By Guy Simpson

NGOs have traditionally acted as intermediaries between donors and beneficiaries. Janet Townsend, author of works on development NGOs and Board Member of International NGO Training and Research Centre INTRAC, sees a fundamental flaw right here. In an interview with MYRIADES 1, she pointed out how the traditional structural hierarchy places donors at the top, with the NGOs in the middle performing their bidding of their fund-providers, and beneficiaries at the bottom as the humble recipients. "The most serious failing of NGOs," said Townsend, "is that they are middle-class institutions with accountability to donors." The typical donor lives in a world in which money is invested in business and a prompt return is expected on that investment. They like to see visible, short-term results from their charitable donations also. This can lead Northern-based NGOs –often seen as the protagonists on the international stage in the relief of suffering– to confuse protagonism with the real objectives: and then the organizations lose their way. While they may be organizing and distributing assistance in the form of equipment, materials, human resources or emergency aid, it may not necessarily be what the beneficiaries want or need.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Africa agrees. Commenting on a report on Africa's Sahel region published this month by prominent international NGOs including Oxfam, the British Red Cross, CARE International and Save the Children, it highlights the discrepancy between "the fact that donors and aid agencies recognise that the problems of the Sahel are long-term while most projects are only funded for one or two years (...) Donors require results after every year, even if that is not realistic (...) The report says that donor pressure means aid agencies focus too much on measuring the production of heavy, nutrient-scarce staples like millet and sorghum." These food stuffs fail to provide a balanced diet and can thus accentuate malnutrition, instead of alleviating it. "‘[Aid projects in the Sahel] are almost always driven by externally imposed ideas for development' and the majority of aid organisations develop their programmes ‘on the basis of their own priorities and their own visions' the report says. When designing aid projects the views of locals are usually ignored because they are ‘unpredictable'. Once projects are set up, aid agencies often manage them in ‘narrow and inflexible ways' that are focused more on looking good to donors than measuring real improvements to people's lives."
"In particular," says the United Nations' specialized agency, the International Labour Organization, "NGOs are accused of being economically and ideologically controlled by Western donors whose funds are conditional on the NGOs not seriously challenging the status quo; of being politically unaccountable to the local populace and solely accountable to external donors."
The extent to which NGOs can be fund-driven was illustrated by their publicity campaigns on TV and in the press in the 1980s, when the competition for limited donor funds demonstrated a level of ruthlessness that had to be censured by their peers. To curb the emotive, distressing images –of starving and dying children– published by NGOs vying in the media for contributions, the General Assembly of European NGOs in 1989 felt obliged to draw up a "Code of Conduct on Images and Messages relating to the Third World".
Janet Townsend, exemplified the damage that NGOs with a Western-controlled, vertical hierarchy can do. "In India, the World Bank set up organizations among local people to act as markets. But instead of marketing their own produce, the people were selling imported goods or goods made in India by multi-nationals." Here we see, she says, NGOs being manipulated as "a specific arm of capitalism: making people governable." Donated food aid can even do more harm than good, and end up "under-cutting local producers and hence have a negative effect on local farmers and the economy." It keeps people dependent and prevents the development of self-reliance. The political pressure on NGOs can be very real: "NGOs must obtain the best results and better promote United States' foreign policy objectives or we'll find new partners." (Andrew Natsios, Director of USAID, the United States' State Department Agency for Development Assistance May 21, 2003).

(Read more)