Frequently Asked Questions

Please click the questions below to be taken down to their respective answers.

1. What are NGOs?
2. What are the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)?
3. What are Western NGOs' aims for Africa?
4. What are Western NGOs up to in Africa?
5. Isn't low level technology a first step; surely a hand pump is better than nothing?
6. Many NGOs advocate behaviour change rather than material transformation. What does this mean?
7. Isn't ensuring people's survival the priority?
8. But Western NGOs ensure they work in partnership with local people to meet their needs, don't they?
9. But Western NGOs work in partnership with African states now, don't they?
10. But surely we can't just trust African politicians?
11. But donors have to monitor to ensure the money goes to the right people, don't they?
12. What is WORLDwrite's alternative?

1. What are NGOs?

They are organisations with philanthropic aims, benevolent funds and aid providers, often church-based, they date back at least two centuries. However, the phrase "non-governmental organisation" became established in 1945 as part of the United Nations Charter which, for the sake of "balance" and supposed "independence", proscribed a consultative role for organisations that were neither governments nor member states. Many diverse types of bodies are now described as NGOs. It is therefore difficult to provide an all-encompassing definition, yet there are some distinct characteristics. An NGO must be independent from the direct control of any government and be a non-profit organisation. It is also fair to say that Western NGOs mainly focus on humanitarian issues, aid and, more recently, sustainable development in the developing world, and work towards the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

It is interesting that even though they are non-governmental and indeed pride themselves on challenging their governments' policies, Western NGO campaigns bare an uncanny resemblance to Western government thinking and their institutions' preoccupations. The campaign for debt relief for example, which was initiated by the World Bank, saw NGOs popularising the campaign and regaining legitimacy for this unpopular institution. NGOs took up Gordon Brown and Tony Blair's recipe for the developing world through the Make Poverty History campaign at the time of the Gleneagles G8 meeting in 2005. In doing so they openly campaigned for support for Tony Blair as their mouthpiece. Western governments and their international financial institutions such as the World Bank have welcomed and courted Western NGOs, incorporating their thinking in policymaking. It could be argued that far from being "neutral" NGOs act as the radical arm of the West's intervention in the developing world, even providing the humanitarian wing of direct military action in some countries. Many NGOs are demanding military intervention in Darfur, for example.

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2. What are the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)?

The United Nations Millennium Development Goals are described as "eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015."¹ These goals are not only seen as ambitious, galvanising "unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of the world's poorest", but as a new "expanded vision of development". This redefined version of development rejects universal prosperity and material development for the developing world and instead focuses on what can be called survival-only goals, such as halving extreme poverty. We have coined the phrase "miserable development goals" as the MDGs assume that people in the developing world should give up their dreams and instead focus on goals that deal with extreme poverty and make just-keeping-people-alive their aim. As end goals go for people living in the twenty first century, these represent a truly shocking downgrading of human potential, aspirations and needs.

1. Source: http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

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3. What are Western NGOs' aims for Africa?

Good question. Western NGOs have come a long way from their more traditional remit of providing aid in emergencies for those most in need. NGOs now work beyond providing emergency relief to intervening directly in international politics, seeking to address, as they see it, the long term problems of the developing world. They have shifted to what is known as a "rights based" development approach. This emphasises "advocacy" as a key role for Western NGOs, providing "a voice" for the poorest in the world and ensuring that people live what are termed "sustainable livelihoods". This rights based approach puts human rights at the centre of developmental work and the Millennium Development Goals are its practical goals.

The rights based approach has made sustainable development its remit, as this is seen as the most appropriate form of development for the developing world. The right to the basics of food, water and shelter sums up their approach and has effectively redefined development to include only what is really just survival. This approach champions the use of appropriate technology and methods that respect supposed rural traditions and culture whilst protecting the environment from the industrialisation and infrastructure which has spawned serious development in the West. Consequently, Western NGO-supported projects in Africa focus on low tech and small-scale development for the worst off in the world, promoting hand tools and household production as a solution to their long term problems.²

2. See WORLDwrite's critical charter, Time to ditch the Sustainababble, here

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4. What are Western NGOs up to in Africa?

