What is ngos

The most effective modern networks still derive their impact from being coalitions of well-organized NGOs. A variant of the global network is a global caucus. This arises when a group of NGOs come together as lobbyists at an international diplomatic event, such as a UN agenda-setting conference or a UN forum for negotiating on the formulation or implementation of a treaty. The caucus will be highly focused on achieving specific outcomes from the diplomatic process.

The impression is given that such a caucus is an ad hoc grouping that only exists during the two or three weeks of the relevant diplomatic meetings. It may be accurate that the particular combination of NGOs having the particular political purpose will never meet again. However, a successful caucus will be well prepared and will carry forward procedural expertise, substantive knowledge, political status and diplomatic contacts gained in one forum through to the next forum, handling similar questions.

Key organizations and key individuals provide continuity. Women's organizations and environmentalists are among the most successful operating in this way. When we consider something as loose and transient as a caucus, it is perhaps inappropriate to call it an organization.

Nevertheless, structured umbrella coalitions, networks and caucuses are all handled in the same way by governments. They may be present under the label of the coalition or of its constituents or through both routes. Umbrella INGOs have consultative status and networks usually are listed, but caucuses rarely have any formal recognition.

Coalitions that focus on policy outcomes in a particular country or a particular intergovernmental organization will tend to take the form of an umbrella organization. Coalitions that focus on issues tend to take the form of a network or a caucus, with different members being active in different policy forums. The preamble argued that "one of the fundamental prerequisites for the achievement of sustainable development is broad public participation in decision-making" and this must be done as a "real social partnership" with "individuals, groups and organizations".

Communication must reach down to individuals at the level of local communities and particular sectors of society of importance for the environment must be mobilized. The section devoted separate chapters to nine Major Groups, under the following headings. It was influenced by the personal concerns of Maurice Strong and by the lobbying of NGOs who were accredited to the conference. It is arbitrary to single out women but not men; the young but not the elderly; indigenous people but not other minorities; unions but not professional associations; business and industry but not commerce, finance and services; natural scientists but not social scientists; and farmers but not fishing communities.

It is anomalous, but understandable, to emphasize one level of government, local authorities, when they have responsibility for all the Major Groups. Above all it is incoherent to have NGOs as one of the Major Groups, when all the other eight including associations of local authorities are represented in the UN system via the ECOSOC "arrangements for consultation with non-governmental organizations". This incoherence arises because many in the other Major Groups did not wish to be labeled as NGOs and there had to be a category to encompass environment and development NGOs.

In the Commission on Sustainable Development set up after the Earth Summit, special arrangements were made to allow for participation by all the new groups that had engaged with the UN for the first time at Rio. These categories are used both by the NGOs in their own caucusing and in the formal proceedings. In addition, the CSD has gone beyond the normal consultative arrangements to hold various types of formal, and informal, panels and seminars. Notably, each of the annual sessions starts with the appropriate Major Groups making presentations in special "stakeholder dialogues" on the different substantive agenda items for that year.

In pragmatic terms, the illogicality of having NGOs as one of the nine groups of NGOs serves a useful function, in enabling any organization that does not fit elsewhere to be included. It used to be widely argued that NGOs were predominantly a feature of Western societies. This false proposition was derived from a mixture of ignorance, Western presumptions of their superiority in the Cold War and nationalist rhetoric from authoritarian regimes.

All societies in modern times have had large numbers of NGOs at least at the local level. Under the most authoritarian regimes or in the least developed countries there are still self-help co-operative groups, community welfare associations, religious groups, professional and scientific associations, sports and recreational bodies, etc.

The presence or absence of a democratic political culture is one of the major variables determining the number of NGOs, but the size of a country, its ethnic, religious and cultural diversity, the complexity of its economy and the quality of its communication infrastructure are also of crucial importance. Thus there are tens of thousands of NGOs in countries such as Bangladesh and India, while there are relatively few in Iceland or Finland.

