More Than Altruism: The Politics of Private Foreign Aid [Hardcover]

Brian H. Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1990

As government officials and political activists are becoming increasingly aware, international nonprofit agencies have an important political dimension: although not self-serving, these private voluntary organizations (PVOs) and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) seek social changes of which many of their financial contributors are unaware. As PVOs and NGOs receive increasing subsidies from their home governments in the United States, Canada, and Europe, they are moving away from short-term relief commitments in developing countries and toward longer-term goals in health, education, training, and small-scale production. Showing that European and Canadian NGOs focus more on political change as part of new development efforts than do their U.S. counterparts, Brian Smith presents the first major comparative study of the political aspect of PVOs and NGOs. Smith emphasizes the paradoxes in the private-aid system, both in the societies that send aid and in those that receive it. Pointing out that international nonprofit agencies are in some instances openly critical of nation-state interests, he asks how these agencies can function in a foreign-aid network intended as a support for those same interests. He concludes that compromises throughout the private-aid networkand some secrecymake it possible for institutions with different agendas to work together. In the future, however, serious conflicts may develop with donors and nation states.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 376 pages
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr (July 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691078459
• ISBN-13: 978-0691078458
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,639,321 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5.0 out of 5 stars Thumbs Up, Right on the Money!, September 19, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: More Than Altruism: The Politics of Private Foreign Aid (Hardcover)

In this book, Brian Smith wrote about the motives of International NGOs from the US, Europe, and Canada which have been active in trying to help Third World countries to stand on their feet. It also contains a history on how these motives have evolved from the 1940s to the present. The conclusion of the book is that quite often, NGOs real motives are often differ from their "official" statements - while most NGOs stated that they are concentrating on meeting the immediate needs of their clients, in reality many are working more on long term projects that do not have immediate impacts, but might have one in the future, which in itself is not a bad thing. Some of the more troubling findings of the book are that many NGOs are afraid of challenging the status quo and the economic orders in the developing countries they are involved with, for fearing that doing so would intimidate both the host country and their own government(s), since most NGOs relied heavily from their governments' assistance to survive. Also, many NGOs failed to fully disclose their real mission in the developing world, which could create lack of transparency and could result in demands of more accountability and tighter enforcements from their home country's constituents. Overall, an excellent book. Perhaps it should be updated soon, given many changes that have occured in the pasy decade since the book was published (e.g., the end of Cold War, globalization, shift of development strategy from planning to market, reduction in foreign aid due to tigher budget of the Western countries, etc.).