Management standards and development practice in the South African aid chain

Abstract

The article addresses how South African non-governmental organisations (NGOs) approach the management of their development activities and the influences upon their approaches. Based on interviews, field visits and programme documents from 40 organisations working in South Africa, the article explores the extent to which NGO programme priorities and adopted management practices arise out of donor conditions, succeed in their stated aims and generate other unintended consequences. Four aspects of contemporary NGO management dynamics are explored: logical frameworks, participatory processes, impact enhancement and financial probity. While donor requirements in these four areas generally impose heavy costs on South African NGOs and poorly achieve their stated aims, the research documents cases, in which local managers were able to work effectively and learn within these constraints, found ways around the more intrusive requirements, or challenged donors to change their policies to permit more equitable donor-recipient relationships and better development practice. However, an unintended impact of tighter funding requirements is an observable differentiation within the South African NGO sector, with smaller community-based organisations excluded as larger professional organisations establish more enduring links with international development organisations.

Signaling virtue: voluntary accountability programs among nonprofit organizations

“…Nonprofit organizations, as mission-based organizations, might be particularly open to such normative pressures, but there is little evidence that the nonprofit sector is sufficiently institutionalized for such pressures to operate. Relationships among nonprofits are often characterized by competition rather than cooperation (Cooley and Ron 2002), and professional standards for conduct among nonprofit organizations are often weak and contested (Hopgood 2005;Bornstein 2003). Indeed in the most institutionalized sectors in which nonprofits operate (health and education) certification and accreditation programs are essentially mandatory (Bowman 2008).…”

NGDOs' role in building poor people's capacity to benefit from globalization

“…They carry with them the power to reinforce external images and ideas (cf. Bornstein and Smith, 2001). NGDOs need to challenge the prevailing systems and tools based on their grassroots experiences, as part of their advocacy programmes, as well as to provide alternative frameworks.…”

The role of contestation in NGO partnerships

“…In turn, many of these local NGOs have sought the involvement of, and often transferred funds to, other NGOs, particularly more informal voluntary organisations and village groups, to implement their projects in specific locations. This devolution of responsibility for implementation creates a more complicated 'aid chain', defined as 'the series of links through which aid flows on its way from donors to recipients' (Bornstein, 2001) (Figure 1). …”