Here are some examples:

1. Oxfam's "making fun of a serious issue" campaign in Darfur's refugee camps. Obviously in refugee camps disease is a constant threat and to tackle this, Oxfam were concerned that the thousands of children there washed their hands after going to the toilet. They came up with what they call "an ingenious solution" by making lessons in basic hygiene serious fun in the camps through singing, dancing and drawing.³
2. Save the Children celebrated the first of 280,000 baby caps knitted and crocheted by Americans recently. This is part of their Caps to the Capital initiative for newborns in Malawi. Save the Children Malawi Deputy Country Director Jeanne Russell said: "Showing that keeping a newborn warm - in this case with a knitted cap - is one element of a package of low-cost but evidence-based measures for saving newborn lives."⁴
3. One of Water Aid's revolutionary technologies for Ghana is still being advocated. It is the rope pump, featured in our film. The rope pump is a simple water lifting device that uses a bicycle wheel that can be made locally to pump water from wells and boreholes, with no parts imported. The cost of the rope pump is a quarter of the cost of electric pumps. Its apparent benefits, apart from the low cost, are that is uses less energy because it's just hand labour, its lighter to handle, the height is within reach of very young children and little training is needed. The downsides apparently are how to make it more durable by using rust resistible materials and the problem of making it attractive to communities.⁵

3. Source: http://www.oxfam.org.uk/oxfam_in_action/impact/success_stories/kalma.html

4. Source: http://www.savethechildren.org/campaigns/caps-to-the-capital/caps-arrive-in-malawi-save.html

5. Source: http://www.wateraid.org/documents/plugin_documents/pilotingtheropepump.pdf

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5. Isn't low level technology a first step; surely a hand pump is better than nothing?

Make do and mend is one thing – just like getting whatever you can to survive - but making this necessity an end goal and calling it development is a disgrace. Western NGOs have played a key role in redefining what development means. At best, prioritising very basic needs may improve survival rates for the poorest, although all the evidence suggests that in fact advances in medicine have had the greatest impact on mortality rates. Is "just surviving" all that millions of people can expect? Must they accept their lot, moderate their needs and downgrade their aspirations to suit what NGOs believe to be appropriate and a priority? It is a misnomer to call survival development. It means that poor farmers will remain poor farmers and women in rural areas will remain stuck in household production. The low horizons exemplified by this approach suggest the material comforts and welfare we rely on in the West are not appropriate and not possible for our peers. Hence piped water in every home, flushing loos, major electrification, industry, domestic appliances and so on are not campaigned for, regardless of our peers' aspirations to have these basics.

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6. Many NGOs advocate behaviour change rather than material transformation. What does this mean?

Many Western NGOs expect developing countries to adopt what are considered the "post-industrial" norms that we practice in Western society. These can include attitudes to women, homosexuals, children and minorities. Whilst being denied material transformation and having an unequal role in the global economy and global decision making - and without the means to provide social and economic welfare for their people - African governments are criticised for not advancing people's "rights". For example, Western NGOs who see child labour as an abuse of human rights also support low-tech, small-scale farming as the way forward for developing countries. Yet this way of life, without modern machinery, means that children will remain doing backbreaking toil on the farms to help their families get by. The prosperous conditions that have shaped our ideas of what childhood means in the West are not enjoyed by all, but this is not addressed by Western NGOs. Instead of campaigning for conditions that will relieve people from toil and allow free time for children and families to enjoy educational opportunities and leisure time, they campaign to criminalise child labour and lecture the poor on children's rights as though the poorest families have some inherent "cruel gene" that needs re-programming.⁶

6. See Vanessa Pupavac's article here

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7. Isn't ensuring people's survival the priority?

There is nothing wrong with doing whatever we can straight away to help people survive - we can all do that - but we should not fool ourselves. Making survival an end goal can kill. Campaigning for very basic survival needs only leaves the world's poor relying on small scale household production and at the mercy of what nature provides or throws at them. Lack of development in terms of infrastructure, communications and decent housing meant people died during the tsunami. The basic needs approach cannot even meet its own paltry aim of helping people to "just survive" as it denies people the safety net development has given us in the West. Another example might be the campaign adopted by NGOs to encourage and provide anti-malarial bed nets. Malaria has been wiped out in the West through the use of DDT but this is deemed environmentally unsuitable for our peers, hence millions die. Despite NGOs' best efforts, malaria-carrying mosquitoes have evidently failed to understand that they should only try and bite you in bed.

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8. But Western NGOs ensure they work in partnership with local people to meet their needs, don't they?

NGOs often claim to work hand in hand with local partners on their projects. They claim that while Western NGOs provide the funds and expertise, the local partner NGOs bring local knowledge and hold the real power. In reality, the idea that local NGOs hold the power or have an equal say is nonsense. Western NGO projects are built upon their own priorities for the developing world. Indeed Western NGOs choose what to fund according to their own priorities and remits. They make their local partners answerable and accountable to them every step of the way. It doesn't work the other way around. Western NGOs are not accountable to their partners and their partners are in no position financially to call the shots. With the onus for accountability firmly on the local NGOs or partners, Western NGOs can abdicate responsibility when it suits them, for example if a project doesn't go as planned. They can (and do) say: "we tried; they failed".

