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- Convenors:
-
Ibrahim Natil
(DCU conflict Institute and Society Voice Foundation)
Emanuela Girei (Liverpool John Moores University)
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- Formats:
- Papers
- Stream:
- Policy and practice
- Sessions:
- Friday 2 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
The Covid-19 pandemic has profoundly shaken the ways researchers & practitioners work in/with NGOs/CSOs across the world. This panel aims to provide a platform for sharing practitioners/researchers’ experiences and reflections on the challenges, questions and innovations emerged in the last year.
Long Abstract:
This panel aims at exploring, sharing and reflecting upon the challenges that have affected NGOs and CSOs work and research and how practitioners and researchers have dealt with them, focusing especially on the following issues:
- Distinctive country-focused challenges and NGOs/CSOs responses: while virtually all NGOs have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the impact has been different in each country, according to its specific geopolitical position, the urban/rural settings, the resources available and governments’ responses. We welcome contributions that offer in-depth single country perspectives or comparisons among different countries.
- Distinctive sector-specific challenges and NGOs-CSOs responses: how has the pandemic differently affected ‘operational’ and ‘advocacy’ NGOs? We welcome contributions offering perspectives from different sectors.
- Distinctive methodological challenges. We welcome contributions that focus in particular on:
- Adjusting existing-in progress work, approaches and methodologies: what has the process implied? Who was involved in the decision-making? What solutions were identified?
- Co-production and participation: to what extent and how has COVID-19 impacted on co-production and equality in NGO/CSOs work and research?
- Decolonisation: to what extent and how has COVID-19 impacted on efforts to decolonise knowledge and approaches?
This panel is organised by the NGO in Development study group and aims to provide a platform for sharing practitioners’ and researchers’ experiences and reflections. We welcome both empirical and theoretical contributions, in different styles and at various stages of development.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 2 July, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
The paper will provide a picture of the impacts of covid-19 on the Italian development sector, resorting to data uploaded by ca. 80 NGOs in March 2020 and December 2020. Current state of NGOs will be explored through four perspectives: activities, economies, human resources and future strategies.
Paper long abstract:
As the covid-19 pandemic has ignited a global and systemic crisis, it is also putting a strain on those civil society organisations engaged in international development and humanitarian aid both in Italy and abroad.
This paper aims to contribute to the ongoing debate by composing a framework of some of the covid-19 related issues experienced by Italian development NGOs and their consequent responses. It will do so by qualitatively exploring data collected at two different moments of the pandemic: one month after its outbreak, at the end of March 2020, and up to December 2020 – up to 9 months later.
Resorting to open data entered voluntarily by over 80 NGOs and aggregated on the online portal Open Cooperazione, the presentation will try to probe the health status of Italian NGOs in four main fields: 1. Changes in terms of activities (both in response to the emergency and beyond); 2. Consequences of the pandemic over the economic sustainability of organisations, 3. Impacts on human resources in Italy and abroad; 4. Future horizons in terms of strategic planning and changes in operating models.
By looking at the short and medium term, it will be possible to understand to what extent the current pandemic is transformative for different types of NGOs (e.g. Italian NGOs and international NGOs active in Italy), and how/if the pandemic accelerates or slows down changes that are already underway.
Paper short abstract:
The double jeopardy of being disadvantaged and faced with a pandemic in slums will be examined. The effectiveness of adhoc interventions will be highlighted against the need for the establishment of a more grounded social safety net for the most vulnerable persons in Lagos Slums
Paper long abstract:
This paper sets out to present facts about the lived experiences of vulnerable peoples in four of the most precarious urban slums in Lagos Nigeria. The NGO, Together for Needs Initiative conducted intervention projects during the COVID 19 pandemic and qualitatively assessed the ways in which the pandemic aggravated multidimensional poverty among residents, particularly the most vulnerable groups. The Organisation through this paper will present the approach towards interventions, the outcome, failures and lessons learnt which are integral for future interventions most suited to closing the gap in vulnerability and strengthening inclusive development. The perception of these groups towards the pandemic as well as corresponding preventive behavioral changes is examined against the practical possibility of adherence based on available amenities. Lastly, the organisation gives suggestions towards effective social protection nets for the most vulnerable in economic and public health crises.
Paper short abstract:
What challenges did NGOs working in development worldwide face due to Covid-19 in 2020? How did they respond to those challenges? This paper explores the experiences of national NGO platforms from Latin America, Africa, Europe, and Asia, using primary data collected between May and September 2020.
Paper long abstract:
The Covid-19 pandemic impacted non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working in development in similar ways to those that affected many other sectors: reducing the income available and forcing many NGOs to shut down operations or to change the way they operate, in some cases radically. And as in many other aspects of social, political, and economic life, the pandemic has also accelerated existing trends that were already exerting pressure on the sector and pushing for transformation, such as calls for aid localisation and the closing of civic space in countries experiencing a rise in populist and authoritarian forms of government. Working in different contexts and coming from different histories and civil society traditions, NGOs across the globe faced different challenges during the most challenging periods of 2020 and responded to the multiple crisis caused by the pandemic in different ways.
This paper explores differences between NGO responses to Covid-19 in different parts of the world, using data from a survey of 20 national NGO platforms from countries in Latin America, Africa, Europe, and Asia, conducted between May and July 2020. The survey was initially conducted on the topic of innovation, but the challenges and responses to Covid-19 were covered during the follow-up semi-structured interviews conducted with platform staff from 11 platforms between August and September. The discussion of the findings will focus on the experiences of NGO platforms themselves, as networks and national coordinating bodies, and will explore implications for the future.
Paper short abstract:
This paper investigates the shifts and challenges facing the civil society organisations’ (CSOs) in their scope of work, operations and missions in Libya, Palestine and Lebanon during the Pandemic Covid-19.
Paper long abstract:
This paper investigates the shifts and challenged, which have already faced the civil society organisations’ (CSOs) in their scope of work, operations and missions in Libya, Palestine and Lebanon during the Pandemic Covid-19. The mounting pressures impacted on the everyday work of the CSOs and the shifts and challenges they underwent form the crux of the paper. This paper will examine at least three different CSOs from Libya, Lebanon and Palestine to identify the differences among three cultural contexts, political environment and social dynamics to understand these shifts and challenges. For example, Libyan, Lebanese and Palestinian societies have been enduring very severe circumstances, owing to economic deteriorations, the absence of reconciliation, violence and divisions. These circumstances have already created barriers to effective CSOs. This paper will focus on the political, social and funding shifts and barriers to CSOs in the field of civic engagement and social change based on active grassroots 'participatory democracy'. Hilmer (2010), Aragones and SánchezPagés (2009) discuss the definition and concept of participatory democracy where active citizens have the power to decide on change of their future.
The central argument in my investigation of this main question is contrary to wide assumptions that CSOs in unstable circumstances and divided societies have no room or power to influence society and become engaged in the development of their society or support active participation enduring uncertainty and shifts.