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  • Title: NGOs: do we expect too much?
    Author: Drabek AG.
    Journal: Prog Rep Health Dev South Afr; 1992; ():40-4. PubMed ID: 12288846.
    Abstract:
    Private and bilateral donors currently place a great deal of emphasis on the potential importance of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in delivering services to dispossessed populations and nascent democracies around the world. This is particularly the case in Southern Africa. The expectation that NGOs can utilize resources more effectively than government may ultimately imperil the credibility of NGOs internationally. NGOs are expected to be: agents of development; community organizers and educators; institution builders; social service providers; humanitarian relief providers; political activists; human rights protectors; police watchdogs and advocates; organizational and financial managers; technical experts in agriculture and health; democracy promoters; innovators and testers of new ideas and technologies; fund raisers; employment creators; credit providers; and an alternative to governments. African NGOs must identify creative solutions that work; improve NGO capacity for research and evaluation, including definition of their own criteria for evaluation; test technologies and monitor results; and refine participatory and action research methods. 1) NGOs need to make decisions about whether they want to become mere service providers or whether they are going to make a long-term commitment to institution-building. 2) NGOs need to fend off attempts by donors to buy into agendas that are not their own. 3) Another major challenge is to reduce NGO dependency on donors and to increase their accountability to their own constituencies. 4) It must also be ensured that institutionalization does not lead to a lack of responsiveness within the NGO community. In Zimbabwe, workshops have been held to assist the NGO community in developing skills in coalition building around various issues to influence governments and donors, whether on women's issues, environmental issues, or cooperatives. If donors promote more effective development work both by encouraging linkages among these NGOs and by sharing information among the donors themselves, all development actors will learn from each other.
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