NGO's - Making Things Better or Worse?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Brooklyn, New York, United States of America (Free-Press-Release.com) December 16, 2011 -- Without a doubt, there are many fine NGOs out there doing very noble work and creating a better world for all of us to love in, but then again there are many NGOs who doing just as much harm as good.

Basically, an NGO is a special “interest” group, which is meant to give a voice to those that might not have one otherwise and to deliver that message to the powers that be in order to persuade, develop or control a specific outcome, which supposedly portrays the needs and rights of it’s constituents. The problem is, that often those rights are serving the needs of a very select few at the sacrifice of the needs of the many and finding out just who those few are is never simple.

In an ideal world, assessing the real motives of an NGO would be as easy as connecting the dots if you had all of the information in front of you, but as many NGO’s do not disclose their backers and supporters the correlation between the two is often convoluted.

The other day, I came across an article written by Sebastian Mallaby, author of The World Banker and former contributor to The Economist where he wrote about foreign policy and international finance for 13 years. The article was written in The Globalist back in October of 2004, but to me it gives a very clear example of NGO’s potentially doing more harm than good.

The example is that of a dam planned to be built near the source of the Nile River in Uganda at a place called Bujagali Falls. This project was backed by the World Bank and was proposed in order to alleviate an electricity crisis, which was impacting millions of Ugandans and threatening the country’s overall development. The power from this damn would provide vital energy for hospitals, schools, businesses and residences throughout the country.

The problem was that a Berkeley, California based NGO by the name of The International Rivers Network proclaimed the outrage of the Ugandan environmental movement at the likely damage to the falls, as well as that of the local villagers who were to be cruelly removed from their homes as a result (approximately 6,800 people).

Here is where it gets interesting. Mallaby himself happened to be in Uganda at the time and thought to investigate things further on his own to determine just what merit, if any, these proclamations carried. His first call was to Lori Pottinger, the International Rivers activist who led the Bujagali Falls campaign and whom he describes as being “not exactly forthcoming”. She told him that her local counterparts were busy and that digging around the local villages would only land him in trouble with the Ugandan authorities.

Undiscouraged, Mallaby tracked down the environmental group that she had worked with on his own and managed to get a meeting with its director who “gratefully acknowledged the sponsorship of a group called the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation”. When asked what type of an organization this was, he informed that it was a “membership” organization.

Pressing the matter further Mallaby asked how many members were part of this organization at which point he was provided with a list, which showed that all 25 members belonged to Uganda’s National Association of Professional Environmentalists. In Mallaby’s own words “not exactly a broad platform from which to oppose electricity for millions”.

From there he went on to speak to the residents of the surrounding villages only to hear that they had all been offered a generous financial package, which they were too happy to accept and relocate. So what was the problem? The package was only offered to those within the area, which would be affected by the construction of the dam, which created anger with those just outside of the affected area, as they were not entitled to any compensation.

In this case, you can see how a small group of just 25 members can stall a project that would benefit millions, but of course when you get a Western NGO behind the movement along with it’s vast network of affiliates and modern PR machine and it doesn’t seem that difficult. Once again, ground level accounts vary significantly from those professing to represent and protect the rights and needs of the many.

After a decade of prolonged and protracted objections from environmentalists at the cost millions having to live without adequate electricity, the first 50MW from the new Bujagali Hydroelectric Power Station will be turned on this December 2011.

International Rivers Network     NGO criticism     NGOs     Uganada