Track II diplomacy[edit]
Main article: Track II diplomacy
Track II dialogue, or Track II diplomacy, is a transnational coordination that involves non-official members of the government including epistemic communities as well as former policy-makers or analysts. Track II diplomacy aims to get policymakers and policy analysts to come to a common solution through discussions by unofficial figures of the government. Unlike the Track I diplomacy where government officials, diplomats and elected leaders gather to talk about certain issues, Track II diplomacy consists of experts, scientists, professors and Others figures that are not involved in government affairs. The members of Track II diplomacy usually have more freedom to exchange ideas and come up with compromise on their own.
Activities[edit]
There are also numerous classifications of NGO'ss. The typology the World Bank uses divides them into Operational and Advocacy:[11]
NGO'ss vary in their methods. Some act primarily as lobbyists, while Otherss primarily conduct programs and activities. For instance, an NGO's such as Oxfam, concerned with poverty alleviation, might provide needy people with the equipment and skills to find food and clean drinking water, whereas an NGO's like the FFDA helps through investigation and documentation of human rights[citation needed] violations and provides legal assistance to victims of human rights abuses. Otherss, such as Afghanistan Information Management Services, provide specialized technical products and services to support development activities implemented on the ground by Others organizations.
NGO'ss were intended to fill a gap in government services, but in countries like India and China, NGO'ss are slowly gaining a position in decision making. In the interest of sustainability, most donors require that NGO'ss demonstrate a relationship with governments.[12] State Governments themselves are vulnerable because they lack economic resources, and potentially strategic planning and vision. They are therefore sometimes tightly bound by a nexus of NGO'ss, political bodies, commercial organizations and major donors/funders, making decisions that have short term outputs but no long term affect.[13] In India, for instance, NGO'ss are under regulated, political, and recipients of large government and international donor funds. NGO'ss often take up responsibilities outside their skill ambit. Governments have no access to the number of projects or amount of funding received by these NGO'ss. There is a pressing need to regulate this group while not curtailing their unique role as a supplement to government services.
Operational[edit]
Operational NGO'ss seek to "achieve small-scale change directly through projects."[8] They mobilize financial resources, materials and volunteers to create localized programs in the field. They hold large-scale fundraising events, apply to governments and organizations for grants and contracts in order to raise money for projects. They often operate in a hierarchical structure; with a main headquarters staffed by professionals who plan projects, create budgets, keep accounts, report, and communicate with operational fieldworkers who work directly on projects[8] Operational NGO'ss deal with a wide range of , but are most often associated with the delivery of services and welfare, emergency relief and environmental issues. Operational NGO'ss can be further categorized, one frequently used categorization is the division into relief-oriented versus development-oriented organizations; they can also be classified according to whether they stress service delivery or participation; or whether they are religious or secular; and whether they are more public or private-oriented. Operational NGO'ss can be community-based, national or international. The defining activity of operational NGO'ss is implementing projects.[8]
Campaigning[edit]
Campaigning NGO'ss seek to "achieve large-scale change promoted indirectly through influence of the political system."[8] Campaigning NGO'ss need an efficient and effective group of professional members who are able to keep supporters informed, and motivated. They must plan and host demonstrations and events that will keep their cause in the media. They must maintain a large informed network of supporters who can be mobilized for events to garner media attention and influence policy changes. The defining activity of campaigning NGO'ss is holding demonstrations.[8] Campaigning NGO'ss often deal with this issues relating to human rights, women's rights, children's rights. The primary purpose of an Advocacy NGO's is to defend or promote a specific cause. As opposed to operational project management, these organizations typically try to raise awareness, acceptance and knowledge by lobbying, press work and activist event.
Both operational and campaigning[edit]
It is not uncommon for NGO'ss to make use of both activities. Many times, operational NGO'ss will use campaigning techniques if they continually face the same issues in the field that could be remedied through policy changes. At the same time, Campaigning NGO'ss, like human rights organizations often have programs that assist the individual victims they are trying to help through their advocacy work.[8]
Public relations[edit]
Non-governmental organizations need healthy relationships with the public to meet their goals. Foundations and charities use sophisticated public relations campaigns to raise funds and employ standard lobbying techniques with governments. Interest groups may be of political importance because of their ability to influence social and political outcomes. A code of ethics was established in 2002 by The World Association of Non Governmental Organizations.zxzxczxc
Project management[edit]
There is an increasing awareness that management techniques are crucial to project success in non-governmental organizations.[14] Generally, non-governmental organizations that are private have either a community or environmental focus. They address varieties of issues such as religion, emergency aid, or humanitarian affairs. They mobilize public support and voluntary contributions for aid; they often have strong links with community groups in developing countries, and they often work in areas where government-to-government aid is not possible. NGO'ss are accepted as a part of the international relations landscape, and while they influence national and multilateral policy-making, increasingly they are more directly involved in local action.
Corporate structure[edit]
Staffing[edit]
Some NGO'ss are highly professionalized and rely mainly on paid staff. Otherss are based around voluntary labour and are less formalized. Not all people working for non-governmental organizations are volunteers.
Many NGO'ss are associated with the use of international staff working in 'developing' countries, but there are many NGO'ss in both North and South who rely on local employees or volunteers. There is some dispute as to whether expatriates should be sent to developing countries. Frequently this type of personnel is employed to satisfy a donor who wants to see the supported project managed by someone from an industrialized country. However, the expertise these employees or volunteers may be counterbalanced by a number of factors: the cost of foreigners is typically higher, they have no grassroot connections in the country they are sent to, and local expertise is often undervalued.[11]
The NGO's sector is an essential employer in terms of numbers.[citation needed] For example, by the end of 1995, CONCERN worldwide, an international Northern NGO's working against poverty, employed 174 expatriates and just over 5,000 national staff working in ten developing countries in Africa and Asia, and in Haiti.
