(Un)doing development: a postcolonial enquiry of the agenda and agency of NGOs in Africa

Abstract

This paper seeks an alternative approach to the questions What ends do non-governmental organisations (NGOs) serve in Africa, and why does the proliferation of NGOs matter? The answers lie in exploring whether it is to develop Africa or to consolidate the western-dictated (under)development trajectory. Extending Shivji’s depiction of ‘Africa at the crossroads of the defeat of the national project and the rehabilitation of the imperial project’, this paper explores the ideological role of NGOs in perpetuating imperialism, reproducing alterity and entrenching dependency. Staged in Kenya with over 11,262 registered and 8893 active NGOs operating in various sectors of the economy, the problems necessitating the rise of NGOs remain obstinate, but the role and features of NGOs appear to situate them within the imperial project of disarticulation. The paper argues that NGOs are (un)witting allies in the neoliberal network/project of arrested development in Africa. The proliferation of and uncritical subscription to (neoliberal) orthodoxy while parading as neutral and apolitical enlists NGOs in servicing the structures of underdevelopment. Through a synthesis of secondary data and semi-structured interviews, it emerges that NGOs are implementing nodes of neoliberal orthodoxy feigning neutrality and only concerned with ‘problem-solving’, with no interest in fundamental changes aimed at challenges necessitating their emergence and proliferation.