Non-Government Organisations - Essay Example

Name Professor Institution Course Date Non-Government Organisation (NGOs) This is an organization whose aim is not to make profits and the formation is on the basis of common interest of the founders. The founders of these NGOs form them voluntarily to reach the public and help them some areas like reducing poverty. There are many NGOs in the world and they differ on their goals, objectives and their founders (Gautam 2004). Their basis can be locally in a certain area, nationally in the country or internationally all over the world. That means that they can either serve people either in a small region or within a certain country or in many countries depending on the area that they cover. Their formation also has to meet the laws put in place in regard to all NGOs so that they comply with the law. The aims of their formation are to help citizens and deal with certain social issues that the government does not deal with. They offer services to people at no cost because they are not up to making any profit (Humphrys & Williams 2005). That means that they do not have any political influence in them, that is, they are free from the government. Some of the social areas that NGOs deal with are like health matters, eradication of poverty, offering education to all citizens or helping people get their humanitarian rights and avoid oppression. There are situations where the government funds NGOs either partly or fully but they still operate separately and independently. The number of NGOs in the world is increasing due to the increasing rates of social issues to handle. There are around 40,000 NGOs international in the world today and many more national NGOs in different countries. Some countries have more number of NGOs than others in the world due to the many social issues that exist there. For instance, Russia has more than 200,000 NGOs in the country because of the economic status and the poor conditions. NGOs differ from each other because of the kind of issues that they handle and the geographical are that they cover. For instance, there are services NGOs that offer mainly services to citizens, charitable organizations whose main aim is to help the poor by giving donations. We also have the empowering organizations whose main aim is to empower people in their area, like empowering the youth or the old towards achieving certain goals like economic or personal goals (Gautam 2004). We also have community-based organizations with the objective of helping just the community within their jurisdiction. There are also the national NGOs that deal with only citizens of that country without extending its jurisdiction to other countries. There are also the multinational NGOs that handle issues of many countries like the United Nations that handle human rights in many countries or health issues in more than one country. NGOs have a structure that forms a basis for their functioning. They operate just like other organizations just like they do not aim at making profits. Structures of NGOs differ depending on their objectives and the countries of formation. However, there are some few things that they have in common like the ordinary corporate structure in the organization (Humphrys & Williams 2005). They have staffs and volunteers and sources of their income. They also have mangers to monitor and control activities taking place in the organization and to ensure that it follows its guidelines. Social issues by the NGOs Social issues are matters that are pressing to people and NGOs handle in a bid to help them and make their lives better. There are several social issues that NGOs handle depending on their objectives during its formation (Hammer 2007). Some of the social issues they handle include housing facilities and conditions among people of a given location. Health conditions in hospitals and clinics, environmental issues, education facilities so the education reaches to all people. They also deal with the social issue of the living conditions of people and their humanitarian rights to ensure that each individual’s rights are met. All these are some of the many social issues that these organizations handle. Compare and contrast the approaches taken by several non-government organizations to a particular social issue. In this study we shall look at the social issue of development and the several NGOs that deal with it and the approaches that they use in handling the issue. We shall look at this issue because of the increase in concern in many countries hence the need for NGOs top handle it. Many countries are aiming at developing their countries in terms of the economic and social status of its people (Gautam 2004). This issue carries many factors like education for all, eradication of poverty, improving the health facilities of the citizens among many other issues. Therefore, while looking at this issue, we will cover many areas. Approaches that NGOs use to handle the issue of development are different from each other depending on the policies that they use. The approaches contrast with each other while others are similar to the NGOs (Thomas 2007). This is not to mean that some approaches are wrong and others right. It is just how they handle the same issue differently from each other but they all aim at achieving the same goal of development in the different brackets. There are many NGOs that handle this issue in Australia including Adventist development and relief Agency Australia which deals with improving the living conditions in the local community so that they improve their communal status. Other NGOs include Australian medical association, the Red Cross society of Australia, Amnesty International of Australia many others (Humphrys & Williams 2005). There are also other organizations in the world that handle development issues like Save the children with its basis in the UK and Khanya whose aim is to deal with rural development. United Nations is also another NGO which has several branches to handle different issues like food and agricultural issues. There are different approaches that these NGOs use to handle this issue of development depending on its structure during formation. Some of these approaches are similar and common to the NGOs while others are different. Since this issue constitutes many areas, we shall look at different NGOs and the areas that they handle in relation to the development issues in the world. All approaches aim at achieving development either in that particular region, country or in the world. Some of the approaches that these NGOs use to handle the issue of development are shown below. Some NGOs like the United Nations use the approach of having many branches of its organizations all over the world. This is a strategy that many NGOs do not have but contributes to the success of the UN (Gautam 2004). The UN has several constituents to deal with various social issues but with the common aim of improving development in the world. All its constituents are all over the world so as to look into the needs of all people regardless of their location. For instance they have their branch that deals with health matters in all countries of the world. In each country it goes even to the most remote areas of the country so that it reaches all people. This strategy has been of much help because there has been the realization of development in all areas of the world including the most remote areas of each country. Another strategy that it uses is to have several small organizations within the big organization to handle the issues separately. This helps in the distribution of responsibilities to the small organizations so as to reduce work load for the entire NGO. For instance the UN has a branch known as the World Health Organization. It handles health matters all over the world by improving the health facilities with the aim of development (Thomas 2007). Another small organization with the UN is the branch that deals with human rights. It ensures that the rights of all people in the world are put into consideration. For example the right to shelter and justice to all which means that if everybody gets his rights it will encourage development because there will be no oppression. Another strategy is the use of agents to the smaller parts of a country who are more familiar with the conditions of that particular area. The Adventist development and relief agent in Australia uses this