QUESTION
: What are NGOs? What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of NGOs?
The essay discusses what Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) are. The essay also discusses the strengths and weaknesses The term NGO is usually applied only to organizations that per sue wider social aims that have political aspects. NGOs are legally constituted organizations created by people that operate independently from any form of government. It is not possible to give a universal definition Non-Governmental Organization. According to Kane (1990: 14) gives three criteria for the definition of an NGO: 1) It should be privately set up (not set up by the state) and Structured, and sufficiently autonomous in its activity and financing. (This
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According to Kang (2010), NGOs focus on bottom up development as opposed to predominantly growth centered development approach pursued by many agencies and governments. They consequently have rooted in local communities or tend to develop bonds with the people they serve”. NGOs function at the community level and they have been created as a result of the community Initiative, and because of this they enjoy more legitimacy in the communities they serve. NGOs projects are thus often seen by the members of the community as their project and thus usually support them by participating in the community project. This is because people in such communities feel that such initiatives are their own hence, they effectively address their own needs and interests. The last and not the least on the strengths of NGOs is that they are more independent and can afford to be more radical and ensure people empowerment. From the discussion above it appears that NGOs makes easier the development in the country. In whatever way, it is important to note that there are certain weaknesses which can hinder the functioning of NGOs; and some of such weaknesses are as follows: Firstly NGOs are of limited reach. Most NGOs are regional hence, they operate in certain area and they cannot reach all communities. Cernea (1988) states that, “the direct interaction with local communities consequently enables NGOs to reach the rural poor and promote service
A non-governmental organization (NGO) is a non-profit group which can be organized on a local, national, or international level. The NGO I selected is Free the Children. The short form used to identify it is FTC. The purpose of the NGO is to free children from poverty, exploitation, and the notion that they are powerless to effect change. The co-founders are Craig Kielburg and Marc Kielburg. It was founded in Thornhill, Ontario in 1995. The head office is located at 233 Carlton Street Toronto, Ontario M5A2J2, Canada.
An example of successful aid programs include Paul Farmer’s Partners in Health, which was an organization aimed at preventing/decreasing the amount of deaths due to curable diseases in countries like Haiti. The approach of Partner’s in Health was centered and focused, creating sustainability by educating and employing Haitians, while also understanding the language and culture, as well as being permanently stationed. This means that there is no worry regarding “what happens when these organizations leave?” As Keith Morton suggested, Partners in Health talked, listened, built relationships and understood their
Bond is the network for over 290 UK-based non-governmental organizations working in the international development and development education. The organization stresses the barriers to organizational learning as due to bias for action, failure to hold discussions, and lack of commitment. On the other hand, organizations may fail to grow due to political issues and these are most common in the United States. The writer then gives the solutions to these barriers, which among them are; changing the ways of thinking, transfer of
Through a poststructural lens, the minimal services being implemented by the nonprofit sector is a way to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of the sector because it fails to address the root of the problem, meaning attacking the systems of knowledge that justifies the motive of nonprofits. Historically, the colonial legacies and the emergence of western democracy constructed a legal and socioeconomic structure which highlights the role of the non profit sphere as a form of repressive benevolence. Capitalism thrives off the control of wealth and social change, because of its ability to internalize the market as a mechanism to a solution. The nonprofit sector is a bureaucratic barrel which allows capitalism to replace the functions of the
The nongovernment organization groups monitor and improve political, economic, and social condition worldwide. NGO is an independent group that
I never thought to think of nonprofits being effective by globalization. I never thought about how globalization has and will affect fund raising for nonprofits. According to the National council of nonprofit the US alone non-profits contributed more than 800 billion to the economy. It is hard to think the nonprofit world going flat when philanthropist is bringing in that much money a year. I think globalization will evolve within people instead of countries. People are now in search for the next best thing and changing how the world evolves. Thank you for waking up my brain and causing me to think outside the big business box. Do you think the globalization could be defined as tangible and intangible?
They argue that, many thinkers within the NGO world were mostly concerned with how these organizations would “adapt to the end of the funding boom and correct its adverse effects” yet the one major issue about the scope for introducing collective self-regulation of the organizational structure and procedures had largely been ignored. Hence corporate governance for NGOs attempt to describe how this scope could help solve some problems faced by NGOs in poor countries. The article was written in the late 1998 so perhaps some of these problems have since been addressed.
