Introduction Beyond Partnership:<i>Getting Real about NGO Relationships in the Aid System</i>

Abstract

Since the seventies, 'partnership' has been a guiding idea for the quality of relationships that many NGDOs were looking for.In its original expression, partnership was understood as a code word reflecting humanitarian, moral, political, ideological or spiritual solidarity between NGDOs in the North and South that joined together to pursue a common cause of social change.'It signalled an alliance between NGDOs of the North and South in favour of a dependecia analysis of underdevelopment (Lehmann 1986), set against the subsequently disproven modernisation, 'lift-off and trickle-down' approach adopted by official aid at this time.This era was characterised by a strong emphasis on government as the principle actor and engine of growth and development.The task of 'nation-building' was governmental, as was the nature of international aid.Hence, inter-governmental relations were paramount.As far as non-governmental organisations were involved in development work, they were tolerated as marginal contributors but were not embraced by the official system.Moreover, in the seventies the NGDO universe, especially in the South, was not densely populated.However, it was gaining ground.One cause of growth was an influx of northern NGDOs (as role models) in ex-colonies.Another was their emergence as a domestic refuge for intellectuals or others of the political left where military or civilian dictatorships prevailed, as in much of Latin America.The task of business was to contract for aid projects, little more.The role of the private sector as the source of growth was yet to be prioritised.Typically, NGDOs saw (transnational) corporations as part of the problem of exploitation.Consequently, mutual mistrust was a typical stance.In short, until the late seventies, the relational world of international development was essentially split into self-contained corridors between North and South, each inhabited by government, NGDOs or businesses with little respect or interaction between them.This situation was set to change in the early eighties, which marked a rightwards shift in Northern politics -the Reagan-Thatcher era.The domestic policies of these two moved attention from government to the market as the engine of growth and progress.In addition to freeing business from restrictive shackles, a push for 'less government' also meant more responsibility to citizens and their organisations.Hence, the start of the rise in official finance to, and number of, NGOs that continues today.The spill-over of a market perspective into international aid was spearheaded by the Bretton Woods Institutions (BWIs): the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and its sister regional development banks.