178,623 research outputs found
NGO field workers in Pakistan
Get PDFNGOs came into the society in their present form after World War II and more precisely in 1960s. Before that also different forms of philanthropy existed. Like elsewhere in the world, in Pakistan also state and the market were the two sectors catering for different needs of the people. When foreign funding started coming into the poor countries, the channel of NGOs was considered more appropriate including the fact they had roots in the society and the benefit could reach the far flung areas. NGO field workers are the real actors in the NGOs’ activities but sadly the NGOs those raise the slogans of working for the destitute do not bother to facilitate the NGO field workers. Eventually the NGO field workers are facing problems of job insecurity, poor salary structure, unhealthy working environment and even harassment especially in case of women NGO field workers in Pakistan.Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), NGO field workers, wage level and structure, working conditions
Whose accountability? A case study of NGO accountability to recipients of aid in South Sudan
Get PDFThe prominence of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) has increased dramatically in the last decade triggering concerns over the accountability of these organisations. In response, NGOs have broadened their accountability systems to include all their stakeholders, not only those who hold some form of authority over them. Particular attention has been given to ensuring accountability to the recipients of an NGO‟s assistance, known in some circles as „beneficiary accountability‟. However, the implementation of beneficiary accountability is particularly difficult in the kind of environment in which humanitarian assistance is provided – a point which is acknowledged in literature. The aim of this research was to understand the factors that influenced the implementation and the reasons for the difficulty.
The case study employed qualitative methods to gather data from NGO staff and members of two Dinka communities in South Sudan. The study found that the complexity of accountability was not given sufficient consideration during implementation. Within the task-oriented environment of humanitarian aid, accountability was simplified into a set of practical steps. But while staff implemented the steps, they often missed the real essence of accountability. As a result, the mechanisms employed were not entirely appropriate for the target audience, the Dinka communities. Perhaps because of this, the community tended to prefer their own methods of holding the NGO to account.
The research concludes that because of certain structural difficulties inherent in beneficiary accountability it is not only difficult, but impossible to implement within certain contexts. It is recommended that NGOs make changes to the methodology they employ when working in a context similar to the one in which the research was conducted
Nongovernmental organizations and health delivery in sub-Saharan Africa
Get PDFThis paper attempts to present the distinctive characteristics - both positive and negative - of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) as institutions for providing health care. It reviews the historical role of NGOs as vital contributors to health care delivery in Africa and looks at how the current environment has brought NGOs to the fore. It analyzes the implications of the trend among donors to channel resources to developing countries through NGOs and discusses various policy options governments have employed in relation to NGOs. Finally, it raises some unanswered questions about environments conducive to NGO activity and contributing to roles that NGOs can be encouraged to fulfill without sacrificing their very strength in the development process.Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Health Systems Development&Reform,Housing&Human Habitats,Regional Rural Development
Enslaving Development: An Anthropological Enquiry into the World of NGO
Get PDFThis thesis investigates the conflict of values that occurs in Bangladesh between NGOs and wider society. It examines the dynamics of BRAC, a large NGO, in order to illustrate the dissonance and inconsistencies in development discourse. Tension is evident in development, which is a multi-stranded process, in which each strand may complement or contradict the others. The process may also be understood in terms of the societal change that results from an attempted synthesis of the contradictory, clashing values of Western agency (individualism, equality, market, etc.) and Bangladeshi rural cultural life (community, hierarchy, subsistence, etc.).
Development processes, backed by strong finance, introduce Western ideas and theories to the South. NGOs subscribe to a global policy language in transforming these ideas into locally implementable programmes and projects, ignoring the diverse social, cultural and political settings in which they work. When villagers come into contact with these projects, they are pushed towards a sense of individualism, but instead of developing this individualism, they produce a new form of collectivism. In this hybrid environment, actors engaged in development adhere neither to the old values nor to new ones.
Projects aimed at modernization, itself, have undergone change from a blue-print approach to a process approach. In reality, top-down approaches are renamed but not reformed into bottom-up approaches. NGO projects targeting women, notably through micro-credit programmes, contribute to the rise of women-only organisations as well as matri-focal groups that constitute a challenge to male-dominated village associations. Micro-credit also polarises the traditional notions of money into moral and immoral money to produce new arenas of dispute. Overall, religious groups oppose such NGO interventions.
Conflict occurs within NGOs themselves. This is evident when BRAC, as an organisational entity, seek to accommodate to Western, Bengali and Islamic cultural traits which further generate conflict and are managed by a culture of fear or indulgence. Unless knowledge is shared by both parties there is the strong likelihood of increased conflict to the detriment of both NGOs and the local people
Promoting transparency in the NGO sector: Examining the availability and reliability of self-reported data
Get PDFAmid widespread calls for NGOs to become more accountable and transparent, this work examines the prevalence of discrepancies between what NGOs say and what they do. It does so using a unique dataset of 300 NGOs in Uganda with corresponding beneficiary assessments. Investigating NGO dishonesty with regards to financial transparency and community participation, the study finds a high incidence of misrepresentation among NGOs. Results from a Heckman probit model suggest that the determinants of misrepresentation differ according to the subject matter: the threat of being caught reduces the likelihood of dishonesty about financial transparency, while a desire to ‘save face’ to maintain a good reputation appears to be the main motivator of a misrepresentation of community consultation. The analysis provides tentative indications that NGOs with antagonistic relations with the government may be more likely to hide information and be dishonest. It also lends some support to the view that excessive and unrealistic donor demands may be an obstacle to openness and transparency. The findings of this work caution against an overly naïve and simplistic view of NGOs, and specifically, an overreliance on reported information when regulating, monitoring or surveying NGOs.
