UNIVERSITI UTARA MALAYSIA

COLLEGE OF LAW, GOVERNMENT & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

GFPP 3533

SEMINAR ON DIPLOMACY AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ISSUES

GROUP ASSIGNMENT:

TOPIC 3:

ROLE OF NGOS IN HUMANITARIAN ISSUES

PREPARED BY;

Pridhivraj Naidu

Introduction

Establisment and beginning of NGO can be raced back to early ages, but In 1945, Article

71 of the UN Charter formalized NGO involvement in UN processes and activities, and some

NGOs even contributed to the drafting of the Charter itself. UNESCO and WHO both

explicitly provided for NGO involvement in their charters1.

The term NGO is broad and ambiguous. It covers a range of organizations within civil

society, from political action groups to sports clubs. Its clear definition still remains

contested. However, it can be argued that all NGO’s can be regarded as civil society

organizations though not all civil society organizations are NGO’s. The concept of NGO came

into use in 1945 following the establishment of the United Nations Organizations which

recognized the need to give a consultative role to organizations which were not classified as

government nor member states2.

The United Nations estimates that there were about 35,000 large established NGOs in

2000. Nor are there accurate figures available for the amount of resources that NGOs

receive from aid, contracts and private donations. In 2004, it was estimated that NGOs were

responsible for about $US23 billion of total aid money, or approximately one third of total

ODA3.

1________ (1945) Repertory of Practices of United Nations Organs Supplements No.72 Willets, P.(2002). What is a Non-Governmental Organization. Article 1.44.3.7 in UNESCO Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems. World Bank.3 Riddell, R. (2007). Does foreign aid really work? Oxford: Oxford University Press.

NGO & Humanitarian background

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are now recognized as key third sector

actors on the landscapes of development, human rights, humanitarian action,

environment, and many other areas of public action, from the post-2004 Tsunami

Reconstruction Efforts in Indonesia, India, Thailand, and Sri Lanka, to the 2005 Make

Poverty History campaign for aid and trade reform and developing country debt

cancellation.

As these two examples illustrate, NGOs are best-known for two different, but often

interrelated, types of activity – the delivery of services to people in need, and the

organization of policy advocacy, and public campaigns in pursuit of social

transformation4.

Role in International System

NGOs are also active in a wide range of other specialized roles such as democracy

building, conflict resolution, human rights work, cultural preservation, environmental

activism, policy analysis, research, and information provision.

The work undertaken by NGOs is wide-ranging but NGO roles can be usefully analyzed as

having three main components: implementer, catalyst, and partner5

The implementer role is concerned with the mobilization of resources to provide goods

and services to people who need them. Service delivery is carried out by NGOs across a wide

range of fields such as healthcare, microfinance, agricultural extension, emergency relief,

4 Lewis, D. (____). Non Governmental Organizations: Definition & History .London School of Economics & Political Science.5 Lewis, D. (2007). The management of non-governmental development organizations (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.

and human rights. This role has increased as NGO shave been increasingly ‘‘contracted’’ by

governments and donors with governance reform and privatization policies to carry out

specific tasks in return for payment; it has also become more prominent as NGOs are

increasingly responding to man-made emergencies or natural disasterswith humanitarian

assistance.

The catalyst role can be defined as an NGO’s ability to inspire, facilitate or contribute to

improved thinking and action to promote social transformation6. This effort may be directed

towards individuals or groups in local communities, or among other actors in development

such as government, business or donors. It may include grassroots organizing and group

formation, gender and empowerment work, lobbying and advocacy work, and attempts to

influence wider policy processes through innovation, and policy entrepreneurship.

The role of partner reflects the growing trend for NGOs to work with government,

donors and the private sector on joint activities, such as providing specific inputs within a

broader multiagency program or project, or undertaking socially responsible business

initiatives. It also includes activities that take place among NGOs and with communities such

as ‘‘capacity building’’ work which seeks to develop and strengthen capabilities. The current

policy rhetoric of ‘‘partnership’’ seeks to bring NGOs into mutually beneficial relationships

with these other sectors.

Outstanding Issue: Responsibility to Protect (R2P)

In the international system today, the sovereignity of the state is being compramised

and limited. Not as per stated in the treaty of Westphalia, but based on concerns of human

6 Brown.D(1992) Non Governmental Organizations as Development Catalyst (Vol9.Num1)Institute Of Development Reports

lifes and rights. As we can see in the most current situations of Libyan crisis. The issue is no

more local when massacre and public killing is happeneing in the borders by the

government. It has become a international affair, requiring wide spread actions of

international communities.

