Major NGOs Research Articles

Utilization of social franchising in family planning services: a Pakistan perspective.

Pakistan's private sector caters to around 65% of family planning users. Private sector family planning was promoted in the Delivering Accelerated Family Planning in Pakistan (DAFPAK) program by UK's Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) in 2019. We use data from DAFPAK to analyze the clientele and products distributed by two major NGOs, Marie Stopes Society (MSS) and DKT Pakistan, that support private providers in Pakistan. We also examined the effect of COVID-19 on client visits and contraceptives uptake at private facilities in Pakistan. DAFPAK used field validation surveys to analyze the volume of clients and products of 639 private facilities across three provinces (Punjab, KPK and Balochistan) of Pakistan. The data was collected in two phases (February 2020 and 2021) using multi-stage cluster sampling at 95% confidence level. Using a generalized negative binomial regression, facility-level characteristics and impact of COVID-19 was analyzed with the volume of clients and products given out at 95% confidence interval alongside descriptive analysis. DKT facilities covered 53% of the sample while MSS covered 47%, with 72% facilities in the rural areas. Average facility existence duration is 87 months (7.25 years). While the average experience of the facility staff is 52 months (4.33 years). MSS is serving more clients as compared to DKT during both phase 1 (IRR: 3.15; 95% CI: 2.74, 3.61) and phase 2 (IRR: 2.11; 95% CI: 1.79, 2.49). Similarly, MSS had a greater volume of products given out in both phases 1 (IRR: 1.89; 95% CI: 1.51, 2.38) and phase 2 (IRR: 2.57; 95% CI: 2.09, 3.14). In both phases, client visits and product distribution decreased when client privacy is invaded (IRR: 0.74; 95% CI: 0.67, 0.82 - phase 1) and (IRR: 0.83; 95% CI: 0.72, 0.97 - phase 2). Lastly, during COVID-19, products distribution decreased by a factor of 0.84 (IRR: 0.84; 95% CI: 0.72, 0.97) but client visits remain unaffected. Overall, clientele is low for all facilities. At a facility, privacy is a determinant of client visits and products given out per visit. Transiently, during COVID-19, client volumes decreased, with a shift from oral pills to condoms and emergency contraceptive pills.

The value of unrealistic targets: why some climate activists are unwilling to abandon the 1.5 °C target

Evidence is mounting that the 1.5 °C goal of the Paris Agreement is unrealistic. But, contrary to many in the scientific community, major NGOs have remained steadfast in their support for this target. We argue that this is because “unrealistic” or aspirational targets can serve important political objectives, including becoming focal points for coalition-building and broad-based mobilization and allowing for effective naming and shaming.

Diplomatic Leadership Development after the “Weaponization of Everything”: Approaching Religion or Belief as a Professional Competence

This article describes new education and research work with government departments and major NGOs to develop fresh approaches and paradigms of leadership learning about religion and security for those engaged full time in global politics, diplomacy, and policy. Drawing from research in seven countries, it proposes a move away from an embrace of specialist “religious literacy” education advocated by high-profile religious actors. Instead, this article proposes the opportunity for leadership development which assesses religion or belief as a generic evidence-based core professional diplomatic competence worthy of serious attention no more nor less important than any other professional field. As a first step in that goal, it delineates a new open-source tool entitled the Religion for International Engagement Matrix and describes its positive reception when trialed, including with two foreign ministries.

"Innovations" During COVID-19: Microfinance in Bangladesh.

In this study of microfinance institutions (MFIs) and their participants, we show how certain innovations made by MFIs during the COVID-19 pandemic enable further consolidation of NGOs in Bangladeshi society. The study is based on interviews conducted in 2020 with key personnel from three major NGOs in Bangladesh: Grameen, Sajida Foundation, and Brac (which is also the largest NGO in the world), as well as 20 interviews conducted in 2018 (before the pandemic) with microcredit recipients who use financial services. We observed that MFIs scaled up by taking on the function of relief provision, financial services became more entrenched, and NGO governance was bolstered as MFIs served as intermediaries between the state and people, even though, as the 2018 interviews reveal, microfinance participants were reticent about technology uptake.

