NGOs and Poverty Alleviation - Essay Example

NGOs and Poverty Alleviation The concept of poverty reduction and empowering is a complex issue considering the struggle in doing so globally has always been the debate of effort for many years. Although poverty alleviation is a global issue, the discourse focus in the late 20th century has always been the methods of removing developing countries from such situation, which made international communities to adopt the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that aims to halve the level of poverty by 2015 (Anton V, 2007). The MDGs reduced the poverty levels since it was coined. The developed countries and international organizations also play important roles through the involvement in development issues and offering assistance to ensure that governments in the developing countries live up to their duties which involve liberalization of the poor and giving them the hope of sustaining the living standards (Jha S, 2011). However, this essay will agree that the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) played a significant role in poverty alleviation in the past decades through empowering the poor. The essay will review the concept of poverty and reduction techniques; it will analyse types of NGOs and their role, and roles played by the organization in reducing poverty and empowering the poor. To evaluate effectively the NGOs roles in poverty alleviation, the essay will evaluate their strengths and weaknesses in their roles. The general aim of the NGOs is poverty alleviation, which promotes capacity building and self-reliance. Though capacity building, the NGOs can assist in sustaining community development, which indirectly helps the government to provide the basic social amenities. The contribution of NGOs to poverty reduction Whenever people think of the NGOs what comes in their minds is their ability to deliver the expenses for the non-performing governments. There is much hope placed on the NGOs to liberate most people considering the fact that most poor people in the developing countries lost confidence in their governments and markets. The failures of the government and private sectors cooked up the hopes on the success of the NGOs. In the last ten years, there has been a reduction in poverty levels due to increased number of NGOs operating across the globe. Although there are several arguments pointing out their weaknesses, there are regions globally where NGOs have been successful (Caroline S, 2002). Even before millennium, the NGOs worked with various governments, bilateral, and multilateral organizations with an aim of improving the wellbeing of the poor. Moreover, in most developing countries, there is a wider gap between the poor and rich with NGOs playing a critical role in reducing such gaps as they offer employment opportunities, require entrepreneurial skills, and empowering the poor. NGOs and Development of self-reliance and sustainable communities Self-reliance affects communal sustainability. Besides, while developing a sustainable community, it is critical to lay the foundation based on self-reliance as it stimulates the others concepts that are vital for alleviation of poverty. An effective self-reliance within the community tends to integrate various challenges experienced at local level. Most self-reliance techniques often encourage the significance of local initiatives in building the ability and knowledge of the people required to improve their conditions. Most of the poor have adequate skills required for sustainability of their living standards; however, most people do not get the opportunity of exploiting the human resources (Tamgid A C and Pundarik M, 2012). Moreover, self-reliance is becoming vital tool of developing the local communities effectively; hence, both the communities and NGOs need to determine their potential and ensure effective development of methods that would assist to discover various sources of wealth. Motivation and mobilization of the people to be self-reliant and ensuring participation of the poor in development is becoming an important objective of the NGOs. The concept of self-reliance involves utilization of personal resources without depending much on the sourced funds (Laurence C, 2011). However, the self-reliant strategy depends on people’s willingness and the ability, which is determined by resources and technological availability under their control and management. Additionally, self-reliant method involves optional utilization of the resources. Even though it might be critical to experience a dependency period within a short time, it is important to avoid long term objectives as communal development needs to be purely self-reliant. However, relying on the external resources could result autonomy loss and independence of the community. From such point, it is clear that communities have to be bound in carrying out the autonomous programmes, which would ensure that they experience development withint reliance of external resources (Jha S, 2011). Besides self-reliance, it is important to focus people’s development capacities ensure that they meet their needs through their efforts. Within the technique, the local inertia is the central problem among the locals endowed with potential energy; nonetheless, the communal energy often remains less active due to inadequate education levels (Daphne H and Paul W T, 2012). The NGOs often break the unwillingness through various methods originating from outside the community. From such background, the role of NGOs include assisting the communities in realizing its capability through education, introduction of simple and new technologies, organization, small loans, and consciousness raising. Most NGOs often stress on the self-reliance of the locals with the intent benefits