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What do you know about the so-called influencers?

Their arrival heralds a rise in local prices and culture shock. Many of them live in luxury apartments or five-star hotels, drive SUVs, and have $3,000 laptops and PDAs.

They earn a double-digit multiple of the local average salary. They are busybodies, preachers, critics, do-gooders, and professional altruists.

Always self-proclaimed, they do not answer to any electorate. Though unelected and ignorant of local realities, they stand up to the democratically elected and those who elected them to office.

so-called influencers

Some of them are entangled in crime and corruption. They are non-governmental organizations or NGOs.

Some NGOs, such as Oxfam, Human Rights Watch, Doctors Without Borders, or Amnesty, genuinely contribute to improving well-being, alleviating hunger, promoting human and civil rights, or curbing disease.

Others, usually in the guise of think tanks and pressure groups, are sometimes ideologically biased or religiously committed, and often in the service of special interests.

NGOs, such as the International Crisis Group, have openly interfered on behalf of the opposition in the recent parliamentary elections in Macedonia.

Other NGOs have done so in Belarus and Ukraine, Zimbabwe and Israel, Nigeria and Thailand, Slovakia and Hungary, and even in rich Western countries, including the US, Canada, Germany and Belgium.

The usurpation of state sovereignty by international law, enshrined in numerous treaties and conventions.

allows NGOs to become involved in hitherto strictly internal issues such as corruption, civil rights, the composition of the media, criminal codes and civil society, environmental policies or the allocation of economic resources and natural endowments, such as land and water.

No field of government activity is now exempt from the glare of NGOs. They serve as self-appointed witnesses, judge, jury, and executioner all in one.

Regardless of their persuasion or modus operandi, all NGOs are riddled with entrenched, well-paid, and extravagantly incentivized bureaucracies. Opacity is typical of NGOs.

Amnesty's rules prevent its officials from publicly discussing the internal workings of the organization (proposals, debates, opinions) until they have officially voted on their Mandate. Therefore, dissenting opinions seldom get an open hearing.

Contrary to their teachings, NGO funding is invariably obscure and their sponsors unknown.

Most of the income of most non-governmental organizations, even the largest ones, comes from powers, usually foreign ones. Many NGOs serve as official contractors for governments.

NGOs serve as the long arms of their sponsoring states: they collect intelligence, polish their image and promote their interests.

There is a revolving door between NGO staff and government bureaucracies around the world. The British Foreign Office funds a host of NGOs, including the fiercely "independent" Global Witness, in trouble spots such as Angola.

Many host governments accuse NGOs of unintentionally or knowingly serving as beacons of espionage.

Very few NGOs obtain part of their income from public contributions and donations. The largest NGOs spend a tenth of their budget on public relations and charity solicitations.

In a desperate attempt to attract international attention, many of them lied about their projects in the Rwandan crisis in 1994, reports "The Economist", that the Red Cross felt compelled to draft a mandatory code of ethics for NGOs of ten points.

In 1995 a code of conduct was adopted. But the phenomenon was repeated in Kosovo.

All NGOs claim to be non-profit; however, many of them own sizeable stock portfolios and abuse their position to increase the market share of the companies they own. Conflicts of interest and unethical behavior abound.

Cafedirect is a British firm committed to "fair trade" coffee. Oxfam, an NGO, embarked three years ago on a campaign targeting Cafedirect's competitors.

accusing them of exploiting producers by paying them a small fraction of the retail price of the coffee they sell. However, Oxfam owns 25% of Cafedirect.

Large NGOs resemble multinational corporations in structure and operation. They are hierarchical.

maintaining big media, government lobbying and public relations departments, scouting for talent, investing profits in professionally managed portfolios, competing in government bids, and owning a variety of unrelated businesses.

The Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development holds the license for the second largest mobile phone operator in Afghanistan, among other businesses. In this sense, NGOs are more like cults than civic organizations.

Many NGOs promote economic causes: anti-globalization, the prohibition of child labor, the relaxation of intellectual property rights or fair payment for agricultural products.

Many of these causes are valuable and solid. Unfortunately, most NGOs are financially inexperienced and inflict harm on the intended recipients of their charity. NGOs are sometimes manipulated by, or collude with, industry groups and political parties.

Tellingly, people in many developing countries are suspicious of the West and its NGOs promoting an agenda of trade protectionism.

Strict and costly labor and environmental provisions in international treaties may well be a ploy to defend against cheap labor-based imports and the competition they generate from well-established domestic industries and their political stooges.

