Nongovernmental Organizations

Nongovernmental organizations, in short NGOs, play a key role to escalate the development of a country. There is numerous numbers of NGOs all around the world, mostly in developing countries, both unilateral and multilateral. The types of NGOs vary in terms of ‘the level of organization, geographical location, and main purpose’ (Kim 12). Though having different types, there is a common goal of all the NGOs in the world—to act as a tool in the development sector by ensuring the development of rural or unprivileged layer of society where government facilities fail to reach. According to World Bank (1992) the definition of NGOs is—‘many groups and institutions that are entirely or largely independent of government and that have primarily humanitarian

In those situations field workers of NGOs work hand in hand with the government to provide reliefs and humanitarian services to the huge number of victims. NGOs also work as a channel to bring foreign funds and reliefs in such critical conditions. In their briefing paper, the Overseas Development Institute wrote, 'Over the past two decades official donors have increased their funding of NGO development projects. As these funds began to account for a significant part of the overall aid program, it became increasingly necessary for donor organizations to ensure that these funds were being used well. Because of the limitations of available assessments, donors started to commission or undertake for themselves their own impact assessments.’ (The Impact of NGO Development Project 1) It is also mentioned in the paper that most of the donors are satisfied with the outcome that NGOs are generating by using the donations properly. In his paper, Kim presented the example of earthquake in Haiti that occurred in January 2010. He wrote ‘NGOs were among the first international actors who offered to help affected people. They provided tons of food and clothing for desperate people who had lost everything in the earthquake. The government of Haiti did not function to improve the situation, and the efforts of other nations were limited in comparison to

These NGOs are mostly Advocacy NGOs that work with or against the government to establish human rights friendly policies and make the society a better place to live with the support from foreign countries. At present, many countries work with NGOs in human rights related issues and appreciate their works. Kim pointed out four major areas of human rights activities done by Advocacy NGOs in his paper—‘education, standard-setting, monitoring compliance with international standards, and enforcement.’ (Kim 17) NGOs also work closely with the World Bank’s launched projects. NGOs collaborate and help by monitoring the performances of project activities. Kim brought the example of The Narmada dam project in his paper. He wrote ‘When the Indian government received funding from the World Bank to construct the Narmada dam, local NGOs allied with international NGOs protested the project vociferously because of its impact on the environment and local people’s lives. The World Bank withdrew from the project because of the large protests organized by NGOs and local people.’ (Kim 17) Thus NGOs play an important role to change the existing policies and systems in a country and make life easier of people from all