A particular source of controversy is the idea that the major NGOs are "Northern". Many people are still trapped by the mental prejudice that organizations have to be situated in geographical space. It might be a practical necessity for an international NGO to have a headquarters office in a particular building, but the location of the office in a North American or a European city does not convert a global NGO into a Northern NGO.

Equally, the historical origins of an organization being formed in a particular country does not mean it is currently a Northern rather than a global organization. The proper criteria for assessment whether an organization is global are the location of its membership, the staffing of its headquarters, the sources of its funding and the content of its programs. An organization, such as Amnesty International, with 56 National Sections, groups in some 40 other countries, an International Secretariat from over 50 countries and an African Secretary-General is a global NGO, even if it started in Britain and has its headquarters in London.

Due to the spread of democracy and the improvements in communications, many international NGOs that started in individual countries became global at the end of the twentieth century. Much as observers wish to gain greater understanding by defining different categories of NGOs, it is not possible to do so. We may distinguish different activities, but specific NGOs will often change the balance of the activities they pursue. The most common distinction is between operational and campaigning NGOs.

This may be interpreted as the choice between small-scale change achieved directly through projects and large-scale change promoted indirectly through influence on the political system. Operational NGOs have to mobilize resources, in the form of financial donations, materials or volunteer labor, in order to sustain their projects and programs. This process may require quite complex organization.

Charity shops, staffed by volunteers, in premises provided at nominal rents and selling donated goods, end up providing finance to the national headquarters. Students in their vacations or during a break in their education provide labor for projects. Finance obtained from grants or contracts, from governments, foundations or companies, require time and expertise spent on planning, preparing applications, budgeting, accounting and reporting.

Major fund-raising events require skills in advertising, media relations and motivating supporters. Thus, operational NGOs need to possess an efficient headquarters bureaucracy, in addition to the operational staff in the field. Campaigning NGOs will carry out much the same functions, but with a different balance between them.

Fund-raising is still necessary, but on a smaller scale and it can serve the symbolic function of strengthening the donors' identification with the cause. Persuading people to donate their time is necessary, but, in addition to a small number of people giving a great deal of time, it is also necessary to be able to mobilize large numbers for brief periods. External donors may not impose onerous administrative burdens, but supporters still have to be supplied with information on an efficient regular basis.

Major events will aim to attract favorable publicity rather than raise funds. Therefore, despite their differences, both operational and campaigning NGOs need to engage in fund-raising, mobilization of work by supporters, organizing special events, cultivating the media and administering a headquarters.

In reality, the distinctions are not as sharp as the labels suggest. Operational NGOs often move into campaigning when projects regularly face similar problems and the impact of the projects seems to be insufficient. All the large development and environment operational NGOs now run some regular campaigns, at least by supporting campaigning networks.

Similarly, campaigning NGOs often feel they cannot ignore the immediate practical problems of people in their policy domain. Various other types of NGOs can be regarded as promoting change by variants on these two primary functions.

Research institutes have special forms of operational programs, in which the goal is to increase knowledge and understanding. They range across a spectrum from those promoting an academic, non-political image to those collating and disseminating information for campaigning purposes.

Professional bodies, trade unions, recreational groups and associations of companies provide program activities required by and for their members, but they may also campaign to enhance the economic interests and the status of their organizations. These categories and several others have some practical value for everyday discourse, but they do not provide the basis for an analytical classification of NGOs.

The most effective way to distinguish between NGOs is to obtain precise data on a range of different variables. The number of full-time employees, the number of members and the funding of the annual budget give measures of the size of any NGO.

Opinion poll data on recognition of and support for an NGO or its goals, along with the frequency of positive mentions in the news media, give measures of its political strength. There are also more subjective variables, such as the professional skill, knowledge and experience of the personnel, that matter for both operational and campaigning purposes.

