This article explores how capitalist attempts at altruism are an integral part of the neocolonialist economy through non-governmental organizations (NGOs). We frame NGOs as an extension of the Rennaissance idea of human rights and examine international forces in the second half of the twentieth century that contribute to the current position of international NGOs involved in education and development.
Introduction
International and national Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) involved in the provision and supervision of human rights have historical roots in the post-Second World War (WWII) period with the reconstruction of Europe and the spread of neo-liberalism worldwide. During the interwar era, the League of Nations was set-up as the first ‘worldwide’ intergovernmental organization, with the goal of keeping the peace. After WWII, the League of Nations failed to prevent war, which prompted the development of the United Nations (UN). In the UN charter, NGOs are mentioned explicitly only in relation to their ability to offer counsel to the UN in their specific areas of expertise. Article 71 states that:
The Economic and Social Council may make suitable arrangements for consultation with non-governmental organizations which are concerned with matters within its competence. Such arrangements may be made with international organizations and, where appropriate, with national organizations after consultation with the Member of the United Nations concerned. (United Nations, 1945)
The wording of the UN charter implies that NGOs have only a peripheral, advisory role in the new global structures growing around the UN. However, as is evidenced by the proliferation of NGOs, their member states and the influence many of these organizations exert, it is clear that NGOs play a larger role on the international scene than simply what is laid out in the UN charter.
This article is a critical analysis of the function of NGOs, including the history and motivation behind the creation of such organizations and a look at the mechanisms over the last century that allowed NGOs to gain and maintain power. We are driven by the hope that NGOs can help to imagine multiple futures, since “[p]luriversality, and not universality, is the horizon of de-colonial thinking” (Mignolo, 2009 p. 171). Our goal here is not to consider in detail the histories or concrete possibilities of NGOs, but rather to add to the scope through context to how conceptions of education as a human right fit into the reality of NGOs as institutions. Through the rise of global education and developmental education in Western nations, we will demonstrate that NGOs both aid and hinder non-hegemonic educational structures.
Part 1: Histories
European humanists invented the concept of man during the Renaissance (15th-16th century) to sever themselves from the church and the Christian identity. This also created a distinction between themselves (the humanists) and other communities that were perceived as threats, in particular non-Christian religions and ‘the orient’ (Mignolo, 2009). A historical category of difference based solely on religion expanded to secular hierarchies during the enlightenment through the creation of the idea of humanists, a secular but hierarchical form of power (ibid.). This represents a secular form of othering that continued in categorizing and giving power to people over centuries and ultimately expanded to the axes of race and class (Quijano, 2000).
Though ideas of man, humanist, and intellect continued to develop during the Renaissance, ‘human rights’ was invented as a tool of colonialism. The idea of rights developed in relation to imperial expansion as a way to create and maintain hierarchies of labor and race (Mignolo, 2009). At the same time, in the European imperial core, nationalities were being constructed through these colonial tools:
Rights were linked to the construction of nation-states and the coming into being and the stabilization of an ethno-class commonly known as the European bourgeoisie. Being human meant to be rational, and rationality was limited to what philosophers and political theorists of the Enlightenment said it was. (Mignolo, 2009, p. 164)
The ideas of human, rights, and human rights, are based therefore on a Western standard of knowledge and power. Thus, there is a paradox inherent in the idea of human rights, as it argues for equality and meeting basic needs for all but the original definition is developed from an imperialist and colonialist perspective.
Part II: Non-Governmental Organizations as Human Rights Promoters
In order to understand the birth of the NGO in the post-WWII period, we consider the values they follow in constructing their many missions, visions, and actions. Non-governmental organizations and, at local, regional, and national levels, non-profit organizations work in the framework of service and no profit for employees, stakeholders, or leaders. Their goals grew directly from ideas of service and philanthropy, framed in the context of human rights (Mignolo, 2009). The bourgeoise ideas of charity and philanthropy in European and American societies of the 19th and 20th centuries became more structured and covertly included in the ideology of the international, non-governmental organization during the creation of the NGO. In the 1930s, the fear of fascism and anti-democratic states prompted an interest in world citizenship and global education, which was another factor that shaped the missions of multiple NGOs even up to the present (Bourn, 2020). In this section we will examine how many international NGOs have developed due to a philosophy of global education (GE), how GE became developmental education (DE), and how these motives justify the control of developing countries by the western international powers.
