Sunday 26 July 2009

On NGOs

--- Saqlain Imam wrote:

> Non-governmental Organisation’s ‘fair’ in Karachi
> may have been an eventful
> extravaganza but it would deliver hardly anything to
> poor people of the
> third world. The NGO phenomenon in fact has devoured
> the voluntary youth
> that used to work for some political ideology and
> thus could pose threat to
> the status quo or bring about a change subsequently.
>
> Now the foreign funded NGOs have corrupted the youth
> by doing the altruistic
> work some payment. The youth from poor and lower
> income groups of the third
> world societies working in foreign funded NGOs gets
> subsistence level
> payment while their ‘wellc-nnected’ bosses get hefty
> remuneration for their
> ‘service’ to humanity!
>
>
> According to some critics of the NGOs, the trouble
> is that, as opposed to
> most governments in the world, NGOs are
> authoritarian. They are not elected
> institutions. They cannot be voted down. The people
> have no power over them.
> Most NGOs are ominously and tellingly secretive
> about their activities and
> finances.
>
> Always self-appointed, they answer to no
> constituency. Though unelected and
> at many an occasion ignorant of local realities,
> they confront the
> democratically chosen and those who voted them into
> office. A few of them
> are enmeshed in crime and corruption.
>
> Contrary to their teachings, the financing of NGO's
> is invariably obscure
> and their sponsors unknown. The bulk of the income
> of most non-governmental
> organizations, even the largest ones, comes from -
> usually foreign - powers.
> Many NGO's serve as official contractors for foreign
> governments.
>
> Human Rights Watch lately offered this tortured
> argument in favor of
> expanding the role of human rights NGO's: "The best
> way to prevent famine
> today is to secure the right to free expression - so
> that misguided
> government policies can be brought to public
> attention and corrected before
> food shortages become acute."
>
> It blatantly ignored the fact that respect for human
> and political rights
> does not fend off natural disasters and disease. The
> two countries with the
> highest incidence of AIDS are Africa's only two true
> democracies - Botswana
> and South Africa. It is a normal practice of NGOs
> that they pick up less
> important issue to misplace emphasis and
> subsequently misguide the people.
>
>
> In an interview, given to Revista Terra, Brazil, Dr.
> Sam Vaknin said when
> asked: “Q. NGOs are growing quickly in Brazil due to
> the discredit
> politicians and governmental institutions face after
> decades of corruption,
> elitism etc. The young people feel they can do
> something concrete working as
> activists in a NGOs. Isn't that a good thing? What
> kind of dangers someone
> should be aware before enlisting himself as a
> supporter of a NGO?
>
> A. One must clearly distinguish between NGOs in the
> sated, wealthy,
> industrialized West - and (the far more numerous)
> NGOs in the developing and
> less developed countries.
>
> Western NGOs are the heirs to the Victorian
> tradition of "White Man's
> Burden". They are missionary and charity-orientated.
> They are designed to
> spread both aid (food, medicines, contraceptives,
> etc.) and Western values.
> They closely collaborate with Western governments
> and institutions against
> local governments and institutions. They are
> powerful, rich, and care less
> about the welfare of the indigenous population than
> about "universal"
> principles of ethical conduct.
>
> Their counterparts in less developed and in
> developing countries serve as
> substitutes to failed or dysfunctional state
> institutions and services. They
> are rarely concerned with the furthering of any
> agenda and more preoccupied
> with the well-being of their constituents, the
> people.”
>
> A critics of NGOs citing the role of the BGOs in
> Iraq says “The NGO, in sum,
> becomes an arm of the international bureaucracy that
> ends up, consciously or
> unconsciously, doing the work of U.S. imperialism.”
>
> It is high time we assessed the political
> contribution of NGOs in promoting
> free market economy under the rubric of promoting
> democracy and human
> rights. Moreover, the destruction these NGOs have
> caused to the politics of
> ideology should also be calculated. It won’t be
> wrong to state that the NGOs
> have sapped the revolutionary will of the youth.
>
>
>
> Saqlain Imam
>
>
>
>

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