Among some political activists, there is a tendency to see organizations, particularly hierarchical organizations, as conservative and oppressive. As a result NGOs may be seen as part of the established order.

This view is enhanced by the fact that prominent NGOs may have a long history, complex structures, technical literature and a leadership who engage more with global politics than with their members or supporters. Thus at times NGOs are contrasted with the 'new social movements'. These can be portrayed as dynamic, innovative and non-hierarchical. The oldest example is the labor movement, going back to the nineteenth century. Since the s, there have been references to the new social movements, such as those for peace, women's rights, development, the environment and anti-racism.

They were 'new', partly because they were not based on class divisions and partly because new methods of mass mobilization became possible. In December , a higher level of aggregation, into a diffuse and incoherent coalition, was recognized as the anti-globalization movement, when mass demonstrations disrupted the Seattle Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization.

There are both conservative and radical NGOs and many other shades of political opinion along the spectrum. There are some writers, including some academics, who refer to 'progressive' social movements, as if all social movements were progressive.

This ignores the existence of reactionary social movements, such as neo-fascists and racists, who cannot be distinguished from other movements by any objective criteria. Furthermore, NGOs should not be contrasted with social movements, because NGOs are essential components of social movements. If an idea is to catch the imagination of people, it has to be articulated by leaders through speeches, pamphlets or visual images. If the idea is going to reach large numbers of people, resources have to be mobilized and allocated to communication processes.

If demonstrations are to occur, they have to be organized. If a movement is to achieve change, priorities have to be selected and targets designated. If a protest lasts more than a few days to become a movement, existing organizations or new organizations will provide the skeleton that transforms an amorphous mass into a strong body.

This is not to say that social movements are composed solely of NGOs. A social movement consists of a range of organizations who collaborate for some common purpose that is sufficiently compelling to generate a sense of collective identity, along with all the people, within and outside the organizations, who identify with the common goals and the collective identity.

Thus, a social movement is more than a coalition of NGOs and less than society as a whole. In the s, four mutually-reinforcing processes of change led to emphasis on the concept of civil society. There was an explosion in global communication facilities; the new forms of private association, from transnational community organizations to networks and caucuses, were recognized; the fall of communist regimes in Eastern Europe and military regimes in developing countries promoted participation in the new democratic systems; and the major UN conferences produced an unprecedented scale of global public engagement with intergovernmental events.

In addition, the secretariats of the UN and other intergovernmental organizations sought to overcome the crises generated by the unilateralism of United States administrations and the failure of Congress to deliver US financial obligations, by appealing to global civil society as a source of legitimacy for international co-operation. The simplest, most common, meaning given to "civil society" is all public activity, by any individuals, organizations or movements, other than government employees acting in a governmental capacity.

In the broadest sense, it encompasses all social, economic, cultural and political relations, but the emphasis is usually on the political aspects of these relations. Thus, it can be used in reference to any level from the local to the country as a whole, or even global interactions.

It also clearly goes beyond traditional NGOs to all forms of networks, caucuses and movements. As a result, it serves as a political tool for all those who want to promote innovative, wider and deeper levels of political participation. NGO Organization committed to the root causes of the problems trying to better the quality of life epecially for the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized in urban and rural areas. NGO Organizations established by and for the community without or with little intervention from the government; they are not only a charity organization, but work on socio-economic-cultural activities.

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Learn the requirements, costs, and pros and cons of setting up a c 3. What Is Philanthropy? Philanthropy is charitable giving by individuals and organizations to worthy causes and includes donating money, time, and other forms of altruism. What Is Foreign Aid? Foreign aid is money that one country voluntarily transfers to another, which can take the form of a gift, a grant or a loan.

The acronym NGO stands for non-governmental organization. With only slightly more specificity, an NGO is any organization, usually non-profit, that operates independently of a government. Contrary to common usage, the NGO title does not necessarily imply the organization works abroad; NGOs can be local, national, or international.