Consider child labour, as opposed to the universally condemnable phenomena of child prostitution, child soldiers or child slavery.

Child labor, in many destitute places, is all that separates the family from widespread and life-threatening poverty.

As national income grows, child labor decreases. Following the outcry raised by NGOs against soccer balls sewn by children in Pakistan in 1995, both Nike and Reebok relocated their workshops and laid off countless women and 7,000 children. Median family income, meager anyway, fell by 20 percent.

This issue prompted the following tongue-in-cheek comment from economists Drusilla Brown, Alan Deardorif, and Robert Stern:

"While Baden Sports can claim quite credibly that their soccer balls are not sewn by children, the relocation of their production facilities certainly did nothing for their former child workers and their families."

This is far from a unique case. Threatened with legal reprisals and "reputational risks" (being named and shamed by overzealous NGOs), multinationals engage in pre-emptive dismissals.

More than 50,000 children in Bangladesh were laid off in 1993 by German garment factories in anticipation of the never-passed US Child Labor Deterrence Act.

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich observed:

“Stopping child labor without doing anything else could make things worse for children.

If they work out of necessity, like most, arresting them could force them into prostitution or other employment with greater personal risks. The most important thing is that they are in school and receive the education that will help them get out of poverty.”

Despite the hype promoted by NGOs, 70% of all children work within their family unit, in agriculture.

Less than 1 percent is employed in mining and another 2 percent in construction. Once again, contrary to the nostrums offered by NGOs, education is not a solution. Millions graduate every year in developing countries: 100,000 in Morocco alone. But unemployment reaches more than a third of the workforce in places like Macedonia.

Children at work may be treated harshly by their supervisors, but at least they are kept off the much more threatening streets. Some kids even end up with a skill and become employable.

“The Economist” neatly sums up the shortsightedness, ineptitude, ignorance, and self-centeredness of NGOs:

“Suppose that in the ruthless pursuit of profit, multinationals pay sweatshop wages to their workers in developing countries. Regulation is required to force them to pay higher wages...

NGOs, reformed multinationals and enlightened governments in rich countries propose strict rules on third world factory wages, backed by trade barriers to prevent imports of countries that do not comply.

Buyers in the West pay more, but willingly, because they know it's for a good cause. NGOs declare another victory. Companies, having beaten their third world competition and protected their domestic markets, are counting on higher profits (despite higher wage costs).

And displaced Third World workers from local factories explain to their children why the West's new deal for victims of capitalism requires them to starve."

NGOs in places like Sudan, Somalia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Albania, and Zimbabwe have become the preferred locus for Western aid, both humanitarian and financial, development funding, and emergency aid.

According to the Red Cross, more money goes through NGOs than through the World Bank.

Their tight control over food, medicine and funds made them an alternative government, sometimes just as venal and corrupt as the one they replace.

Local businessmen, politicians, academics, and even journalists form NGOs to connect with the outpouring of Western generosity.

In the process, they reward themselves and their families with salaries, benefits, and preferential access to Western goods and credit. NGOs have developed into vast patronage networks in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

NGOs chase disasters with relish. More than 200 of them opened a shop after the Kosovo refugee crisis in 1999-2000.

Another 50 supplanted them during civil unrest in Macedonia a year later. Floods, elections, earthquakes, wars: they are the cornucopia that feeds NGOs.

NGOs are defenders of Western values: women's liberation, human rights, civil rights, protection of minorities, freedom, equality.

Not everyone finds this liberal menu appealing.

The arrival of NGOs often provokes social polarization and cultural clashes. Traditionalists in Bangladesh, nationalists in Macedonia, religious fanatics in Israel, security forces everywhere, and just about every politician find NGOs irritating and annoying.

The British government invests more than 30 million dollars a year in “Proshika”, a Bangladeshi NGO.

It started as a women's education outfit and ended as a restless and aggressive women's empowerment political lobby group with budgets to compete with many ministries in this impoverished, Muslim, patriarchal country.

Other NGOs, buoyed by $300 million of annual foreign infusion, have evolved from humble beginnings to become powerful coalitions of full-time activists.

NGOs such as the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) and the Association for Social Advancement proliferated even as their agendas were fully implemented and their goals exceeded. It now owns and operates 30,000 schools.

This mission advancement is not unique to developing countries. As Parkinson observed, organizations tend to be self-perpetuating regardless of their proclaimed status.

