There has been considerable interest in recent years in the abil ty of non-governmental organizations to work with the rural poor in developing countries in order to improve their quality of life and economic status through the provision of credit, skills training, and other inputs for income-generation programmes. This book brings together the results of sixteen evaluations in four countries (Bangladesh, India, Uganda and Zimbabwe) to provide a detailed assessment of the contribution that NGOs make to rural poverty alleviation. The results indicate that NGO projects are successful when they build in a high degree of participation, when the staff are committed to the goals of the project, and when they are managed by strong and competent leaders. Many of the projects studied contributed to increases in income and welfare. Programmes designed to provide economic benefits also proved effective in improving the social status of the poor. However, not all projects were successful, contrary to received wisdom about the efficacy of NGO interventions. Many failed to reach the very poorest, most were costly to implement, and few of the projects demonstrated an ability to continue once external funding was withdrawn. These findings provide strong support for viewing NGOs as a mechanism for helping to reduce rural poverty, but also demonstrate that many of the interventions are isolated or one-off. The impact of NGOs could be heightened by increasing the size of the intervention, encouraging greater cooperation among NGOs, and by fostering closer co-operation with governments.

Non-governmental organisations have become the new hope of development cooperation. Criticism of official and multi-lateral development assistance in mounting. After more than for decades of international cooperation, there is more poverty in the Third World (with the exception of a few countries) than ever before. It has become clear that existing instruments cannot bring about change. Even the large donor organisations doubt their own ability to solve problems and find their doubts confirmed by internal evaluations. What led to this state of affairs, and is there reason to hope that the NGOs can do a better job?

Over six billion dollars in developmental assistance is funneled annually through non-governmental organizations (NGOs), yet little is understood about the nature of their relationship with communities and the real impact of their work. This book examines what role NGOs really play in fighting poverty in Latin America. Expert NGO professionals and scholars explore grass-roots relationships between international religious and secular NGOs and poor communities. They probe the power structures, cultural assumptions, dangers and possibilities that underlie NGOs' work. While fighting poverty is the mission of many NGOs, most are aware that they often fail to make things better, and, in fact, may make things worse. By providing a forum for Northern and Southern NGOs, donors, scholars, and poor people themselves, this book explores the causes and cures of poverty, and presses at the boundaries of our understanding of participatory development. It identifies both internal and external factors that influence the success of NGO projects, and moves beyond standard best-practice theory to probe more deeply the relationships that underlie poverty and how these relationships can be shifted to achieve solutions.

Bangladesh country papers and report of the CIRDAP-ESCAP National Workshop on Government-NGO Cooperation for Poverty Alleviation: Capability Building to Alleviate Rural Poverty under Economic Adjustments, held at Dhaka, Bangladesh, 16 Sept. 1997.

Contents: NGOs: Searching for Solid Ground, No Miracle Weapon for Development the Challenges Facing NGOs in the 21st Century, NGO s Better than the State, Stop Child Labour, Child Labour in Weaving Industry, Child Labour Targeting the Intolerable, Trade and Labour Standards, Rural Poverty in India, Employment and Poverty Alleviation, Towards a New Policy on Poverty Reduction, Children s Health and the Environment, Who is Responsible for Corruption in Aid?, Peace and Poverty, Welcome, Baby Six Billion, Population Growth and Jobs, The Population Challenge, The Future of Work, Violence in Schools, Can Economic Growth Reduce Poverty?, The Dynamics of Rural Poverty in India, The Persistence of Indian Poverty and Its Alleviation, Overcoming the Poverty in India and the Lessons Learned, Rural Poverty in India and Development as a Policy Challenge, Employment and Promoting Ecology, The Indian Economy and the Cattle Wealth.