Real “non-governmental” aid and poverty: comparing privately and publicly financed NGOs in Canada

ABSTRACT

Due to their perceived efficiency and poverty orientation, NGOs have increasingly served as Official Development Assistance (ODA) channels, leading scholars to question their autonomy. NGO aid allocation studies have limited analysis to the largest organisations, leaving privately financed NGOs unaccounted for. This study constructs an inventory of Canadian NGOs, segmented by funding source, to determine the influence of ODA. Contrary to entrenched beliefs, Canadian ODA contributes only 9 per cent to Canadian NGO revenue, and privately financed NGOs are less active in the poorest countries than government-subsidised NGOs, suggesting that ODA funding drives NGOs to poorer countries, but has minimal influence on the sector.

RÉSUMÉ

En raison des perceptions relatives à leur efficacité et à leur tendance à prioriser les pauvres, les ONG servent de plus en plus de canaux à l’aide publique au développement (APD). Cela amène les chercheurs à remettre en question leur autonomie face aux gouvernements. Les recherches ont cependant été limitées à l’analyse des plus grandes organisations, laissant de côté les ONG financées par le secteur privé. Cette étude dresse un inventaire des ONG canadiennes en les différenciant en fonction de leurs sources de financement afin de déterminer l’influence de l’APD. Contrairement aux idées reçues, l’APD canadienne ne contribue que pour 9% aux recettes des ONG canadiennes. Les ONG financées par le secteur privé sont moins actives que les ONG subventionnées par le gouvernement dans les pays les plus pauvres, ce qui suggère que le financement de l’APD incite les ONG à opérer dans ces pays, mais que son influence sur l’ensemble du secteur est minime.

KEYWORDS:

• Non-governmental organisations (NGOs)
• aid allocation
• poverty orientation
• foreign aid
• Canada

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Liam Swiss who advised on the research design and had a critical look at the final version of the article, as well as the two anonymous referees who offered constructive criticism and insightful suggestions. Of course, I retain full responsibility for the contents of this article.

Notes on contributor

John-Michael Davis is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Geography & GIScience at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His research primarily focuses on the economic and environmental impacts of North–South e-waste trade and informal e-waste economies in the global South.

ORCID

John-Michael Davis http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9526-1865

Notes

1 The term “NGO” is a broad descriptor that can refer to a multitude of organisational structures, goals and activities (Vakil 1997). For the sake of brevity, this article uses the term “NGO” to refer to international development non-governmental organisations.

2 For bilateral ODA data on DAC countries, see: https://data.oecd.org/drf/total-official-and-private-flows.htm#indicator-chartID.

3 The term “poverty orientation” has been widely used in the aid allocation literature to compare aid sources in terms of their focus on the needy, that is, recipient countries with low per capita income. For the purpose of this study, an NGO that operates in Least Developed or Low Income Countries will have a stronger poverty orientation than an NGO that operates in Lower Middle Income or Upper Middle Income Countries.

4 Organisations excluded from the dataset were principally religious groups with no explicit description of development work overseas, international cultural and arts organisations, and research-based institutions.

5 Again, these figures should be interpreted cautiously as revenues from outside Canada represent a significant source of funding for each of these NGOs (with the exception of The Mastercard Foundation, which did not report any funding from outside Canada), and, as previously noted, the T3010 forms do not specify the quantity of funding from outside Canada that is derived from governmental and non-governmental sources.

6 NGOs that receive more than half of their funding from the Canadian government include: CHF (now discontinued), Resource Efficient Agricultural Production, Rooftops Canada Foundation, Action Against Hunger, Lawyers without Borders, Handicap International, Canadian Foodgrains Bank Association, Inter Pares, World Braille Foundation, AMREF Health Africa in Canada, OXFAM – Quebec, SUCO INC., Save the Children Canada, Médecins du Monde, CODE, Fondation Crudem, SOPAR-Bala Vikasa, Emergency and Development Architects, Canadian Executive Service Organisation, The Canadian Network for International Surgery and Youth Challenge International.