Community Based Organizations

In Pakistan public participation in provision of facilities at local level is negligible. Public throw the noxious garbage at open places and let olfactory lobes of the community exposed to it. These stinking piles of filthy material act as breeding grounds of infectious diseases. The fat industrialists throw noxious materials in fresh water streams and discharge toxic fumes in the atmosphere without detoxification that result in both pollution of water and air making it difficult for the people to breathe in apt atmosphere. These suicidal and homicidal attempts are perpetually cutting the trunk on which we are swinging. Attitude of public sector sweepers and scrappers add insult to injury by collecting small heaps of waste to pile it up at a large open place. These stinking filthy areas are hallmark of indifferent attitude of the public. In government projects voluntary participation of the public is not encouraged. With doddering infrastructure the government is not a source of inspiration for the filings of humanity that they can work shoulder to shoulder with the government to develop its basic infrastructure that can work as steel frame for development.

In the current grim scenario it is a hard nut to crack to train the staff in the local bodies to make them efficient for public service due to lack of training appropriate training institutions and instructors, fulfill the budgetary requirement when the country is confronting severe economic challenges at the national level and appointment of new staff on blubbery salaries when already appointed staff is drawing nominal salaries due to financial incapacity of the government. Under these sinister circumstances, volunteer participation of the public to uplift the level of service delivery is a blessing and a harbinger for gradual development of various locales of the nation-state. To give formal shape to informally motivated people, community based organizations (CBOs) can be established to accomplish a specific project after determining and fixing goals.

“An organisation is made up of a group of people who come together to accomplish a common goal or a set of goals. The size of an organisation can vary from two people to thousands of people.”While “A CBO is a service-oriented, locally established non-profit organization comprising voluntary participants and dependant on voluntary contribution to address delivery of social services to the community.”

In order to achieve service delivery /particular task the managers should perform the spadework of giving vision to the organization, determining its mission, setting up prioritize to achieve fixed strategic goals, frame strategies and devise action/project plan. The managers blind to various aspects of an organization, management strategies, techniques and processes cannot give any direction to its members. Instead of injecting motivation among the participants they will disillusion and frustrate them. The goals of an organization can be well-defined and unequivocal or obscure and obfuscate. The level of achievement of strategic goals is directly proportional to level of leadership provided to achieve the specified objectives.

The task of the manager is to plan various steps in the project, organize resources, lead the manpower that is the engine of development and control and coordinate segmental activities. The leadership role of manager is very significant. Persons deprived of leadership qualities can neither inspire nor motivate their subordinates. They lack capability to, facilitate and accommodate divergent and dissident participants that result in making headway with snail’s pace or complete failure of the project. The top mangers devise policy while the middle managers implement it. The first-line managers carry out routine administrative tasks of the organization. Thus service delivery can be accomplished through community based organizations.