Ethical management systems for not-for-profit organizations
Get PDFNon-governmental organizations (NGOs) have proven to be excellent instruments for promoting a wide range of causes. But they need to adhere to strict ethical principles, which usually are embodied in voluntary codes and standards. This paper analyzes one such standard, the "Ethics. NGO management system" standard published by Aenor, a private Spanish organization committed to the development of standardization and certification. The analysis and comments are centered mainly on issues of NGO accountability.Not-for-profit organizations; non-governmental organizations; code of ethics;
Area spectral efficiency of soft-decision space–time–frequency shift-keying-aided slow-frequency-hopping multiple access
Get PDFSlow-frequency-hopping multiple access (SFHMA) can provide inherent frequency diversity and beneficially randomize the effects of cochannel interference. It may also be advantageously combined with our novel space-time–frequency shift keying (STFSK) scheme. The proposed system’s area spectral efficiency is investigated in various cellular frequency reuse structures. Furthermore, it is compared to both classic Gaussian minimum shift keying (GMSK)-aided SFHMA and GMSK-assisted time- division/frequency-division multiple access (TD/FDMA). The more sophisticated third-generation wideband code-division multiple access (WCDMA) and the fourth-generation Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems were also included in our comparisons. We demonstrate that the area spectral efficiency of the STFSK-aided SFHMA system is higher than the GMSK-aided SFHMA and TD/FDMA systems, as well as WCDMA, but it is only 60% of the LTE system
The Entry of NGO Schools and Girls’ Educational Outcomes in Bangladesh
Get PDFThis paper uses household, school, and test score data from Bangladeshto compare and contrast the effectiveness of NGO-run and state-run schoolsin the provision of primary education. I study how the entry of NGOs inprimary education has affected educational outcomes of girls and examine themechanisms which account for the relative performance of NGO versus stateschools in improving female educational outcomes. The results show that theentry of NGO schools has significantly increased girls' enrollment as comparedto boys. Constructing cohorts from cross-sectional data using year of birth andyear of NGO school establishment, I show that cohorts which were exposed toNGO schools have higher probability of enrollment and the effect operatesmainly through girls. The two most prominent characteristics of NGO schoolsthat encourage girls' enrollment are the high percentage of female teachers andhaving Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs). NGO schools show strong effectsin improving children's test scores.NGOs, non-formal schools, girls’ education, Bangladesh.
Non-Coherent Cooperative Communications Dispensing with Channel Estimation Relying on Erasure Insertion Aided Reed-Solomon Coded SFH M-ary FSK Subjected to Partial-Band Interference and Rayleigh Fading
No full textThe rationale of our design is that although much of the literature of cooperative systems assumes perfect coherent detection, the assumption of having any channel estimates at the relays imposes an unreasonable burden on the relay station. Hence, non-coherently detected Reed-Solomon (ReS) coded Slow Frequency Hopping (SFH) assisted M -ary Frequency Shift Keying (FSK) is proposed for cooperative wireless networks, subjected to both partial-band interference and Rayleigh fading. Erasure insertion (EI) assisted ReS decoding based on the joint maximum output-ratio threshold test (MO-RTT) is investigated in order to evaluate the attainable system performance. Compared to the conventional error-correction-only decoder, the EI scheme may achieve an Eb/N0 gain of approximately 3dB at the Codeword Error Probability, Pw , of 10-4 , when employing the ReS (31, 20) code combined with 32-FSK modulation. Additionally, we evaluated the system’s performance, when either equal gain combining (EGC) or selection combining (SC) techniques are employed at the destination’s receiver. The results demonstrated that in the presence of one and two assisting relays, the EGC scheme achieves gains of 1.5 dB and 1.0 dB at the Pw of 10-6 , respectively, compared to the SC arrangement. Furthermore, we demonstrated that for the same coding rate and packet size, the ReS (31, 20) code using EI decoding is capable of outperforming convolutional coding, when 32-FSK modulation is considered, whilst LDPC coding had an edge over the above two schemes
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Acting Autonomously or Mimicking the State and Peers? A Panel Tobit Analysis of Financial Dependence and Aid Allocation by Swiss NGOs
Get PDFNGO aid is still widely believed to be superior to official aid (ODA). However, the incentives of NGOs to excel and target aid to the poor and deserving are increasingly disputed. We contribute to the emerging literature on the allocation of NGO aid by performing panel Tobit estimations for Swiss
NGOs. The analysis offers new insights in two major regards: First, we cover the allocation of both self-financed and officially co-financed aid for a large panel of NGOs and recipient countries. Second, by classifying each NGO according to its financing structure, we address the unresolved question of
whether financial dependence on the government impairs the targeting of NGO aid. It turns out that NGOs mimic the state as well as NGO peers. Officially refinanced NGOs are more inclined to imitate the allocation of ODA. However, the degree of financial dependence does not affect the poverty
orientation of NGO aid and the incentives of NGOs to engage in easier environments. The allocation of self-financed aid differs in several respects from the allocation of officially co-financed aid, including the role of financial dependence for imitating the state and herding among NGOs
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