born. I found two studies, one referring to Kenya and one to Bangladesh that are strictly related to my research question. The first one (Brass, 2012), studied how need, convenience, and political factors are related to geographical locations in which NGOs work. Brass found evidence for the first two drivers, showing that health-related issues, lack of service provision infrastructures, density of people and elite goods4, and good road network are positively associated with nonprofits’ location. Convenience goods must be considered since they offer higher quality of life to NGOs’ workers on the field. Another study (FRUTTERO and GAURI, 2005), carried out in in Bangladesh, studied determinants of NGOs’ location using household and community level data. The research analyzed three elements of NGO’s decision making: donor funding, complementarities or substitutes with other programs, and community needs. Results do not support the claim that NGOs target poverty (considering correlation with poverty gap, literacy, percentage of landless coefficient not significant). There is mixed evidence for what concerns donor funding: while some types of organizations follow government programs others do not, and finally, the research shows that between 1995 and 2000 NGOs entered areas in which they were not present and/or left communities in which they were already working. Another interesting working paper (but less connected to my research as compared to the other two) is that of Marchesini da Costa (2016), where he studied the location of nonprofit organizations in Brazil. He tried to answer the following question ‘what make nonprofits more likely to be formed in certain areas?’. Previous studies on this topic present two main explanations: community’s location attracts nonprofits, and, nonprofits are established where there are more resources available for their action. The results of Marchesini da Costa’s study indicate that measures of community needs

4 restaurants, entertainment, resorts and high quality healthcare

23 are not strong determinants for nonprofit location in Brazil. Actually, poor socioeconomic indicators (higher levels of income inequality and unemployment rate) are associated with a lower rate of nonprofits created between 2001 and 2010. Among the available resources, only the percentage of rural population (used as a measure of a higher social capital) is positively associated with nonprofit location. The main predictor of the increase of nonprofits in a municipality is the density of nonprofits previously existing in that geographic area, which leads to clustering. Findings, however, vary across regions and non-profit fields of activity (religious non-profits are attracted by municipalities with higher homicide rates, while advocacy and professional associations are created in areas).

We must also consider the location of infrastructure projects as an important determinant for the location of community development projects (HIGUEROS, 2020). This is specifically true when projects are related to indigenous people’s lands and ancestral rights. In the late eighties, the International Labor Organization created the “Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention” (Convention 169), that established the obligation for governments to promote the participation of tribal and indigenous communities in making decisions that could affect their development. This convention was meant as a tool for governments to avoid confrontations with local communities and try to develop communication among the two entities. Unfortunately the project has been often strategically manipulated and seen either as the faculty of the communities to veto projects or as the possibility for external groups to take advantage of the situation by misinforming the communities. Before implementing any kind of infrastructure project in the proximity of communities it is important to pay attention to the sustainability of the project, by studying the type of communities in proximity and the impacts on them. During my interviews some infrastructure companies brought evidence on how these big projects can affect the surrounding environment and communities by developing an informal market around the project site. A report from the Inter-American Development Bank (2017) analyzed 200 infrastructure projects that took place in Latin America and the Caribbean in the last 40 years. It emerged that 36 were canceled due to conflict, 162 faced delays and 116 faced cost overruns. Of these projects, 28 happened in Brazil, mainly in the energy and transportation sectors. In many cases, conflicts escalated due to accumulated complaints and concerns from the local communities since the early phases. An

24 important cause of conflict was identified in the lack of community benefits that would have compensated the negative spillovers of projects (84% of the cases). Usually the major fear of communities was to lose access to agricultural or marine resources or to have an impact on local values. Community development compensatory initiatives mostly include investments in community infrastructure, capacity building, jobs, and direct payments. These measures have been found to satisfy communities in remote rural areas while those in developed and urbanized regions usually demand for further benefits. An example of problems between communities and infrastructure projects in Brazil is the extension of Tucururì transmission line to Roraima. In this case, conflict with indigenous groups lead to a delay in the execution of the project of almost 10 years. As the IDB shows, compensatory measures often haven’t been kept into due consideration (IDB, 2017), and communities were concerned that they would have to bear the negative impacts of the project. Along with ILO 169 convention, other documents that provide guidelines for these projects are: the United Nation’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. From a more practical point of view, past projects have shown the importance of following some principles: finding the correct representation (who to talk to in the communities) identifying legitimate concerns (who is actually receiving the damage and is his claim legitimate?), getting adequate follow up from governments, and determining correct ways to make the dialogue’s conclusions enforceable. An international organization that has an important role in this field is the World Bank, which contributes to the design of community development projects to limit the impact of these big infrastructure projects. The aim is that of establishing an effective and sustainable instrument to improve the living conditions and the economic status of disadvantaged communities’ (World Bank, 2001). Projects supported by the World Bank are articulated through two main components. A first focus on social and infrastructure development. This aims at carrying out social assessments and implementing community development sub-projects as complementary to the main infrastructure project. The second focus is closely related to the first and deals with income enhancement projects to support micro and small entrepreneurs: NGOs providing credit to target beneficiary groups, and vulnerable group empowerment through training with demand-driven specialized skills, that should lead to income and business opportunities. To better understand this process I report a case study from MIGA for a Hydropower Development Project that happened in the Solomon Islands

25 (Solomon Islands Government, 2017). For this project a detailed mapping of the local environment was carried out to determine which could have be the best development practices to support the initiative. Structured community workshops were designed to collect information in each village area. Information collected included: the local way of life of communities living in the area, views on potential project impacts, and individual interviews with local leaders about sacred and important cultural sites and issues. In addition to this, the members of these communities were able to inform project managers about their specific interests and concerns regarding the company operations. In these circumstances, however, there are always some risks that can’t be completely avoided, referring to all that involves individual personal choices such as alcohol and drug consumption. A way to make sure that all research and workshops results are considered is to include independant external organizations to supervise the process and protect the communities. For what concerns this specific project, results showed that electric lighting was the most relevant benefit that would arise from the project, with spillovers including: giving the possibility to children and adults to study in the evenings, increase security at night, and increase levels of community interaction. The report shows that a good strategy to mitigate the infrastructure’s impact is that of organizing job trainings programs for people living in the area of the project. Beside these benefits other in-kind support is also often provided, through preferential employment policies, physical infrastructure (water supply and sanitation, roads, rural electrification, rural irrigation systems, telecommunications), health and education facilities and services (clinics, schools, community centres, libraries, textbooks), and financial literacy programmes (often linked to microfinance programmes or other cash-transfer programmes).

26 Overview of Brazilian actors involved in social projects

There are three main reports that can be consulted to get information about private organizations that carry out social projects. The Group of Institutes, Foundations and Companies (GIFE, 2018) report focuses on institutes and foundations of the business type. GIFE is an association itself5 and it produces a report based on the analysis of its member organizations. It thus includes mostly big organizations and excludes many NGOs. FASFIL report (IBGE, 2019), on the other side, is a more inclusive study which considers most of Brazilian NGOs, including GIFE members as well. The third report is the OSC map (IPEA, 2021), which includes organizations recognized by law n°13.019 (Brazilian Civil Code, 2014).

Non-profit organizations:

The main organizations that work with social projects are NGOs. These organizations end up completing the work of the state and may receive financing and donations from it and from private entities. In Brazil, NGOs have no legal value and they act as “Civil Society Organizations (PENIDO, 2018)”. A civil society organization (OSC) is an institution that develops social projects with a non-profit purpose. Such organizations are also classified as ‘Third Sector Institutions’. OSC can be classified as civil society organizations of public interest (OSCIP) or social organizations (OS) as long as they comply with certain requirements established by law. Qualification as OSCIP or as OS is optional and brings benefits and duties (Instituto Bancorbràs, 2016). The qualification as Social Organization (OS) for example can be granted to entities destined to the exercise of activities directed to teaching, scientific research, technological development, protection and preservation of the environment, culture or health (Brazilian Civil Code, law nº 9.637 of 1998). Mandatorily, an OS must have certain percentages of representatives of both the Government and civil society in the composition of its Board of Directors. Generally OSCs are divided into associations, foundations, and religious organizations6

5 its members pay to be part of it 6 were considered as a third category by Law no. 10,825 12/22/2003, which established these organizations as private legal entities, which previously belonged to the figure of associations

27

Associations: are defined as the union of people in favor of a common objective, who organize themselves for non-economic purposes (excluding the exercise of certain activities, such as paramilitary activities). All income from its activities must be reverted to fulfill its statutory objectives (Brazilian Civil Code, law nº 10.406 of 2002).

