Non-governmental organization
A
non-governmental organization (
NGO) is a
non-profit group or association that acts outside of institutionalized political structures and pursues matters of interest to its members by
lobbying, persuasion, or
direct action. The term is generally restricted to social, cultural, legal, and environmental
advocacy groups having goals that are primarily noncommercial. NGOs usually gain at least a portion of their funding from private sources. Because the label "NGO" is considered too broad by some, as it might cover anything that is non-governmental, many NGOs now prefer the term
private voluntary organization (PVO) or Private Development Organization (PDO).
A 1995 UN report on
global governance estimated that there are nearly 29,000 international NGOs. National numbers are even higher: The United States has an estimated 2 million NGOs, most of them formed in the past 30 years.
Russia has 65,000 NGOs.
India has 2 million NGOs. Dozens are created daily. In
Kenya alone, some 240 NGOs come into existence every year.
International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is the world's largest group of
humanitarian NGOs.Though
voluntary associations of citizens have existed throughout
history, NGOs along the lines seen today, especially on the international level, have developed in the past two centuries. One of the first such organizations, the
International Committee of the Red Cross, was founded in
1863.
The phrase "non-governmental organization" came into use with the establishment of the
United Nations in 1945 with provisions in Article 71 of Chapter 10 of the United Nations Charter
[1] for a consultative role for organizations that neither are governments nor member states – see
Consultative Status. The definition of "international NGO" (INGO) is first given in resolution 288 (X) of ECOSOC on
February 27,
1950: it is defined as "any international organisation that is not founded by an international treaty". The vital role of NGOs and other "major groups" in
sustainable development was recognized in Chapter 27
[2] of
Agenda 21, leading to revised arrangements for consultative relationship between the United Nations and non-governmental organizations.
[3]Globalization during the 20th century gave rise to the importance of NGOs. Many problems could not be solved within a nation.
International treaties and international organizations such as the
World Trade Organization were perceived as being too centered on the interests of capitalist enterprises. In an attempt to counterbalance this
trend, NGOs have developed to emphasize
humanitarian issues,
developmental aid and
sustainable development. A prominent example of this is the
World Social Forum which is a rival convention to the
World Economic Forum held annually in January in
Davos,
Switzerland. The fifth World Social Forum in
Porto Alegre,
Brazil, in January 2005 was attended by representatives from more than 1,000 NGOs.
[4]Three stages or generations of NGO evolution have been identified by Korten's (1990)
Three Generations of Voluntary Development Action. First, the typical development NGO focuses on relief and
welfare, and delivers relief services directly to beneficiaries. Examples are the distribution of food, shelter or
health services. The NGO notices immediate needs and responds to them. NGOs in the second generation are oriented towards small-scale, self-reliant local development. At this evolutionary stage, NGOs build the capacities of local communities to meet their needs through 'self reliant local action'. Korten calls the third generation 'sustainable systems development'. At this stage, NGOs try to advance changes in policies and institutions at a local, national and international level; they move away from their operational service providing role towards a
catalytic role. The NGO is starting to develop from a relief NGO to a development NGO.
Nongovernmental organizations are an heterogenous group. A long list of acronyms has developed around the term 'NGO'.
These include:
*
INGO stands for international NGO, such as
CARE,
ADFA-India and
Mercy Corps;
*
BINGO is short for business-oriented international NGO;
*
RINGO is an abbreviation of religious international NGO such as
Catholic Relief Services or stands for Research and Independent Non-governmental organization;
*
ENGO, short for environmental NGO, such as
Global 2000;
*
GONGOs are government-operated NGOs, which may have been set up by governments to look like NGOs in order to qualify for outside aid;
*
QUANGOs are
quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, such as the
W3C and the
International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which is actually not purely an NGO, since its membership is by nation, and each nation is represented by what the ISO Council determines to be the 'most broadly representative' standardization body of a nation. Now, such a body might in fact be a nongovernmental organizationthis is the trend in Europe.