sustained by the communities through the self-help actions beyond the periods in which the NGOs offer assistance. Therefore, the NGOs through self-reliance strategy, they facilitate sustainable development of the communities through participation in communal activities, sponsorship of the projects, and process monitoring and evaluation. NGOs and Peace Building Strategy for Poverty Alleviation The major cause of poverty in most developing countries closely relates to civil wars, which often result in mass property destruction and displacement of people leading to increased rates of unemployment. The NGOs majorly extend their roles to peace building in most African and Asian countries. Moreover, the NGOs play critical role to restore peace majorly in areas affected with wars, which is a critical step in alleviating poverty (Shivji I G, 2007). Most African countries have been witnessing wars, which affect people within a long period. The countries, which the NGOs have been intervening to peace, include Liberia, central African states, and Somalia. Afghanistan is one of the countries that have been experiencing civil wars. However, with the presence of the NGOs within the country makes it clear on their peace-building role. The presence of the NGOs in Afghanistan contributed to the restoration of fair peace, which laid the foundation of propagating various laws especially those relating to human rights and reintegration fostering corporation among the warlords (Ullah A A & Routra J K, 2007). For example, in Serra Leone, Peace Wing plays a critical in ensuring the peace of the region, which is a clear justification of the role played by the NGOs. This include peace building through their organizational strategies that brings together the rebellers from their hideouts and foster negotiations amid administration and war parties to discuss in peace talks. Peace plays critical in attracting the foreign investors that offer employment opportunities to the poor, stabilization of the economy, and effective utilization of the resources. As a result, peace building forms the foundation of ensuring alleviation of poverty among the minority. Humanitarian Role of the NGOs for Poverty Alleviation During wars, disasters, and emergencies, most NGOs often provide food and non-food items, which are a critical, step in ensuring poverty alleviation. Although humanitarian roles might not fully redeem the victims, it could assist in offering the affected the peace of mind, which in turn lays the foundation for poverty alleviation. Humanitarian assistance is the easiest method of fighting poverty and ensuring the sustainability in the modern society (Jones S & Nelson N, 2005). In most cases, during emergency periods, the governments are usually unable to settle the displaced population due to inadequate resources. Consequently, due to such inadequacy of the resources, the issues associated with NGO’s influx in the countries are becoming unquestionable. Conflicts and other disasters occurring in the society often leave strong poverty benchmark. Whenever the conflicts arise, people often lose lives, physical structures, and exposure to various hazardous materials. To reduce the impact of such calamities, most humanitarian NGOs always implement different strategies especially the relief programmes. From the global perspective, the roles played by the NGOs are debatable considering the fact that most people view their roles as positive while others view them as improper (Mohapathra T, 2012). Despite the fact that most people have skills and vast experience, they are still incapable of developing exact methods of scientifically analysing and fixing the problems. In such cases, the role of the NGOs is worth mentioning to assist in problem-solving. Different NGOs have important humanitarian responsibilities as they contribute in development and searching for solutions through organized seminars, workshops, and application of the socioeconomic projects that assist in alleviation of poverty at the community level. Besides, the NGOs have been able to develop critical concepts such as small groups, the credit based cooperatives, and mother welfare society, which strengthen the root organizational structure for poverty reduction. NGOs Micro financing for alleviation of Poverty Microfinance is a vital sector utilized by the NGOs in reaching out the poor. Concerning micro-financing, the role of NGOs in poverty alleviation is immense. The reason behind using the microfinance in alleviating of poverty is due to the role it plays and the impact that it creates on the beneficiaries (Margaret E K and Kathryn S, 1999). Microfinance strategy play important role in development according to the proponents of microfinance, Since 1990s, the researches increasingly referred to the microfinance as the most appropriate method alleviating poverty. In most African countries, the NGOs established the micro-finance, which later declined when the governments established financial institutions. World Bank undertook a study in Bangladesh in 1998, which revealed that 48% of the poor families had access to microcredit, which increased their living conditions above the poverty line (Gavin S, 2007). The microfinance combats poverty in several ways. These methods are creation a wide capital pool for the poor that improves human capital, increased accessibility to quality education through training programmes, and guarantee the achievement of the local organizational building, which assists people move out of poverty. The microfinance aims at providing capital for the poor to combat poverty and ensuring proper development at institutional level. The concept aims at creating organizations that deliver financial services for those living below the poverty line who in most cases are ignored by the financial