NGO Monitor Org.

NGO Monitor Overview of NGOs


What is an NGO
Non Goverment Organisation
NGO Monitor defines NGOs as autonomous non-profit and non-party/politically-unaffiliated organizations that advance a particular cause or set of causes in the public interest. The range of causes on which an NGO can focus is unlimited, but a cardinal principle is that NGOs operate in a manner consistent with the objectives for which they receive funds. Donations are an NGO's lifeline because they are independent organizations. Funding can come from governments, the UN, private trusts and philanthropies, individual donations, religious institutions, and, in many cases, other NGOs.

NGOs can contribute to democracy through challenging governments and promoting social interests, but they themselves are not democratic institutions and have no democratic accountability. An NGO is only accountable to its particular funding organizations and members. Meanwhile, criticism of a human rights NGO is often dismissed as an attack on the values of human rights themselves.


Different Types of NGO
NGO Monitor was founded to address these issues by tracking the activities of humanitarian NGOs. In this framework, it is important to distinguish between three types of NGOs.

The first group consists of international bodies such as Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, whose operations are truly global and very influential. Amnesty International, for example, claims a membership of one and a half million, and an annual operating budget of $30 million with projects in 140 countries.

The second group is made up of region-specific NGOs such as Miftah, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), Physicians for Human Rights - Israel (PHR-I), and LAW. These regional "humanitarian" NGOs restrict their activities to the Arab-Israeli conflict and, in most cases, to criticism of Israel. The third group consists of NGOs that collect funds for a variety of projects and areas, and provide financial and technical support to smaller regional NGOs. Examples include the Ford Foundation, International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) New Israel Fund, Christian Aid, and the Advocacy Project.


How Do NGOs Operate
Much of the moral authority of NGOs, as well as their political strength, comes from support from funding and facilitator organizations. The huge budgets that NGOs have acquired turn them into political superpowers. Although the funding groups have a responsibility to ensure that their funds and support are not being directed in covert ways to support terrorism or political campaigns, such as the one being conducted by the Arab world against Israel, this requirement is largely ignored. While funding organizations have taken great care to establish financial-transparency mechanisms to make sure money is not misappropriated, the substantive work that the NGOs engage in has been subject to far less scrutiny. As a result, funding institutions and individuals have granted significant political power to organizations that hide behind a veneer of "moral guardianship."


Whom Funds NGOs
One can categorize three types of funding bodies active in the areas of human rights and humanitarian issues. The first consists of governmental bodies and UN organizations, such as the European Union, UNICEF,16 USAID, CIDA (Canada), and other ministries for overseas assistance. The second type, identified above, is made up of other NGOs that style themselves as "facilitator organizations," providing invaluable logistical, technical, financial, and professional support, such as the ICJ. The third type includes foundations such as the Ford Foundation and the German Fund for Palestinian NGOs.

Many well-meaning institutions may have unknowingly contributed political ammunition in the public relations war against Israel by continuing to finance NGOs that use a human right facade to conduct a campaign to delegitimize Israel. There are even Jewish organizations, such as the New Israel Fund, that have been deceived into assisting allegedly "humanitarian and reconciliation organizations," such as the Arab Association of Human Rights whose real activities focus on the propaganda war against Israel and are far removed from universal human rights issues.