Do you remember NATO? Human rights organizations such as Amnesty are now trying to incorporate “economic and social rights” into their ever-expanding mandate, such as the right to food, housing, fair wages, clean water, sanitation and health services. How insolvent countries are supposed to provide such bounty is conveniently overlooked.

"The Economist" reviewed some of the most egregious cases of NGO imperialism.

Human Rights Watch recently offered this tortuous argument for expanding the role of human rights NGOs:

“The best way to prevent famine today is to guarantee the right to free speech, so that misguided government policies can call the attention of the public and correct themselves before the food shortage becomes acute”.

He blatantly ignored the fact that respect for human and political rights does not prevent natural disasters and disease.

The two countries with the highest incidence of AIDS are the only two true democracies in Africa: Botswana and South Africa.

The Center for Economic and Social Rights, an American organization, "challenges economic injustice as a violation of international human rights law.

" Oxfam is committed to supporting the “rights to a sustainable livelihood and the rights and capacities to participate in societies and make positive changes in people's lives”.

In a poor attempt at emulation, the WHO published a document foolishly titled: “A human rights approach to tuberculosis”.

NGOs are becoming not only ubiquitous but more aggressive. As “activist shareholders”, they disrupt shareholder meetings and act to actively tarnish corporate and individual reputations.

Friends of the Earth worked hard four years ago to instigate a consumer boycott against Exxon Mobil for failing to invest in renewable energy resources and ignoring global warming.

No one, including other shareholders, understood their demands. But it worked well with the media, with some celebrities, and with collaborators.

As “think tanks”, NGOs issue one-sided and biased reports. The International Crisis Group published a rabid attack on Macedonia's then-government days before the elections, relegating the rampant corruption of its predecessors, whom it seemed to be tacitly supporting, to a few footnotes.

On at least two occasions, in its reports on Bosnia and Zimbabwe, the ICG has recommended confrontation, the imposition of sanctions and, if all else fails, the use of force.

Although it is the loudest and most visible, it is far from the only NGO advocating for “just” wars.

The ICG is a repository for former heads of state and politicians and is renowned (and notorious) for its prescriptive, some say nosy, philosophy and tactics. “The Economist” sarcastically commented:

“To say (that ICG) is 'solving global crises' is to risk understating its ambitions, if overstating its achievements”.

 

NGOs have orchestrated the violent showdown during trade talks in Seattle in 1999 and their repeated actions around the world.

The World Bank was so intimidated by the rampant invasion of its facilities in the NGO-choreographed “Fifty Years Is Enough” campaign of 1994 that it now employs dozens of NGO activists and lets NGOs determine much of its policy.

NGO activists have joined the armed but mostly peaceful rebels in the Chiapas region of Mexico.

Norwegian NGOs sent members to forcibly board the whaling ships. In the United States, anti-abortion activists have murdered doctors.

In Britain, animal rights fanatics have murdered experimental scientists and destroyed property.

Birth control NGOs carry out mass sterilizations in poor countries, funded by rich country governments in an attempt to stop immigration.

NGOs buy slaves in Sudan thus promoting the practice of slave hunting throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Other NGOs actively collaborate with “rogue” armies, a euphemism for terrorists.

NGOs lack a synoptic vision and their work often undermines the efforts of international organizations such as UNHCR and governments.

Underpaid local officials have to deal with crumbling budgets as funds are siphoned off to wealthy expats doing the same job for a multiple of the cost and with unrelenting arrogance.

This is not conducive to a happy coexistence between foreign benefactors and indigenous governments.

At times, NGOs appear to be a clever ploy to solve western unemployment at the expense of downtrodden natives. This is a misperception driven by envy and greed.

But it's still powerful enough to foster resentment and worse. NGOs are about to provoke a ruinous backlash against them in their destination countries.

that would be a shame. Some of them are doing indispensable work. I wish they were a little more sensitive and a little less ostentatious. But then they wouldn't be NGOs, right?

Interview granted to Terra Magazine, Brazil, September 2005

Q. NGOs are growing rapidly in Brazil due to the disrepute faced by politicians and government institutions after decades of corruption, elitism, etc.

Young people feel that they can do something concrete by working as activists in an NGO. Isn't that a good thing? What kinds of dangers should someone be aware of before enlisting as an NGO supporter?

A. A clear distinction must be made between NGOs from the sated, rich, industrialized West and (much more numerous) NGOs from developing and least developed countries.