A nonprofit organization, as the name suggests, is an organization that is not in the business of making money. Usually founded around a common goal or mission, they are formed in response to a social problem, in the attempt to aid a distinct public interest. According to statistics, in 2016 there are 1.6 million nonprofit companies registered with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) (www.nccs.urabn.org, 2016).
They use the terms such as taking a ‘holistic approach,’ to development, ‘sustainable development,’ ‘creation of lasting solutions,’ ‘empowering peoples,’ ‘promotion of gender equality,’ and ‘capacity building’ to describe their efforts (Oxfam International, 2013). However access to their annual reports for 2013 only show case these elements combined in two or three projects, such as Nepali seed generation project (Oxfam International, 2013). It appears that many of their projects utilize practically only one or two of the elements required for effective development work, but only a few actually showcase all the elements within the same project. So while there is nothing wrong with charity or humanitarian aid, after all someone has to help place the Band-Aids on, Oxfams perception of itself, or claim that is it, a holistic people empowering organisation as a whole is somewhat of a half-truth that can be extended to the organisation as a whole, aside from a few individual
What happens when projects and interventions undertaken by international NGOs go wrong? Although my scholarly source understands most of these organizations do not seek to do harm, nonetheless harm occurs. This article by global development believes with a few legal and regulatory frameworks setting out how communities can hold NGOs to account, and with even less support fro communities to engage in such a process, there is a significant accountability deficit at the heart of international NGOs. Here we talk about accountability in regards to how NGOs answer to donors or to the national governments of countries in which they are operating. NGOs should account for the money they spend as contracted agents of donors. And they should, of course, be working within the parameters of national regulatory frameworks and laws (although the fact that NGOs themselves often sit on the committees that draw up such regulatory systems is troubling). When development interventions go wrong, or do not work the way they were intended, it is often no one's fault, due rather to events beyond any individual or organization's control. But people's lives are affected, sometimes (as when cholera sweeps through a refugee camp) with the most tragic of consequences (Global Development). Systems for recognizing the "rights" of beneficiaries and the obligations of agencies do exist. The Sphere Project, for example, sets out in great detail the minimum standards to be expected in, say, a refugee camp. But there are few legal frameworks capable of holding NGOs to account, or setting out in detail exactly when, where and how communities might be able to hold an organization accountable for an intervention that has gone disastrously wrong (Global Development). Unless NGOs and humanitarian agencies can be legally challenged and held to account, such principles and minimum standards do not do enough to establish real
There are tons of non-profit organizations that have made tremendous changes in our world but are these organizations providing the essentials people need? The Human Rights Watch Organization is a coordination that was made to make the international world a more efficient place it was created by Helsinki Watch to help defend and protect human rights as well as give voice to the oppressed and hold oppressors accountable for their crimes. According to their website (hrw.org) this organization has helped strengthened the rights of children, women, refugees and migrant workers as well as bring up topics such as domestic violence, rape, war crime and many more to help people know more about what rights they attain. It is wise to contribute time or money to this nonprofit organization because as a human being that loves freedom and equality this organization provides the essentials needed to help people attain their rights internationally and it’s great that it was developed by people who voluntarily signed up to help achieve change for
In regards to NGOs, an organization dubbed NGO Monitor specifically investigates non-government institutions whose missions are centred on human rights. While being stationed in Israel, NGO Monitor plays an effect within Canada, as the case with KAIROS. KAIROS is a Christian organization that was receiving funding from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) for 35 years until 2009. One of the primary reasons as to why their funding was suddenly cut was due to their views on Israel (Clark, 2011) and were stated to be a “primary supporter off the anti-Israel divestment movement” (NGO Monitor). Another similar example in regards to NGO watching could be seen with the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF), an organization created in 1967
Nonprofit organization/charities are ways people around the world can lend support to a specific group of individuals or a specific cause. To gain support, the leaders of these organizations must take several steps to achieve the help of the people.
They are focusses around different areas such as health, education, jobs, welfare, etc. here we are going to restrict our discussion to role of NGO’s in the context of
In today’s world there are hundreds of thousands of non-profit organizations (NPOs) established at the local, regional, national and international level, and their influence is increasing. Non-profit organizations even considered the third sector of the economy (the first two is the public and private, or commercial). It is believed that they have a special role in development of civil society. In those countries, which have largely shaped the system of legislative regulation of the sector (USA, UK, Australia, etc); the state spends huge sums on research programs in the field of standardization of the NPO.