NGO Recommendations for the Creation Research Proposal

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This way, the U.S.-lead NGO can collaborate with other NGOs in order to determine an action plan, discuss issues of importance, and foster cooperation. According to Walsh, the international community has entered a new era in which entities must work together in order to affect change. While Walsh specifically discusses the partnership that for-profit companies can have with NGOs, his point is more generally applicable. Indeed, it is the very definition of global civil society. Global civil society is an international community that functions and works together in order to solve shared problems. By entering the NGO arena by working with other arenas, the director and advisors of Obama's U.S.-sponsored NGO will represent its willingness to enter that global civil society.

After meeting with other NGOs, the U.S.-sponsored NGO must decide on a series of bylaws that will mold its behavior. First and foremost must come the development of a set of values and ethics that will dictate what the NGO can and cannot do. In order to develop these values and ethics, the NGO director and advisors should bring in experts in political ethics, philosophy, and business ethics, as well as experienced NGO directors and advisors that can discuss what sorts of ethical decisions the NGO may face in the future. As McDonald suggests, NGOs, like business, provide a product or service that involve variables, which "raise ethical issues," so business ethics is applicable to the arena. In line with developing a set of ethics and values, the NGO must next agree upon methodologies that are congruent with the ethics and values developed. These methodology requirements should list what types of methods the NGO may and may not use in order to achieve their goals. While the issues of hunger, poverty, and social justice are important, the NGO must make sure its methodology is such that it does not do more damage than good. Once these two important components are laid out, the NGO director and advisors must come up with a strategy for determining which cases should be considered most urgent, least urgent, etc. Finally, these bylaws must be written constitution, which is subject to democratic review by the NGOs board of advisors.
At this point, the NGO will be ready to begin with work of creating lasting solutions to poverty, hunger, and social injustice. The first projects that the new NGO undertakes should be those that are in conjunction with other NGOs. This will foster collaboration, and further allow the U.S.-lead NGO to ease its way into the international community. Furthermore, it will allow the U.S.-lead NGO more time to develop its own plans of action, as stipulated by the values and ethics, methods, and strategy contained in the by-laws. These original projects should be in planning from the beginning of the NGO's creation, but should not be launched until the NGO's first birthday. In the mean time, the projects on which the U.S.-lead NGO collaborates with other NGOs should be as varied as possible in the realm of hunger, poverty, and social justice. This will insure that the U.S.-lead NGO builds relationships in many sectors, which will help the NGO in the future when it needs support, restore the United States' reputation, and help to foster a global civil society. Korten, Perlas, and Shiva suggest that the creation of global civil society represents the "epic struggle" between "imperial rule" and "community." The United States has long been represented as the imperial ruler. With Obama's U.S.-lead NGO, the United States may soon be seen as a contributor to community.

Works Cited

Korten, David C., Perlas, Nicanor, and Shiva, Vandana. "Global Civil Society: The Path

Ahead." The People-Centered Development Forum. http://www.pcdf.org/civilsociety/default.htm

McDonald, Chris. "Ethics for NGOs & Charities." The Business Ethics Blog. 5 April 2008. http://www.businessethics.ca/blog/2007/04/ethics-for-ngos-charities.html

Walsh, Brian. "Making Business-NGO Partnerships Work." On Philanthropy. 06 July http://www.onphilanthropy.com/site/News2?id=6551&page=NewsArticle.....

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