US GOVERNMENT RELATIONSHIP NGOS

The US Government has “the best relationship with the NGOs who are such a force multiplier for us, such an important part of our combat team”. Discuss.

US Government relationship NGOs

The US's increasing engagement in 'small wars' and nation-building is challenging NGOs' sense of their core mission and degree of independence. A decisive period is opening where the very meaning of humanitarian action is being explored and redefined.

The Financial Times reported on 13 June 2003 a significant remark of Andrew Natsios, head of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). He told American NGOs that, if they want to continue to receive funding for overseas relief and development aid, they should emphasise their links to the Bush administration (“NGOs under pressure on relief funds”, Alan Beattie, Financial Times, 13 June 2003). This raises a basic question: are NGOs becoming simply a foreign policy tool of the US and other governments?

This is certainly a moment of great disorientation on the part of practitioners of humanitarian action. There are many examples of their uncertainty. To cite just one, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Unocha) in early 2003 took the unprecedented step of elaborating principles for engagement with the military coalition which was then planning to occupy Iraq.

NGOs have complained about how US soldiers dress and conduct small-scale reconstruction projects in Afghanistan, asserting that aid workers are exposed to dangers as a result of military usurpation of civilian assistance activities. Moreover, even before the fighting had finished in Iraq, USAID had awarded $900 million in contracts to private companies to undertake reconstruction activities; these included refurbishing public health infrastructure and organising popular participation in local government, activities that NGOs have undertaken in other settings.

This raises the question of whether humanitarian action is being privatised. It may be, to some extent, though this is hardly new. USAID contractors have operated for many years, particularly after the demise of the Soviet empire, where they undertook a variety of programmes in the successor states. Efforts were made to nurture civil society, and introduce democracy and the rule of law, with decidedly mixed results.

It is also true that humanitarian NGOs are not necessarily capable of undertaking societal reconstruction tasks; certainly, no one would turn to an NGO to reconstruct a destroyed harbour. But other activities undertaken by private contractors impinge upon areas in which NGOs have been involved.

Yet the newly-resourced efforts for Iraqi reconstruction are in fact the antithesis of privatisation. Rather, these initiatives are supported by significant government funding - in Iraq most notably from USAID. The infusion of large amounts of government funding necessarily raises questions about the independence of NGOs under contract. One NGO official noted the difficulty of managing large governmental contributions on the one hand, and maintaining an ability to act with a degree of independence from government objectives on the other.

Indeed, those NGOs which felt marginalised by USAID's generous commitment to contractors in Iraq met its officials and ...