From anti‐slavery to third sector in development: The transition of non‐governmental organisations and limitations

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2033
• Date: 01 February 2020
• Author: Mandla Abednico Mubecua
• Published date: 01 February 2020

ACADEMIC PAPER

From anti-slavery to third sector in development: The

transition of non-governmental organisations and limitations

Mandla Abednico Mubecua

Department of Development Studies,

University of Zululand, KwaDlangezwa, South

Africa

Correspondence

Mandla Abednico Mubecua, Department of

Development Studies, University of Zululand,

KwaDlangezwa, ?South Africa.

Email: mubecua@gmail.com

In the 1800s, the work of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) focused on

opposing slavery up until the 1900s where their work changed from anti-slavery to

focus on development-related issues like education, poverty, hunger, and so forth.

The transition of the NGOs was motivated by the failure of the public and private

sector to provide the needs of the communities. Just like the other sectors (public

and private sector), the work of NGOs is somewhere somehow failing to meet the

needs of the needy because of the challenges in their operation. Against this back-

ground, the present study traces the transition of these NGOs and its present limita-

tions in development. In order to explore the transition of NGOs and its limitations,

the study used secondary data to collect relevant literature. Furthermore, the strict

textual analysis of the existing literature is used. The results of the study show that

NGOs face challenges of accountability and transparency, capacity, and corruption.

In recommendation, the study suggests that NGOs have to be accountable and trans-

parent; moreover, they should be capacitated with necessary skills. Lastly, NGOs

should stay away with the acts of corruption.

1|INTRODUCTION

Following the failure of the public and private sector in serving the

needs of the poor, NGOs emerged as a third sector in the develop-

ment agenda. Historically, NGOs can be traced to the 1800s where

they opposed the practices of slavery (Page & Adams, 2014).

Throughout the 20th century, the role of NGOs began to be acknowl-

edged by multilateral institutions, like the United Nations (UN; Kamat,

2004), and started to be fully recognized by the UN after World War

II (Kennedy & Dornan, 2009). In the early 80s, the UN gave NGOs a

permission to partake in the formulation of the international policy

(Kamat, 2004). As a result, NGOs started to be prominent and

expanded (Galway, Corbett, & Zeng, 2012). In 1980s, the role of

NGOs shifted from emergency and conflict relief to focus more on

community participation programs (Galway et al., 2012). On the same

view, Banks and Hulme (2012) argue that from the 1980s, NGOs

started to offer innovative and people-centered approaches (Galway

et al., 2012). In the late 1990s, the number of registered NGOs

increased in the world to change the economic and political

philosophy. During that period, NGOs started to be seen as develop-

ment alternatives that aim to help the poor (Debiel & Sticht, 2005;

Galway et al., 2012). The shifting of the role of NGOs is also noticed

in the early 2000s when the UN introduced the Millennium Develop-

ment Goals (currently known as Sustainable Development Goals) and

poverty reduction plans (Mubecua & David, 2019). NGOs are well

known for two main functions: initially, they collect resources (finan-

cial resources) from different sponsors so that they can provide ser-

vices to the poor, and second, NGOs conduct campaigns that

influence social change (Zanotti, 2010). In addition, NGOs deal with

different social activities to relieve hunger, suffering, and promote the

interest of the downtrodden. NGOs in the 21st century have other

limitations that disturb them from delivering the expected service. For

this reason, the study aims to understand the transition of NGOs and

further discusses the challenges faced by NGOs in the 21st century.

The study believes that challenges that were faced by NGOs long time

ago are not the same with the present challenges. There is no publi-

shed study that traced the transition of NGOs and also discuss the

present limitations. The study is divided into four sections; the first

section provides a methodology; the second section discusses

Received: 2 October 2019 Accepted: 6 October 2019

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2033

J Public Affairs. 2020;20:e2033. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 1of6

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2033