Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.3.96.970520110829.1886E-100000@beta.tricity.wsu.edu> Date: Tue, 20 May 1997 11:20:53 -0700 From: Tom Hodges <mailto:thodges@TRICITY.WSU.EDU> Subject: Re: Boring To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
Dear Peter and Joaquim (thanks for starting this):Probably there are 1,000s of NGOs, some quite small and others very large (Red Cross/Red Crescent). More than 100 are accredited with UN organizations?
Many of the small NGOs will be working in development in local areas on small projects with little or no external funding and with no multinational or government development agency setting their agenda. It is possible that these grassroots efforts offer the greatest hope for sustainable social and economic development throughout the world. Also many of these NGOs have some sort of religious affiliation, this may sometimes contribute to a "hidden agenda" but not always - smomtimes it will just explain why the volunteers put so much time and effort into making a project succeed.
A possible branching of this thread might be ideas and successful efforts for (1) scaling up grassroots projects to somewhat larger sizes with vitiating them (2) key elements/features of successful grassroots projects.
Tom Hodges
On Tue, 20 May 1997, Peter Wynia wrote: [snip] > were not established to develop the 3rd world, and in 1997 organizations
> which 'only' try to support 3rd world development without some kind of
> hidden agenda are rare, as most of the 'aid' has commercialized.
>
> For non-commercial efforts, of course there are several NGO's, but it would
> be interesting to study how effective NGO's are, how commercialized NGO's
> are, et cetera. I would (also) like to hear the opinion of friends and
> colleagues in the developing or third world regarding *their* perception of
> the US role in the so-called '1st/3rd world situation'. Hopefully this is
> not too boring to the DEVEL-L community ;-)
>
>
> Peter Wynia