Institutional relationships and organizational change : lessons from a prominent African NGO in Dakar, Senegal

Abstract

The November, 2007, street vendor riots in Dakar, Senegal, were one of the country's most powerful expressions of political and economic disintegration in recent times. Almost equally striking was the absence from these events of Enda Tiers Monde, Senegal's oldest, largest, and most influential indigenous NGO and the champion of the "popular economy." This thesis uses the vendor riots as a window into the response of an organization, Enda, to changing institutional contexts (i.e. different political regimes) and emerging development challenges (i.e. informal street vendors and urban spatial access). In its thirty years of operation, Enda has made significant contributions to urban development in Dakar and in cities throughout the global south. These contributions include extending access to basic services and improving housing in slums, organizing and advocating for the urban poor, and training local leaders in participatory governance. However, as demonstrated by its lack of involvement and influence in events surrounding the vendor riots, Enda's role and relationship with both grassroots actors and national policy-makers has changed. This thesis demonstrates that different types of relationships between Enda and the state affect the organization's relationship with its base, and therefore Enda's legitimacy with and connection to both actors. I also argue that these changing institutional contexts have affected Enda internally.

(cont.) Since an important political turnover in the year 2000 and the death of Enda's founder in 2002, Enda has been attempting to align its internal structure and functioning with its external institutional context. The challenge for Enda is to develop a system that will grant its teams the flexibility to experiment while supporting them with evaluation for learning and adaptation. This is essential for Enda's renewed visibility and influence in urban development in Dakar.