Foundations: defined as an asset destined to an end of public or social interest (not for profit) that acquires legal personality (Brazilian Civil Cod, law nº 13.151 of 2015). As compared to associations, this legal denomination allows the organization to pay less taxes, and for this reason it can be submitted to audit from the government.

Religious organizations: considered as legal entities of private law, have the scope of religious activity in its broad sense and must not only be analyzed by worship, but by the practice and experience of a faith, which can be expressed and demonstrated in its Statute, through the provision of worship, religiosity, the formation of its members and believers, religious instruction, the experience of a charism and the practice of the virtue of faith, hope and charity (Brazilian civil code: law nº 10.825, of 2003).

In Brazil there are different organizations carrying out research concerning non-profit organizations7, and all entities adopt a similar conceptual reference with five pillars:

1. the organizations are private, so not legally linked to the State 2. have a non-profit purpose, they do not distribute the surplus between owners or directors, and, if profit is generated, it is applied to the organization's core activities 3. are legally constituted, they are registered with the CNPJ 4. are self-administered and manage their own activities autonomously 5. are constituted voluntarily by individuals, and the activities they perform are freely chosen by those responsible

7 The three main sources I used are OSC map by IPEA, CENSO by GIFE and FASFIL map by IBGE

28 Two sources of information make it possible to identify OSCs: the Central Business Register (CEMPRE8), managed and used by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), and the National Register of Juridical Persons (CNPJ), managed by the Brazilian Federal Revenue Service (SRFB) (ANDRADE and PEREIRA, 2019) and used by the Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA) 9 . Aiming at the construction of internationally comparable statistics, IBGE and IPEA adopt the Handbook on Non-Profit Institutions in the System of National Accounts (UN, 2002) as a reference for defining these organizations (MELLO and ANDRADE, 2019).

In Brazil the term “NGO” was originally used to refer to organisations established among the social movements and the fight against the dictatorships during the 1960s and 1970s. Since then these organizations have undergone several changes (Mendonça, Alves, and Nogueira, 2016). The first wave of changes was linked to the redemocratisation processes after the military regime, when most of these organizations became legal and formal. In this period the main role of NGOs was that of consolidating Brazilian democracy, acting as key players in the extension of social rights. The second wave of changes was instead connected to the transformation of funding trends in the 2000s. At the international level, changes of priorities of the International Development Cooperation (IDC) donors resulted in decreasing funds for Brazilian NGOs. At the national level, there started to be a closer link between NGOs and the state and the corporate philanthropy sector. This resulted in NGOs becoming more project-oriented and dependent on these restricted funds. Past literature concerning NGOs has thus focused on studying their role and structure, and the current debate argues that their funding structure (Fowler, 2000; De Senillosa, 1998) and management model should be revised (Taylor, 2016). Since their origin, these organizations relied on public or private funding that happened to influence their mission and behaviour. Fowler (2000) and Taylor (2016) argue that NGOs should evolve towards becoming social entrepreneursor and civic innovators, since the

8 CEMPRE covers the universe of formal organizations, that is, registered in the National Register of Legal Entities (CNPJ), of the Federal Revenue Secretariat (SRF), which in the reference year declared to exercise economic activity in the national territory in surveys by annual companies of the IBGE or in the administrative records of the Secretariat of Labor of the Ministry of Economy. 9 IPEA manages the CSO Map, a virtual platform for collaborative public transparency, which presents CSO data from CNPJs across Brazil.

29 boundaries between business and civil society are being re-imagined and broken down. New models of pursuing social objectives are being experimented and NGOs should locate themselves in a way that keeps them bonded and accountable to civil society while occupying a space between civil society, the state and the market. This role can be defined as that of a ‘multisector negotiatiator’, that promotes innovation and acts as a watchdog over the state and the market.

For-profit organizations:

Firms sometimes dedicate part of their resources to carry out social projects directly, while often they operate through their foundations or institutes (separate not-for profit entities that arise from the same firm). Firms can also be ‘social enterprises’, having both business and social goals. Social enterprises focus on creating wealth through their projects and are financed also through sales and trade of their products, rather than solely through grants or donations, hence their commercial nature. While no specific legalities surround social enterprises, it is generally understood they use the majority of profits (over 50%) to help their social cause. An important theme when considering private firms that want to have a social impact is the alignment between private social investment and business (PAGOTTO et al., 2016). For some, the synergy between the corporate social investor and the organization it supports (it’s institute) has always occurred and it is something natural in relation to the business role, for others this synergy does not happen and this is reflected in wastes and less productivity. The concern is linked to the possible subordination of private social investment to the business logic of project management and the consequent prevalence of private over public interest (instrumentalization of private social investment). To have a good alignment between business and social projects, there must be convergence between the company's mission and the foundation/ institute's mission without subordination. This way the corporate institute should use the company's expertise when acting for a social cause. Among the positive impacts that an alignment can bring we have10:

10 Some examples of synergies:

30 • governance: strengthening the institute’s role in the company's decision- making processes • partnerships between social investors with expertise in similar projects and territories, thus optimizing the use of resources • guaranteeing institute’s financial sustainability over time, since the maintaining company starts seeing value more explicitly in the social work developed by the social investor.

Figure 2: private-social investment alignment (source: PAGOTTO et al., 2016)

• benefits in concentrating the social investments maintained by the company in groups of people or organizations with which the company relates more frequently, and which can be more easily engaged and open to its initiatives • focus on social investments funded by the company in the regions where the negative impacts of its own operations are most relevant • consumer goods producers promoting packaging recycling • technology companies developing technological initiatives in the service of education • banks promoting financial education • food companies promoting sport or healthy lifestyles • direct or indirect cooperation from the group of actors that are part of the same network. This process can occur on a global scale, making the expected range of investments more comprehensive, but, on the other hand, distancing local actors from the decision-making center of the policies

31 Government

Government, through it’s social policies, is the third type of actor that implements social projects. Since Brazil is a federation we must consider three dimensions at which this type of intervention takes place: federal, state and municipality level. More specifically, the Brazilian federalism has a decentralized orientation11. This model has an important pillar to follow, referred as ‘federative equity’, according to which all federated members are entitled to all assistance necessary to guarantee minimum standards of existence and wellbeing for the individuals who live in them (FERREIRA, 2010). It is according to this principle that the federal government should fulfill its duty of social assistance through mechanisms to redistribute power and fiscal resources among subnational governments. The Brazilian model however has a clear instability in the institutional dynamics of intergovernmental relations, characterized by an alternation of periods of high concentration of power in the hands of the presidency12, and periods of intense decentralization. This model results to be instable, since most states and municipalities rely heavily on some kind of resource transfer to fund their administrative structures and public policies. In the past, the 1988 Brazilian Federal Constitution promoted a model with strong cooperation and federal coordination. Currently however, the “Bolsonaro’s federalism,” is based on a dualistic view of intergovernmental relations13, with little participation of the federal government in reducing territorial inequalities and supporting subnational governments (COUTO et al., 2020). We can see the effects of this in the COVID-19 pandemic scenario, where there was an increase in the conflict with subnational governments. The weakness of this structure is also evident in other social policies, resulting in lack of leadership of the Federal Government, waste of resources, overlapping of initiatives, reduction of the gains of scale that come from federative coordination, and an impairment to the guarantee of social rights (ENAP, 2017). Due to the federal system, the financing of policies through taxes is divided among the three levels of governance. The public health system (SUS) service is offered at the municipality level but organized and

11 as opposed to the centralized orientation in the US 12 especially during cycles of economic growt

13 This model is opposed to the ‘cooperative model’, where shared authority combines sub-national autonomy with national coordination

32 financed at the federal level. Education is divided on the three levels depending on whether it is university, high school, elementary school or kindergarten. Security competence is divided between the three level through different police units. Justice administration is divided between federal/superior and state tribunals, and finally, for what concerns infrastructures, there is as well a triple division of competences. The implementation of grassroot interventions that have a straightforward impact on people’s lives however happens mostly at the municipal level. Municipalities have the responsibility for basic sanitation, public illumination and public spaces, while states are left with the responsibility for popular housing projects (MATTOS, 2017).

