The Unintended Consequences of NGOs

 Cassie Lawler

International Politics: POLS 170-03

Professor Shirk

Due: Wednesday, April 20, 2022


Blog Post #4

The Unintended Consequences of NGOs

Non-governmental organizations are non-profit that operate outside of the government, are independently organized and run to further a political motive, whether that motive be in the realm of humanitarianism, labor protections, or environmental, among many other things. Although the overwhelming majority of the time, these entities are well-meaning with aspirations to pick up where the government leaves off and serve a purpose for the greater good, they are typically not as advantageous for those they seek to help as they intend. The major caveat among NGOs in modern society is that they reap unintended consequences upon creation at whatever community, national, or international level they require mainly due to the fact that they crowd out government services and impede the existing and future efforts for the cause. Unfortunately, this interference with the government often ends in devastation for all parties involved.

As Sebastian Mallaby writes in his article “NGOs: Fighting Poverty, Hurting the Poor,” “clinics and factories are being deprived of electricity by Californians whose idea of an electricity crisis is a handful of summer blackouts. But it is also a tragedy for the fight against poverty worldwide because projects in dozens of countries are similarly held up for fear of activist resistance.” The article later goes on to make the general conclusion that those organizations outside of an issue take whatever morsels of misinformation they can get to try and fix something that the government is better suited to do. The bottom line is that the non-governmental organizations take away from what the government has already built and plans to do so. NGOs duly do this by usurping government workers by offering more money to do the same job. This is not a problem lost on anybody as this is often the case in our capitalistic modern society but in the case of philanthropic endeavors end up contributing to a cycle of poverty, or in general achieving the antithesis of the original goal.

Uganda is among some of the nations in the world with the highest infant mortality rates and despite the government’s efforts to widespread their healthcare services, NGOs have come in to provide the same services for profit. This presents many issues with funding and donor dependence and in this way, NGOs are doing these tasks all for their donors and not actually for people in need. Financial dependence and standing has an exceedingly large impact on the motivations of NGOs. These NGOs in turn hyper fixate on a single issue and end up placing more of a burden on the disadvantaged population than their original intention was to help. In her article “Why Well-Meaning NGOs Sometimes Do More Harm than Good,” author Erika Deserranno discusses this situation in Uganda and an NGO that followed this suit. Deserranno maintains that “this particular NGO generates its funding through the “parallel-task” model, a structure gaining in popularity in the NGO space. In this model, workers both provide free services and sell useful products (like fortified oil, cotton soap, and toothpaste) to the households they visit. By earning its own revenue, the thinking goes, the NGO is able to pay workers while relying less on donors since workers with the NGO keep a portion of each successful sale they make.”

Despite NGO’s overarching responsibility to help those in need and mission to do just that, they often make matters worse by working separately from government organizations. This simple fact is one that has been repeated through the course of NGOs history and at its current pace, does not seem to be slowing down anytime soon. 



Sources: https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/international-aid-development-ngos-crowding-out-government

Comments

  1. Jack CahalaneApril 20, 2022 at 10:47 PM

    I thought was a very well written post. I think you pick up on an important point relative to the idea that although NGOs have good intentions, the outcome of their actions often do not exactly reflect their intentions. I think that the example you give relative to Uganda exemplifies a potential solution to better implementing NGOs. I believe by efficiently funding NGOs and ensuring their actions match their intentions, NGOs can be very effective in bettering the world.

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