scholarly journals Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom, Foreign Funding: Foreign Assistance and NGO Development in Russia

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vahan Galoumian
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Assistance ◽  
Ngo Development

Building Democracy in Contemporary Russia: Western Support for Grassroots Organizations

2005 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 1087-1088
Author(s):  
Juliet Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Organizational Capacity ◽  
Organizational Structures ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Foreign Assistance ◽  
The Other ◽  
Grassroots Organizations ◽  
Ngo Development ◽  
Policy Agendas

Building Democracy in Contemporary Russia: Western Support for Grassroots Organizations, Sarah L. Henderson, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003, pp. xii, 229.In this well-researched and provocative book, Sarah Henderson asks to what extent Western aid can facilitate the emergence of civil society in countries where civil society is domestically weak. Through an in-depth study of Western aid to Russian women's organizations, she argues that foreign assistance has dramatically affected NGO development in Russia, but not always in expected or positive ways. On the one hand, she finds that external funding “made a tremendous difference in improving and increasing the short-term financial viability, organizational capacity, and networking skills among recipient groups” (9). On the other, she argues that foreign aid contributed to at least four pathological developments within the NGO community. First, funded groups tended to copy the aid agencies' top-heavy and bureaucratic organizational structures. Second, funded groups lacked grassroots constituencies because they shifted their policy agendas to reflect aid agencies' preferences rather than objective domestic needs. Third, foreign aid encouraged the development of a “civic elite” among the domestic NGO community, exacerbating the differences between those groups that received funding and those that did not. Finally, the competition for foreign aid dollars encouraged uncooperative behaviour among funded Russian NGOs rather than bridge building and information sharing. She argues that these problematic unintended consequences were the result of avoidable mistakes in the foreign aid process, and states bluntly that “NGO development is not synonymous with civil society development, and the development of one does not necessarily imply the advancement of the other” (11).

Nonproliferation as a Goal of Japanese Foreign Assistance

Asian Survey ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 328-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J. Long
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Assistance

Domestic Resource Mobilisation: A Structural Approacb

1993 ◽  
Vol 32 (4II) ◽  
pp. 1067-1078
Author(s):  
Saleem M. Khan
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Financial Institutions ◽  
Foreign Assistance ◽  
High Rate ◽  
Domestic Saving ◽  
Capital Investments ◽  
External Resources ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
The Government ◽  
Enhance Efficiency

The Mobilisation of domestic resources and their efficient utilisation are two of the most crucial tasks in revitalising the economy of Pakistan. Historically, low saving fotmation and relatively higher targets of investment and economic growth made it imperative to depend on external resources. Despite heavy domestic borrowing from both private and public sectors, there still has remained an unmet resource gap that has necessitated dependence on foreign capital. I In recent years, the sources of foreign assistance have become scarce due to a growing shortage in world saving and growing domestic demand for budget appropriations in the western countries. If economic growth in Pakistan is to be sustained and selfgenerating, investment in physical and human development must be increased and mad more efficient. To meet this challenge, most of the capital will have to come from domestic sources. Hence, the focus of this paper is on harnessing domestic efforts to increase saving formation and to enhance efficiency of capital investments. Traditionally, the government of Pakistan has relied on conventional approaches to increasing domestic saving. First, the government has been encouraging greater saving by the private sector through a package of national saving schemes and by allowing financial institutions to introduce saving incentives. Saving-schemes and saving incentives have not produced satisfying results. Table 1 shows saving and investment in selected South Asian countries. Saving in Pakistan is very low and, indeed, among the lowest even when compared with neighbouring and other developing countries. Explanations of this failure include the low levels of income and high rate of inflation in the country.2 Moreover, the financial institutions have in general remained inefficient.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document