NGOs

NGOs

1. Characteristics of the Voluntary sector:

   • Value based/voluntarism
   • Flexibility and innovation. appropriate technology an novel forms of social organisation
   • poverty reach
   • people centred
   • low cost- do not reflect the real cost

2. development becomes a project

3. Who holds the societies together when state can no longer? Domestic NGOs, Grass Roots Organisation

4. Used to collect in street very small scale. In 1980s states discovered NGOs and began pumping money into them- 30%/60%/70% of income. Can they be non state g=organisations> When does short term assistance become institutionalised into long term policy?

5. History: 1. Missionary organisations, 2. International Committee of the Red Cross 1863, The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, 3. World Wars: carnage. SCF 1919, Oxfam 1942, Christian Aid 1945

6. 60s/70s: From Charity movement to 3rd Worldism- champions of the oppressed, popular critics of government policy.

7. 1980s: The decade of the NGO. Service delivery and gap fillers,

8. How did they become so popular?

   • Attack from the left and rights on state, 1979 recession, Offical Aid as % of total NGO income- Early 1970s 1.5% and mid 1990s 30%

9. 2000s: watch dogs. monitoring of policy implementation

10. Issues:

    • 1. Independence compromised
    • 2. Advancing neoliberal paradigm and policy? Individual solutions rather than collective
    • 3.Not sustainable
    • 4. Not accountable
    • 5. Changes the meaning of development
    • 6. Charity rather than social change
    • 7. More extensive/ intrusive intervention
    • 8. Legitimises Northern intervention into the South

11. Julie Hearn:

    • Kenya NGOs: 1996 to 2003, increased from 511 to 2511
    • Comprador theory: first developed within international marxist circles during the 1920s in an attempt to theorise the unfolding nature of imperialism
      • comprador acts as an agent, operating in the interests of international capitalism against the interests of the indigenous popular classes
        • heavy handed unpopular direct rule has been replaced by the self policing or indirect rule of africans
    • Hanlon: aid is being used to recolonise Mozamique

12. Edwards and Hulme:

    • New policy Agenda which gives renewed prominence to the roles of NGO and GRO in poverty alleviation, social welfare and and the development of civil society
      • 2 elements dominate: economic: markets and private sector initiative are seen as the most efficient mechanisms for achieving growth, producing goods and providing services. Political : good governance is seen as essential for a healthy economy- NGO are awarded a key role in the democratisation process
    • raise important questions concerning NGO performance and accountability, NGO state relations and the ability of NGOs to act independently in pursuing their goals.
    • evidence that some large NGOs are able to provide some service more cost effectively than governments
      • the problem here is that the government may be unable or unwilling to take over the responsibility when the NGO withdraws