A Critical View on the Role of NGOs in Systemic Capacity Building: Insights from Projects for Promoting Access to Water and Self-sufficiency in Food Production in Northern Ghana

ABSTRACT

The paper takes the example of Northern Ghana with its inadequate provision of basic social infrastructure for exploring the ability of NGOs to provide effective capacity building. It examines if NGOs have sufficient understanding and knowledge for operations and if their philosophy and objectives are enough to enable judgment and lasting successes. Weaknesses and strengths of NGOs are investigated as they still are indispensable organizations for developing backward areas, especially for fostering sustainable rural community development. It is shown that the theoretical framework of ‘landscape development' applies best to analyse how the many simultaneous transformations occur in this context and how they connect. A succinct impact study is exhibited in the paper to demonstrate how some of these effects come about. The survey regards World Vision, an international NGO that has been active in Ghana for a long time.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainable development
• capacity building
• NGO intervention
• food self-sufficiency
• access to water
• access to sanitation
• perennial food shortage
• Ghana

Notes on contributors

Dr. Philip Awekeya was founding dean at Regentropfen College of Applied Sciences (ReCAS) in Kansoe, Ghana. He helped to build this new establishment which is the only institution to provide comprehensive tertiary education to the 1 million people of Ghana’s the Upper East Region. His academic achievements are from the University of Development Studies in Tamale, Ghana, where he earned his Ph.D. and worked as an instructor and researcher in the fields of economics and business administration. Dr. Awekeya died unexpectedly in July 2016 while pursuing postgraduate law studies at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana.

Dr. Roland Bardy is owner of BardyConsult in Mannheim, Germany, where he mainly engages in management education, and he serves as Executive Professor at Florida Gulf Coast University. Born in Vienna, Austria, he received his B.Sc. in Chemistry in 1964, his M.B.A. in 1969, and his Ph.D. degree (majoring in econometrics) from Heidelberg University, Germany, in 1974. He worked in Finance and Administration of BASF SE, the German multinational chemicals manufacturer, for about thirty years until 1999 and then took up teaching. Presently, his fields are sustainable development and ethics. In his consultancy work he provides help to developing countries.

Notes

1. The foreign exchange receipts for the first half of 2013 increased by 14.8% over receipts in 2012 during the same period, of which 60% were mainly derived from cocoa, gold, manganese, oil revenue, which are not found in the North (see: http://www.ghaudit.org/gas/site/reports/download_report/516)