Role of NGO'S in the Global South Countries - Coursework Example

ROLE OF N.G.O’S IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH COUNTRIES Student’s name Code + course name Professor’s name University name City, state Date Introduction NGO’s are organisations or associations that are created within the civil society. These associations pull together people who have same interests and purpose for a common good. They can be referred to as organisations of the people and neither part of structures of the state nor are they motivated by profit maximisation or commercial considerations. The NGO’s are generally self-governing they rely mainly on voluntary contributions. The purpose of these organisations does not involve business but contribution toward building a batter and sustainable society. Most of the organisations that are referred to as NGO’s belong to the so called private sector or the non-profit organisations. From a wider point of view, the elements that make up the society are the state, the private sector, and finally the civil society. The purpose of the state is to serve the citizens and maintain a proper public order. The companies on the other part pursue profit making and the NGO’s on their part like the state serve the community. They venture into sectors such as health, water, education, sanitation and many others partly with funding from the government. The NGO’s have been very important for the development of many third world countries. The governments have been recommended to fund and incorporate the NGO’s in developing the country since they are transformational. Some of the most outstanding NGO’s have been seen participating in the micro-level action and policy advocacy. In some cases they have seen criticising government institutions and leaders, this way they keep the country on course towards development (Minogue, 2001). In the global south countries there are the INGO’s and the NGO’s, they can also be classified into micro and macro. The main distinction is that the international non-governmental organisations operate in more than one country while the NGO’s operate in within the country of its initiation. There are also the grass root organisations (GRO’s), these one operate within a very limited area including villages and counties. There are both interior and exterior factors that explain the existence of NGO’s within the global south countries. Internally, the government has left a gap in the public service delivery due to its gradual retreat, this gap has been substantially filled by the NGO’s. The inability of the government to provide high quality service to the public has given the NGO’s the reason to thrive (Hulme, 2001). In the global south, the main role of the government was to keep the public sector going, run the economy, and take its citizens as its consumers. The dominating approach in the region is top-down, everything was state controlled. This way the citizens could get a good chance to realise their full potential. They could not make an optimal use of the resources including the human, financial, and natural resources (Minogue, 2001). Before the NGO’s took root in the global south countries, the officials in the public sector pursued their own personal interests. They did not have the public interests at heart. Most of the poor countries had very poor, weak and inefficient public institutions. The institutions were not able to combating poverty and even carry out proper operations. With time, the need to reduce poverty levels, deliver growth in economy was highly acknowledged and this led to a revolutionary movementt (Minogue, 2001). The people started to incorporate the NGO’s that could keep check on the operations of the government institutions and its officials. The globalisation wave challenged the effectiveness of the governments and esteemed bureaucratic systems. The ability for the governments to establish a proper regulatory framework that can boost development is questionable. The public sector is not trusted with enforcing the same regulations and develop the capacity of the country to develop economically (Mitlin, 2005). The NGO’s stepped in to save the situation, it came up with new and advanced approaches that could enhance the efficiency of delivering public services. From then, NGO’s have enabled people to organise themselves well and have a good sharing of the public governance. The NGO’s have presented themselves as alternatives of the governmental led economy. Through the NGO’s many managements of the public and the governments are willing to reform. This is due to the fact that the views of the NGO’s are highly justified by the public (Minogue, 2001). To a larger extend, the reforms of the governance need that the state devolves most of its powers to the organisations and institutions that are pretty closer to the people. This is important in that the civic organisation, mostly NGO’s and GRO’s, focuses on making sure that they improve the accessibility of basic social and more importantly economic service to the poor and disadvantaged citizens(Minogue, 2001). The need for the communities that donate to the public to get a channel through which they can perform what they want has led to development of the NGO’s. The great development of NGO’s in the global south countries has enabled the international agencies that oversee development in global south countries and the aid donors to be able to channel the resources to the people (Hulme, 2001). The donors believe that the civic organisations are the ones that should quickly scale their service delivery functions. Over the last decade, many countries in the global south have experienced a growth in the number of NGO’s. This id due to the fact that the public have realised the fact that they need NGO’s to fasten the growth in the economy of the country (Lissu, 2005). In Tanzania one of the global south countries, the number of NGO’s have grown numerously over the last two decades. Since independence, and mostly in the mid 1980’s and 1990’s a considerable number of NGO’s sprung up in most of the global south countries. They have taken control in most of problematic sections of the economy, which include; socio economic, religious, women, HIV control and many others. This happened in Tanzania and many others countries owing to the approval of NGO’s in the countries (Mitlin, 