Parallel to the creation of the United Nations and the increase in popularity of neoliberal doctrines, there has been an implementation of NGOs to solve global developmental needs. In the aftermath of the Cold War, the Global North has attempted to industrialize and modernize the Global South through the work of NGOS (Mignolo, 2009). At the same time, they promoted an idea of global citizenship and global education within Western countries (Bourn, 2020), and global education became another justification for the creation of more NGOs. The goals of development and global education come together in many NGOs, for example UNICEF. The proliferation of NGOs in the second half of the 19th century took the form of a wave of market-oriented development strategies, primarily the Washington Consensus (1989). Funded by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, international money and aid focused on development and modernization projects, normalizing neoliberalism globally. NGOs, through many methods and routes, became the new form of economic coloniality. They replaced missionaries with modern human rights and democratic rhetoric (Mignolo, 2009). However, it is hard to untangle Western savior impulses of charity from valuable economic development efforts (Mignolo, 2009).
Understanding the complexities of NGOs developmental efforts is vital in order to promote true altruistic efforts. The creation of the UN, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and others, were initiatives in response to WWII. This type of large, international, development-oriented NGO grew from an international policy desire to promote global education, peace education and human rights education. The idea of global education and intercultural understanding transformed into development education, in response to the decolonization processes of the 1960-70s. Development education came from a desire by policy makers and NGOs to gain public support for international development aid proposals and projects (Bourn, 2020). In order to support decolonization, NGOs began to focus on aid assistance programs. Developmental education legitimized the western interest, engagement, and funding of international aid assistance projects. Today, efforts such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals are an example of economic support for international development from the Western policies of the UN.
Fundamentally, the problem with letting NGO’s lead global development efforts is that the dominant perspectives and influence in such organizations and projects is influenced by the funding power of policymakers. Even where support for development projects comes from an urge to promote a common understanding of humanity and human rights, the effect is more often an emphasis on economic growth (Bourn, 2020). Efforts ultimately focusing on economic growth, rather than humanistic, altruistic efforts, inherently include the ideology behind the motive. For example: focusing on poverty, rather than injustice, or focusing on interconnectedness rather than power imbalances. While global education and development education are counter-hegemonic pedagogies, the policymakers, NGOs, and educational ministries that spring from them are not. As they are reliant on funding that follows policy trends, in a neoliberal international climate they tend to strengthen the dominant orthodox.
In an analysis of NGO workings, Wright (2012) questions the non-profit status of NGOs, showing that a lack of monetary profit does not equate to no benefits. In many developing countries, Wright argues that NGOs provide some of the best salaries, social status, and quality of living available on the job market. As Bourn (2020) demonstrates, donors, from governments to individuals, have a say in the type of work NGOs can carry out and put pressure on organizations to conform to their agendas. Wright illustrates the myriad of ways in which NGOs are subject to hegemonic structures and tend to fill, strengthen, or create colonial power structures. Castell (2000) describes this conflict in functions of modern NGOs, saying he provocatively refers to these organization as neo-governmental organizations because they are subsidized by a government in every instance of import (Castell, 2000, p. 51).
As Bourn (2020) emphasizes, “[w]hile strategic initiatives can help to maximize impact, they can all too often result in the domination of one viewpoint. NGO initiatives, … while encouraging differing voices, can result in the domination of agendas of the organization rather than education priorities” (p. 18). Thus, present-day operations and effects of NGOs play out the tensions between the historical realities of human rights and the idealistic goals represented by human rights.
References
Bourn, D. (2020). The Emergence of Global Education as a Distinctive Pedagogical Field. The Bloomsbury Handbook of Global Education and Learning, 11–22. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350108769.0009
Castell, M. (2000). Globalización, sociedad y política en la era de la Información. Bitácora Urbano-Territorial, 4(1), 42–53.
Mignolo, W. D. (2011). Who speaks for the “human” in human rights?. Cadernos de Estudos Cuturais, 3(5).
Quijano, A. (2000). Coloniality of Power and Eurocentrism in Latin America. International Sociology, 15(2), 215–232. https://doi.org/10.1177/0268580900015002005
United Nations. (1945). Charter (full text). https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text
Wright, G. W. (2012). NGOs and Western hegemony: causes for concern and ideas for change. Development in Practice, 22(1), 123–134. https://doi.org/10.1080/09614524.2012.634230
Comentarios