Free Essay: Challenges Facing NGOs in Developing Countries
Nongovernmental Organizations, commonly known as NGOs, play an important role in developing countries. For decades, these organizations compliment governments in meeting the needs of their people. Through investments in sectors like health, education and agriculture, developing economies continue to benefit widely from NGOs even in the 21st century. While this is the case, NGOs do not achieve their objectives on a silver platter. They overcome and confront challenges in these countries. This paper discusses some of the leading challenges facing NGOs in developing countries.
The first challenge is lack of enough funds. It is doubtless that NGOs only thrive when they have enough money to run their projects. However, this is not always the case. NGOs in developing countries go through strenuous financial conditions, as finding reliable donors is an uphill task. A few of the donors that exist give conditions, which repel most organizations, as they cannot meet them. NGOs further land in these situations because they do not seek to mobilize funds locally. Instead, they wait for funding from foreign nations like UK and US, which have a history of supporting NGOs in these countries. At the heart of the issue of finances is lack of project sustainability as most of the projects initiated by NGOs hardly generate reliable revenue.
The second challenge affecting NGOs in third world countries is poor governance. Most NGOs in these countries are run unprofessionally. In some cases, regions do not appreciate the need to have a structured management for these organizations. It is also hard to realize good governance since most of the organizations are owned by individuals, who may have established them for their personal gain. This undermines transparency and accountability, making it difficult for them to achieve their goals. Moreover, it might not be possible to have a board of directors for an organization if you are not willing to pay them.
Thirdly, NGOs in developing countries hardly have a strategic plan. This means, they operate without a mission, vision and objectives of the organization. This leaves most of them vulnerable and unable to track their performance and measure their impact after a period. Poor communication is also another challenge that affects NGOs. Research shows that most organizations of this nature, which operate in developing countries have unstable internet connection while others do not have email addresses for their organization. They therefore receive no literature on various issues of economic development and governance. The result is that they lose touch with their countries, region and the world at large, rendering them obsolete.
NGOs also face limited capacity in various ways. In particular, they have limited organizational and technical capacity to achieve their objectives. Very few are willing to invest in capacity building for their workers. As a result, this weak capacity is seen in their inability to mobilize funds, embrace good governance, develop networks and uphold good leadership and management.
Another challenge is the strained relationship between local NGOs and International NGOs. Local NGOs blame international ones for competing for their space and attention. They argue that INGOs overshadow them, making their impact, almost negligible.
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Online Resources:
http://www.academia.edu/1001704/The_widespread_challenges_of_NGOs_in_developing_countries_Case_studies_from_Iran
http://www.penkenya.org/UserSiteFiles/public/challenges%20and%20opportunities%20facing%20NGOS.pdf