2005). Generally NGO’s gives a high potential forces mainly for social, economic and political development. The main roles of NGO’s include facilitating programs within the community. In the global south countries NGO’s have been tasked with the job of implementation of the programs that the community sets (Lissu, 2005). They are mandated to deliver to its clients through implementing the programs that the community have in place. The main purpose of the NGO’s is to help the communities in achieving its set goals for sustainable economic, social and political development. The NGO’s should create space that will allow the people to act on what they think will improve their lives (Minogue, 2001). NGO’s in the global south parts of the world have come handy to help the people in implementing what they believe. When NGO’s had not taken this place the official could decide what projects the community should undertake, at the moment, the experts that is NGO’s are at the forehead at helping the community implement their projects and not individual project. The programs run by the NGO’s such as health, income generating activities, water, civic education and the advocacy are done with a very small negotiation between the public and the NGO (Mitlin, 2005). If, by dissimilarity, the development programs that are facilitated by the NGO’s are depicted as negotiated accomplishments, which in this case match the public strategies to survive and increase in development opportunities. The NGO’s in the global south region are normally reluctant to take the ownership of the programs of any kind. By taking ownership of programs the no governmental organisations there is a likelihood that it would make the most fundamental trade-offs that the happen on daily basis between the requirements of those who benefits from the projects and the opportunities that the programs brings them. In that case, the programs will always be owned by the community whether funded by the government of the donor agencies (Mitlin, 2005). There is no way that an NGO can take ownership of a program that is influenced and mainly undertaken by the community. Some of the mistakes that NGO’s that have failed is taking ownership of the program and this limits the extent to which the community will benefit from it (Mitlin, 2005).The main work that NGO’s are tasked with is generally poverty eradication, therefore for this to be achieved the gap between the goals of the NGO’s and its practices has to be closed. The optimal and most beneficial program are achieved mainly when they are jointly organised. The NGO has to be pursuing a certain goal that the community mandated it whether it is social, economic or political. Bridging the breach need a high level of involving and facilitative abilities. These are some of the things that the NGO’s in the global south does not have making them a little weak (Minogue, 2001). The resources that the NGO’s get from both within and without the countries in the global south can be used to produce money that will help the community in mapping out the programs that will help the community members in raising their living standard. The NGO’s in the global south have to set their roles and functions right, most of the NGO’s have been depicted to lack proper visions and missions that guide them towards achieving the community goals and not personal interests (Lissu, 2005). The NGO’s that does not the grand vision of the society, these NGO’s are also not guided by important issues that are large enough. They are seen to just focus on small day to day activities that does not have much impact on the lives of the people. Every other NGO need to spend time in defining its missions and vision that is in context with the political, social and economic structures of the community. Lack of proper vision and mission makes it very hard for the NGO to articulate correctly their facilitative roles and functions (Minogue, 2001). In the activities of the recent years, we have seen states both in the north and the south taking important shifts of decentralising the state. Many governments have empowered the community. The civic organisations together with the markets have been given enough of space. The governments in the global south are reducing its responsibilities and delegating them to the NGO’s. The NGO’s are day by day getting the batter of the political space, although most the institutions both civic and governmental are still weak in these regions (Mitlin, 2005). The most motivating to note is that most of the NGO’s in the global south are giving alternative approach to the government, although they always lack the potential of constituting a capacitive force in the social, political and economic developments. The NGO’s from the global south need to improve their capacities if they have to meet the challenging situations in the region (Minogue, 2001). It is the responsibility of the NGO’s in the global north to develop and fund some of the most improving NGO’s in the global south. Therefore, they have to open up to the resources form the north. Many NGO’s have been improved by merging and working together with the NGO’s from the north (Mitlin, 2005). In conclusion, at this era in public management, NGO’s holds a great deal of responsibility for the social, political and economic development. In order to go through the challenges the southern NGO’s have to help the community in implementing its own vision and not creating its own vision. The have to the transformative and a very reasonable carriers of change. They should also seek help from the northern NGO’s. References Hulme, D., 2001. Reinventing the Third World State: Service Delivery and the Civic Realm,. The Internationalization of Public Management: Reinventing the Third World State, Volume 7(1), pp. 129-152. Lissu, T., 2005. Repackaging Authoritarianism: Freedom of Association and Expression and the Right to Organize Under the Proposed NGO Policy for Tanzania, London: Lawyers' Environmental Action Team. Minogue, M., 2001. Should Flawed Models of Public Management Be Exported? Issues and Practice. he Internationalization of Public Management: Reinventing the Third World State, Volume 2(3), pp. pp. 20-43. Mitlin, D. H. S. a. B. A., 2005. Reclaiming Development? NGOs and the Challenge of Alternatives.. Background paper to conference, June 27-29, Volume 1(2), pp. 343-456. Read More