There are also numerous classifications of NGOs. The typology the
World Bank uses divides them into Operational and Advocacy :
The primary purpose of an operational NGO is the design and implementation of development-related
projects. One categorization that is frequently used is the division into 'relief-oriented' or 'development-oriented' organizations; they can also be classified according to whether they stress
service delivery or participation; or whether they are religious and secular; and whether they are more public or private-oriented. Operational NGOs can be
community-based, national or international.
The primary purpose of an Advocacy NGO is to defend or promote a specific cause. As opposed to operational project management, these organizations typically try to raise awareness, acceptance and knowledge by lobbying, press work and activist events.
NGOs exist for a variety of purposes, usually to further the political or social goals of their members. Examples include improving the state of the
natural environment, encouraging the observance of
human rights, improving the welfare of the disadvantaged, or representing a corporate agenda. However, there are a huge number of such organizations and their goals cover a broad range of political and philosophical positions. This can also easily be applied to private schools and athletic organizations.
NGOs vary in their methods. Some act primarily as lobbyists, while others conduct programs and activities primarily. For instance, such an NGO as
Oxfam, concerned with poverty alleviation, might provide needy people with the equipment and skills they need to find food and clean
drinking water.
Another example of a NGO is
Amnesty International, the largest Human rights organization in the world. It forms a global community of human rights defenders with more than 1.5 million members, supporters and subscribers in over 150 countries and territories.
Networking
The
International Freedom of Expression eXchange (IFEX), founded in
1992, is a global network of more than 60 non-governmental organizations that promote and defend the right to
freedom of expressionPublic Relations
Non-governmental organizations need healthy relationships with the public to meet their goals. Foundations and charities use sophisticated public relations campaigns to raise funds and employ standard lobbying techniques with governments. Interest groups may be of political importance because of their ability to influence social and political outcomes. At times NGOs seek to mobilize public support.
Consulting
Many international NGOs have a consultative status with United Nations agencies relevant to their area of work. As an example, the
Third World Network has a consultative status with the
UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the
UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). While in 1946, only 41 NGOs had consultative status with the
ECOSOC, by 2003 this number had risen to 2,350.
Project management
There is an increasing awareness that management techniques are crucial to project success in non-governmental organizations.Generally, non-governmental organisations, which are private, have a community or environmental focus. They address varieties of issues such as religion, emergency aid, and humanitarian affairs. They mobilise public support and voluntary contributions for aid; they often have strong links with community groups in developing countries and they often work in areas where government-to-government aid is not possible. NGO's are accepted as a part of the international relations landscape, and while they influence national and multilateral policy-making, they are, increasingly, more directly involved in local action.
Two management trends are particularly relevant to NGOs:
diversity management and
participatory management. Diversity management deals with different cultures in an organization. Intercultural problems are prevalent in Northern NGOs that are engaged in developmental activities in the South. Personnel coming from a rich country are faced with a completely different approach of doing things in the target country. A participatory management style is said to be typical of NGOs. It is intricately tied to the concept of a
learning organization: all people within the organization are perceived as sources for knowledge and skills. To develop the organization, individuals have to be able to contribute in the
decision making process and they need to learn.
Not all people working for non-governmental organizations are
volunteers. Paid
staff members typically receive lower pay than in the
commercial private sector. Employees are highly committed to the
aims and
principles of the
organization. The reasons why people volunteer are not necessarily purely
altruistic, and can provide immediate benefits for themselves as well as those they serve, including skills, experience and contacts.
There is some dispute as to whether
expatriates should be sent to developing countries. Frequently this type of personnel is employed to satisfy a
donor, who wants to see the supported project managed by someone from an
industrialized country. However, the expertise these employees or volunteers may have can be counterbalanced by a number of factors: the cost of
foreigners is typically higher, they have no
grassroot connections in the country they are sent to and local expertise is often undervalued.
The NGO-sector is an important employer in terms of numbers. For example, by the end of 1995,
CONCERN worldwide, an international Northern NGO working against poverty, employed 174 expatriates and just over 5,000 national staff working in ten developing countries in
Africa and
Asia, and in
Haiti.
