this presentation is on international nongovernmental organizations or ing OS I NGOs are nonprofit organizations with no government affiliation the only difference between an NGO and an i NGO is that an eye NGO has an international rather than only domestic presence eye NGOs are usually established with the intention of providing some sort of relief or aid in countries around the world experiencing a sudden or chronic state of crisis for example a lack of food natural disasters human rights issues or extreme prevalence of hiv/aids or other communicable diseases the creation of AI NGOs seems to date back to about the 1800s when it became apparent that disparities around the world couldn't always be resolved within the country and external resources were necessary historically a NGOs played a major role in the abolishment of slavery and women's rights movements around the world as well as the provision of aid during World War two throughout history well-known eye NGOs such as Amnesty International and the American Red Cross have received praise for their work in fact both organizations are recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize in general a NGOs are often credited for responding to the social demands of Nations much quicker than their own governments according to the global journal in 2015 the u.s. ranked the highest in the number of ranked I NGOs making up 26% of all AI NGOs in the world some of those ranking amongst the top 10% most influential in the past 20 years the presence of I NGOs has increased by 500% in some countries unfortunately in this case quantity doesn't always mean quality I think this artwork is depicting the overwhelming number of organizations attempting to address one issue speculations have risen about whether this increase in the number of NGOs is correlated to a greater need the involvement of social media or the discovery that nonprofit work is ironically a very profitable industry in this picture you see a line of NGOs attempting to milk from the quote unquote cash cow of aids funding being distributed the hypothetical cash cow in the previous picture is referring to funding like most nonprofit organizations funding often comes from donors or government agencies although a NGOs are considered non-governmental this can be problematic because political agendas have been known to be associated with monetary donations inter corruption the same organization that received the honour of the Nobel Peace Prize the American Red Cross was under scrutiny for receiving $500,000 in donations for Haiti and only built six homes some sources who interviewed Haitian residents stated that much of the money was spent on outsourcing organizations to build the homes the American Red Cross seems to have denied the claim but has not provided any proof to combat it a more covert version of corruption presents itself in the form of rent-seeking which describes the practice of attempting to earn more money than was lost in overhead cost organizations presenting as AI NGOs use that platform to increase wealth sometimes AI NGOs do this in the form of resource exploitation another funding issue lies in the trickle-down method of circulating resources in this picture you see funding being pumped from an unknown resource to the donor to the I NGO to the NGO to the local NGO and lastly to the population they intended to serve in the first place as you see the resources decrease in size as it gets funneled through the system when you get a chance check out this documentary poverty Inc on Netflix it talks about issues with AI NGOs some based out of the United States and their efforts that actually harmed international economies more than they helped for example TOMS shoes had this idea to donate a pair of shoes with every purchase of a Tom's shoe while this sounds like an awesome idea the unintended consequence was that local cobblers in those countries went out of business free items are not always the answer to developing economies especially when the local economy thrives off of the production of the items being donated similarly the documentary reviews how Bill Clinton attempted to boost the US economy by forcing Haiti to lower taxes on imported rice from Arkansas whether unintentionally or not low-cost imported rice killed Haiti's ability to produce rice and in some sense contributed to Hades inability to become economically self-sufficient and prepared for natural disasters another great resource to check out is killing with kindness by author Mark Schiller in his book he investigates a NGOs in Haiti and their international partners his review of the lateral structure of AI NGOs is thought-provoking to say the least in his evaluation he also touches on the concept of paternalism which is the practice of resource donors regulating recipients actions or choices as a condition of their assistance the concept is that the more economically well-off party would know how to best manage the resources which is obviously not conducive to encouraging self-sufficiency this artwork illustrates how governments or other funding sources often have a wealth of resources but give unwanted leftovers this is also an act of paternalism in the sense that true community development would involve equitable cycling of resources journalism also involves enforcing dominant cultural or social beliefs the woman on the left is a depiction of someone you'd find in a possibly Western society she's saying everything covered but her eyes what a cruel male-dominated culture alternatively the woman on the right who possibly belongs to a more conservative religion is saying nothing covered but her eyes what a cruel male-dominated culture in some countries where forms of female genital cutting takes place I NGOs with Western origins push to outlaw the practice some literature suggests that this created a lot of cultural tension because the women of that region had voluntarily undergone genital cutting and only wish to implement laws regulating the age at which women undergo the procedure also the women of the region could not understand how Western cultures could promote breast augmentation which is a form of genital mutilation but condemned forms of genital mutilation found in their culture although issues involving AI NGOs are vast there's no doubt that a large percentage of these organizations were created out of genuine altruism but rather than contributing our efforts to creating yet another i NGO that we imagine will be bigger and better perhaps our efforts would be best spent in revamping existing systems that contribute to the current problem