Restricted Funding: Restricting Development?

This paper examines, from a management accounting perspective, the efficacy of the dominant ‘restricted’ funding structure in the international development NGO sector in terms of overall sector effectiveness, and whether it is the most appropriate means of funding NGOs. The objective is to encourage theoretical debate around the tensions highlighted between external accountability for funding and overall value-for-money delivered by individual development NGOs and the wider international development sector. From unique access to three internationally recognised major NGOs, our case studies reveal management accounting as broadly homogenous, with some nuanced distinctions both within and between the cases; but the scope of management accounting emerges as relatively limited. This is despite the NGOs utilising complex accounting software, employing qualified accounting staff, and having a large annual income. Using the broad principles of systems theory to frame our approach, this paper suggests that due to the ‘restricted’ nature of funding awarded to NGOs by institutional donors, accounting is dominated by external accountability reporting to the detriment of management accounting. These relatively novel data on management accounting practices at international development NGOs help illustrate how, potentially, NGOs are missing opportunities to utilise, or even improve, value-for-money in terms of how various program themes, geographic areas or time periods are delivering better or worse discernible impact for the money spent.

Syrian Refugee Crisis: Role of Turkish Non-Governmental Organizations in Humanitarian Relief

The Syrian civil war is one of the on-going catastrophic events in which international community deals with turbulent impacts in the region and beyond. This intra-state conflict leashes out to a full-fledged war influenced by state and non-state actors, both are equally contributing to make it vulnerable to the extend of “the worst humanitarian disaster since the end of the cold war”. Within a span of four years since the beginning of civil war, international community have seen a huge influx of refugees from Syria to neighboring countries in search of safety and security as remarked by UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, as “the world’s worst refugee crisis in a generation”. The conflict has now driven more than four million people from Syria with at least 7.6 million people forced from their homes within Syria, almost half of the population are either refugees or internally displaced. The civilian causality increasing by time more than 4,00,000 people. The response of international community towards the Syrian exodus can be analyzed with contrary interests and capabilities, generally failing to meet the tremendous needs of these individuals. This paper discusses about the role of Turkish Non-Governmental Organizations in humanitarian relief- internal and external spheres of the country- and its significant contributions and limitations. Turkey is now the largest refugee hosting country in the world, sheltering more than 1.8 million Syrians. The government has spent over $4 billion on the refugees and providing camps and free health care facilities. Turkey maintains an open door policy for refugees and it has accorded temporary protection to Syrians on their territory, which precludes repatriation, however legally they are not refugees in Turkey, but ‘guests’. The major NGOs working among refugees are IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation, Rizk, Turk Kizilayi, Caritas Turkey and Deniz Feneri, who are maintaining a large number of tent camps, orphanages, guest houses and container camps with the warm support of international humanitarian organizations such as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Turkish Red Crescent and Amnesty International. The paper would analyze various kinds of activities and machinaries of these NGOs in facilitating humanitarian assistance and relief to the Syrian refugees living in Turkey and towards the internally displaced people in Syria.

Assessment of veterinary services in central Ethiopia: A case study in Ada' a District of Oromia Region, Ethiopia

This study was conducted to identify actors, their roles, competences and main constraints of veterinary service delivery system in Ada' a district of the Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia. Questionnaire, focus group discussions, key informant interviews and desk review were conducted to gather primary and secondary data. This assessment revealed that the district obtains veterinary services mainly from three sectors: public sector, private sector and NGOs. The public sector serves 62%, 56% and 45% of clinical treatment, vaccination and drug sales, respectively. The private veterinary service contributes 40%, 5% and 43% of clinical treatments, vaccination and veterinary drug sales, respectively. The Donkey sanctuary and SPANA-Ethiopia are major NGOs that handle equine clinical cases and vaccination. Inadequate budget, logistic problems, shortage of manpower and fewer working days were found to be the main causes for the weakness of government veterinary services, and black-market drug dealers were found to be challengers associated with the private sector.Keywords: Ada'a district, Drug, Private, Public, Vaccine, Veterinary service