After having considered separately these actors it is interesting to understand the ways through which collaborations and partnerships can be built at different levels. A research of 2019 (DE MENDOÇA et al., 2019) analyses the interaction design between nonprofits and the government, suggesting that partnerships should be considered as a public policy instrument. The type of possible partnerships are divided between relationships considered resistant to government interaction, with less potential for effective outcomes, and those more prone to symmetrical relationships and collaboration. Going on a scale from one extreme to the other we have: contempt, conflict, charity, contracting, cooperation and concordance relationships. While contempt partnerships include a restriction in the autonomy of nonprofits through excessive controls, bureaucracy and regulations, on the other extreme, concordance partnerships, entail a high legitimacy and capacity of nonprofits, with share values and objectives with the government. The authors describe a model based on two analytical levels (political-institutional and micro-organizational) to assess of which type is the partnership under consideration. They focus on three policy areas in the Brazilian context to assess their model: AIDS, social assistance and culture. Their conclusion shows that the type of partnership prevailing is of a cooperation type for AIDS and a mix between conflict and contracting for both social assistance and culture. The interesting outcome of the study is that often these models are not of a pure form, and public actions requires much more than the simple intervention of the state, but the cooperation between different actors.

33 Methodology

There are several methodological tips I had to deal with for the development of this project. First of all I considered two groups of interlocutors when addressing my research questions: NGOs on one side and firms, business foundations and institutes on the other. I included results coming from institutes and organizations closely related to firms in the second category. As a matter of fact these organizations often have a consistent part of financing coming from their related firm, and, although they claim to be independent, they often include some firm’s directors in their decisional bodies. My sample includes organizations that considerably differ among them for typology and areas of projects, but I was mostly interested in seeing whether the simple nature of the organization (profit or nonprofit) affected my results. It was also very difficult to contact organizations and getting their availability to participate in interviews since I didn’t have a previous network to take advantage of. I took a sample of 19 NGOs and 14 firms, or firm related organizations. The selection of the organizations depended on the entities that carry out community development projects that answered to my survey. I contacted about 150 organizations and received a response rate of about 25%, higher for NGOs as compared to firms. Another strategy I used to find organizations to contact other than internet research is the snow-ball technique, where every time I carried out an interview I asked recommendations for further organizations to contact. When addressing NGOs I also considered that there are different types of them. For the scope of my research I divided them based on a double bipartition. The first criteria concerned NGOs that deal with community development projects and those who don’t. The second criteria considered a bipartition between territorial and project driven NGOs. Territorial NGOs stick to the area where they were born or where they have been used to operate, and keep engaging the same community. Project driven NGOs instead, every time that they start a new project, face the decision of where to undertake it. They have a headquarter but engage in projects in different geographical locations. It is not easy to classify to which type of organization the NGO belongs. I referred to my interviews and the help of the specialists working in the organizations to decide whether the NGO was of one type or the other. My objective was to identify project driven NGOs which operate with community development projects. There are 4 exceptions of NGOs that I decided to interview despite I consider

34 them of the territorial type. These NGOs answered my interview and the information I got could apply to the sections referring to the community development and adaptation to Covid-19 sections (annex). The interview results of these 4 NGOs however are excluded from the study of factors that lead organization to decide where to undertake social projects. To select private firms I adopted the same criteria as for NGOs. Another criteria to identify the organizations in the sample is the fact that they should be present on the Brazilian territory or carry out projects in it. Only one NGO14 interviewed has its headquarter in Portugal, but it regularly carries out projects in Brazil. Questions were tailored to get a personal definition of ‘community development’, to understand the decision making process and the causal mechanisms affecting the ‘community and geographical location of their social projects’, to see what was the effect of Covid-19 on them, to have a personal opinion concerning the sensitivity to sustainability of dwellers, and to see what is the attitude of people living in communities towards outsiders. I found few literature concerning the location decision of community development projects since most of past studies address factors that determinate the location decision of where establishing the organization’s headquarter rather than the operational project, directions of aid and delegation of project management to local actors. Furthermore most of these studies don’t focus on Brazil as their case study. I conduced my literature review by searching in bibliographies of related studies (MARCHESINI DA COSTA, 2016; FRUTTERO and GAURI, 2005; BRASS, 2012) and browsing key words on google scholar in English, Italian and Portuguese15. At the beginning of my research I started carrying out presential interviews, but, due to the pandemic. most interviews happened to be by telephone or Skype. Since my research happened in the period of Covid-19, I decided to repeat all interviews to see how the organizations I interviewed adapted to the pandemic. While the first round of interviews started in November 2019, I repeated them from July 2020, 4 months after the epidemic started spreading in Brazil (25 February 2020). Concerning this second round of interviews, there were however 2 business institutes that didn’t reply to my request to assess how they adapted to Covid- 19. Once I had collected all interviews, I aggregated similar answers by creating some

14 AMI: https://ami.org.pt/en/ 15 Social projects location, location choice, community development location, dove vengono relizzati progetti di sviluppo comunitario, sviluppo comunitario, desenvolvimento comunitario, localização de projectos de desenvolvimento…

35 small summaries that I report in the section ‘comprehensive interviews results’. I then further divided answers depending on sub-categories reflecting a psychological, social/economic or governance/structural dimension. For what concerns the questions about sustainability and attitude towards outsiders, I decided to include them in my interviews to tailor a more comprehensive definition of community development. The sustainability issue is an indirect assessment, since questions were carried out to people working with social projects in communities, and not directly to dwellers. Attitude towards outsider, on the other side, serves as a proxy for the integration of the communities with the broader territory where they are present. Ideally an open attitude of individuals should indicate that they are used to deal with external people and organizations, and this should derive from a major integration and communication within their geographical territory. I will now present a list of the main questions I asked throughout my interviews:

• why did you choose to run the project in this community? Why in this geographic area? • why did you choose this specific type of intervention? • what is the decision-making process for developing the social projects in which your company participates? • what is the meaning of 'community development' for you? • do you assess the level of development of the communities and the impact of your projects? How you do so? • what is the level of openness of the community and acceptance of external people and projects? • what is the attitude and knowledge of the community members towards sustainability topics? • did the Covid-19 scenario affected your projects and the organization in any way? If so, how?

Here follows the list of organizations I interviewed:

Private sector

36 • Fundação Odebrecht: Thiago Maciel, Coordinator of Sustainable Development • Rocha Farma: Natalia Duez Verzaro Santos, Social and Sustainability Analyst • Instituto Sabin: Lian Carvalho Siquiera, Projects Supervisor, and Fabio Deboni, Executive Director • Instituto Neoenergia: Renata Chagas, Executive Director • Fundacoe Alphaville: Aline Ferreira, Institutional Development Director • Citibank: Guilherme Mancin, Chief of Staff of CitiBnak Brasil and President of Associaçao Citi esperanza • Itaù Social: Milena Duarte Pereira Fortek, Institutional Development Coordinator • B3 Social: Fabiana Frianci, Manager • Instituto Camargo: Tatiana Montorio, Project Coordinator • Instituto Center Norte: Daniela Vidal Garcia Pavan, Responsible for the Institute • Fundação Otacilio Coser: Ana Paula Carvalho, Program and Project Coordinator • Intercement: Kleber Silva, Analista de Investimento Social • Instituto LafargeHolcim: Tatiana Nogueira, Social Responsability Coordinator (didn’t answer to second call) • Instituto Dow: Valeria Batista da Costa, Communication and Corporative Director (didn’t answer to second call)

