The Role and Contributions of Development NGOs to Development Cooperation: What Do We Know?

Research has focussed on the function rather than volume of NGOs’ contributions to development cooperation. That a deeply managerial-driven aid system has constrained NGO effectiveness has been a critical focus, highlighting how this has led NGOs to prioritise service delivery over social justice. Yet, a lack of systematic analysis of development NGO sectors within donor countries means it has made it impossible to measure their full contributions to development cooperation. We explore new evidence of their growing and significant contributions vis-à-vis official development assistance and look at new donor policy innovations that move from a managerial to a transformative ideology for civil society funding. Such innovations have the potential to enhance partnerships and cooperation and reduce the contested nature of NGOs’ contributions to development cooperation.

Participation and Chinese non-government organization accountability

Purpose As transition countries shift to a mixed welfare system, the accountability of non-government organizations (NGOs) becomes critical to quality services. Yet, poor financial and managerial practices of some NGOs in China have led to distrust from citizens. The purpose of this paper is to use a democratic accountability framework to examine citizen participation in NGOs as an approach to understand an angle of this distrust. Does the Chinese language academic literature about NGO accountability engage with concepts of participation in NGO governance, management and service use? Design/methodology/approach The method was content analysis of a search of words and concepts relating to NGOs, participation and accountability in the available Chinese language literature on NGO accountability through the newly developed search engine Wenjin Search of the National Library of China. Findings The analysis found that most Chinese literature only emphasizes problems of accountability, causes and regulatory solutions. When the literature includes participation, it refers to it as a platform for civil society, rather than a process of accountability within an NGO. Research limitations/implications Searching by keywords in one search engine may not be exhaustive. The results probably reflect most of the current research of Chinese scholars, considering the depth of the search engine. Practical implications Formal NGOs are relatively new in the Chinese political landscape; and government regulations are largely administrative and unenforced. At conceptual and political levels, the absence of discussion about other forms of accountability ignores questions about public dissatisfaction with NGO performance and the public’s willingness to contribute to NGO effectiveness, and civic engagement. Originality/value An implication is that until Chinese NGO research also incorporates democratic accountability concepts, it will continue to ignore the internal and external drivers from citizens for NGO change. Transition country NGOs that encourage participation have the potential to engender greater accountability in the organization, community and in state relations.

NGO Influence in the Implementation of the Kyoto Protocol: Compliance, Flexibility Mechanisms, and Sinks

While most scholars agree that NGOs make a difference in global environmental politics, there has been little systematic work that looks at the actual influence NGOs have on policy outcomes. This paper looks to shed some new light on the question of NGO effectiveness through an evaluation of the role played by NGOs in climate negotiations. We begin with a brief sketch of different kinds of green NGOs, along with a review of the sorts of strategies and resources they employ. Next, we look to gauge the influence that NGOs have had on recent rounds of negotiations to do with compliance, flexibility mechanisms, and appropriate crediting rules for sinks. Our analysis is based on detailed interviews with members of some of the most prominent environmental NGOs involved in climate work. Finally, we suggest, based on our findings, some means by which NGOs may look to extend their influence in the development of the climate regime. Our analysis points to the crucial need for further “insider” capacity—that is, NGOs are likely to have the most far-reaching influence on future climate negotiations if they foster ways to work closely and collaboratively with key negotiators and governments.

Nongovernmental Organizations as Intermediaries for Decentralization in Bolivia

During the implementation of the 1994 Law of Popular Participation (LPP) nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) assumed a new role as intermediaries between the government and the Bolivian population. The law, at the heart of a decentralization program, transferred 20% of the national budget to municipalities, established participatory planning, and mandated oversight by grass-roots territorial organizations. In some cases, NGOs with long-term commitments to an area have served as effective planning agents, successfully assisting a relatively democratic process of decentralization, and using their project-writing expertise to find matching grants to leverage revenue-sharing funds. Perhaps most important, some NGOs have educated residents of small municipalities about their rights to participate in local planning and budgeting. At the same time, rivalries between NGOs, NGO control of planning, and the failure to establish a permanent presence in a municipality have limited NGO effectiveness. Despite these shortcomings, NGOs have the potential to help prevent local elite cooption of the LPP and the corruption found throughout the country as small municipalities develop the technical capacity to direct local development. Examination of the Bolivian experience offers lessons both on the opportunities and on the limitations of NGOs as partners with governments that seek efficient and more equitable solutions to problems of local development. This assessment is particularly important as multilateral donors and institutions have consistently used Bolivia over the past fifteen years to experiment with new policy models which they later apply elsewhere in the developing world.