Western NGOs are heirs to the Victorian tradition of the 'white man's burden'. They are missionary and charitable.

They are designed to spread both aid (food, medicine, contraceptives, etc.) and Western values.

They collaborate closely with Western governments and institutions against local governments and institutions.

They are powerful, wealthy, and care less about the well-being of the indigenous population than about "universal" principles of ethical conduct.

Their counterparts in less developed and developing countries serve as stand-ins for failed or dysfunctional state institutions and services.

They rarely care about promoting any agenda and care more about the welfare of their constituents, the people.

Q. Why do you think many NGO activists are narcissistic and not altruistic? What are the symptoms that you identify in them?

A. In both types of organizations, Western NGOs and NGOs from elsewhere, there is a lot of waste and corruption, double dealing, self-serving promotion and sometimes, inevitably, collusion with unsavory elements in society.

Both organizations attract narcissistic opportunists who view NGOs as sites of upward social mobility and personal enrichment. Many NGOs serve as sinecures, “labour sinks” or “employment agencies”:

they provide jobs to people who might not otherwise be able to find work. Some NGOs are involved in political networks of patronage, nepotism and cronyism.

Narcissists are attracted to money, power, and glamour. NGOs provide all three. Officers of many NGOs earn exorbitant salaries (compared to the average salary where the NGO operates) and enjoy a panoply of job-related benefits.

Some NGOs wield a lot of political influence and power over the lives of millions of aid recipients.

Therefore, NGOs and their workers are often the center of attention and many NGO activists have become minor celebrities and frequent guests on talk shows and the like. Even critics of NGOs are often interviewed by the media (laughs).

Finally, a small minority of civil servants and NGO workers are simply corrupt. They collude with corrupt officials to enrich themselves.

For example: during the Kosovo crisis in 1999, NGO employees sold food, blankets and medical supplies intended for refugees on the open market.

• Q. How can you choose between good and bad NGOs?

A. There are some simple tests:

1. What part of the NGO budget is spent on salaries and benefits for NGO officials and employees? The less the better.

2. What part of the budget is spent on promoting the NGO's goals and implementing its enacted programs? The more the better.

3. What portion of the NGO's resources is allocated to public relations and advertising? The less the better.

4. What part of the budget do governments provide, directly or indirectly? The less the better.

5. What do the intended beneficiaries of the NGO's activities think of the NGO? If the NGO is feared, resented and hated by the local people, then something is wrong!

6. How many of the NGO's operatives are in the field, serving the needs of ostensible NGO members? The more the better.

7. Does the NGO own or run commercial businesses? If it does, it is a corrupt and compromised NGO involved in conflicts of interest.

• Q. As you describe it, many NGOs are already more powerful and have more political influence than many governments. What kind of dangers does this cause? Do you think they are a pest that needs control? What kind of control would that be?

R. The voluntary sector is now a cancerous phenomenon. NGOs interfere in domestic politics and take sides in electoral campaigns.

They disrupt local economies to the detriment of the impoverished population. They impose alien religious or Western values.

They justify military interventions. They maintain business interests that compete with indigenous manufacturers. They cause riots in many places. And this is a partial list.

The problem is that, unlike most governments in the world, NGOs are authoritarian. They are not elected institutions. They cannot be rejected. The people have no power over them.

Most NGOs keep an ominous and revealing secret about their activities and finances.

The light disinfects. The solution is to force NGOs to be democratic and accountable.

All countries and multinational organizations (such as the UN) must pass laws and sign international conventions to regulate the formation and operation of NGOs.

NGOs should be forced to democratize. Elections should be introduced at all levels. All NGOs must hold “annual stakeholder meetings” and include representatives of the NGOs' target populations in these meetings.

NGO finances must be completely transparent and accessible to the public.

New accounting standards must be developed and introduced to address the current pecuniary opacity and operational doublespeak of NGOs.

• Q. It seems that many NGO values ​​are typically modern and Western. What kind of problems does this create in more traditional and culturally different countries?

A. Big problems. The assumption that the West has a monopoly on ethical values ​​is undisguised cultural chauvinism.

This arrogance is the 21st century equivalent of the colonialism and racism of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Local populations around the world bitterly resent this haughty presumption and imposition.

As you said, NGOs are defenders of modern western values: democracy, women's liberation, human rights, civil rights, protection of minorities, freedom, equality.

Not everyone finds this liberal menu appealing. The arrival of NGOs often provokes social polarization and cultural clashes.