NGOs

• Unas: Heliopolis e região: Rebecca Zerbinato, Coordination Assistant • Aliança Libertária Meio Ambiente (ALMA): Thabata Ottoni, President • AMI (international NGO with headquarter in Portugal): Tania Barbosa, Director of the International Department • Instituto Phi: Luiza Serpa, Co-funder and Executive Director • Trata Brasil: Edna Cardoso, Social Projects Consultant • Teto: Juliana Simionato, Coordinator of Social Actions • Bem Pro Social Brasil: Mauricio Malcher Amorim Miguel, Founder and Director • Litrto de Luz Brasil: Lais Higashi, President • Fundação ABH: Marina Fay, Executive Director

37 • Instituto Beatriz e Lauro Fiúza: Bia Fiuza, Ex Executive Director, currently member of executive board • Fundaçao FEAC: Jair Resends de Almeida Silva • Fundação Beto Stuart: Valnisia, Ex Administrative Director, currently retired volunteer • Instituto Povo Do Mar: Paolo Eduardo Montenegro, Founder and President • Associação Santa Fè: Marcia Dias, President • Movimento de saude bom jardim: Padre Rino, President, and Natalia Tatanka, Sustainability Project Responsible • Lar de Clara (territorial): Ricardo Miranda, Founding Partner and Vice President • Estação de Luz (territorial): Karin Cordeiro, Social Coordinator • Instituto Alana (territorial): Leila Vendrametto, Coordinator of ‘urbanizar’ project • Societade Santos Mártires (territorial): Padre James

Figure 3: map of organizations interviewed, in blue firms; in red NGOs

38 The guidelines for the community development definition I want to create will be useful to better understand which are the main elements to be included in a community development project and whether there are any difference between the for-profit and nonprofit sector. An important guideline that emerges from literature review and that I strongly support, is the idea that projects should include a process of community engagement and community participation. I consider this a key feature of community development and I hope to find a confirmation of this within my interviews. My contribution to past literature will be that of considering experience and opinions of actors who directly work with projects in this field. I expect to find evidence for an ‘organization’s alignment theory’. I introduce this concept as a spin-off from the private and social investment research field (PAGOTTO et al., 2016). According to this theory I expect the private sector to align it’s definition of community development and the way it carries out social projects to it’s for-profit nature. This theory suggests that while NGOs conceptualization of community development follows general well-being priorities, firms are more aligned to community investment and impact investment approaches, and prioritize projects close to their headquarter (to gain a positive image/limit their negative externalities). Firms thus would see as most important economic growth and entrepreneurship projects that can be measured in financial terms. The ‘understanding of the factors that influence organization’s decision on where to undertake their projects’ section should help to understand the causal mechanisms behind this type of decision for NGOs and firms. By understanding this process it should be easier for the government to predict how social projects are developed, to implement public policies to influence their location and to specify better contracts. This will help to better organize development projects, to sustain a more organized urban development scheme and to incentivize projects to be carried out in the communities that are more in need of it. I expect to find a prominent role of politics and strategic marketing (intended to reduce negative externality perception) as the main motivations accounting for business foundations and institutes decisions. When considering NGOs, instead, I expect bigger priority being given to personal network and social-economic necessity. This would reflect the different values upon which private firms and NGOs are founded: profit vs philanthropy.

Hypothesis concerning projects’ location choice

39 Some examples of causal mechanisms behind the localization choice that I selected both from my literature review and personal intuition suggests that factors that play a key role in this decision include:

• assessed necessity: socio-economic indicators such as poverty rate, unemployment, presence of vulnerable groups could predict the likelihood of intervention in determinate communities. • demographic characteristics: projects that impact a higher number of people could be preferred • local/personal contact: personal network could help to understand where community development projects are mostly needed • political reasoning: an example is the 2016 security policy during Olympic games in Rio. It was needed to develop the right policies to ensure a safe environment during the games • lack of government presence: this way the NGO could operate as a substitute for lack of basic services • convenience: considering facility to reach operation site, such as a good road connection • action location asked by a private firm (firm’s decision): select the location of projects to maintain a good relationship with the community, limit the effects of its externalities or gain a positive image • property rights (adverse possession): this could work for housing projects since once the property is acquired a reform/upgrading of the house could start • complementarities with other nonprofit actions/clustering effect: Marchesini Da Costa (2016) found that the higher the previous nonprofit density in a municipality, the more likely nonprofits are to be formed in that municipality. This can be due to shared structure, access to specialized resources, knowledge spillovers, information about demand/feasibility, and reduction of search-costs • fiscal incentives (LEWIS, 2019): the principal laws to deal with this issue concern the fields of culture, health and sports. The ‘Lei Rouanet’ (Brazilian civil code: law 8.313 of 1991, concerning projects in the domain of art), the ‘Lei de Incentivo ao Esporte’ (Brazilian civil code: law 11.438 of 2006, concerning

40 projects incentivizing sports) and the ‘Lei do Audiovisual’ (Brazilian civil code: law 8.685 of 1993, concerning projects for the production of movies, documentaries and other similar products). We must keep in mind that these incentives change depending on the municipality. The Imposto Predial e Territorial Urbano (IPTU), the Imposto Sobre Serviços (ISS) and the Imposto de Renda (IR) are at a federal level, while the Imposto sobre Circulação de Mercadorias e Serviços (ICMS) is at a state level. Physical persons can donate up to 6% of IR, while firms up to 9% to social causes. Most incentives target the vulnerable part of the population, such as kids and old or sick people (BRITTO, 2015). Considering the 116 associates who responded to a survey, GIFE found that for the donations of individuals and the economic sustainability of civil society organizations, there are some regulatory limits: the lack of tax incentives for donations of individuals (for 26% of respondents), and the lack of knowledge and difficulties in using the currently existing tax incentives (13%). Looking at the investments carried out in social projects through incentives, we see that there was a slight reduction, from 17% to 14% between 2014 and 2016, remaining stable since then (GIFE, 2018). • reduce negative externalities and gain a positive image • commitment by the community to engage in the project and a calm internal environment: security level and willingness to help in the realization of the project by community members generate a more feasible environment to carry out social projects • language spoken: being able to communicate with locals is a clear advantage for what concerns international projects or isolated communities • dimension and occurrence of natural disasters (ROCHA, 2000): the entity of damage caused by a natural disaster could attract medias’ attention and resources to carry out projects • strategic marketing and media coverage: for example the presence of an important athlete in the community could attract medias’ attention which then would help firms to gain a positive image with consumers. Also preferences of consumers must be considered. A research conducted by IPSOS institute found that 79% of people prefer firms that support projects against poverty and

41 hunger, 69% prefer basic sanitation projects and 63% prefer projects in the field of education16 (IPSOS, 2019).

16 interview carried out among 1200 Brazilians

42 Comprehensive interview results: community development guidelines

Results here presented summarize answers to my question concerning the meaning of community development:

NGOs

1. must listen to people

2. must take action all together, promote social engagement of dwellers. A process that starts inside of the people, who must feel listened and engaged within the community. The evolution that is attained by each individual then spreads rapidly to other members of the community. Need to discard the ‘superman theory’ 17 and carry out an internal participatory process where people organize themselves to satisfy their needs (this way they gain a community social capital to manage themselves)

3. must promote environmental awareness and connection between people and the place where they live

4. must strengthen the local culture, dwellers must identify themselves with the community where they live

5. must increase income and professionalization of individuals.

6. must consider that the main channels to attain community development are education and technical formation, that can give more outside options to dwellers

7. the whole process must start within family groups

17 someone who comes from outside to help

43 8. must teach to dwellers their legal rights and the instruments they can use to obtain them. Consider the difference between a social project and a citizenship projects. The second ones, other than the simple social intervention, include showing the citizen that he has social and institutional rights

9. must increase security, life expectancy, a healthy lifestyle, the sense of inclusion and self-esteem, and reduce inequality.

