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NGOs: between buzzwords and social movements

In this piece, Islah warns against the assumed goodness of non-governmental organizations in discourses on development. In the case of Palestine, where NGOs are on the rise to promote “civil society” during national struggle, a process of NGOization has led to the depoliticization of the women’s movement and allowed for Islamist groups to fill the gap. Many consider women’s NGOs in the Arab world to be essential for development and modernization; however, they are often not trusted and perceived as being donor driven and pursuing an elitist Western agenda. Their dominance has led to a power shift from grassroots women organizers to more elite, foreign funded NGOs that pursue their own rights-based agendas yet exclude many women. The rise of NGOs in Palestine has, even if inadvertently, disempowered and delegitimized existing secular grassroots organizing, leading to a growing legitimacy of Islamist groups in the area instead. 

Islah, Jad. “NGOs: between buzzwords and social movements”. Development in Practice 17, no.4-5 (2007): 622-9. www.jstor.org/stable/2554826.

 

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