Are NGOs saints or wolves in sheeps clothing?

[Guest guest]

Rajeev Srinivasan <rajeev.srinivasan@g...> wrote:

 

April 25th

 

this debate by sugrutha ramaswami and me in india currents has been

picked

up and circulated by pacific news service, new california media etc.

 

http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?

article_id=a8eb88dc43f447800d75779ac7936f18

 

see www.indiacurrents.com <http://www.indiacurrents.com>,

http://news.ncmonline.com/news/,

https://secure.news4sites.com/headlines.php?id=2332,

http://ngos.thenewsplace.com/

 

apropos of dubious NGOs, i am entertained to see that the sandeep

pandey

'peace-march' has been stopped at the pak border by pakistanis. will

the AID

guys now ask for their money back or what?

 

Are Non Governmental Organizations Saints or Wolves in Sheep's

Clothing?

 

Commentary, Rajeev Srinivasan and Sugrutha Ramaswami,

India Currents <http://indiacurrents.com/>, Apr 22, 2005

Many NGOs Do Far More Harm Than Good

 

By RAJEEV SRINIVASAN

 

Graham Hancock's damning 1989 expose, Lords of Poverty: The Power,

Prestige,

and Corruption of the International Aid Business, estimated that most

of the

$60 billion plus that comprised governmental, UN, and World Bank or

IMF-type

"aid" was siphoned off. Mostly by elites in poor nations, special

interests

(like agribusiness) in donor countries, but also, startlingly, the

aid

agencies' own personnel budgets, which waste as much as 80 percent of

the

funds for lavish (first-class) travel, salaries, and perquisites.

 

Unfortunately, the same appears to be true of NGOs. Despite their

saintly

image in the media, some have connections to dubious groups in India.

Some

misuse their funds, for instance to pay for trips by

their "volunteers" to

India, boondoggle "lecture-tours" of the United States by their

comrades-in-arms in India, and so forth.

 

In addition, the aftermath of the tsunami demonstrated what has long

been an

open secret: many NGOs are merely fronts for religious conversion.

Yes,

everyone loves a good tsunami. There were sordid tales about how

certain

"charities" refused help unless the targets of their munificence

converted.

Compare this to the sterling, selfless work done by, say, All-India

Movement

(AIM) for Seva.

 

But ambulance-chasing Christian fundamentalists are a known devil.

Indian

groups with deceptively appealing siren songs are more insidious.

Most of

them are started by well-meaning, idealistic, but naive individuals

to "do

something for India." But over time, these organizations get

hijacked, and

become personal fiefdoms for self-glorification, or else unwitting

tools in

the hands of anti-nationals. In the end, you, the Indian-American

donor, may

find your hard-earned money either wasted on extravagant overhead, or

funding groups you may not approve of.

 

For instance, Association for India's Development's (AID)

collaboration with

DYFI and SFI, youth and student wings of the Communist Party of India

(Marxist), in tsunami relief raises questions about how their funds

are

used. Some AID chapters in the United States are also subsidizing

Asha for

Education cofounder Sandeep Pandey's "peace march" to Pakistan. This

is

stretching the definition of development and education: these are

political

activities, which tax-exempt charities are expected to avoid.

 

These are the kinds of things that go on behind the appealing facades

of

NGOs. A word to the wise donor: caveat emptor, buyer beware!

 

Non-Indian NGOs too show bad faith. Amnesty International, headed by

a niece

of Bangladesh's dictator, ignores daily atrocities visited upon non-

Muslim

minority populations there. Human Rights Watch worries about Muslims,

but

not about ethnically cleansed Kashmiri Hindus. ActionAid and

WorldVision

have been accused of covert or blatant conversion agendas. Hypocrisy

and

political games are par for the course.

 

All NGOs are not created equal: to separate the wheat from the chaff,

ignore

propaganda and look at track records, especially financial statements.

 

*Rajeev Srinivasan wrote this opinion from Mumbai.*

 

.......................................................................

..........

 

Properly Motivated NGOs Do a Lot of Good

 

By SUGRUTHA RAMASWAMI

 

My opponent's criticism of NGOs is overly broad, though he gets

support from

an unexpected quarter: Arundhati Roy. "NGOs have depoliticized

resistance,

turned resistance into a salaried 9-5 job. Real resistance has real

consequences. And no salary," says she with the usual Roy theatrics

and

unoriginality. This point has been made time and again by critics of

the

World Bank-IMF consortium's Structural Adjustment Policies in poor

nations.

Neo-liberal regimes actively used NGOs to defuse the anger arising

from the

disastrous consequences to the poor from economic "liberalization."

So there

is some truth to the allegation, despite the red rhetoric.

 

Yet, to attack the very agency of NGOs is to throw the baby out with

the

bathwater. NGOs cannot replace the welfare state, but they certainly

can

enhance the provision of core social services, especially where the

State

has abdicated its responsibility.

 

In fact, "NGO" is new only in terminology. The term arose from the

West's

vision of democratized societies, where, through volunteerism, a

civil

society is constructed vertically, cutting across kin and family

networks.

But NGOs as community-based organizations are not new: they fill gaps

left

by the State. Health, education, justice, economic development, and

environmental protection have always been addressed by local

communities,

especially within religious contexts.

 

People in the Third World, especially the rural and the poor, retain

a

strong sense of community: individual achievements are measured

against

their contribution to the community, unlike in the individualistic

societies

of the West. This builds a collective consciousness and a sense of

community

ownership, the Commons.

 

When NGOs as external agents in such communities work within the

parameters

of the collectivistic culture, the rewards are enormous. NGOs that

work with

native ways of knowing succeed in getting the people to participate

in

determining their development needs and the processes required to

achieve

their goals. NGOs need to be humble enough to recognize that

traditional

knowledge systems often have greater utility than their new-fangled,

urban-centric prescriptions.

 

Examples of such success stories abound in the areas of education,

land and

water development, forest husbandry, and health: the Ekal Vidyalayas

that

impart basic life-skills and rudimentary modern education within the

context

of the native cultures; the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh that provides

micro-credit based on mutual trust instead of collateral; the Tarun

Bharat

Sangh that involves local people in forest and water conservation by

reviving traditional community values of environmental protection

that got

alienated due to state ownership of these resources.

 

NGOs that facilitate development by combining native wisdom with

modern

technology and management provide sustainable long-term solutions.

Motivations of political, religious, or ideological activism, or

charity

make not an NGO.

 

*Sugrutha Ramaswami is an IT professional in New Jersey.*

 

 

 

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