Intervention was invoked against a state's abuse of its sovereignty by brutal and cruel

treatment of those within its power, both nationals and non- nationals. Such a state was

regarded as having made itself liable to action by any state or states that were prepared to

intervene. One writer, in 1921, depicted humanitarian intervention as

"the reliance upon force for the justifiable purpose of protecting the inhabitants of another

state from the treatment which is so arbitrary and persistently abusive as to exceed the limits of that

authority within which the sovereign is presumed to act with reason and justice."7

The role of non governmental organizations in these situations are also very much real.

Case Study

The role of International Organizations can be restricted due to the above conflict of

R2P. But still commitment has been taken to put in the efforts to establish the most

appropriate actions to handle situations as below; where mistakes and political blunder still

happens.

Rwanda in 1994 laid bare the full horror of inaction. The United Nations (UN)

Secretariat and some permanent members of the Security Council knew that officials

connected to the then government were planning genocide. UN forces were present, though

not in sufficient number at the outset; and credible strategies were available to prevent, or

at least greatly mitigate, the slaughter which followed. But the Security Council refused to 7 International Commission on Intervention & State Sovereignity, ICISS (Dec,2001)

take the necessary action. That was a failure of international will, of civic courage, at the

highest level. Its consequence was not merely a humanitarian catastrophe for Rwanda: the

genocide destabilized the entire Great Lakes region and continues to do so. In the aftermath,

many African peoples concluded that, for all the rhetoric about the universality of human

rights, some human lives end up mattering a great deal less to the international community

than others.

Kosovo where intervention did take place in 1999, concentrated attention on all the

other sides of the argument. The operation raised major questions about the legitimacy of

military intervention in a sovereign state. Was the cause just: were the human rights abuses

committed or threatened by the Belgrade authorities sufficiently serious to warrant outside

involvement?. How could the bypassing and marginalization of the UN system, by “a

coalition of the willing” acting without Security Council approval, possibly be justified? Did

the way in which the intervention was carried out in fact worsen the very human rights

situation it was trying to rectify? Or, against all this, was it the case that had the North

Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) not intervened, Kosovo would have been at best the site

of an ongoing, bloody and destabilizing civil war, and at worst the occasion for genocidal

slaughter like that which occurred in Bosnia four years earlier?

The Bosnian case, in particular the failure by the United Nations and others to

prevent the massacre of thousands of civilians seeking shelter in UN “safe areas” in

Srebrenica in 1995, is another which has had a major impact on the contemporary policy

debate about intervention for human protection purposes. It raises the principle that

intervention amounts to a promise to people in need: a promise cruelly betrayed.

Yet another was the failure and ultimate withdrawal of the UN peace operations in

Somalia in 1992–93, when an international intervention to save lives and restore order was

destroyed by flawed planning, poor execution, and an excessive dependence on military

force8.

Conclusion

As a conclusion theres is much improvements needed in the developments of Non

Governmental Organizations in making sure security in providing humanitarian efforts to the

international community. For that the quotes and thoughts of The fromer Secretary General

of United Nations, Koffi Annan gestured on the immportance of human protection as per:

“the prospects for human security and intervention in the next century.”

He recalled the failures of the Security Council to act in Rwanda and Kosovo, and

challenged the member states of the UN to , “find common ground in upholding the principles of

the Charter, and acting in defence of our common humanity.”

The Secretary-General warned that, “If the collective conscience of humanity … cannot

find in the United Nations its greatest tribune, there is a grave danger that it will look elsewhere for

peace and for justice.”9

8 International Commission on Intervention & State Sovereignty, ICISS (Dec,2001)9 Anan.K (1999) 54th session of the UN General Assembly

References

________ (1945) Repertory of Practices of United Nations Organs Supplements No.7

Willets, P.(2002). What is a Non-Governmental Organization. Article 1.44.3.7 in UNESCO Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems. World Bank.

Riddell, R. (2007). Does foreign aid really work? Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lewis, D. (____). Non Governmental Organizations: Definition & History .London School of Economics & Political Science.

Lewis, D. (2007). The management of non-governmental development organizations (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.

Brown.D (1992) Non Governmental Organizations as Development Catalyst (Vol9.Num1)Institute Of Development Reports

International Commission on Intervention & State Sovereignity, ICISS (Dec,2001)

Anan.K (1999) 54th session of the UN General Assembly