Viewpoint

The author puts forward the personal view that participatory methodologies (such as Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA)) are often used by NGOs in such a way that they create a negative impact on the community they were intended to empower.

Using the example of reforms in Bolivia, the author discusses `second generation' structural and institutional reforms taking place in Latin America, in the aftermath of Structural Adjustment Programmes' (SAPs) failure to reduce poverty and inequality. Providing a new context for social policy and participation, the most radical reform in Bolivia is the Popular Participation Law, intended to decentralise the allocation and administration of resources and encourage participation in democracy from all sectors of Bolivian society.

The paper presents a case for all organizations that work on development, environmental, social justice, and human rights issues to work more closely together, arguing that many of the issues these organizations are addressing are one and the same. It is a call to reflection, debate, and action concerning the protection and guarantee of all human rights, and the holding accountable of all actors for actions that contribute to their violation. Abstract supplied by kind permission of CABI.

An examination is presented on a type of NGO, known as a network NGO that, it is argued, is currently exploiting the personal links across the government-NGO divide, and acknowledging their interdependence. Characteristics of such NGOs are that they have a broad membership, consisting of professionals from the same ethnic background. Two examples of such network NGOs are Dupoto e Maa, which is based in Kajiado, Kenya, and is an organization mainly lobbying for Maasai pastoralists; and SADEA, based in Same, Tanzania, focusing on conventional) fundraising activities for social projects.

The standard models of the state and civil society balancing each other, as propounded by de Tocqueville, Hegel and Gramsci, are no longer useful in all cases when thinking about the relationship between the state, civil society and NGOs. The emergence in many countries of a weak state and relatively strong civil society organisations has led to NGOs filling the gaps in the provision of services which should nominally be provided by the state.

The author identifies three key weaknesses in the debate leading up to establishing the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) for the European Union (EU). The process started in 1996 and a generally useful and relevant discussion has taken place between various governmental and non-governmental actors concerning conflict-prevention and structural stability.

Coffee production was the main source of family income in the North West Province of Cameroon until there was a fall in coffee prices. The author recounts a positive side effect of this potential economic crisis for the province: the empowerment of women. Previously denied land-ownership, due to men's traditional hold on land and women's legal status, women bought now-unused land and successfully made money from their produce. The resulting shift in financial power saw the beginning of a shift in status for these women: with economic control came decision-making power.

NGOs, like other organisations, are gendered; that is, they reflect society's power relations between men and women. The author argues that NGOs must begin a process of gender-sensitive institutional change, building equitable practices and attitudes in the long-term, benefiting and empowering NGO staff as well as impacting on their programme work, and strategic objectives. This article is freely available as a chapter in Development with Women.

The author considers how Northern NGOs present the South, in order to recruit volunteers and fundraise. Negative and positive images have been used to illicit feelings of pity and self-satisfaction respectively. Here, the author describes the effects of using different images, and argues that NGOs should be educating and building long-term supporters by substantiating the use of images with information about the causes of poverty, famine etc. The concept of mutual dependence between South and North should also be emphasised: a more pragmatic reason to help.

Many governments and international organisations have offered utopian visions of a Global Information Infrastructure (GII), a successor to the Internet, which will enable global sharing and communication. The development of the GII rests on the capacity of all nations to have access to the requisite technology, and the currently widening gap between access to PCs and telephone lines does not bode well for the prospects of the envisioned network.