Funding[edit]
Whether the NGO'ss are small or large, various NGO'ss need budgets to operate. The amount of budget that they need would differ from NGO'ss to NGO'ss. Unlike small NGO'ss, large NGO'ss may have annual budgets in the hundreds of millions or billions of dollars. For instance, the budget of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) was over US$540 million in 1999.[15] Funding such large budgets demands significant fundraising efforts on the part of most NGO'ss. Major sources of NGO's funding are membership dues, the sale of goods and services, grants from international institutions or national governments, and private donations. Several EU-grants provide funds accessible to NGO'ss.
Even though the term "non-governmental organization" implies independence from governments, many NGO'ss depend heavily on governments for their funding.[16] A quarter of the US$162 million income in 1998 of the famine-relief organization Oxfam was donated by the British government and the EU. The Christian relief and development organization World Vision United States collected US$55 million worth of goods in 1998 from the American government.
Government funding of NGO'ss is controversial, since, according to David Rieff, writing in The New Republic, "the whole point of humanitarian intervention was precisely that NGO'ss and civil society had both a right and an obligation to respond with acts of aid and solidarity to people in need or being subjected to repression or want by the forces that controlled them, whatever the governments concerned might think about the matter."[17] Some NGO'ss, such as Greenpeace do not accept funding from governments or intergovernmental organizations.[18][19]
Overhead costs[edit]
Overhead is the amount of money that is spent on running an NGO's rather than on projects.[20] This includes office expenses,[20] salaries, banking and bookkeeping costs. What percentage of overall budget is spent on overhead is often used to judge an NGO's with less than 4% being viewed as good.[20] The World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations states that ideally more than 86% should be spent on programs (less than 20% on overhead).[21] The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has specific guidelines on how high overhead can be to receive funding based on how the money is to be spent with overhead often needing to be less than 5-7%.[22] While the World Bank typically allows 37%.[23] A high percentage of overhead to total expenditures can make it more difficult to generate funds.[24] High overhead costs may also generate criticism with some claiming the certain NGO'ss with high overhead are being run simply to benefit the people working for them.[25]
While overhead costs can be a legitimate concern, a sole focus on them can be counterproductive.[26] Research published by the Urban Institute and the Center for Social Innovation at Stanford University have shown how rating agencies create incentives for nonprofits to lower and hide overhead costs, which may actually reduce organizational effectiveness by starving organizations of the infrastructure they need to effectively deliver services. A more meaningful rating system would provide, in addition to financial data, a qualitative evaluation of an organization’s transparency and governance: (1) an assessment of program effectiveness; (2) and an evaluation of feedback mechanisms designed for donors and beneficiaries; and (3) such a rating system would also allow rated organizations to respond to an evaluation done by a rating agency.[27] More generally, the popular discourse of nonprofit evaluation should move away from financial notions of organizational effectiveness and toward more substantive understandings of programmatic impact.
Monitoring and control[edit]
In a March 2000 report on United Nations Reform priorities, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan wrote in favor of international humanitarian intervention, arguing that the international community has a "right to protect"[28] citizens of the world against ethnic cleansing, genocide, and crimes against humanity. On the heels of the report, the Canadian government launched the Responsibility to Protect R2P[29] project, outlining the issue of humanitarian intervention. While the R2P doctrine has wide applications, among the more controversial has been the Canadian government's use of R2P to justify its intervention and support of the coup in Haiti.[30] Years after R2P, the World Federalist Movement, an organization which supports "the creation of democratic global structures accountable to the citizens of the world and call for the division of international authority among separate agencies", has launched Responsibility to Protect - Engaging Civil Society (R2PCS). A collaboration between the WFM and the Canadian government, this project aims to bring NGO'ss into lockstep with the principles outlined under the original R2P project.
The governments of the countries an NGO's works or is registered in may require reporting or Others monitoring and oversight. Funders generally require reporting and assessment, such information is not necessarily publicly available. There may also be associations and watchdog organizations that research and publish details on the actions of NGO'ss working in particular geographic or program areas.[citation needed]
In recent years, many large corporations have increased their corporate social responsibility departments in an attempt to preempt NGO's campaigns against certain corporate practices. As the logic goes, if corporations work with NGO'ss, NGO'ss will not work against corporations. Greater collaboration between corporations and NGO'ss creates inherent risks of co-optation for the weaker partner, typically the nonprofit involved.[31]
In December 2007, The United States Department of Defense Assistant Secretary of Defense (Health Affairs) S. Ward Casscells established an International Health Division under Force Health Protection & Readiness.[32] Part of International Health's mission is to communicate with NGO'ss in areas of mutual interest. Department of Defense Directive 3000.05,[33] in 2005, requires DoD to regard stability-enhancing activities as a mission of importance equal to combat. In compliance with international law, DoD has necessarily built a capacity to improve essential services in areas of conflict such as Iraq, where the customary lead agencies (State Department and USAID) find it difficult to operate. Unlike the "co-option" strategy described for corporations, the OASD(HA) recognizes the neutrality of health as an essential service. International Health cultivates collaborative relationships with NGO'ss, albeit at arms-length, recognizing their traditional independence, expertise and honest broker status. While the goals of DoD and NGO'ss may seem incongruent, the DoD's emphasis on stability and security to reduce and prevent conflict suggests, on careful analysis, important mutual interests.
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