Page 196 - Volume 1_Go home mzungu Go Home_merged with links
P. 196

m̩
                                                                             ɡ
                                                      20  century  'zuŋ u 'not for profit' empires
                                                         th
                                                       "Veni, Vidi, Vici ",Steti - ego adduxit amicis meis



                  Consequently, while NGOs can still successfully pursue such goals from a rights-based
                  perspective, it is also clear that rights do not provide the underlying ideological or
                  intellectual unity to which many aspire. Rights enable development activists to articulate

                  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.

                                                           ***
                  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,"    188
                                                                                 Humanity Journal. ( June 2014)
                                                          *****
                  In her 1997 Foreign Affairs article, Jessica Mathews wrote: "For all their strengths, NGOs are
                  special interests. The best of them ... often suffer from tunnel vision, judging every public act

                  by how it affects their particular interest". NGOs are unencumbered by policy trade-offs.

                                                           ***
                  NGOs have been accused of preserving imperialism (sometimes operating in a racialized

                  manner in Third World countries), with a function similar to that of the clergy during the
                  colonial era.

                                                           ***
                  NGOs have been accused of weakening people by allowing their funders to prioritize

                  stability over social justice

                                                           ***
                  Eric Werker and Faisal Ahmed made three critiques of NGOs in developing nations. Too
                  many NGOs in a nation (particularly one ruled by a warlord) reduces an NGO's influence,

                  since it can easily be replaced by another NGO. Resource allocation and outsourcing to
                  local organizations in international-development projects incurs expenses for an NGO,
                  lessening the resources and money available to the intended beneficiaries. NGO

                  missions tend to be paternalistic, as well as expensive.

                                                           ***
                  NGOs have been challenged as not representing the needs of the developing world,
                  diminishing the "Southern voice" and preserving the North–South divide

                                                                            "Non-Governmental Organization"   189
   191   192   193   194   195   196   197   198   199   200   201