Fifty three Human Rights groups have petitioned the British government, pleading not to cut its foreign aid to countries such as Uganda for the actions of their tyrannical leaders and corrupt governments but rather direct the aid to non-governmental organisations. This followed the announcement by British Prime Minister David Cameron’s to withhold aid going to governments that do not reform legislation interdicting homosexuality. Sweden’s SIDA, Canada and the US made similar threats in the context of the homophobic bill in Uganda this year. The organisations called on the UK government not to cut aid because of the persecution of LGBT people but instead support African social justice activists.
This is of course not a simple issue as there are degrees of violation that are so severe that a donor can simply not continue to (be seen to)assist a country while the capacity of the NGO sector to process and spend a huge amount of money remains insufficient. Besides, the aid given to the Government may be in a sector that is not touched at all by the violations in question (think of medical supplies to hospitals). Moreover, NGOs are not the panacea of all aid and are themselves sometimes involved in mismanagement. Still, it is good to hear from the non-governmental community that cutting aid to their should be the last resort and that they feel confident that that the NGO channel is a viable alternative. But this is valid only where governments allow NGOs to operate freely.
For the full story see: Blackstar News, Re-direct, But Dont cut aid, over human rights abuses, Activists say.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 
November 21, 2011 at 16:54
I don’t understand how a NGO could accept money from a government. Aren’t they supposed to find funds from independent donors, that aren’t dependent on governments?
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November 29, 2011 at 19:35
Dear Alexandra
Indeed ideally NGOs should accept no money from any governments but to be honest that is a bit of a dream. More important is that no money is accepted from ANY source with conditions or – worse – hidden conditions (so transparency is key). Moreover, crucial is that the NGO is as independent as possible, i.e. not depending on money from a single source or very few sources. This goes for government funding but also for other non-state funders. If a big international corporation or a extremely wealthy widow becomes the biggest donor of any organization there is a huge risk of undue influence. In fact, sometimes ‘governmental’ funding (say the squeaky clean and transparent Norwegian parliament) can look lot cleaner than an anonymous gift or that of an extremely conservative foundation or tax-evading business tycoon. Sorry long answer to short question
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