Articles authored by Johnson, Deb

Using their personal experiences of the East Africa office of a small international NGO, the authors discuss the difficulties faced by NGOs attempting to work in partnership with governments and the private sector. NGOs' comparative lack of resources constitutes an immediate barrier to mutually beneficial partnerships, as does their inability and/or unwillingness to shoulder inherent risks.

Many development agencies seek to work on behalf of the `poor' and the `poorest of the poor,' often creating external definitions of poverty and of people living in poverty that are based on a complex list of things that the poor do not have. There are others who have spearheaded efforts to define poverty based on criteria derived from members of (largely) rural communities, many of whom would be considered poor.