10. must let dwellers gain awareness that the situation can be changed

11. must carry out projects depending on local knowledge and resources. Every person has some resource, whether in the form of social or financial/material capital

12. must collaborate with external members. This must happen on a horizontal level following a principle of equality. It is also important to have an interdisciplinary approach and continuity when starting development projects

13. must elaborate a long-term solution to the problem18

14. must contract people from the same community to work on the projects, creation of an economy within the community

15. must improve financial management knowledge for community leaders

16. must have public policies that are integrated among different areas (ex: living conditions, security, education). There must be partnership between private, civil and public society. Must stress the participation of all three actors because when there is a change in government you also loose the continuity of the process. This is why it is important to have the participation of agents which don’t depend upon the current government

18 ex: not just delivering a basic basket of goods. Residents must get a basic knowledge of the project and maintenance must be carried out throughout time

44

17. must help community members not to remain dependant on public money, they must become independent, autonomous and free

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT GUIDELINES: NGOS 12

10

8

6

4

of times factor is mentioned offactor is times 2

° N 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Factor considered as relevant

Figure 4: community development for NGOs

Firms & business foundations and institutes

1. must develop already existing opportunities in the community through communitarian entrepreneurship and ‘entrepreneurship for necessity’. Must understand which are the natural opportunities for the community and give the possibility to the local community to get a better life by taking advantage of their local resources and know-how19

2. must have an horizontal and egalitarian communication between the community and the organization delivering the project

3. must consider that there are different types of communities, urban and rural ones. Communities mustn’t be seen just as fragile places with lot of violence

19 ex: a touristic place, area where there are particular species of plant that could be commercialized

45 and where only bad things happen. Each territory has its values and its potentiality (ex: fruits, culture, history)

4. people must be proud of belonging to their community and if they decide to exit it must be because of a choice and not for lack of opportunities

5. must improve the gathering of data and analysis of projects by organizations which engage in community development projects

6. must avoid a top-down approach

7. must make the community auto-sufficient. ‘Don’t give the fish to the people, must teach them how to go fishing’. Communities can’t get to this stage by themselves, they need help for financing and knowledge

8. must consider other public policies and work of other NGOs in the same territory for possible collaboration. Have a joint participation of different actors, public- private institutions and citizens.

9. must understand the local reality

10. must work with long term impact projects

46 COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT GUIDELINES: FIRMS 3.5

3

2.5

2

1.5

1 of times factor is mentioned offactor is times

° 0.5 N

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Factor considered relevant

Figure 5: community development for firms

Results: community development definition

While for NGOs definitions such as the ones presented in points 2, 9 and 12 result as the most relevant, firms considered points 2, 7 and 8 as the most important ones.

Overall answers by the two type of organizations present similar results. Participative processes and horizontal dialogue are perceived as salient elements as expected. Both types of organizations stress the importance of having an horizontal dialogue with people from communities and engage them in the project decision-making and implementation process. The ‘superman theory’, consisting in delivering turnkey projects, is thus rejected in both contexts. Both organizations also consider as important having long-term projects allowing the community to become auto-sufficient and discard assistentialist type of projects. While the financial autonomy element appears to be important for both organizations, NGOs give more attention also to the improvement of social indicators, such as security, life expectancy, healthy lifestyle, sense of inclusion, self-esteem and reduced inequality. Finally both organizations think that collaboration with external actors of the area, other NGOs, firms or the government would improve projects outcome, by allowing share of knowledge and resources. The government would be able to resolve some structural problems that

47 include risk of eviction and other urbanism issues by implementing the correct public policies. It is also true that often dwellers have a feeling of mistrust for public authorities (and vice-versa) and feel as isolated from society. Dialogue between these two actors would probably transmit to dwellers a feeling of belonging to their region. Considering all answers that have been given It is possible to divide them according to 3 dimensions. I thus created three categories depending on the fact that answers referred to a psychological (answers 1,4,8,10), social/economic (answers 5,9,11,15,17) or governance/structural (answers 2,7,12,14,16) component. In definitions given both by firms and NGOs, the structural/governance component appeared as the most relevant, followed by the economic/social and for last the psychological component (I leave a comprehensive definition of the community development concept in the analysis part). Contrary to expectations there is no clear evidence for the ‘organization’s alignment’ theory in this section.

48 Comprehensive interview results: factors influencing projects’ location

NGOs:

When analyzing the answers given by NGO’s workers, we can see that 20 different factors emerge as influencing the decision of where to carry out community development projects. These factors are:

1. analysis of community social indicators and questionnaires: take action where these indicators are lower, the most considered ones are unemployment, HDI, violence, and degraded public space

2. personal contact of members working in the organization: often NGOs include among their employers members of the communities

3. number of communities concentrated in the same area: if this number is high it means that a social project can have a bigger impact

4. financing entity decision: sometimes private donors have the interest of realizing projects in specific areas

5. consider kid’s priorities: ‘kids come to the association mainly for legal custody, we consider where they come from and their stories as means to understand the needs of their communities’ (Marcia Dias, president of Associaço Santa Fé, 2020), or again ‘to decide the appropriate interventions and engagement process we start in schools, we try to understand by talking with most disadvantaged kids where they come from, what soft skills lack from school teaching and which activities can be carried out to keep them away from the street’ (Paolo Eduardo Montenegro, president of Povo do Mar, 2020)

6. possibility to make partnership with local organizations which can prove to be integrated and collaborative with other actors of the area

49

7. receptive community attitude: dwellers that want to learn and show commitment for the project to continue

8. ask suggestions to other NGOs to discover where a certain type of action is needed20 in the area

9. local language21

10. possibility of developing fast impact projects

11. receive application from people who come in contact asking for help (usually through social medias such as Facebook or Instagram)

12. dimension of damage22: higher damage means higher people impacted and higher necessity for intervention

13. media’s coverage: this way it is also easier to obtain donations

14. probability of receiving funding23

15. social engagement method: ‘works well in small cities. You must talk to people and create a network. You go around the city by foot, sit in a bar and offer a beer to everyone. People will start talking, giving information on who sells drugs, what are the dangerous areas, what projects they need’ (Mauricio Malcher Amorim Miguel, director of Bem Pro Social Brasil, 2020)

16. look for areas with many protests, this is probably symptom for a problem.

20 for example to discover which are the communities which lack energy access 21 this is a particular case that concerns international NGOs 22 prioritize intervention in emergency projects where big disaster occurred and many countries are affected by it 23 for example if a place affected has many white people, the chance of getting funding is higher

50 17. possibility of developing leadership in the community, to engage dwellers in the project and be sure that they will contribute. A problem is that of recognizing who can be a good community leader since they are often informal roles. You must also consider that these figures change rapidly through a dynamic process: ‘you don't always have to work with the same leaders, because these are constantly changing’.

18. possibility of implementing a project that respects the SDGs

19. consider if there are dangers in implementing the project and if groups in the area could be annoyed by its implementation

20. juridical analysis: maybe the community is at risk of being evicted soon, it thus makes no sense to start a project that will have a very short-term impact.

FACTORS INFLUENCING PROJECTS LOCATION: NGOS 8

7

6

5

4

3

2

of times it isof itmentioned times °

N 1

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Factor number

Figure 6: factors influencing projects locations, NGOs

Firms & business foundations and institutes

When looking at results obtained from firms or firm’s related organizations, I identified 10 relevant factors:

51 1. opportunity cost method: see where you can have a big impact for projects, where you can impact the great number of people with the same project funding

2. areas with highest economic vulnerability. Consider: financial/economic analysis, low education index, possibility of developing entrepreneurship projects

3. possibility of allowing employers to get involved in first hand volunteer work and not just through donations

4. location of NGO asking for funding which will partnership with the firm to develop the project. Some firms analyze the governance structure of the NGO, while others adopt a model similar to a venture capital selective process: select some NGOs, give them a formation period and then develop their social project

5. communities close to firm’s operations: it is important to be in a good relationship with communities close to the firm’s headquarter to make sure there is no disturbance

6. laws and incentives: most concern tax exemptions, especially for cultural and educational projects

7. possibility of implementing a project that respects the SDGs

8. looks for long-term partnerships with NGOs. Projects must be sustainable without a continuous help from the firm

9. choose communities where there are entrepreneurial opportunities and where dwellers have an attitude to take advantage of them

10. limit negative externalities24

24 ex: social programs for women, since often the prostitution rate increases in proximity of the project location since most of the workers are men (company that creates big infrastructures)

52

FACTORS INFLUENCING PROJECTS LOCATION: FIRMS 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

2

of times it isof itmentioned times °

N 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Factor number

Figure 7: factors influencing projects locations, firms

Results: factors that influence projects’ location

We can see that the most relevant factors considered by NGOs are: the analysis of community socio-economic indicators (unemployment, HDI and violence, degraded public space), personal contacts of members working in the organization, the decision of the financing entity and requests from people that enter in contact with the organization. When it comes to firms instead, main factors include: the opportunity cost method, economic vulnerability and opportunity indicators, request of funding from NGOs and distance of communities from the operation site of the industry.