Free World? The Campaign to Save the World’s Refugees, 1956–1963 by Peter Gatrell (review)

Reviewed by: Free World? The Campaign to Save the World’s Refugees, 1956–1963 by Peter Gatrell Carl Bon Tempo Free World? The Campaign to Save the World’s Refugees, 1956–1963. By Peter Gatrell. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 278 pp. $90.00 (cloth). Peter Gatrell, one of the premier scholars of twentieth-century European migration and population flows, turns his attention to World Refugee Year (WRY) in his latest book, Free World? Most histories of post–World War II refugee affairs only passingly touch upon WRY, an effort in 1959–1960 by noncommunist member nations of the United Nations and a variety of NGOs to publicize and to solve the world’s refugee problems. Gatrell seeks to fill this gap. He believes that WRY was a singular moment, one that reveals much about the place of refugees in politics and culture, the state of humanitarianism, and the meanings of citizenship, as well as its antithesis, statelessness, in the late 1950s. Free World? begins with two introductory chapters. Gatrell first outlines the political, economic, and social forces that produced refugee flows and shaped the politics of refugee affairs in the late 1950s. Not only do the usual suspects—the Cold War, World War II, decolonization, [End Page 493] and demographics—come under discussion, but Gatrell also contends that consumption, tourism and travel, and technology were equally important. In chapter 2, he outlines the pressing refugee problems in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, making the important observation that most experts understood that the refugee flows in the latter two regions were incredibly troubling, even if the public did not. The book’s heart is in chapters 3 and 4. While WRY originated in Great Britain with two political journalists, the cause found favor at the United Nations. Quickly, an astonishingly large number of non-communist governments (among communist nations, only Yugoslavia pledged to help) and NGOs—both humanitarian and religious-based—joined the effort. Gatrell carefully traces the politics behind each country’s and the major NGOs’ participation. He concludes, quite correctly, that motivations and expectations for WRY were complex and multilayered—and varied by nation and organization. While this chapter too often reads like a lengthy laundry list, the research in primary and secondary sources is immense and Gatrell avoids being trapped in a single nation-state, as most accounts of WRY are. He offers, then, a truly international history. Chapter 4 uses the same approach to interrogate what Gatrell calls the “presences and absences” of WRY, by which he means the ways in which the campaign was pursued by its organizers, national governments, and NGOs. Gatrell is concerned not only with the rhetoric surrounding WRY, but also with the images, publicity, and popular culture that WRY participants generated to help the cause (p. 141). Gatrell makes the important point that while participants believed their efforts demonstrated the interconnectedness of the modern world, the WRY campaign just as powerfully illustrated the distance between refugee advocates and the refugees themselves, who were blank canvases upon which their supporters projected and reaffirmed their ideals of consumption and citizenship. This fascinating discussion of the links between consumption, images of refugees, and citizenship does nothing less than remove WRY from the musty corners of immigration historiography. In two concluding chapters, Gatrell judiciously assesses WRY’s short- and long-term effects. WRY was more effective at raising money than it was at resettling refugees, though it did have some considerable success helping the hard-core living in European camps. Equally important, the campaign raised awareness of the refugee problem. Gatrell notes that this awareness did not last long, which leads one to question its depth in the first place, a point the author could have addressed by referencing public opinion polling. In the long term, Gatrell argues that [End Page 494] WRY helped set the stage for other significant campaigns—designed to end hunger, curtail torture, and encourage development—that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. Here, the author does not quite prove a strong connection between WRY and these other broadly humanitarian campaigns, but rather notes “similarities” (p. 234) or that WRY “coincided” with other efforts (p. 226). Gatrell additionally could...

