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Abstract

This article offers an easy-to-use indicator to measure whether certain types of non-governmental organizations (particularly those in international "development" work) meet professional and development standards for "mission" and "vision" oriented organizations, fulfilling international legal and public policy objectives on solving the root causes of problems in sustainable ways. Use of the indicator exposes many organizations as having compromised their missions and standards for self-interest and having been corrupted by agendas of major donors that have transformed them into "businesses" serving essentially as administrative agencies for often illegal donor objectives; simply throwing money at slogans or symptoms. The indicator can be used as an accountability tool to spot and counter these abuses. The piece uses an Oxfam country office and a small new organization claiming to be in the area of "legal empowerment", one of the new donor slogans without real content, as case studies of what has gone wrong.

Keywords: Non-Governmental Organizations; Development; Aid; Management; Strategic Planning; Organizational Mission; Oxfam; Namati.

Introduction

There is an almost tragic blindness in the international debate over the regulation, legal requirements, accountability and efficiency of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with both sides claiming to be acting in the interests of "civil society", development, and democracy while actually evading international law and public protections. On the one hand, developing countries that welcome financial subsidies through international NGOs (INGOs) and local citizen NGO activities in ways that often relieve those government elites of obligations to their own citizens, descry attempts by INGOs to challenge their power to use laws to restrict NGOs (Global Trends in NGO Law, 2016, p. 10). On the other hand, rather than demonstrate that INGOs are actually compliant with international laws by imposing more accountability on their actions, the governments of the donor countries and NGO researchers focus only on NGO efficiency and point the finger back at the governments of developing countries (Public Eye, 2013). In this debate between government officials and scholars, lost are voices actually protecting the citizenry of the donor countries or those of the recipient countries (Prashad, 1998; Hallward, 2007; Shivji, 2007).

Trade journals of foundations, charities, development organizations and other forms of nongovernmental organizations increasingly call for more efficient and "results-based" management as well as more "accountability" in this sector but...

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