Both type of organizations consider communities’ needs when deciding for the location of their projects, but we can see that, while firms give priority in considering economic/entrepreneurial dimensions, NGOs give more importance to social indicators. This difference weakly emerged also in the previous section, but here it is more evident. It could derive from an alignment between the type of organization and social projects carried out. While NGOs focus on improving social indicators and following a mission according to their values, firms prefer actions to limit their negative externalities, to keep good relationships with communities close to their sites of operations and to promote economic activities. It is interesting to see that both type of

53 organizations are dependent upon each other, firms for lack of field knowledge and NGOs for scarcity of financial resources. The importance of personal contacts for NGOs derives from the fact that most of these organizations have community members among their employees which can give advice concerning the necessities of their regions. NGOs then face financial limitations, and, for this reason, they are often constrained in their action and must be accountable to their donors. Generally firms prioritize projects close to their sites of operation to provide a safe environment to their workers, to get a positive image with the public and sometimes because they have a genuine interest in achieving economic development. I noticed that most of social projects are not carried out by the firms themselves, but by creating apposite institutes defined as separated and autonomous NGOs. These organizations face the decision of where to carry out their social projects. Often, however, they receive most of their funding by the parent firm. Athough they are independent in most of the processes concerning projects’ location decisions, they are limited in the sense that, usually, they must act close to firm’s sites. Furthermore their governing bodies often include firm’s managers that influence the decision making process. There was just one firm active in the infrastructure sector and, as expected, it reported the importance of implementing social projects in the site of operations. An NGO working with house provision mentioned the risk of eviction. Clearly projects must be carried out aligned with the law, and it makes no sense to build a house in a territory that could be evicted at any moment. Some factors mentioned only by NGOs that deserve attention are natural disasters, kids priorities, receptive communities and dialogue with community leaders. These last two elements are particularly important factors. They show how NGOs understand the importance of the governance structure of the communities where projects are undertaken.

54 Summary and analysis of results

1. A community development definition:

Results from this section show that the concept of community development is considered in similar terms by firms and NGOs, and there is no strong evidence for the ‘organization alignment’ theory. What emerges is that development mustn’t be thought solely in terms of economic growth. When this concept is applied to communities we must consider three different dimensions.

We can define community development as a planned process, where community members take collective action and generate solutions to common problems, with the objective of improving quality of life. The whole process should be sustainable, and the final outcome must be evaluated considering three dimensions: a psychological, a social/material, and a structural/ governance one.

All three dimensions are equally important and only a synergy of the three can give optimal results. The local territorial system dimension, through a governance/structural approach (how people interact among themselves and with the external environment), proved to be of fundamental importance according to interviews. Community development should be a horizontal process where social capital plays a key role, participation by all members is promoted and outside actors act solely as catalyzers (they ask questions, promote discussions among community members and promote interest, energy and motivation for action) (FLO and SMITH,1999). The whole process starts within family groups and their values. Collaborations with public policies and external actors can play a key role in the process, but this should happen avoiding top-down approaches. It is important to generate trust and communication with public authorities so that dwellers feel included in the society. Throughout this process we must consider that communities have an internal organizational structure, it is thus important to empower the correct actors. Recognize a good community leader, who cares for the wealth of the

55 community is of fundamental importance. The second dimension concerns social and economic factors. Dwellers must learn financial management skills and ways to be auto-sufficient and not rely on public funding. Community development projects must develop local entrepreneurs by considering local resources. Within every community there are natural25, human26, financial27 and infrastructure 28 resources. ‘Nothing should be given, everything should be taught’. Finally it is important to consider the psychological dimension, which refers to the feeling that people have for themselves and for their condition. Developing a sense of inclusion and self-esteem is fundamental. People must feel listened and understand that their situation can change, they must feel proud and empowered by understanding their legal rights and their role as citizens.

2. Main factors influencing projects locations:

Most of the initial hypothesis proved to have a role either for firms or NGOs when deciding project’s location. Marchesini da Costa (2016) predicted that new NGOs were likely to be created where there was a high concentration of previous existing NGOs, and three firms reported to consider this condition as important when undertaking their projects. Answers also supported Brass (2012) results against Fruttero and Gauri (2005) regarding the fact that communities’ needs are taken into account when deciding project’s location. Also density of people affected, according to an opportunity cost vision, supports findings in past literature (BRASS, 2012), since both firms and NGOs take this factor into consideration. Contrary to Brass’ results instead, elite goods and convenience factors, such as a good road connections, didn’t emerge from interviews. I believe this is because the organizations interviewed operate mostly in urban areas or in peripheries. I would expect the convenience factor to play a key role when operating in rural/isolated settings instead.

25 community in proximity of an extraction site that could offer jobs to dwellers 26 must have the people with the right skills in the right jobs and focus on increasing social capital. It is important to focus on wellbeing on people through: healthy lifestyle, skills building through education and training, career planning and employment, effective and legal hiring practices, workers compensation and pensions, and human rights 27 includes fundraising abilities to be able to find financial help to start development projects 28 refers also to local governance and policies, laws and leadership

56

Summarizing results of the interviews we can see that both type of organizations examine communities’ social and economic indicators as well as the possibility of impacting the highest number of people. NGOs consider mostly personal contacts of members working in the organization, requests from financing entities when it is the case of an external founded project and requests from people entering in contact through social medias. Firms instead give more importance toward requests for financing from local NGOs and distance of communities from the operating sites of the industry. An important difference that emerged is that firms often try to implement projects that have an economic return. This partially confirms the ‘organization’s alignment theory’. Firms privilege community investment projects and try to act in proximity of their industries.

There are then some factors that, despite being mentioned by few organizations, I consider as extremely relevant. Particular attention should be given to the role of community leaders. This is because, by talking with people working in community development projects, It was possible to see that the role of these leaders is really important: residents trust leaders, who thus have the capacity to mobilize people and engage them in social projects. Clusters or organizations and local networks are also very important. Collaboration of different actors allows to achieve economies of scale, pool more resources and share know-how. There is also one factor mentioned by the only international NGO interviewed that deserve some attention. It mentioned the importance of media coverage over the sites of operations. This factor is very likely to be connected with the probability of receiving funding, especially when considering firms that have an interest in getting a positive image. Media coverage could also be influenced through the implementation of correct public policies. Finally it is important to consider how dangerous is the environment where projects take place, and whether there are interest groups that could harm people working in the field. The NGO that mentioned this factor is an organization that works with labor rights enforcement in areas of the city where refugees are active mainly in the informal job market.

57 Contrary to expected It was surprising to see that some of the initial hypothesis weren’t mentioned in answers. Both type of organizations usually don’t take advantage fiscal incentives. It would be interesting to understand if the reason behind this is a lack of knowledge concerning this possibility or the type of projects that fiscal incentives are connected to. Marketing reasons didn’t emerge as a driver for firms, but it is reasonable that, even if it was the case, they wouldn’t have mentioned it as an important factor. Political reasoning as well wasn’t mentioned, but this factor is more related to policies implemented by the government. Organizations didn’t explicitly say that they consider commitment of the community as a decisive factor to carry out interventions, but this is definitely something to consider for a project to be efficient. I had the possibility to test this directly by working in a Brazilian NGO29. Our field work consisted in installing solar energy lights in communities. When community members don’t participate in the project or don’t feel the utility of it, the lights are often stolen shortly after their installation, or no maintenance is carried out. Finally, despite lack of government presence wasn’t directly mentioned in interviews, It was possible to see that many social projects carried out by interviewed organizations have the objective of providing services that should be publicly provided, such as illumination, housing ecc..

