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Obstacles to progress

Distortions

a language for change, but it is a change all too often dictated by far more powerful
institutions and intergovernmental organizations. These bodies have very different

agendas from NGOs in their planned goals of development, marked most clearly in their
prioritization of economic rights over the social rights espoused by NGOs.
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To put it bluntly, development NGOs have made themselves central players in the game

of rights, but this is a sport--as weaker NGOs have long realized--that is played out in
arenas built by more powerful backers and according to rules designed by agents other
than the NGOs themselves “

"International Aid and Development NGOs in Britain and Human Rights since 1945," 378
Humanity Journal. ( June 2014)

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Transnational Arrogance (Modern day Imperialism ?)

“ Non-government organizations working in development form a transnational
community which has a new role in imperialism today. We explored the knowledge

economy of this community with NGDOs in Ghana, India, Mexico and Europe and found it
to be largely donor-controlled and generally top-down, often against the will of
committed individual actors.

Governability is arguably a greater priority to donors than the most effective poverty
reduction. The new managerialism and its audit culture impose demands on NGDOs that

tend to work against any 'listening' to southern NGDOs or their clients, so that the sharing
of local knowledge and ideas is very restricted. “
“'The Role of the Transnational Community of Non-Government Organizations: 379
Governance or Poverty Reduction?',”
Journal of International Development, vol. 14, no. 6, pp. 829-839.
Townsend, J.G., Porter, G. and Mawdsley, E. (2002)

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From assuming superiority to stealing ideas, international NGOs can do more harm
than good when partnering with local ones.

“...four particular challenges in the existing ways in which international NGOs partner
with local ones in order to "help" them.

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Firstly, many staff in INGOs have damaging negative attitudes towards their local
partners and believe they are superior because they hold the funding.

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