When have NGOs really fixed something?
June 24, 2010 6:17 PM Subscribe
When has an NGO affected real change? When have they actually solved problems? Can you give me some success stories?
I started working with a mid-sized international NGO a few months ago, and nearest I can tell their activities include training people to start new NGOs and publishing reports about how corporations do bad things. From my (admittedly clueless) perspective, neither of these are actually fixing anything in any tangible way. Everybody I work with is clearly intelligent, driven and dedicated to the cause, but, in the end, it seems like we're using five-gallon buckets to fix a state-wide flood.
I started working with a mid-sized international NGO a few months ago, and nearest I can tell their activities include training people to start new NGOs and publishing reports about how corporations do bad things. From my (admittedly clueless) perspective, neither of these are actually fixing anything in any tangible way. Everybody I work with is clearly intelligent, driven and dedicated to the cause, but, in the end, it seems like we're using five-gallon buckets to fix a state-wide flood.
To take one historical example, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund -- they didn't do it alone, but they played a huge part in integrating public schools in the US (or at least establishing the principle).
Like every kind of venture, NGOs vary widely in their scope, mission, and effectiveness -- and they change and grow (or not) over time, too.
posted by rdn at 6:50 PM on June 24, 2010
Like every kind of venture, NGOs vary widely in their scope, mission, and effectiveness -- and they change and grow (or not) over time, too.
posted by rdn at 6:50 PM on June 24, 2010
These guys (I am a donor and supporter) make real, sustainable and apparently long-lasting changes in the lives of African farmers. They're small yet, but they have (a) great stories and blog entries that show some of the changes they're helping to bring about, and (b) a fantastic dashboard that shows the results they're achieving and, almost as important, how they're planning to get bigger.
posted by thumpasor at 6:54 PM on June 24, 2010
posted by thumpasor at 6:54 PM on June 24, 2010
I can tell their activities include training people to start new NGOs
Do they refer to it as capacity building? Because it sounds like they should.
Community capacity building is an incredibly important sector which doesn't get nearly the attention it should. NGOs which do direct service provision and advocacy are naturally good at demonstrating their achievements where they exist—so many people housed, so many kids vaccinated, such legislation passed or repealed—but capacity building isn't so tangible and it's not so dependent on publicity. It doesn't fix a thing in a tangible way but to use your flood metaphor, you're helping people muck their own houses out with their own buckets.
From a government perspective (which is closer to the kind of work I do) NGOs which do capacity building are often the best-regarded.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:10 PM on June 24, 2010 [1 favorite]
Do they refer to it as capacity building? Because it sounds like they should.
Community capacity building is an incredibly important sector which doesn't get nearly the attention it should. NGOs which do direct service provision and advocacy are naturally good at demonstrating their achievements where they exist—so many people housed, so many kids vaccinated, such legislation passed or repealed—but capacity building isn't so tangible and it's not so dependent on publicity. It doesn't fix a thing in a tangible way but to use your flood metaphor, you're helping people muck their own houses out with their own buckets.
From a government perspective (which is closer to the kind of work I do) NGOs which do capacity building are often the best-regarded.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:10 PM on June 24, 2010 [1 favorite]
Taking the term broadly, many non-profit organizations are NGOs. Mrs. alms works for a US-based non-profit that helps homeless individuals and families find permanent housing. This organization has had a dramatic positive impact on several hundred people every year for the past ten years or so.
posted by alms at 7:20 PM on June 24, 2010
posted by alms at 7:20 PM on June 24, 2010
Greg Mortenson and the Central Asia Institute have 130 schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, which provide (or have provided) education to over 51,000 students.
posted by punchtothehead at 7:25 PM on June 24, 2010
posted by punchtothehead at 7:25 PM on June 24, 2010
Doctors Without Borders aka Medecins Sans Frontieres:
Doctors Without Borders sends medical personnel to some of the most destitute and dangerous parts of the world and encourages them not only to save lives, but also to condemn the injustices they see. The group was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999. Médecins Sans Frontières was founded in 1971 in Paris by a band of young French doctors disillusioned with the neutrality of the Red Cross after treating the starving in Biafra at the end of the 1960s. Red Cross confidentiality prevented them from speaking out. They organized themselves after the widespread flooding in East Pakistan (later Bangladesh). The volunteer group has more than 27,000 personnel who are treating the wounded, the sick and the starving in countries around the world, including war zones....In 2007, the rollout of a new, cheap, easy-to-take pill to treat malaria came as a result of a two-year partnership between Sanofi-Aventis, the world's fourth-largest drug company, and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative, a campaign started by Doctors Without Borders to find new drugs for tropical diseases. The pill was made available at cost to international health agencies like the W.H.O., Unicef and the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
See their New York Times topics page for more.