Large NGOs may have annual budgets in the millions of dollars. For instance, the budget of the
American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) was over $540 million dollars in
1999.[
5]
Human Rights Watch spent and received US$21,7 million in
2003. Funding such large budgets demands significant fundraising efforts on the part of most NGOs. Major sources of NGO funding include
membership dues, the sale of
goods and services, grants from international institutions or national governments, and private
donations. Several
EU-grants provide funds accessible to NGOs.
Even though the term 'non-governmental organization' implies
independence of governments, some NGOs depend heavily on governments for their funding. A quarter of the US$162 million income in 1998 of the
famine-
relief organization
Oxfam was donated by the British government and the EU. The Christian relief and development organization
World Vision US collected US$55 million worth of goods in 1998 from the American government.
Nobel Prize winner
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) (known in English as 'Doctors Without Borders') gets 46 percent of its income from government sources.
In March 2000 report on United Nations Reform priorities, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan wrote in favor of international humanitarian intervention, arguing that the international community has a
'right to protect' citizens of the world against ethnic cleansing, genocide and crimes against humanity. On the heels of the report, the Canadian government launched the Responsibility to Protect
R2P project, outlining the issue of humanitarian intervention. While the R2P doctrine has wide applications, among the more controversial has been the Canadian government's use of R2P to justify its intervention and support of the
coup in Haiti.
Years after R2P, the
World Federalist Movement, an organization that supports "the creation of democratic global structures accountable to the citizens of the world and call for the division of international authority among separate agencies" has launched Responsibility to Protect - Engaging Civil Society
R2PCS. The project, which is a collaboration of the WFM and Canadian government, aims to bring NGOs into lockstep with the principles outlined under the original R2P project.
NGO Monitor is a conservative pro-Israel site that aims to promote "critical debate and accountability of human rights NGOs in the Arab-Israeli conflict." The organization has successfully conducted campaigns against Oxfam and the Ford Foundation - leading to formal apologies and changes in practice - on the grounds that these organizations are too anti-Israeli.
NGOWatch is a project of the
American Enterprise Institute that monitors NGOs. The project is primarily a negative analysis of NGOs that are generally considered to be on the progressive side of the political spectrum.
Indian NGOs is a portal of over 20,000 NGOs who work with the corporate sector in India. This portal offers insights into how the corporate sector is using NGOs to benefit their program.
In recent years, many large corporations have beefed up their
Corporate Social Responsibility departments in an attempt to preempt NGO campaigns against certain corporate practices. As the logic goes, if corporations work
with NGOs, NGOs will not work
against corporations.
NGOs are not
legal entities under
international law, like states are. An exception is the
International Committee of the Red Cross which is considered a legal entity under international law, because it is based on the
Geneva Convention.
It has been argued by various critics that NGOs are subversive in outcomes but well intentioned. They criticize that imperialism and NGOs share a fine line. One of the first modern NGOs, for example, was the
American Colonization Society. Another famous example includes various Christian missionaries throughout the Americas, Asia, and Africa during colonial times. It has been argued that such NGOs have been well intentioned but ended in imperial outcomes.
In general, there is an overall positive view of NGOs across various literature sources. Some direct complaints target operational problems, inconsistencies, misuses of funds (some high-profile), etc. Conceptually, there is a slowly growing body of work looking at the underside of the 'Aid Industry'. Although most complaint literature is against multilateral or bilateral agencies, there are occasional criticisms of NGO operational strategies and inadvertant adverse impacts.
In many developing countries with dysfunctional economies, entry into the aid-industry is the most profitable professional career path for young college-graduates. As NGOs provide services in the community for free or at subsidized rates (such as training), the private-sector is unable to evolve and compete effectively as sustainable levels. Once an NGO begins offering products or services for a fee (handicrafts, evaluations, digging wells, counseling, etc.), they will over time inevitably compete with private-sector providers of these same services. But with their donation-funding support or access to voluntary labor, they have a significant competitive advantage. Co-option (by political or other forces), mission-drift, changing core services based on an ever changing funding landscape, transparency, accountability, moving beyond a charismatic founding leader, and donor-driven rather than self-defined strategies are some additional areas for concern. New NGOs occasionally receive 'do-gooder' complaints of engaging in action to help, without understanding the full complexity and interplay of issues, resulting in doing more harm than good. But again, in general, NGOs are viewed as a beneficial complementary source filling gaps in society not provided by the public or for-profit sectors.
