8.2.3

Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs)

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What are Non-Governmental Organisations?

NGOs are economically and politically separate from government. They raise money to achieve their aims through fundraising.

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What do NGOs do?

  • NGOs aim to tackle specific social injustices.
  • Examples of NGOs include Dementia Alliance International, the International Paralympic Committee and Landmind Survivors Network.
  • They are vast in their unique aims and this can make them difficult to classify.
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Separate from state?

  • Whilst NGOs are, by definition, separate to the state, critics argue that this is not always the case.
  • Akira Iriye (2002) argues that, “NGOs have shaped the ‘American Century’ by transporting the core American values of association, civic culture and democracy to the rest of the world”.
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NGO work in developed countries

  • NGOs work with people directly, e.g. by providing access to education, food and shelter. They also lobby governments to try and influence them to change the way they work and the laws they enact.
  • NGOs work in developed nations as well as developing.
    • For example, Save the Children works in partnership with a charity called Beanstalk to provide one-to-one literacy support for children aged between 5 and 11 years old in Blackburn, Lancashire.
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Save the Children in Syria

  • That same NGO, Save the Children, also gives blankets, food and toiletries to families in Syria that are trying to escape the fighting in Idlib.
  • These are examples of the NGO providing direct help.
  • Save the Children also works indirectly to help children. For example, by condemning air strikes in Yemen and calling on the international community to address such illegal acts.

Jump to other topics

1Theory & Methods

2Education with Methods in Context

3Option 1: Culture & Identity

4Option 1: Families & Households

5Option 1: Health

6Option 1: Work, Poverty & Welfare

7Option 2: Beliefs in Society

8Option 2: Global Development

9Option 2: The Media

10Crime & Deviance

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