posted by sallybrown at 7:32 PM on June 24, 2010
Doctors Without Borders sends medical personnel to some of the most destitute and dangerous parts of the world and encourages them not only to save lives, but also to condemn the injustices they see. The group was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999. Médecins Sans Frontières was founded in 1971 in Paris by a band of young French doctors disillusioned with the neutrality of the Red Cross after treating the starving in Biafra at the end of the 1960s. Red Cross confidentiality prevented them from speaking out. They organized themselves after the widespread flooding in East Pakistan (later Bangladesh). The volunteer group has more than 27,000 personnel who are treating the wounded, the sick and the starving in countries around the world, including war zones....In 2007, the rollout of a new, cheap, easy-to-take pill to treat malaria came as a result of a two-year partnership between Sanofi-Aventis, the world's fourth-largest drug company, and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative, a campaign started by Doctors Without Borders to find new drugs for tropical diseases. The pill was made available at cost to international health agencies like the W.H.O., Unicef and the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
See their New York Times topics page for more.
posted by sallybrown at 7:32 PM on June 24, 2010
I started working with a mid-sized international NGO
How close to the actual field implementations (assuming there are any) are you? Can you get closer, even if its for a short visit?
I work for a large (one of the largest) international NGOs and after 3 years now primarily spent in third-world countries, with a significant amount of time spent in remote field locations in a host of countries, I can say real change does happen. It doesn't happen fast. It doesn't always happen. And not every org makes it happen. But it is possible.
Even my org isn't always successful. That's why there will always be a need for auditors, whistle-blowers, reporters and such ilk pointing out when we are being ineffective. But in some places the simple merit of being there and being temporarily ineffective is much more than anyone else can even try to have said to be doing - a good example of this has been some of our expired food reserves in remote parts of Sudan. Yeah, we fouled up there. But we were there distributing WFP's food, or trying to, when WFP couldn't get there.
My org works primarily in-field through what we call "Area Development Programs" (ADPs). Before ever starting any field work, the National Office (NO) works with government in a country (assuming it exists) at both the national and local levels, to identify key community leaders at the local levels, form committees, and then implement activities and projects that the community leaders request. If they say they need boreholes, we'll be doing Water and Sanitation (WATSAN) work there. If they are crippled by malaria, it'll be nets, preventative training, and the like. If they're a bit more developed, and want education or medical clinics, we'll be constructing them. The list goes on and on - animal husbandry, local crop sustenance, HIV AIDS prevention / treatment, even down to programs as basic as educating communities on the importance of basic hygiene and the importance of proper latrine usage and hand washing.
And not a single program - no matter what the focus - moves quickly. It just doesn't happen. The first world is designed to *move fast.* High speed internet, high speed trains, high speed limit interstate freeways. Fast acting relief, lower wait times for customer service, hell - fast food is an entire industry in and of itself. None of that exists in the 3rd world. Many of these countries have never been *industrialized* let alone modernized. And you want an NGO to go to the worst parts of these worst countries and snap their fingers? Yeah, not gonna happen.
Our ADPs are designed to be 15 year programs, over the course of which they are aimed to arc towards community adoption and eventually complete ownership of activities. 15 years is a looooong time. How many corporations would you say, in the first world, have realistic, actionable 15-year plans in place (hint: not many). Things happen a lot faster in the first world, but 15 years is a reasonable time horizon when you consider the context. Most of the staff in even our National Offices are new to computers - I was using word processing in Junior High. Many of our National Offices don't have reliable electricity because the countries don't have reliable electricity. The worst of them can't even get internet in-country, there's simply not the infrastructure, and so we connect them via satellite (VSAT). That's just the National Office - the head office. A typical NO will have anywhere from 20-60 ADPs that it is managing at a given time, and operational effectiveness (e.g. the ability to do work via email) deteriorates with each kilometer you get away from the capital city and a grasp on the office official language of operations (typically English or French).
In the end, its up for you to determine for your own NGO. With mine, I've been blessed - a good percentage of my time is spent seeing the family that now has a cow and can breed it with their neighbors on the other side of the village and their quality of life has *tripled* based on that one simple fact. I've seen communities creatively maximize a water pump designed to irrigate half an acre to reach 4-5 times that much, and what do they want? Another pump. I believe my NGO is bringing real change because I've seen it. Not all the time, and not everywhere, but it is there. It is slow but it is there.
I do think all the Dead Aid and Thomas Friendmans and what not make good points in their attempts to hold the culture of aid accountable, and those arguments hold some weight. But at the same time, I've seen even the most cursory studies of the past 20-30 years play out the fact that in the poorest parts of the world, real change is possible, and when effectively pursued, it is amazing in both its scale and scope. You need look no further than stats like median life expectancy at birth or infant mortality rates in such a time frame to see that the first world, if and when it so intends, can execute positive change in the third.
posted by allkindsoftime at 7:50 PM on June 24, 2010 [8 favorites]
How close to the actual field implementations (assuming there are any) are you? Can you get closer, even if its for a short visit?
I work for a large (one of the largest) international NGOs and after 3 years now primarily spent in third-world countries, with a significant amount of time spent in remote field locations in a host of countries, I can say real change does happen. It doesn't happen fast. It doesn't always happen. And not every org makes it happen. But it is possible.
