PHA-Exchange> The missionary position: NGOs and develepment in Africa

[Aviva]

From: "Firoze Manji" <firoze at fahamu.org> and Carl O'Coill.
Published in International Affairs, 78:3 (2002) 567-83.

Excerpts:
NGOs today contribute marginally to the relief of
poverty/ill-health/malnutrition, but significantly to undermining the
struggle of the people to emancipate themselves from oppression...Programs
delivered by these NGOs do not really seek to redress the social
circumstances that cause impoverishment/preventable ill-health and
malnutrition....     The development discourse is framed not in the language
of emancipation or justice, but with the vocabulary of charity, technical
expertise, neutrality and paternalism....
Development as a whole has worked to undermine popular mobilization....
 NGOs accept or do not comment on the manner in which the state exercises
its power...
NGOs work is limited to project work, armed with manuals and technical
tricks rather than seeking justice and standing up against violations of
Human Rights (HRs)...
Many NGOs were co-opted by funders to taking up such a role (a typical
example is work to set up safety nets for the poor)... Development NGOs have
become an integral part of a system that sacrifices respect for justice and
rights, instead taking a missionary position...
If NGOs stand in favor of emancipation, then the focus of their work has
invariably to be in the equity/HRs/political domain, supporting those social
movements that seek to challenge a social system that benefits a few and
impoverishes the many.


  The full article is available at
> http://www.fahamu.org.uk/downloads/missionaryposition.pdf
or from the author's email address above.