International Aid and Development NGOs in Britain and Human Rights since 1945

Abstract

UK international aid and development organisations such as Oxfam, Save the Children and Christian Aid have become some of the most prominent NGOs in the world. Born out of the humanitarian response to crisis, they have subsequently become significant players in the global debate about long-term development. From advocating an alternative path to development in the 1960s and 1970s they have come to articulate a rights-based approach in the 1990s. For NGOs, this was a logical consequence of "scaling up" their activities. However, as this article demonstrates, it was the result of more complex processes which have gradually brought these ever larger organisations into the development mainstream.