Even my org isn't always successful. That's why there will always be a need for auditors, whistle-blowers, reporters and such ilk pointing out when we are being ineffective. But in some places the simple merit of being there and being temporarily ineffective is much more than anyone else can even try to have said to be doing - a good example of this has been some of our expired food reserves in remote parts of Sudan. Yeah, we fouled up there. But we were there distributing WFP's food, or trying to, when WFP couldn't get there.
My org works primarily in-field through what we call "Area Development Programs" (ADPs). Before ever starting any field work, the National Office (NO) works with government in a country (assuming it exists) at both the national and local levels, to identify key community leaders at the local levels, form committees, and then implement activities and projects that the community leaders request. If they say they need boreholes, we'll be doing Water and Sanitation (WATSAN) work there. If they are crippled by malaria, it'll be nets, preventative training, and the like. If they're a bit more developed, and want education or medical clinics, we'll be constructing them. The list goes on and on - animal husbandry, local crop sustenance, HIV AIDS prevention / treatment, even down to programs as basic as educating communities on the importance of basic hygiene and the importance of proper latrine usage and hand washing.
And not a single program - no matter what the focus - moves quickly. It just doesn't happen. The first world is designed to *move fast.* High speed internet, high speed trains, high speed limit interstate freeways. Fast acting relief, lower wait times for customer service, hell - fast food is an entire industry in and of itself. None of that exists in the 3rd world. Many of these countries have never been *industrialized* let alone modernized. And you want an NGO to go to the worst parts of these worst countries and snap their fingers? Yeah, not gonna happen.
Our ADPs are designed to be 15 year programs, over the course of which they are aimed to arc towards community adoption and eventually complete ownership of activities. 15 years is a looooong time. How many corporations would you say, in the first world, have realistic, actionable 15-year plans in place (hint: not many). Things happen a lot faster in the first world, but 15 years is a reasonable time horizon when you consider the context. Most of the staff in even our National Offices are new to computers - I was using word processing in Junior High. Many of our National Offices don't have reliable electricity because the countries don't have reliable electricity. The worst of them can't even get internet in-country, there's simply not the infrastructure, and so we connect them via satellite (VSAT). That's just the National Office - the head office. A typical NO will have anywhere from 20-60 ADPs that it is managing at a given time, and operational effectiveness (e.g. the ability to do work via email) deteriorates with each kilometer you get away from the capital city and a grasp on the office official language of operations (typically English or French).
In the end, its up for you to determine for your own NGO. With mine, I've been blessed - a good percentage of my time is spent seeing the family that now has a cow and can breed it with their neighbors on the other side of the village and their quality of life has *tripled* based on that one simple fact. I've seen communities creatively maximize a water pump designed to irrigate half an acre to reach 4-5 times that much, and what do they want? Another pump. I believe my NGO is bringing real change because I've seen it. Not all the time, and not everywhere, but it is there. It is slow but it is there.
I do think all the Dead Aid and Thomas Friendmans and what not make good points in their attempts to hold the culture of aid accountable, and those arguments hold some weight. But at the same time, I've seen even the most cursory studies of the past 20-30 years play out the fact that in the poorest parts of the world, real change is possible, and when effectively pursued, it is amazing in both its scale and scope. You need look no further than stats like median life expectancy at birth or infant mortality rates in such a time frame to see that the first world, if and when it so intends, can execute positive change in the third.
posted by allkindsoftime at 7:50 PM on June 24, 2010 [8 favorites]
tl;dr - keep working hard and keep asking this question. change is possible.
posted by allkindsoftime at 7:54 PM on June 24, 2010
posted by allkindsoftime at 7:54 PM on June 24, 2010
I work at an American NGO (non-profit), and I teach homeless and low income adults how to use the computer. People learn and use the computer to make their lives better by applying for jobs to using the online bus trip planner to make their day-to-day easier.
posted by soupy at 9:40 PM on June 24, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by soupy at 9:40 PM on June 24, 2010 [1 favorite]
I have a friend who worked for various (or one, I'm not sure) NGO's helping establish democratic voting in a number of Eastern European countries.
posted by galadriel at 10:24 PM on June 24, 2010
posted by galadriel at 10:24 PM on June 24, 2010
The March of Dimes figured very heavily in the fight against polio. They were the primary source of funding for the Salk and the Sabin teams, each of which developed effective vaccines.
The vaccines were so effective that the March of Dimes worked itself out of a job. So they changed missions about 50 years ago.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 11:33 PM on June 24, 2010
The vaccines were so effective that the March of Dimes worked itself out of a job. So they changed missions about 50 years ago.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 11:33 PM on June 24, 2010
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It's important to remember that it takes a lot of work to accomplish even small things when you're trying to improve peoples' lives in the developing world. Westerners, who may be deeply accustomed to our societies' capitalistic sanctification of intense, efficient problem-solving, could easily become very frustrated and disillusioned with the slow and recidivist pace of "fixing" the things that NGOs concern themselves with.
All that being said, you might eventually begin to feel that a lot of NGOs exist to perpetuate their own existence. This may not be wrong.
posted by clockzero at 6:28 PM on June 24, 2010 [1 favorite]