3. Sustainability awareness within dwellers: as expected most people don’t have a clear view or interest in sustainability. As an example they don’t understand the importance of recycling and they often burn their wastes creating pollution. It is difficult to create awareness for these concepts since people understand and have much more interest in peace and life. When project leaders are chosen from communities to develop the projects, however, they show a basic knowledge and understanding of these concepts. Also younger people show more understanding and interest for such topics. Interestingly it seems that awareness for sustainability and nature increases if people live in a clean and welcoming environment. For this reason the geographic location and time of the year also influence the relationship between

29 Litro de Luz Brasil: https://www.litrodeluz.com/

58 dwellers and the environment. People who live closer to rivers, for example, happen to see nature as an ‘enemy’ during periods of floods.

4. Openness level of community towards external people: this question was included as a proxy to measure the ‘local territorial system’ integration of communities. Answers to interviews reported often a welcoming environment. This attitude however is conditioned on the fact that interventions are carried out according to a specific procedure. Leaders must be contacted and consulted prior to any intervention and dwellers must be involved in project’s decision making structure. This last point is fundamental since situations of initial mistrust can often be solved by creating workshops within projects to involve dwellers and be accepted by the community. The size of the community also affects the way outsiders are seen, since in a bigger and more dispersed environment it is harder to recognize outsiders. A problem that has been evidenced in some interviews is the fact that there is a lack of communication between communities and public officers30. Public servants sometimes don’t recognize community members as part of the society, they feel like they’re making a favor to them when it comes to any kind of service delivered. Community members on the other side have a feeling of submission and mistrust with respect to public authorities. Public policies should aim at filling this gap of communication, since dialogue among different actors is fundamental for community development.

30 Some organizations engage public officials to explain to dwellers how to access some public services works (education, healthcare)

59 Conclusion and recommendations for future studies

The research started from a literature review concerning community development and integrated current definitions with opinions from peoples directly involved with this type of projects. Community development guidelines were created considering three dimensions, the social/material one, the psychological and the governance dimension (which proved to be the most considered one by actors in the field). While community development is seen in a similar way by firms and NGOs, results considering the location choice of projects have evidenced a difference reflecting the nature of the two organizations and partially supporting the ‘organisation’s alignment’ theory. While there is alignment when considering the final objectives of community development, firms see in economic growth and entrepreneurship the mechanism to achieve so, while NGOs prioritize improvement of social indicators, such as the HDI index, violence levels, degraded public space, art, culture and kid’s priorities. When factors influencing the location of social projects were addressed, results show that organizations do consider the necessities of communities. Generally firms prefer to act close to their sites of operations and consider the presence of NGOs on the territory, while NGOs try to balance donor’s and dweller’s requests. Overall I see these results as offering an interesting insight in the topic but just as a starting point for further analysis due to my main limitation: the small amount of data available31. For what concerns future research there are several recommendations that emerged from this study. It would be important to compare the monitoring and evaluation process of profit and non-profit organizations. It looks like most organizations are not used to evaluate the impact of their projects or do so in a superficial way. Following a similar line of research it would be also important to highlight possible synergies between firms and NGOs. Another recommendation concerns the study of the effect of engaging police officers in social projects. This way they would get the chance to know dwellers through a ‘natural’ process and better integrate in the community. Finally I would suggest future research to focus on projects location’s decision when considering international projects.

31 due to the difficulty of receiving answers from organizations and proceed with interviews

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70 Annex: how organizations interviewed adapted their projects to Covid-19

When the pandemic started I had just started conducting the interviews. Given the situation and the network of contacts I had developed until then, I decided to take notes concerning how these organizations were adapting to the pandemic. Although this section is not strictly related to the scope of my research I decided to include it as an annex. I believe it could contribute to the understanding of best practices to be adopted in an emergency situation.

An introduction on social projects to fight Covid-19

When analyzing social projects adopted to fight the pandemic of Covid-19 we see that independently of the location there was a common line of action, and the real strength was given by partnerships and share of resources among different actors. I identified 7 main typology of response adopted (FundsforNGOs, 2020):

• Health: research-based initiatives undertaken by organizations with experience in projects related to HIV, SARS and other contagious virus. These organizations were able to implement their know-how to elaborate best practices. Of course another important line of projects were all types of medical care and psychological support.

• Countering Fake News: this has to do with spreading community awareness. Proposals for community education to dismiss fake news about the virus and prevention were developed and spread mostly through telematic way (radios, social medias). The problem in this case was that of some populistic leaders who deliberately spread fake news, and often low-income groups give more importance to the president’s words rather than to doctors advises.

• Human Rights: in these situations of crisis a special attention must be given to vulnerable groups, such as the LGBTQI community, minorities, children and the poor, as they often become targets of hate speech and boycott or are not duly considered. A specific attention must be given to women since, due to public restrictions imposed by governments, there can easily be a rise in sexual

71 corruption, child abuse, domestic violence, gender discrimination and violation of basic rights.

• Livelihood Development: these initiatives include loans, grants, in-kind donations and other forms of support to families and small businesses to help them revive the economy.

• Partnerships and collaborations: government leaders who are committed to good intersectoral relationships, both with the private sector and NGOs, are a valuable asset in this context. Governments should maintain a constant dialogue and recognize the importance of NGOs in the communities in which they operate.

• Transportation: during lockdown governments often banned the use of public transport. This had a big impact on rural communities, since it made accessing vital services such as markets and healthcare facilities challenging. Initiatives that provided for alternative transportation means, or strategies to alleviate the problem were thus particularly valuable.

• Advocacy initiatives: to monitor needs and push for adequate government responses.

Just to mention some effective projects that have been implemented around the world so far by NGOs, In Myanmar, the Kachin Baptist Convention (KBC) developed initiatives to make sure people living in refugee camps had access to clean water, to practice hygiene and protect themselves from the virus. They have worked with local communities to install a network of handwashing stations with soap (OCHA, 2020). Another example are the ‘Quarantine Rooms’ suggested by the Brazilian NGO ‘Minha Sampa’, which aimed at using hotels as temporary shelters for the homeless or other vulnerable segments of the population during the pandemic. In northern Uganda, trained volunteers listened for Covid-19 rumours in refugee camps and created podcasts to help people to know that Covid-19 is real and how to avoid it. Again in Uganda an NGO which specializes in using bicycles as a tool for development,

72 provided regularly sanitized bicycles for rural communities so that they could continue their access to basic services even with the lack of public transportation. In Freetown radio programs are trusted and used to fight the spread of misinformation (Bond, 2020).

A variety of actors made an effort to fight the pandemic (government, NGOs, firms, IOs) and we can see how important was the role of NGOs in a situation where the government capabilities weren’t enough to face such a major disaster. While on one side the government has the resources necessary to enact public policies and emergency responses, NGOs can often take advantage of a strong penetration in the territory, and are more agile when it comes to deal with social projects. For this reason it is important to foster collaboration and partnerships between civil society organizations and the government. In Brazil, GIFE association, which represents institutionalized philanthropy, rapidly developed an on-line platform to support civil society projects (https://emergenciacovid19.gife.org.br/), while the Brazilian Association of Non-Governmental Organizations (Abong) launched a “Solidarity Network” (https://www.redesolidaria.org.br/) to deal with civic engagement, advocacy and donations. M. Aquino-Alves and M. Marchesini da Costa in a recent study (AQUINO-ALVES and MARCHESINI DA COSTA, 2020) propose a series of recommendations to be implemented by governments in this sense. These include an effective communication between governments and NGOs. This refers not just to keep constantly updated communication channels, but also to have government leaders committed towards intersectoral relations and a constant relationship between government agents and NGOs representatives in public policy councils. Another important line of action they recommend is that of focusing on grants of institutional philanthropy to expand the capacity of NGOs .

