I always thought that NGO meant Non Governmental Organisation. How come any of them get money from the state?
– thanks to Natalie Solent for spotting a good point made at The Road to Euro Serfdom
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Samizdata quote of the dayMarch 19th, 2005 |
 6 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
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One of those Ministry of Truth thing’s isn’t it? Doubleplusungood.
Doesn’t evurbudy git money from the state?
Then they are QuaNGOs – Quasi-Non-Governmental- Organisations, right? What a joke! They should probably be called NNNGOs – Not-Necessarily-Non-Governmental-Organisations.
Or perhaps just public relations consultants, according to a recent < a href="http://www.economist.com/World/europe/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3308986">Economist story.
“How independent are the civil-society organisations beloved by the European Commission?
THE European Commission knows it has an image problem. To try to fix things, it is creating the new post of commissioner in charge of communications. Margot Wallstrom, previously responsible for the environment, promises that one of her first actions in office will be to hold “brainstorming sessions” with “civil society”. Talking to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that purport to represent civil society is a proxy for the commission’s talking to ordinary Europeans. But there is something odd about this dialogue. Many of the NGOs that Brussels likes to consult are directly financed by the commission itself.
…
Simon Wilson, director of the Platform of European Social NGOs, points out that the commission is hardly unusual in supporting NGOs. Most western governments and many international organisations do the same thing. The World Bank, for example, has made a huge effort to step up its contacts with NGOs. Mr Wilson argues that it is in governments’ interest to foster such links, since they can then tap into a wide range of expertise and experience. His own organisation received €369,383 from the commission in 2003-04, some 90% of its budget. But Mr Wilson denies that this compromises its independence. “On some occasions we broadly support the commission’s line”, he says, “but on many others we oppose it.” He cites two examples: the Social Platform’s campaign for new anti-discrimination legislation, and its effort to insert a clause in the draft EU constitution, making consultation with civil society a legal obligation.
This last (successful) campaign was, perhaps, a tad self-interested. But campaigning on their own behalf is a big occupation of these groups. Look at the websites of EU-funded NGOs and it becomes clear that one of their favoured activities is to lobby for even more EU money. Thus the European Network against Racism (80-90% commission-funded) complains truculently that “the present budget line for anti-racist activities is…insufficient. The network…needs to put pressure on the European institutions with a view to increase this amount.”
The spectacle of organisations that receive EU money using their money to campaign for more EU money is only one example of this looking-glass world. It is a world in which so-called NGOs are actually dependent on government for cash; and one in which the European Commission, itself directly financed by Europe’s national governments, finances “autonomous” organisations that campaign for more power and money to be handed to the commission itself. “
GFOs would be a more appropiate name – Government Funded Organisations.
Wolfowitz will be implementing regime change at the World Bank I suspect. All those NGOs advocating global dole can expect to find the door closed in the future.
I think there are several motivating factors that lead to QuaNGOs rather than government departments. The first is funding; governments like to place them on 3-year (sometimes 5-year) funding contracts that can be pulled if necessary, rather than establishing a new government department then having to volte-face when it’s proven not to work. Of course, if you have several organisations all purporting to being specialists in a certain area, then this supposedly leads to its own economies and efficiency should be driven by competition among those organisations for the funding available. Then there’s the matter of increasing the number of people employed indirectly by the state so that the current ruling party holds a sector of the workforce in its palm, ostensibly reminding them that they need to vote for the status quo in order to have any job security, whilst at the same time, they’re still subject to the vagaries of contract funding. A bit of a farse really.