Drug Use and Harm Reduction Model: Responding to the Health Challenge of Injecting Drug Users in Bangladesh

This paper attempts to investigate the application of Harm Reduction Model that is largely in practice, in the context of Bangladesh. The Injective Drug Users (IDU) is considered to be most susceptible to blood borne diseases and Harm Reduction approach is vital in containing the epidemic of such contagion and depleting the threat eventually. This paper applies mixed methods to identify the commitment and activity of Drop in Centres (DIC’s) of major NGOs, which are locally and globally funded, with the support of local government to attain the Health Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of 2021. The paper is investigative to the operational effectiveness of Harm Reduction Model and suggestive to social policy development.

Group Management and Empowerment

Community development organisations employ a group approach, arguing that it strengthens the empowering capacity of local communities. Drawing on the experiences of two major NGOs in Bangladesh, this study argues that in community development greater attention is usually paid to the effects of ‘empowering’ inputs such as microcredit, while lesser importance is placed on the internal management of the group. This is a serious defect which may have direct negative effects on the empowering outcomes. This article argues that paying greater attention to the internal management of the groups can make the group approach more effective in community development.

Building the New New Orleans: Foundation and NGO Power

Most accounts of organized philanthropy's response to the Katrina disaster portray foundations as either providing critical resources in the absence of federal, state, and municipal leadership, or as mildly ineffective and uncommitted grantmakers with little understanding of local nonprofit and community needs. Through an in-depth case study of the three largest regional foundations and two largest foundations established as a direct response to Hurricane Katrina, I examine the overall role of philanthropy in the post-Katrina New Orleans, including the history, leadership, grantmaking practices, and ideology of the largest and most influential foundations. Far from being saviors in the absence of state leadership, nor bumbling and ineffective grantmakers, it is shown that dominant foundations and major NGOs have proven very effective in leading the local growth coalition's opportunistic response to the disaster.

Response to Review of No Fear: Growing Up in a Risk-Averse Society

Children, Youth and Environments Vol. 18 No. 1 (2008) ISSN: 1546-2250 Response to Review of No Fear: Growing Up in a RiskAverse Society Tim Gill Citation: Gill, Tim. (2008). "Response to Review of No Fear: Growing Up in a Risk-Averse Society." Children, Youth and Environments 18 (1). Read this Book Review I am delighted that No Fear has received such a glowing review in CYE. The book is primarily written for a policy and practitioner audience, not an academic one. Thus, it only very briefly addresses such scholarly questions as the universality of childhood and the implications of drawing on adult memories of growing up. I am quite clear that these omissions made the book more engaging and readable for the lay reader. I would be interested to hear, however, if other academic readers feel the omissions weakened the book’s arguments. More information on the book, as well as a free copy in pdf format, are available from http://www.gulbenkian.org.uk/publications/education/no-fear. Tim Gill is one of the UK's leading thinkers and writers on childhood, and an effective advocate for change. His work focuses on children's play and free time. Tim has advised political parties and think tanks across the political spectrum, and has carried out consultancies for major NGOs and public bodies including the Mayor of London and the Forestry Commission. Tim is on the editorial advisory board for Children's Geographies. His website iswww.rethinkingchildhood.com. ...

NGOs and conflict Prevention in Burundi: A Case Study

Since the abortive coup in October 1993, Burundi has been in a severe crisis, however, lately reaching a more hopeful situation. The international community has made substantial efforts at preventing the escalation of the conflict and at contributing to a process for sustainable peace in the country. This includes the UN system, bilateral countries and in particular the neighbouring states. A number of NGOs have been among the actors. Here the efforts of some major NGOs lending their support to Burundi's peace process are discussed both as regards their support for peace building and for support to peace mediation. The aim has been to assess their performance based on their aims and objectives in relation to respective NGO's overall reasons for coming to Burundi in the first place, as well as their wider aims. Efforts are made to find common denominators and possible conclusions and recommendations useful for others involved in similar activities in Burundi and elsewhere.