institutions. In developing countries, microfinance empowers people especially the youth and women. From the simple definition, microfinance aims to improve accessibility of loans and savings to the poor (Pouw N, & Baud I S, 2012). Currently, the NGOs are promoting microfinance for poverty alleviation and economic empowerment with the ability of effectively addressing material poverty, physical deprivation of products, and income for attaining them through granting financial services. Various communal programme often ensure provision of small loans and offering them the opportunities, which the traditional commercial financial institutions often exclude. The microfinance programmes is an inclusion development strategy used by the NGOs to provide funds to organized groups, governmental, and private institutions as a means of emphasizing on the contribution of women to financial efficiency within the national economies (Wang L, 2014). Women are usually at the mercy regarding social misshapes. Therefore, microfinance offers the most popular form of empowering women. The underneath of shared concerns lies with three major approaches to microfinance: financial stability, poverty alleviation, and feminist empowerment. Microfinance empowers women through offering them capital. With availability of capital, women earn their incomes independently which in turn contributes to their proper financial position. Economic empowerment strategies put in place by the NGOs need to be in a position of increasing self-esteem and respect for the beneficiaries. The major output of the microfinance is the wellbeing of the people, which includes various indicators: economic, environmental sustainability, improved education level, and increment in the level of accessing the social services (O’Brien, Goetz, Scholte, & Williams, 2000). To acquire economic sustainability, the NGOs often assist the communities with reduction of poverty, creation of jobs, and income generating activities through microfinance. To reach the MDGs, countries need to consider microfinance strategy considering the role it plays in building international financial systems, which is critical to satisfy the needs of the poor. However, much research has not been undertaken on the role of microfinance in poverty alleviation due to its lapses. Moreover, it is important to note that microfinance might not be the best strategy in combating poverty (Islam, Ali, Salehin, & Islam, 2010). While acknowledging the role played by microfinance in assist in poverty reduction, its complementary schemes are less effective; therefore, microfinance does not offer complete solution for poverty alleviation. Besides, in some cases, microfinance contributed to worsening of the poverty levels. A large portion of the scepticism from most MFIs stems from the contention that the microfinances frequently fail to reach the poorest; it has restricted impact on the salary, drives women in more prominent dependence on their spouses, and neglecting to provide the extra administrations desperately required by the poor. Additionally, most development practitioners discover microfinance insufficient and redirects from the more important intercessions. Additionally, there is a peril connected with microfinance as it may siphon stores from alternate projects that could help the poor more (Maurica A N, 2006). Both the administration and the contributors need to know whether the poor addition from the microfinance administrations. In this manner, there is requirement for their inclusion in microfinance and development to discover the impact of microfinance in lightening poverty. Impressive level-headed discussions are yet continuous on the viability of microfinance as a methodology of specifically decreasing poverty and qualities of the people profiting from it. Nevertheless, it is famously troublesome in measuring the impact of microfinance programes on poverty. Conclusion The essay focused on the significant role played by the NGOs in alleviating poverty through various strategic actions: building the capacity of the poor, enhancing their self-reliance, improving their level of sustainable development, microfinance, and empowering the women. NGOs through microfinance assist the local communities to access jobs, income-generating activities, and improve their economic situation, which in turn alleviate the level of poverty. Such practices would empower them economically. The developed capacities of the NGOs on community’s skills, abilities, knowledge, assets, and motivation ensure participation of the community in various projects of improving the quality their lives’ quality. The NGOs play critical role in building the capacity of the locals, which assist, empowers them at personal level. From the philosophical background, the development of the community is often does not depend on agents operating from outside; therefore, the communities need to rely on their local resources. The NGOs play critical role in assisting the communities discover the potentials and encourage community mobilization in a bid to encourage self-reliant. References Anton V, 2007,“NGO involvement in international governance and polic”, Sources of legitimacy. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, accessed 15 May 2016. [EBSCOhost] Caroline S, 2002,“Gender, development, and poverty”. Oxford: Oxfam, pp.97, accessed 15 May 2016. Daphne H and Paul W T, 2012, “Entrepreneurship and Sustainability: Business solutions for poverty alleviation from around the world”. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., pp 119, accessed 15 May 2016 [EBSCOhost] Gavin S, 2007, “Collective action and urban poverty alleviation: Community organizations and the struggle for shelter in Manila”. 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