There is a host of literature that objectively looks at the role and workings of transnational civil society. In particular:* Florini, Ann, ed. The Third Force: The Rise of Transnational Civil Society (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Japan Center for International Exchange, 2001).
* Hall, Rodney Bruce and Biersteker, Thomas. The Emergence of Private Authority in Global Governance (Cambridge Studies in International Relations, 2003)
* Hilhorst, Dorthea. The Real World of NGOs: Discourses, Diversity and Development, Zed Books, 2003
* Roelofs, Joan. Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003).
* Smillie, Ian, & Minear, Larry, editors. The Charity of Nations: Humanitarian Action in a Calculating World, Kumarian Press, 2004
* Tarrow, Sydney. The New Transnational Activism, New York :Cambridge University Press, 2005
* Ward, Thomas, editor. Development, Social Justice, and Civil Society: An Introduction to the Political Economy of NGOs, Paragon House, 2005
*Teegen, H., 2003. ‘International NGOs as Global Institutions: Using Social Capital to Impact Multinational Enterprises and Governments', Journal of International Management.
*Teegen, H. Doh, J., Vachani, S., 2004. "The importance of nongovernmental organisation in global governance and value creation: an international business research agenda" in Journal of International Business Studies. Washington: Vol. 35, Iss.6.
*Rodman, K (1998)."‘Think Globally, Punish Locally: Nonstate Actors, Multinational Corporations, and Human Rights Sanctions" in Ethics in International Affairs, vol. 12.
More useful are regional histories and analyses of the experience of NGOs. Specific works (although this is by no means an exhaustive list) include:* Meyer, Carrie.
The Economics and Politics of NGOs in Latin America, Praeger Publishers, July 30, 1999
* Abdelrahman, Maha.
Civil Society Exposed: The Politics of NGOs in Egypt, The American University in Cairo Press, 2004.
Al-Ahram Weekly has done a
review of the book.
* Kamat, Sangeeta.
Development hegemony: NGOs and The State in India, Delhi, New York; Oxford University Press, 2002
* Sunga, Lyal S., "Dilemmas facing INGOs in coalition-occupied Iraq", in Ethics in Action: The Ethical Challenges of International Human Rights Nongovernmental Organizations, edited by Daniel A. Bell, 2006.
* Sunga, Lyal S. "NGO Involvement in International Human Rights Monitoring, International Human Rights Law and Non-Governmental Organizations" (2005) 41-69.
The defacto reference resource for information and statistics on International NGOs (INGOs) and other transnational organizational forms is the Yearbook of International Organizations, produced by the Union of International Associations.
Korten, D.
Getting to the 21st century: voluntary action and the global agenda. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press, 1990, p. 118.
World Bank Criteria defining NGO Mukasa, Sarah. Are expatriate staff necessary in international development NGOs? A case study of an international NGO in Uganda. Publication of the Centre for Civil Society at London School of Economics. 2002, p. 11-13. Campbell, P.
Management Development and Development Management for Voluntary Organisations, Occasional Paper No. 3, International Council of Voluntary Agencies, Geneva, 1987.
Intractable Conflict Knowledge Base Project of the Conflict Research Consortium at the University of Colorado 'Sins of the secular missionaries,' The Economist, January 29, 2000.*
Duke University NGO Library*
V-Generations Discussion Board: Talk about NGOs*
Global Policy Forum: The site includes the history of NGOs and various articles.*
Congo - Conference of United Nations NGO's*
UN NGLS - UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service *
Legal Information for US NGOs*
NGOWatch Project providing detailed information on NGOs*
London School of Economics International Working Paper Series on NGOs *
World Bank Criteria defining NGO*
What is a Non-Governmental Organization? City University, London *
Web portal of Indian NGOs*
Network of international NGOs working in Angola*
Interaction: largest alliance of U.S.-based international development and humanitarian nongovernmental organizations*
Directory of Irish based international NGOs*
Charity Navigator: Rates the financial health of over 5,000 American charities