It is true that many Western NGOs work hard to establish some form of claim to a local mandate, by hiring local staff for example, but nobody really believes that these strategies give organisations any kind of a mandate from society in developing countries. In fact it is precisely through promoting so-called "local participation" that international NGOs justify even more intervention in the developing world and supervision of our peers. They have transformed themselves into the saviours of the poor, claiming to be the very ones that are "empowering", "teaching" and "facilitating" poor people to get a voice, rather than supporting sovereignty, self-determination and democracy. In the past African states were recognised as the only authority mandated to negotiate with external actors on behalf of their populations. But now a deep suspicion of African states and elected governments has provided a way in for Western NGOs to meddle in these countries, as they claim they have no agenda and are merely there to ensure fair play. This is naïve to say the least, as their agendas are clearly defined within the Millennium Development Goals, and their mission statements are there for all to read. Western NGOs' participatory advocacy campaigns are in fact further undermining local and national democracy in developing countries, because local actors become accountable to unelected NGOs whilst locally elected representatives are written off as untrustworthy.⁷

7. See Alistair Fraser's paper here

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9. But Western NGOs work in partnership with African states now, don't they?

It is true that Western NGOs have been highly critical of the conditions, largely fiscal, African governments had to accept under the structural adjustment programmes of the past. Wanting to move away from this explicit and unpopular diktat, international donors and institutions (including Western NGOs) have heralded a new relationship with African governments. They now claim this is based on genuine partnership and "country ownership", in which African governments make their own decisions and develop their own national programmes whilst Western NGOs merely offer a neutral supportive and supervisory role.

In practice the new recipient-donor relationships involve more, not less, external domination. Western NGOs sit in on parliamentary committees and are at the heart of decision making at all levels. Since the introduction of what are known as "poverty reduction programmes" (where, in order to qualify for debt relief, countries have to produce a poverty reduction strategy paper, or PRSP)⁸ the meddling, strings and conditions attached to aid has more than doubled. For example, the Ghanaian government was not only required to provide a PRSP but had to re-write it when donors weren't happy with it, to suit donor requirements.

This increase in conditionality is, it is argued, a good thing, as it means elected African governments are held more accountable to the poorest of the poor since external donors are only acting on behalf of the poor. External donors are of course not elected or accountable to anyone in these countries, but apparently have a monopoly on caring and knowing best. This conveniently leaves them free to interfere indefinitely in all policies and parliamentary affairs. So now donors not only sit on committees but have a say in the minutiae of policymaking and even manage parliamentary decisions. The poorest countries in the world have to account to Western donors and NGOs rather than to their own people.

8. See our Damned by Debt Relief website here

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10. But surely we can't just trust African politicians?

Yes we can and should. There is a widespread assumption that Africans (and in particular African politicians) are corrupt and only interested in lining their own pockets. This assumption is based on the incorrect idea that poverty is caused by corruption. It is an idea borne out of political cynicism.⁹ The pervasive nature of such a myth degrades democracy still further, as it justifies more interference, conditionality and external regulation.

Supporting the principle of sovereignty, of the ability and right of countries to run their own affairs, is key to making North-South equality possible. This means having to trust African governments and indeed Africans themselves to determine how they want their countries run.

9. See our Corruptababble website here

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11. But donors have to monitor to ensure the money goes to the right people, don't they?

Why not trust people to spend it wisely? Even if certain conditions are always expected, would we put up with being told how to live our lives because we have been given a little bit of help? This is exactly what Western NGOs are doing: telling people how to live, how to bring up their children, how they can and cannot develop. All this without any real investment or commitment to advance people's lives materially. This ceases to be about any contractual agreement and more about a conviction that the West knows best.

Travelling across Ghana we were shocked to discover the incredible amount of monitoring and evaluation that people in desperate situations were expected to carry out on behalf of donors. It is hard to imagine when walking around areas of extreme poverty why anybody would ask people to justify and prove how they have spent the paltry amount of money given. Yet this is what mistrust does. It makes the poorest of the poor accountable to Western donors.

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12. What is WORLDwrite's alternative?

WORLDwrite campaigns for global equality. We believe that people in the poorest parts of the world are no different from ourselves and we want to ensure that they have the same opportunities. Our aim with this film is to challenge the barriers and misconceptions we have here in the West that stop people in the developing world realising their dreams. This film calls into question the low horizons of the "basic needs" approach, as well as the survival-only agenda of the Millennium Development Goals and the sustainable development ethos. These ideas deny the aspirations of millions of people in the world. WORLDwrite believes it is perfectly possible and definitely desirable for people globally to enjoy huge increases in living standards. By demanding the best for everyone and questioning limits, prescriptions, diktat and low horizons we hope to put freedom and serious development on the map, to assist our peers in their aspirations for Western levels of development. To this end we argue that Western NGOs should hand over the resources to the developing world and trust that the people know best.

A final word: if we demand very little, challenge very little and expect very little, we will get very little. If, on the other hand, we raise our own horizons, then we can help put a stop to the diktat, interference and ideas which are keeping Africa small.

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