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Summary IPC2601 - International Organisations NGO's
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- University Of South Africa (Unisa)
Summary IPC2601 - International Organisations NGO's
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Nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, are generally accepted to beorganizations which have not been established by governments or agreements
among governments. According to Harold Jacobson, author of one of the
established texts in international organization, NGOs, like intergovernmental
organizations (IGOs), have regularly scheduled meetings of their members'
representatives, specified decision-making procedures, and a permanent staff.
[1] Their members are usually individuals and private associations, rather than
states, and they may be formally established networks of other organizations.
A wide variety of NGOs function in intractable conflicts. These include conflict
resolution NGOs, as well as those in humanitarian assistance, development,
human rights, peacebuilding, and other areas.
While the term "NGOs" is sometimes used interchangeably with "grassroots
organizations," "social movements," "major groups," and "civil society," NGOs
are not the same as any of these. Grassroots organizations are generally locally
organized groups of individuals which have spring up to empower their
members and take action on particular issues of concern to them. Some NGOs
are grassroots organizations. But many are not. Social movements are broader
and more diffuse than organizations; a social movement encompasses a broad
segment of society which is interested in fomenting or resisting social change
in some particular issue--area, such as disarmament, environmental, civil
rights, or women's movements.[2] A social movement may include NGOs and
grassroots organizations. "Major groups" is a term coined at the time of the
United Nations 1992 Rio "Earth Summit" as a part of Agenda 21 to encompass
the societal sectors which were expected to play roles, in addition to nation-
states and intergovernmental organizations, in environment and development.
NGOs are identified as one of these sectors, but NGOs overlap with many of
the other sectors; there are women's NGOs, farmers' NGOs, labor NGOs, and
business NGOs, among others.[3] Finally "civil society" is a term that became
popularized at the end of the Cold War to describe what appeared to have
been missing in state-dominated societies, broad societal participation in and
concern for governance, but not necessarily government. Civil society is
thought to be the necessary ingredient for democratic governance to arise.
NGOs are one part of civil society.
, While it is often argued that NGOs are the voice of the people, representing
grassroots democracy, a counter argument is made that NGOs have tended to
reinforce, rather than counter, existing power structures, having members and
headquarters that are primarily in the rich northern countries.[4] Some also
believe that NGO decision-making does not provide for responsible,
democratic representation or accountability.
NGOs themselves can be local, national, or international. Sometimes
international NGOs are referred to as INGOs. Historically, most NGOs
accredited to the UN Economic and Social Council have been international, but
contrary to the popular wisdom, even the first group of NGOs accredited to
ECOSOC in the 1940s included some national NGOs.
Nongovernmental organizations are not a homogenous group. The long list of
acronyms that has accumulated around NGOs can be used to illustrate this.
People speak of NGOs, INGOs (international NGOs), BINGOs (business
international NGOs), RINGOs (religious international NGOs), ENGOs
(environmental NGOs), GONGOs (government-operated NGOs -- which may
have been set up by governments to look like NGOs in order to qualify for
outside aid), QUANGOs (quasi-nongovernmental organizations -- i.e. those that
are at least partially created or supported by states), and many others.
While some other groups are nongovernmental, they are not usually included
under the term NGO. The term usually explicitly excludes for-profit
corporations, and private contractors, and multinational corporations (MNCs),
although associations formed by MNCs, such as the International Chamber of
Commerce, are considered NGOs. Similarly, political parties, liberation
movements, and terrorist organizations are not usually considered NGOs.
Recently, however, some from outside the field of international organization,
especially military writers, have begun to refer to terrorist movements as
NGOs, some would say in order to discredit NGOs. Peter Willetts, an authority
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