Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are private sector associations based in civil society pursuing policy advocacy goals and project management. Most frequently the term refers to associations with a transnational agenda or operations (for instance, Médecins Sans Frontières, a.k.a. Doctors without Borders), although some NGOs are oriented toward activities within a single nation-state (for example, the Urban League). NGO overlaps with concepts such as private association, voluntary organization, nonprofit or not-for-profit organization, the third sector, and more broadly, civil society. It is not usually a term applied to private for-profit commercial enterprises. The label is commonly used within the context of international relations, where NGOs are frequently equated with international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), umbrella organizations based in more than one country. In the beginning of the twenty-first century, NGOs are widely regarded as agents essential for global governance, interacting in a transnational arena with states, international governmental organizations (IGOs), and private enterprises (corporations).

The term NGO entered the political vocabulary in connection with the Charter of the United Nations (UN) in 1945 (Article 71). In the UN context, the term takes on a legal quality and refers to organizations of special status. In particular, NGO status provides certain rights to different categories of organizations engaged in consultative relationships with the Economic and Social Council of the UN (ECOSOC; a total of 3,052 organizations had consultative status in 2007).

Use of the term NGO has gradually spread from the context of the UN and international law to international relations and global public discourse at large. At present it is used in many different ways and often at variance with the formal UN usage. As an artifact of international relations discourse, wherein it confines and highlights the secondary role of private associations in state-dominated international relations, NGO lacks some precision. For example, by many current definitions, trade union federations—the type of organization the drafters of the UN Charter primarily had in mind when they stipulated Article 71—are excluded from NGO classification. There has been a notable tendency to restrict use of the acronym to organizations concerned with sustainability and development issues and sometimes to those organizations focusing on the issues of peace, human rights, and cultural exchange. In such contexts, NGOs tend to be cast as forces for good. In the context of developmental programs and issues, NGOs are often distinguished from private voluntary organizations (PVOs) driven by the donors of development aid. At the same time, there is the opposite tendency, whereby NGOs are viewed differently than grassroots organizations (GROs). Some activists reject use of the adjective nongovernmental, because it defines their organizations in terms of what they are not, rather than what they are. These activists suggest that governments should be labeled NPOs (non-people’s organizations), in contrast to organizations grounded in civil society. Nevertheless, others embrace the term NGO because they see particular merit in the broad attribute nongovernmental, and NGO continues to be a standard term of self-description.

Relevant legal provisions define the formal limits of what nongovernmental organizations can do in intergovernmental negotiations. The actual formal status that NGOs have in practice is conditioned by the legal requirements and practices within the (host) nation(s) where the NGO is based. These legal forms are various and include entities organized as charities, trusts, and foundations, not-for-profit companies or corporations, unincorporated associations, and legal entities that conform to specific local requirements to qualify for NGO or nonprofit status.

For NGOs engaged in issues on a global scale, the annual budgets can be large, often in the hundreds of millions or even billions of U.S. dollars. NGOs fund their activities in various ways, including membership fees, private donations, provision of goods and services, and grants from governments or international institutions. This last funding source highlights the ambiguous “nongovernmental” status of these organizations: While they usually do not permit direct government representation or control of their activities, the existence of government subsidy in some NGO budgets, and the contracting work some NGOs perform for international institutions, jeopardizes their independent status.

That there are multifarious types of NGOs is evident in the manifold extensions of the acronym, such as GONGO, QUANGO, BINGO, and MONGO (government-organized NGO, quasi NGO, business interest NGO, and my own NGO) that have sprung up to characterize their activities. Despite the obvious intent of discrediting the mission of certain NGOs, these acronyms do provide an illuminating characterization of the conflict and demarcation within the sphere of NGOs, and also of the different paradoxes and types of nongovernmental organizations. Evidently, the variety of NGOs blurs the elusive boundaries between the government sector, commercial interests, and the civil society sphere.

Bibliography:

Boli, John, and George M.Thomas, eds. Constructing World Culture: International Nongovernmental Organizations Since 1875. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999.
Charnovitz, Steve. “Nongovernmental Organizations and International Law.” American Journal of International Law 100, no. 2 (2006): 348–372.
Chiang, Pei-heng. Non-Governmental Organizations at the United Nations: Identity, Role, and Function. New York: Praeger, 1981.
DeMars,William E. NGOs and Transnational Networks:Wild Cards in World Politics. London: Pluto, 2005.
Götz, Norbert. “Reframing NGOs:The Identity of an International Relations Non-Starter.” European Journal of International Relations 14, no. 2 (2008): 231–258.
Nerfin, Marc. “Neither Prince nor Merchant: Citizen—An Introduction to the Third System.” Development Dialogue 1987, no. 1 (1987): 170–195.
Stillman, Grant B. Global Standard NGOs: Essential Elements of Good Practice. Geneva: Lulu Books, 2007.
Union of International Associations, ed. International Association Statues Series, vol. 1. Munich: Saur, 1988.
Willetts, Peter, ed. ‘The Conscience of the World’:The Influence of NonGovernmental Organisations in the UN System. London: Hurst, 1996.

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