Blog Post: NGOs and the Dynamics Between the Public and Private Sectors

NGOs are defined as not-for-profit organizations which are independent of government control and policies. With their own strategies and goals that align with the public interest, they have been greatly contributing to the improvements in fields such as poverty reduction, environmental challenges, and human rights protection. The advantages of NGO-sponsored projects are their flexibility in adaptation. Close communication with local communities enables the provision of personalized assistance in a targeted and timely manner.

However, NGOs' political and financial independency is also criticized for being inefficient and counterproductive. Since a lot of NGOs are implementing projects in the same fields with different plans and angles, the critics refer to their work as being self-defeating; uncoordinated program implementations without regulations lead to unintended negative consequences. For example, studies in Ghana show that although NGOs’ well-intended interventions increased civic participation in development, socioeconomic outcomes were absent or even observed to be negative.

The cause of these adverse effects and underperformed programs are argued to be the lack of coordination with the governments. Especially in developing countries, the national government has more control than local governments over public programs. The encouragement of civic participation in local programs adversely damaged the efficacy of top-down political work which served the public interest and improved the well-being of its citizens. Moreover, when NGOs are involved in international development, certain ideologies of NGOs are in direct conflict with a local government’s policies. Although NGOs’ political independence can provide them with autonomy, the implementations or operations of such projects become politically unfeasible.

Recently, the importance of coordination between NGOs and governments has been emphasized for NGOs to effectively fill the institutional gaps in the public sectors. Several African countries have introduced registries for NGOs to better coordinate projects and encourage communications and collaborations among them. The government-NGO partnership also enables NGOs to gain access to accurate up-to-date information, which further enhances the efficacy of their projects.

As you prepare to draft solutions in the committee session, it would be helpful to keep in mind that the distinctive characteristics of NGOs can be both advantages and disadvantages in bringing changes and improvements to the local community. It should also be noted that the role of partnership among NGOs and with public sectors can be considered a solution to overcome the inefficiency and unintended consequences of the NGO-sponsored projects.