Most Southern Non-Governmental Organizations (SNGOs) depend on donor agencies for their survival. To qualify for donor funding, SNGOs typically have to meet a range of funding conditions. Critics argue that donor requirements may have undesirable consequences. Based on qualitative research involving 41 SNGOs in India and Ghana, this article explores (1) the (potentially) adverse effects of donor conditions on SNGOs and (2) the strategies that SNGOs employ to deal with these conditions. We demonstrate that certain donor conditions are difficult to reconcile with a view of development that emphasizes local ownership and a strong and autonomous civil society. We also show that SNGOs employ a multitude of strategies to deal with adverse donor conditions, highlighting that they are not powerless in their relations with donors. Yet, these strategies are not always available to all organizations and may have undesired consequences. Points for practitioners Private development aid is increasingly characterized by pressure for accountability and a tightening of funding arrangements. Donors supporting SNGOs need to take into consideration that their funding conditions may have a range of undesirable consequences. Our study offers an overview of these consequences, enabling donor agencies to systematically review their conditions in the light of their potentially adverse effects. In addition, our study shows that – when confronted when unworkable donor conditions – SNGOs employ strategic behaviour. This is particularly problematic when SNGOs resort to manipulating the perception of donors resulting in the creation of a paper reality.
Abstract:While cross-sector partnerships are sometimes depicted as a pragmatic problem solving arrangements devoid of politics and power, they are often characterized by power dynamics. Asymmetries in power can have a range of undesirable consequences as low-power actors may be co-opted, ignored, over-ruled, or excluded by dominant parties. As of yet, there has been relatively little conceptual work on the power strategies that actors in cross-sector partnerships deploy to shape collective decisions to their own advantage. Insights from across the literatures on multiparty collaboration, cross-sector partnerships, interactive governance, collaborative governance, and network governance, are integrated into a theoretical framework for empirically analyzing power sources (resources, discursive legitimacy, authority) and power strategies (power over and power in cross-sector partnerships). Three inter-related claims are central to our argument: (1) the intersection between the issue field addressed in the partnership and an actor's institutional field shape the power sources available to an actor; (2) an actor can mobilize these power sources directly in strategies to achieve power in cross-sector partnerships; and, (3) an actor can also mobilize these power sources indirectly, through setting the rules of the game, to achieve power over partnerships. The framework analytically connects power dynamics to their broader institutional setting and allows for spelling out how sources of power are used in direct and indirect power strategies that steer the course of cross-sector partnerships. The resulting conceptual framework provides the groundwork for pursuing new lines of empirical inquiry into power dynamics in cross-sector partnerships.
Power asymmetries within partnerships between Northern and Southern NGOs are thought to be undesirable. Based on a comparative case study of the partnerships between three Northern NGOs and their Southern partners in Ghana, India and Nicaragua, this study examines how the partnerships' institutional design affects local partners' room to manoeuvre. It is demonstrated that (1) the Northern agencies unilaterally set the rules that govern the partnerships, based on their own norms, values and beliefs; (2) similarities and differences between the rules of the three agencies can, above all, be attributed to the corresponding and diverging nature of their norms, values and beliefs; and (3) informal rules allow more flexibility in their use. Whether this is beneficial for the Southern partners' room to manoeuvre depends on individual project officers, who are responsible for interpreting and applying the rules, and the partners' ability to conduct negotiations.Re ´sume ´Les asyme ´tries de pouvoir dans les partenariats entre agences d'aide prive ´es et ONG des pays du sud sont juge ´es inde ´sirables. Base ´e sur une e ´tude comparative des partenariats entre trois agences d'aide prive ´es et leurs partenaires au Ghana, en Inde et au Nicaragua, cette e ´tude examine l'impact de l'organisation institutionnelle de ces partenariats sur les marges de manoeuvre des partenaires locaux. Il est de ´montre ´que (1) les agences fixent unilate ´ralement les re `gles gouvernant les partenariats en fonction de leurs propres normes, valeurs, et croyances, (2) les similarite ´s et les diffe ´rences entre les re `gles des trois agences peuvent e ˆtre principalement attribue ´es a `la convergence et divergence de leurs normes, valeurs, et croyances, (3) les re `gles informelles peuvent e ˆtre utilise ´es avec plus de flexibilite´.
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