“Walking the tightrope”: the funding of South African NGOs and the governance of community development

Abstract

This chapter examines the role of intermediary NGOs in community development in post-apartheid South Africa, specifically exploring how these organisations have been shaped by changing funding modalities. It first summarises the socio-historical developments that have enabled NGOs to become significant actors in community development. It then examines partnerships as a specific neoliberal mode of funding that has shaped the role of NGOs in community development. It is argued that partnerships provide a context within which shared values, practices, and techniques appropriate to particular, often neoliberal, forms of community development can be developed in NGOs. Partnerships link intermediary NGOs with corporations, the state, and communities, and enable claims of legitimacy, build consensus through homogenisation, and necessitate particular auditing techniques and capabilities.