Can NGOs Make a Difference?

Anthony Bebbington is Professor of Nature, Society and Development in the Institute of Development Policy and Management at the University of Manchester, an ESRC Professorial Fellow, and also a member and research affiliate of the Centro Peruano de Estudios Sociales, Lima, Peru. He has previously held positions at the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Cambridge, the International Institute for Environment and Development, the Overseas Development Institute and the World Bank.Sam Hickey is lecturer in International Development in the Institute of Development Policy and Management at the University of Manchester.Diana Mitlin is an economist and social development specialist with staff posts at both the International Institute for Environment and Development and the Institute for Development Policy and Management at the University of Manchester.

• Part One: Critical challenges1. Introduction: Can NGOs make a difference? The challenge of development alternatives - Anthony Bebbington, Sam Hickey and Diana Mitlin2. Have NGOs 'made a difference?': From Manchester to Birmingham with an elephant in the room - Michael EdwardsPart Two: NGO alternatives under pressure3. Challenges to participation, citizenship and democracy: Perverse confluence and displacement of meanings - Evelina Dagnino4. Learning from Latin America: Recent trends in European NGO policy-making - Kees Biekart5. Whatever happened to reciprocity? Implications of donor emphasis on 'voice' and 'impact' as rationales for working with NGOs in development - Alan Thomas6. Development and the new security agenda: W(h)ither(ing) NGO alternatives? - Alan FowlerPart Three: Pursuing alternatives: NGO strategies in practice7. How civil society organizations use evidence to influence policy processes - Amy Pollard and Julius Court8. Civil society participation as the focus of Northern NGO support: The case of Dutch co-financing agencies - Irene Guijt9. Producing knowledge, generating alternatives? Challenges to research oriented NGOs in Central America and Mexico - Cynthia Bazán, Nelson Cuellar, Ileana Gómez, Cati Illsley, Adrian López, Iliana Monterroso, Joaliné Pardo, Jose Luis Rocha, Pedro Torres, Anthony Bebbington10. Anxieties and affirmations: NGO-donor partnerships for social transformation - Mary RacelisPart Four: Being alternative11. Pressures on international NGO's: Time to reinvent the system. A view from the Dutch co-financing system - Harry Derksen and Pim Verhallen12. Transforming or conforming? NGOs training health promoters and the dominant paradigm of the development industry in Bolivia - Katie S. Bristow13. Political entrepreneurs or development agents: An NGO's tale of resistance and acquiescence in Madhya Pradesh, India - Vasudha Chhotray14. Is this really the end of the road for gender mainstreaming? : Getting to grips with gender and institutional change - Nicholas Piálek15. The Ambivalent Cosmopolitanism of International NGOs - Helen Yanacopulos and Matt Baillie Smith16. Development as reform and counter-reform: Paths travelled by Slum/Shack Dwellers International - Joel BolnickFive: Taking stock and thinking forward17. Reflections on NGOs and development: The elephant, the dinosaur, several tigers but no owl - David HulmeContributors

'This is a timely addition to the literature on non-governmental organisations and development. Up-to-date, critical and historically informed, its seventeen chapters are written by a potent combination of both well-known experts and original new voices.'David Lewis, London School of Economics and Political Science'This book offers a novel and reflective framework for revisiting NGO's efficacy in fashioning alternative forms of development in the post-NGO boom period. Against current security agendas, the authors envision types of NGO practice, orientation, and focus that that hold out hope for their foundational mission of "being alternative."'Arturo Escobar, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill‘These essays ... provide a number of useful insights into the NGO world.'North South Magazine