Mgmt 461 - a Study on Institutional Framework of Development Management in Bangladesh and Go-Ngo Collaboration Model in Bangladesh

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Background and Objectives of the Study

The advance of globalization has had a major impact since 1990 and has brought about rapid changes in the environment surrounding global health. Today, what happens in one country or region can no longer be considered irrelevant to any country, organization, or individual around the world. Global health, which focuses on controlling infectious diseases and other issues, is no exception to that rule. In an age when many diseases traverse national borders in much the same way that people and goods do, it is clear that the responses to these diseases require approaches that transcend borders as well. In fact, a variety of institutions including international organizations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), private businesses, and foundations are responding not only by providing health services, but also by creating a new political space in the fight against infectious disease, and have been cooperating as new actors in the policymaking process. In recent years, we have seen an increasing number of academic attempts to understand this trend comprehensively as “global health governance,” and there is a deepening debate on the need for a new system and type of global health policymaking that incorporates diverse actors rather than taking the state or government as the primary unit of analysis (Dodgson and Lee 2002; Aginam 2005; Zacher and Keefe 2008). Zacher and Keefe (2008) point to four factors that have energized the global health field since the 1990s: the adoption of the Millennium

Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000, the AIDS epidemic, the expansion of civil society involvement in health programs, and the creation of global health partnerships. While this reenergizing is in part a response to the urgent issue of controlling diseases that threaten human existence—as symbolized by the AIDS epidemic—the consensus within the international community that is manifested in the MDGs, for example, has raised the level of priority accorded to global health measures within each national government.

Methodology of the Study

This study surveyed the current work of global health NGOs in Japan in order to analyze the advocacy they are conducting. The methodology entailed an analysis of the literature as well as an analysis based primarily on interviews with actual NGO employees involved in advocacy efforts. As shown in tables 2 and 3, the interviewees were those at Japanese global health NGOs who are relatively active in policy advocacy. Accordingly, the analysis in this study of the current situation among NGOs relies on data from evaluations by NGO practitioners of their own activities and those of NGO networks.

It should also be noted that, for the purpose of this study, the NGO activities are analyzed from the perspective of “advocacy” (seisaku teigen katsudo) in the English sense of the word. As shown in figure 2, the study assumes that there are three targets of NGO advocacy: policymakers, the media, and the general public. Within these three categories, advocacy aimed at members of the Diet, bureaucrats, and other policymakers includes what is also called lobbying, and equates to “direct advocacy.” On the other hand, press releases and other efforts to work through the media or advocacy in the form of “campaigns” that reach out broadly to the public cannot be considered to be advocacy in the direct sense. The English word “advocacy,” however, in its broad sense connotes all of these activities.

Limitations of the study

All would-be NGOs are required to find a ‘professional management unit’ to act as their sponsoring agency first. Only after obtaining the approval of their sponsors can NGOs apply for registration with Civil Affairs Departments, which is mandatory. The sponsor must be an official agency above the county level or an organization authorised by such an agency. It must also be ‘relevant’ to the activities proposed by the NGO, i.e., it must have responsibilities in the same field in which the NGO operates. Current regulations also stipulate that only one NGO of each kind may register at each administrative level. For example, if there is already an association of physically disabled people in Beijing, no new association of this kind will be allowed to register.

Although individual NGOs may have received subsidies, allocations, or donations from various government agencies on an ad hoc basis, there is not yet any institutionalized funding for NGOs from the government.

Private philanthropy

The field of philanthropic activities has been dominated by state-backed funds or fundraising drives. The former include the China Youth Development Foundation (which runs the internationally well-known Project Hope), the China Charities Federation, and various provincial and municipal charity foundations, while a typical example of the latter is the nation-wide fundraising campaign after the flood in 1998. Since the state-backed initiatives are able to use all kinds of state-controlled resources and even official organizational systems to mobilize private donations, for example, by organizing semi-compulsory donations through work units, they have considerably squeezed the charitable resources for NGOs.

Corporate rather than individual donations currently constitute the bulk of charitable giving. Various evidence suggests that corporate donors prefer to give their money to large state-backed funds instead of small NGOs. The reason is best summarized by the authors of a book on the fundraising strategies of the China Youth Development Foundation (CYDF): Businesses consider donations to CYDF a form of advertising which tends to be cheaper and more effective than commercial advertising.

Under present circumstances, where several service providers co-exist in one locality, instead of creating pressure on every provider to offer better service to users, the competition between them may actually be played out to the detriment of users’ interest. This seems to be what happened in Guangzhou with regard to residential care service for mentally disabled people. The service was started by two NGOs. Later, when the ‘socialisation of social welfare’ policy encouraged private investment in social services, a couple of for-profit organisations were also set up. The investors were attracted to this field because apparently existing service could only accommodate a small proportion of the total need in Guangzhou, so they thought there was a big market out there to be occupied. What the investors of the for-profit organisations failed to realise was that many people who needed the service still