For what concerns measures adopted by the Brazilian government, the Congress approved a legislative decree that recognizes the state of public calamity until December 31, 2020 (Brazilian Ministry of Economy, 2020). This means that the government is not obliged to meet the fiscal primary balance target this year. The Chamber of Deputies also approved the “War Budget” Constitutional Amendment, which allows the separation of expenses incurred to combat COVID-19 from the budget of the Federal Government. This allows an extraordinary regime and the

73 expansion of public expenditures during the current pandemic. As stated before, a central element for the response is cooperation among different actors, and in this sense the government should take advantage of NGOs for improving its response (OCHA, 2020). This last point however didn’t work well in Brazil since there has been a large reduction in resources emanating from international cooperation and destined for Brazilian NGOs since the early 2000s (AQUINO-ALVES et al., 2020). Past governments often proceeded with hostile discourses towards NGOs and by limiting their funding, discrediting the seriousness of their activities. Looking at the response adopted by the government we can see that there was a lack of coordination and conflicts between the federal government and the territories. The Bolsonarist model of governance is based on a slogan that states ‘more Brazil, less Brasilia’, meaning less involvement of the central government in local public policies. This resulted in the divergence between the President and the Ministry of Health, the fact that it was only at the end of May that the Federal Government decided to organize the distribution of resources (COUTO et al, 2020), and different views concerning the necessity of social isolation.

Still considering the Brazilian context, an unexpected actor that had an important role during the pandemic were criminal groups (Bond, 2020). These groups have also adapted to coronavirus, by providing services to fight the virus. The side effect of this is the fact that the situation gave these non-state actors the possibility to increase their power and legitimacy in situations where communities are neglected by the state. In normal times these groups often operate by simulating states and providing key public goods, such as trash collection and basic infrastructure, cable TV, electricity provision, and even justice and policing services. During the pandemic they adapted their role, by imposing curfews, using mobile loudspeakers to broadcast public-hygiene announcements, going door-to-door to ensure compliance with quarantine measures, controlling the price of goods on the open market and postponing large social gatherings. In some of Rio’s biggest favelas such as Rocinha and Vidiga, entry to outsiders was also prohibited. All of these practices thus had a double effect, on one side they slowed the transmission of the virus while on the other they legitimated gangs’ socioeconomic role as service providers.

74 Studies concerning the pandemic also focused on tracking donations for Covid projects. In a study of the ‘Associação brasileira de captadores de recursos’ (Associação brasileira de captadores de recursos, 2020) we can see that, since March, the amount of donations for Covid-19 related projects has been steadily increasing. Donations come for the major part from private companies, specifically operating in the financial, food & beverage and mining sectors. Most of these donations went to projects in the health sector, thus decreasing donations for entities that don’t work in a strictly field.

75 Comprehensive interview results: how organizations interviewed adapted their projects to Covid-19

NGOs:

1. reduction in resources for social projects

2. same resources for social projects

3. increased in resources for social projects

4. increased donations for the organization

5. reduced number of projects/focused on ongoing ones

6. change in people behavior. In a moment of necessity, community members developed a stronger sense of unity and collaboration among them32

7. started assistentialist/emergency projects consisting in food and hygiene product distribution33

8. start entrepreneurship projects. This is because Covid-19 scenario strongly impacted the unemployment rate. These projects consisted in giving some credit to dwellers that they could spend only within the community area, in food- markets and pharmacies or for internet access

9. various online training projects. While some NGOs felt that these projects didn’t work well due to lack of internet access in some communities, others were surprised by the high level of participation

10. communicate and spread information concerning Covid-19

32 ex: if some receives a basket of basic goods in excess he will share it with other community members 33 some NGOs instead of preparing the food and giving it, gave the material and let the people of the community to cook and administrate it

76 11. assist families through frequent phone interviews to control wellbeing and what they needed

12. psychological support project

13. increase partnerships with other NGOs

14. problem is that many dwellers don’t understand the situation and listen more to what the president says rather than to a doctor

15. explain laws and how to get government assistance

16. improve hygiene conditions through construction of toilets

WHAT CHANGED WITH COVID-19: NGOS 14

12

10

8

6

4

of times change is ofmentionedchange times 2

° N 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 What changed with Covid-19

Figure 8: adaptation to Covid-19, NGOs

Firms & business foundations and institutes:

1. reduction in resources for social projects

2. same resources for social projects

77 3. increased in resources for social projects

4. increased donations for the organization

5. map vulnerable groups in communities

6. focus on ongoing projects and cancel new ones

7. developed on-line training courses. One of the strategies used was to implement simple training videos on whatsapp, or courses for community leaders to teach how to get funding through on-line donations. Some NGOs also used local radios to send messages concerning health prevention methods

8. fostered relationship and network with NGOs

9. started assistentialist/emergency projects consisting in food and hygiene product distribution

10. many dwellers don’t know which authority’s recommendations to follow. They don’t have the same trust in a doctor as they do in the president

11. helped with laws translation, many dwellers didn’t know how to apply and whether they were eligible for government support

12. make loans to micro-entrepreneurs

13. elaborated strategies to increase donations: mobilize employees, possibilities of food donations through supermarkets

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WHAT CHANGED WITH COVID-19: FIRMS 12

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Figure 9: adaptation to Covid-19, firms

79 Summary of results: how organizations interviewed adapted their projects to Covid-19

By analysing interviews’ results it is possible to notice how NGOs and firms adopted similar responses to the pandemic. It was necessary to adopt an assistentialist approach since basic elements, such as food and hygiene products, started lacking. Both firms and NGOs started distributing basic needs baskets in communities. Both type of organizations also shifted to remote-managed projects when this was possible. Many organizations introduced on-line training programs concerning financial management to attract donations or to carry out healthcare prevention. Only few organizations however implemented training to understand how to get assistance from the government. It was reasonable to expect an increase in the funding of projects by firms. This is because, a moment of crisis such as the pandemic, is a perfect moment to increase visibility through social projects. Firms also rely on a more solid financial base, and thus are able to divert more resources towards social projects if the situation requires to do so. The information I have however is not enough neither to prove or discard this hypothesis. In general, more firms as compared to NGOs reported an increase in financial resources allocated to social projects. It is also interesting to see which was the effect on the number of projects, we can see that comprehensively their number was reduced for both NGOs and firms. This is because funds were concentrated on fewer assistentialist projects. Comprehensively results show that the main strategies adopted were in-kind assistentialist projects and on-line training courses. No projects to improve internet connection were implemented in communities, despite they would have had a strong impact to allow more people to participate in trainings. There are some other type of responses that deserve further attention. Primarily the practice of making sure that community leaders take part in the on-line courses, since, this way, it is easier to spread knowledge across the whole community. Something interesting that emerged the fact that people reacted in a different way to messages communicated by different authorities. Most people trusted more the recommendations of the president rather than doctors. This fact shows how important is the influence of the president in these low-income contexts. The way entrepreneurship projects were implemented also deserves some attention. Giving credit to spend for basic services in determinate areas was a better strategy as compared to merely assistentialist projects. This way, not only people had access to

80 basic goods, but the local economy received a boost. Interesting were also strategies adopted to increase donations. These include the possibility for people to leave or buy some products in shops to be successively redistributed to other people, or agreements where sellers would allocate a part of in kind resources as donations for each % of products bought in their shop. A type of intervention that was mentioned only once by an NGO is the psychological support to families. It should have been given more attention to this type of programs since many people passed through difficult situations during the pandemic, with severe consequences on mental health. Finally It would be interesting to investigate the mechanisms working behind the increase in financial resources for some organizations. Which strategies were adopted in the fundraising departments? Was it about an increase in donations or simply a decision of the organization to dedicate more of its own resources to social interventions during the pandemic? Despite most organizations have adopted some emergency projects, it is true that the pandemic is not over yet. Depending on the moment of response, a different typology of projects would be more effective. Research should understand how organizations adopted to Covid-19 and which lessons were learned some time after the virus is completely defeated.

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