NGOs in Africa: Assets or Liabilities?, by Abdul Ghelleh. African Executive, May 2013.
I came to the conclusion, however, that the overwhelming majority of the NGOs do more harm than good to livelihoods and sustainable development in Africa. Here is my charge sheet: NGOs artificially sustain a false economy whereby they push huge amounts of cash into the pockets of corrupted local African partners while taking most of the cash back to their private bank accounts in Europe and elsewhere. Yes, they do pay the salaries of a few people here and there who support their families. But that’s not my point. The NGOs actually work against home-grown developmental strategies in Africa.

The NGO operatives don’t want the recycling of aid operations – which creates chronic dependency and corruption within the receiving societies – to end. For example, NGOs are not prepared to cede some power or train local people to take over in the future, and they don’t give the confidence necessary to carry out the work to local government personnel of the countries that they operate in. Africans have the experience and the expertise to own the operations of the NGOs, but actually the foreign bosses of the NGOs want to retain power in order to continue the dependency culture that they have created.
I don’t know anything directly about the subject, but the broader theme of how perverse incentives can infect even the best of intentions is something that I find both fascinating and tragic.