The changing role of NGOs: no longer the eunuch in the harem?

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Abstract
The traditional role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has been to provide governments with support for locally-based projects which are either too small or too experimental to fall within the scope of the larger multilateral or bilateral agencies. However, the setting within which NGOs operate has changed considerably since the Second World War. A growing appreciation of the influences on health of social and economic factors has led to a sense of the inadequacy of small isolated projects; the difficulties some developing country governments have experienced in either formulating or executing a consistent national policy has drawn NGOs into a more prominent role; and forces within NGOs themselves have resulted in the adoption of a more campaigning style. One aspect of these changes is that NGOs are increasingly formulating and advocating policies at a national and international level. But the traditional structure and management of NGOs does not equip them well to fulfil this new role, in which there is potential for conflict with both host governments and international agencies and for a disparity between the intentions of supporters and the uses to which their donations are being put. If they are to operate at this level, NGOs must maintain the highest professional standards. First, each NGO should develop a machinery through which it can achieve an internally agreed position and then circulate an explicit policy statement on the basis of which potential donors can decide whether to support the organization. Secondly, the diagnosis of problems, and policies advocated to solve them, should be based on the best available information which is analysed by experts in the field concerned. This will require considerable management skills, but is a goal for which it is worth striving, as NGOs are in a unique position to make a disinterested contribution to issues of major international significance.

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