NGOs, States and Donors


Book Description

Since the book was first published, NGOs have continued to rise in prominence, but our concerns have been little redressed. The new Preface and Afterword to this IPE Classic provide an up to date review of the debates on NGOs and the development sector that consolidate on this argument and look briefly at some of the reactions it has received.




Allies or Adversaries


Book Description

Governments throughout the developing world have witnessed a proliferation of non-governmental, non-profit organizations (NGOs) providing services like education, healthcare and piped drinking water in their territory. In Allies or Adversaries, Jennifer N. Brass explains how these NGOs have changed the nature of service provision, governance, and state development in the early twenty-first century. Analyzing original surveys alongside interviews with public officials, NGOs and citizens, Brass traces street-level government-NGO and state-society relations in rural, town and city settings of Kenya. She examines several case studies of NGOs within Africa in order to demonstrate how the boundary between purely state and non-state actors blurs, resulting in a very slow turn toward more accountable and democratic public service administration. Ideal for scholars, international development practitioners, and students interested in global or international affairs, this detailed analysis provides rich data about NGO-government and citizen-state interactions in an accessible and original manner.




More Than Altruism


Book Description

As government officials and political activists are becoming increasingly aware, international nonprofit agencies have an important political dimension: although not self-serving, these private voluntary organizations (PVOs) and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) seek social changes of which many of their financial contributors are unaware. As PVOs and NGOs receive increasing subsidies from their home governments in the United States, Canada, and Europe, they are moving away from short-term relief commitments in developing countries and toward longer-term goals in health, education, training, and small-scale production. Showing that European and Canadian NGOs focus more on political change as part of new development efforts than do their U.S. counterparts, Brian Smith presents the first major comparative study of the political aspect of PVOs and NGOs. Smith emphasizes the paradoxes in the private-aid system, both in the societies that send aid and in those that receive it. Pointing out that international nonprofit agencies are in some instances openly critical of nation-state interests, he asks how these agencies can function in a foreign-aid network intended as a support for those same interests. He concludes that compromises throughout the private-aid networkand some secrecymake it possible for institutions with different agendas to work together. In the future, however, serious conflicts may develop with donors and nation states. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.




States, Markets and Foreign Aid


Book Description

Explores the different choices made by donor governments when delivering foreign aid projects around the world.




Civil Society by Design


Book Description

Drawing on years of research and direct experience in Bangladesh, Stiles pulls together theoretical strands from economics, sociology, and anthropology to help explain an emerging social structure in the Third World. These structures, which he calls intermestic development circles, bring together international donor agencies with various domestic community and private organizations. In Bangladesh not-for-profit agencies are dramatically transforming their operation and organizational cultures, while in turn Western NGOs are themselves changing in subtle ways. Scholars of development will find Stiles's intriguing account of the reciprocating effects of extensive interaction, cooperation, and tensions between international donors and domestic recipients informative and provocative. Moving through three discernable phases, each one explainable by resort to different theories, these development circles grow from mere trading arrangements to a coherent social structure, separate from the rest of civil society in Bangladesh. While in the process of the not-for-profits receiving assistance become wealthier and more effective, they lose much of their local identity and become part of a transnational network. At the same time, donors must recast themselves in order to work effectively with these agencies, which often creates tension between local and home offices. The book closes with some recommendations that might attenuate some of the more troubling effects of this transformation.







Non-Governmental Organizations and Development


Book Description

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are high profile actors in the field of international development, both as providers of services to vulnerable individuals and communities and as campaigning policy advocates. This book provides a critical introduction to the wide-ranging topic of NGOs and development. Written by two authors with more than twenty years experience of research and practice in the field, the book combines a critical overview of the main research literature with a set of up-to-date theoretical and practical insights drawn from experience in Asia, Europe, Africa and elsewhere. It highlights the importance of NGOs in development, but it also engages fully with the criticisms that the increased profile of NGOs in development now attracts. Non-Governmental Organizations and Development begins with a discussion of the wide diversity of NGOs and their roles, and locates their recent rise to prominence within broader histories of struggle as well as within the ideological context of neo-liberalism. It then moves on to analyze how interest in NGOs has both reflected and informed wider theoretical trends and debates within development studies, before analyzing NGOs and their practices, using a broad range of short case studies of successful and unsuccessful interventions. David Lewis and Nazneen Kanji then moves on to describe the ways in which NGOs are increasingly important in relation to ideas and debates about ‘civil society’, globalization and the changing ideas and practices of international aid. The book argues that NGOs are now central to development theory and practice and are likely to remain important actors in development in the years to come. In order to appreciate the issues raised by their increasing diversity and complexity, the authors conclude that it is necessary to deploy a historically and theoretically informed perspective. This critical overview will be useful to students of development studies at undergraduate and masters levels, as well as to more general readers and practitioners. The format of the book includes figures, photographs and case studies as well as reader material in the form of summary points and questions. Despite the growing importance of the topic, no single short, up-to-date book exists that sets out the main issues in the form of a clearly written, academically-informed text: until now.




Between a Rock and a Hard Place


Book Description

Between a Rock and a Hard Place examines Africa's NGO boom of the late 1990s. In spite of the high expectations placed on African NGOs during this period, these organizations remain poorly understood. Today, Africa's NGO boom has been followed by a bust--as the fickle development industry moves its money to other types of institutions. In spite of this funding bust, the explosion of NGOs in Africa during the 1990s transformed African societies and economies in fundamental ways. In the wake of Africa's NGO boom, it is imperative that these transformations be understood and placed in historical context. Such an understanding will help us to learn from the mistakes of this brief historical period--as well as to build on its opportunities. The case studies presented in the body of this work provide the missing details of this historical moment. Through these case studies, this book examines two questions that are fundamental to development and governance in Africa--and around the world: The nature of the relationship of NGOs to Civil Society; and The effectiveness of NGOs at promoting economic development with equity. The book begins with a comprehensive introduction, which outlines the theoretical debates surrounding Africa's NGO boom--and the question of civil society in Africa. This section is followed by detailed ethnographic accounts of the NGO boom from Zimbabwe to Mali and the types of social tranformations these organizations were part. Most importantly, these accounts reveal the ways in which African elites and community organizers have worked to position themselves within the global networks of development and governance institutions, and the impacts of their strategies on life in African communities. They reveal the ways in which African NGOs have had to negotiate the different and often contradictory demands on their own constituencies, donors, and African states--the ways in which they have succeeded and the ways in which they have come unglued. "Igoe and Kelsall provide useful suggestions on how to understand historical and cultural contexts of NGOs." -- Development and Change "The volume consists of eleven chapters, which provide rich ethnographic studies covering the entire continent... [T]he chapters interact and engage with one another, creating an excellent collection of essays that together provides a rich, multilayered, and thought provoking introduction to the dramatic growth of NGOs in Africa since 1990." -- The International Journal of African Historical Studies