Development organizations need resources to help them continue providing services to the community. Non Govermental Organizations (NGOs) for a long time have relied on the generosity of donors to support their project activities through grants and donations. However organizations have realized that such funding sources are often insufficient to meet needs and rising costs for project implementation. In Africa despite vast differences among the NGOs most share a common challenge of unlimited needs chasing limited resources. Local NGOs face difficulties securing enough funds because the projects undertaken require substantial amounts of resources, both financial and non-financial due to high poverty levels in most parts of the continent. Resource mobilization requires a lot of time and skills to seek resources from different sources and the pressure to mobilize resources may lead the organizations to use methods that compromise the values they are fighting for through their work.
Partnership with local NGOs has become an important feature in the development sector. Therefore the management of human resources in local NGOs is crucial as it contributes to the performance and sustainability of the organizations. However many local NGOs face diverse challenges in the area of human resource management. Local NGOs have inadequate HR management procedures in the organization and this affects the employee's work experiences and overall performance at individual and organizational level. Many local NGOs due to the size of the organization and scope do not have a human resource (HR) unit or a human resource manager and therefore they appoint staff to oversee staff issues who often do not have the required human resource skills and competencies to manage the employees. Another area that is challenging local NGOs is the fact that many depend on donor funds that are tied to funding cycles that are short term in nature. This affects the NGOs human resource capacity in terms of the number and type of staff to recruit and employment duration. The mentorship of management and board members in human resource management could be one way to improve human resource competence in these organizations. This paper seeks to highlight human resource management challenges local NGOs encounter and the importance of considering HRM as a strategic process that can contribute to sustaining an organization's performance.
As local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) assume a greater role in improving the well‐being of the communities in which they operate, donors and government agencies are increasingly scrutinizing their performance and accountability. To effectively undertake development projects, the local NGOs must address a host of challenges, both internally and externally. These include inadequacies in technical capacity, project status information, stakeholder involvement, cost estimates, resources, infrastructure, communications, and vendors and suppliers; a lack of understanding of the local socioeconomic and political environment; and disruptive interference from management. By adopting project management practices, supervisors and staff members of the local NGOs can efficiently mobilize all the resources at their disposal toward designing and implementing sustainable interventions, and thus guarantee the ongoing support of their benefactors. ©2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Abstract:Partnership is an emergent and dynamic process and working in collaboration with others is never easy especially when it involves organizations with diverse and sometimes conflicting mandates, cultures, capabilities and aspirations. However, local NGOs in developing countries experience difficulties in effectively achieving their mandates without collaborating with others. Effective management of partnerships is important because a failed partnership process can be disastrous and ruin an organization's viability and legitimacy. The purpose of this paper is to highlight obstacles that hinder effective management of partnerships between Local NGOs (LNGOs) and International NGOs (INGOs). The study results indicate that NGO partnerships added value to development efforts at community level however this good work may be affected if obstacles that hinder effective management of partnerships are not consistently addressed during the partnership lifecycle. The following obstacles were highlighted; minimal involvement in decision making, inadequate technical and organizational capacity, inadequate resources to support partnership objectives, minimal participation in project design, inadequate communication and low levels of commitment. In conclusion the study findings suggest that NGO partnerships still operate at a transactional level. It would be ideal if those who initiate, engage and manage these partnerships progressively shift to more transformational forms of engagement in-spite of the funding aspect.
Partnerships are effective and sustainable mechanisms that enable development NGOs effectively achieve their mandates and project interventions at community level. However many partnerships fail to achieve their envisioned outcomes due to factors that limit or hinder their success. It is often difficult to consistently manage partnership success when the partnership involves organizations with different mandates, organizational structures, values, professional capacities and limited resources. The purpose of the study was to explore factors that are perceived as key in facilitating partnership success from the perspective of local NGOs engaged in development partnerships. Experiences and understanding of NGO leaders and staff engaged in partnership work were explored through a series of interviews. The study revealed the following factors that were perceived to be key to nurturing successful partnerships; commitment, communication, shared vision and purpose, collaborative leadership and realistic funding. It is important for any agency or institution seeking to collaborate with others to identify and monitor both the' hard' and 'soft' aspects that promote partnership success.
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