State Financing, Donor Empowerment: Can NGOs Be Truly Independent?

Résumé du document

Nowadays Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have become very influent economic actors both on the national and international level. Their budgets represent an enormous amount of money, making them as important as well-known firms or international organizations. For instance, the environmental American NGO “Sierra club” had in 2001 72 432 Million of dollars at its disposal, while L'Oreal's benefit in 2005 amounted to 14 533 Millions of euros. For sure, not every NGO has such enormous resources, seeing that 20% of the NGOs gather approximately between 80 and 90% of the total resources. However this highlights the question of their financing. NGOs normally should be independent since they are contra-powers regarding States and firms, especially for the NGOs involved in anti-globalization or alter-globalization movements, that highly criticize the actual economic organization. We can observe currently a shift from traditional funding, like private donations and public financing, to a growing influence of firms through partnerships. Both classical and new kinds of funds raise the problem of the independence of the NGO towards its financial sources. However the diversity of the different kinds of funding and of each NGO's strategy must be put into light. Indeed, there is not only one way of fundraising, and the different NGOs often have radically opposite strategies, which depend on their ethic principles and their ideological guidelines. At the same time, within one kind of financing, there is a variety of actors and NGOs often don't benefit from the financial help of each of them. For example, public funds include state financing (national and foreign states) and international organizations' funds at different level (the European Union, the United Nations Organization…). Regarding the actual financial situation of NGOs and its evolution, we can't help a wonder about the difficulty to conciliate independence and ethic with efficiency through important resources.

Extraits

[...] State Financing, Donor Empowerment: Can NGOs Be Truly Independent? Nowadays Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have become very influent economic actors both on the national and international level. Their budgets represent an enormous amount of money, making them as important as well-known firms or international organizations. For instance, the environmental American NGO “Sierra club” had in Million of dollars at its disposal, while L'Oreal's benefit in 2005 amounted to Millions of euros. For sure, not every NGO has such enormous resources, seeing that 20% of the NGOs gather approximately between 80 and 90% of the total resources. [...]

[...] However, private fund-raising remains a traditional and independent funding according to many NGOs. Indeed private donors can't have the same influence than states or firms since their contribution is much smaller. What's more their number is so important that one donator can't influence the missions of the NGO. For instance, the French NGO “Action contre la faim” had active donators, according to their annual report in 2005. Besides NGOs nowadays use marketing strategies so as to attract particular people who match their ethic principles and their missions. [...]

[...] This solution is adopted by many NGOs nowadays in spite of ethic and independence problems. As a matter of fact, the independence is put in danger when the firm donates an important amount of money, and we can see the difference between NGOs that belong to the alter-globalization's movement and which are therefore much critical, and NGOs that try to conciliate their goals and their ethic with a more efficient possibility of action. WWF and Greenpeace for instance illustrate this gap: Greenpeace is more in confrontation with multinational firms. [...]

[...] Furthermore public aid make NGOs dependent from political programs and financial aid which has been planned a long time ago but which is sometimes changed because of political decisions. This happened in 2004 in France because the French Foreign Affairs' minister was in suspension of payments for some credits devolved to aid for the development and therefore couldn't afford financing NGOs as planned. The government did not fulfill its commitment and due to this unexpected stop of funding many projects were in danger. That is the reason why public funding can be dangerous for NGOs. [...]

[...] So as to conclude, NGOs are necessarily at least partially dependent. Sometimes it threats their political neutrality or their ethic principles, the guidelines of their missions, that is the reason why it is problematic. However the majority of NGOs shows more and more pragmatism and try to conciliate their principles with efficiency, in working in another way, for instance through partnerships with firms. So as to know if a NGO has lost its independence we must take a closer look to its particular situation, because it is impossible to define general rules. [...]