Good news! You may be out of a job: Reflections on the past and future 50 years for Northern NGOs

Full-text sample article FREE from Taylor & Francis. After 50 years of spectacularly successful work (particularly in raising the equity stakes, improving the quality of ODA, fostering Southern NGO work at the international level, and organising quick and effective humanitarian assistance), Northern development NGOs have come to a crossroads. Van Rooy argues that the history of the NGO `occupational category', coupled with a changing political and economic environment (the end of the cold war, rising international investment, declining ODA, and vastly heightened Southern NGO capacity), means that most Northern NGOs should close up shop. Instead, a kaleidoscopic rebirth is envisaged, where four key functions remain for Northerners (as humanitarian agents, economic policy watchers, North-South brokers, and corporate responsibility advocates). This change of job is heralded as good news: evidence that the project of global social justice has moved dramatically forward.