approach. This NGO has agents in all parts of Australia to ensure that they reach all areas (Hammer 2007). The agents have to be from the area in question because they understand best the living conditions of that place; therefore, they will use strategies that are suitable. This particular NGO gets officers and representatives from different cities in Australia especially in regions which are hit by food crisis so that they are able to supply relief food to them. They also help such areas by encouraging agriculture to sustain them by helping them to irrigate their farms. Other NGOs use the approach of research. This approach works by first carrying out a research about the problems that a country or region faces then they define how they can face out the problem. This enables the NGO to identify problems and coming up with the necessary measures to curb them (Lewis 2006). This approach is good because the NGO will come up with the resources for handling the issue and plan the techniques and methods of handling it. They might also come up with a committee or create another of its own constituent to handle the issue. For instance when dealing with the issue of education with the aim of promoting development, the NGO raises funds to build many institutions for students. It also comes up with forums for educating people on the importance of education to promote development. Consortium for research on education access, transitions and equity (Create) is an NGO that uses the approach of collaborating with other NGOs to handle the issue of development. It partners with other NGOs so that they are able to pool funds and efforts together to achieve development. Its partners include universities so that they help in researching for ways of developing areas that are undeveloped due to reasons like poor health conditions or poor infrastructure. However, this approach is not popular with many NGOs because most of them prefer being independent. Meaning they do not have to rely on partnering with other NGOs to handle the social issue of development. Organizations in Australia that have had the most influence in terms of both public opinion and government policy on the issue of development. There are many non-governmental organizations in Australia that handle the issue of development and have much influence to the public and government because of how they handle the issue. Research discloses such organizations and the reasons why they have the popularity in Australia mostly because of the impact they have had on the country. Their performance attributes to their popularity (Humphrys & Williams 2005). This study includes research done on public opinions of citizens in Australia and policies of the government on this issue of development. Some of these organizations include the following: CARE organization is one of the organizations that are popular in Australia. This NGO deals with empowering the female gender in achieving development in the community. This organization empowers more than 20 communities in Australia and there has been a remarkable development in those communities (Thomas 2007). It encourages both women and girls to work hard in the community to promote development in all sectors. This organization encourages education for girls and giving roles to women. This is to ensure that they fight poverty in their own communities so that they bring development. This organization helps them by building more schools and holding forums in communities on the importance of education of the girl child. It has had popularity to the public because of the help and development that these communities have had from it. The government of Australia also helps this organization to achieve its goals by putting into place some policies to favor it (Hammer 2007). Some of these policies that the government uses are like giving funds to communities to help them in development. The government now collaborates with the organization by giving incentives to businesses in such communities to help them reduce poverty levels. The government is also funding this organization partly to help it reach the community in empowering them and giving donations and services to the community. This helps the organization because it cannot run out of funds to help the community. Another NGO that has had influence in Australia is the Fred Hollows Foundation. It deals with health issues in Australia like treatment of the eyes for the poor in the region and also preventing blindness. It has had influence both in the public’s opinion and the government in many ways because of its achievements (Gautam 2004). The foundation of this NGO was by the late Fred Hollows who was a popular professor in Australia. The aim of founding this organization by this professor was to help the poor people who are blind to get treatment and empower those who were already completely blind. This organization helps the poor people in the communities to access health and treatment at lower costs than in other health facilities. It considers the poor people who cannot afford the high cost of health care to treat blind cases. The government helps this organization by reducing the cost of treating the blind people in the community hospitals and educating the people on how they can avoid blindness. The government has also put in place measures to help the poor people who are already blind to access equipment that will help them carry out their activities like walking sticks (Lewis 2006). This ensures that they continue being active in the community to encourage development. This is because if they become dormant, they will lag behind developments in the community. This has great impact on the reduction of preventable blind cases among the poor and treatment of the partial blindness in the community because of the awareness among the people. Generation one is the other NGO that has had influence on both the public and on government policies. This organization handles drug abuse among the youth and providing education so that they acquire jobs. The organization holds forums to encourage the youth to quit drugs and alcohol so that they enroll in institutions to acquire skills. Inspiration of this organization was by Andrew Forrest (Hammer 2007). This reduces the levels of dependency by the youth by reducing the idleness among them. Generation one also offers training for the job on job skills so that they can later fit in the job market to help them secure jobs. There has been increase in the number of institutions in the community to help educate the youth and rehabilitation centers to curb the problem of alcohol and substance abuse. The achievements of this organization has made the government to introduce policies to help them encourage the youth and reduce the problem of drugs and alcohol among them. Some of these policies by the government include provision of more job opportunities for the youth who have the qualification for such jobs (Lewis 2006). The government has also put policies to encourage education for the youth by building more schools in the community and reducing the amount of fees that they pay so that it makes education affordable to all. These policies have a positive impact on the development of communities in Australia and generally on the entire country. Conclusion NGOs have a huge impact on the social issues in the world by meeting the needs of the community. These are areas that the governments of these countries cannot meet due to neglect or lack of funds (Humphrys & Williams 2005). Improvements in the living conditions and other factors have their attributes to the NGOs because they render their services free like giving donations of basic needs to people. Some of these NGOs also give donations to the governments to improve on the already existing facilities like schools and health facilities. There are many social issues that NGOs have to handle in the world hence; they have come up with approaches to deal with the issues. As shown above, threes approaches differ from an NGO to another depending on its policies and objectives. Also, these organizations in Australia have an influence on both the public and policies by the government. References Gautam, T. (2004): Non-governmental organizations: challenges and opportunities: The University of Michigan. Humphrys, G & Williams, M. (2005): Presenting and representing environments: Springer. 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