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The role of the transnational community of non‐government organizations: governance or poverty reduction?
Author(s) -
Townsend Janet G.,
Porter Gina,
Mawdsley Emma
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
journal of international development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.533
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1099-1328
pISSN - 0954-1748
DOI - 10.1002/jid.928
Subject(s) - managerialism , poverty reduction , poverty , government (linguistics) , corporate governance , work (physics) , audit , active listening , public administration , sociology , economic growth , political science , political economy , economics , management , philosophy , communication , engineering , mechanical engineering , linguistics
Abstract Non‐government organizations working in development form a transnational community which has a new role in imperialism today. We explored the knowledge economy of this community with NGDOs in Ghana, India, Mexico and Europe and found it to be largely donor‐controlled and generally top‐down, often against the will of committed individual actors. Governability is arguably a greater priority to donors than the most effective poverty reduction. The new managerialism and its audit culture impose demands on NGDOs that tend to work against any ‘listening’ to southern NGDOs or their clients, so that the sharing of local knowledge and ideas is very restricted. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.