Walking the tightrope: the funding of South African NGOs and the governance of community development.

Mueller-Hirth, Natascha

Abstract

This chapter examines the role of intermediary NGOs in community development in Post-Apartheid South Africa, specifically exploring how these organisations have been shaped by changing funding modalities. The South African non-profit sector is very large and diverse, encompassing a great variety of organisations that differ in size, scope, activities, political orientation and location. Habib's (2003) typology remains useful in making sense of Post-Apartheid civil society, which he argues is made up of three blocs: 'formal' NGOs, 'survivalist' community-based organisations (CBOs) and social movements. In this chapter, community development is understood as essentially contested, enabling empowering and less empowering practices and policies to emerge from, and for, communities. Importantly, the chapter resists a vertical understanding of power in which communities or civil society 'at the bottom' are contrasted with the state 'at the top'. Rather, communities are elements in the transnational and multi-scalar governance of development; community development is also a discourse that corporations, NGOs and the state all employ to gain legitimacy. The following section summarises the socio-historical developments that have enabled NGOs to become such significant actors in community development. The chapter will then examine partnerships as a specific neoliberal mode of funding that has shaped the role of NGOs in community development. It is argued that partnerships provide a context within which shared values, practices and techniques appropriate to particular, often neoliberal, forms of community development, can be developed in NGOs. Partnerships link intermediary NGOs with corporations, the state and communities and are shown to enable claims of legitimacy, build consensus building through homogenisation, and necessitate particular auditing techniques and capabilities.

Citation

MUELLER-HIRTH, N. 2019. Walking the tightrope: the funding of South African NGOs and the governance of community development. In McCrea, N. and Finnegan, F. (eds.) Funding, power and community development. Bristol: Policy Press [online], chapter 3, pages 39-53. https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/funding-power-and-community-development

• Acceptance Date: Nov 27, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Jan 23, 2019
• Publication Date: Jan 23, 2019
• Deposit Date: Mar 26, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 24, 2021
• Publisher: Policy Press
• Pages: 39-53
• Series Title: Rethinking community development
• Book Title: Funding, power and community development
• Chapter Number: Chapter 3
• ISBN: 9781447336150 ; 9781447336174
• Keywords: NGOs; Community development; South Africa; Partnerships
• Public URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10059/2830
• Publisher URL: https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/funding-power-and-community-development