Less is less? – A comparative case study of Finnish NGOs’ exit strategies after the cut of Finland's official development assistance in 2016
(2017) SIMV29 20171Department of Political Science
Graduate School
- Abstract
- The relationship between a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) and a government can be unpredictable, which could complicate the NGO’s operations in a resource dependent environment. If a government decides to abruptly cut its official development assistance allocation towards the civil society; does that not only reflect the government’s new development policy but it might also jeopardize the continuity of civil society organizations’ activities. This research is a qualitative and comparative study of three Finnish NGOs that are partner organizations with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland and that were affected by the government of Finland’s decision to reduce its official development assistance (ODA) by 43% in 2016. Since... (More)
- The relationship between a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) and a government can be unpredictable, which could complicate the NGO’s operations in a resource dependent environment. If a government decides to abruptly cut its official development assistance allocation towards the civil society; does that not only reflect the government’s new development policy but it might also jeopardize the continuity of civil society organizations’ activities. This research is a qualitative and comparative study of three Finnish NGOs that are partner organizations with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland and that were affected by the government of Finland’s decision to reduce its official development assistance (ODA) by 43% in 2016. Since Finland has been generally acknowledged as a reliable donor; its decision to cut official development assistance abruptly raised concerns about the abilities of Finnish NGOs to compensate for the government funding in such a short notice. Before the cut was effected, all three NGOs had released different predictions in the media, ranging from quite negative to relatively optimistic, about their likelihood to be able to continue their development programs and projects that were previously funded by the government. With the method of structured, focused comparison and using the theoretical lens of Resource Dependency Theory; the focus of this study is to examine the three NGOs’ exit strategies in terms of the continuation of their development activities after the abrupt cut of government funding, and to find out the importance of other sources of funding and partnerships with other development organizations when compensating for the official development assistance allocated by the government of Finland that has been an important source of funding with little conditionalities. The study finds that while partnerships are useful in certain cases, regarding the transferring of certain development activities over to other organizations; early planning to increase funding outside of the government’s financing as well as having diverse funding sources without conditions are vital for successful exit strategies. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/8924541
- author
- Sene, Mariem Nicole LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- SIMV29 20171
- year
- 2017
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Resource Dependence Theory, Exit strategy, Donor exit, Development aid cut, Finnish development policy, Finnish Civil Society, Sustainability
- language
- English
- id
- 8924541
- date added to LUP
- 2017-11-16 11:58:39
- date last changed
- 2020-05-25 09:56:23
@misc{8924541,
abstract = {{The relationship between a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) and a government can be unpredictable, which could complicate the NGO’s operations in a resource dependent environment. If a government decides to abruptly cut its official development assistance allocation towards the civil society; does that not only reflect the government’s new development policy but it might also jeopardize the continuity of civil society organizations’ activities. This research is a qualitative and comparative study of three Finnish NGOs that are partner organizations with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland and that were affected by the government of Finland’s decision to reduce its official development assistance (ODA) by 43% in 2016. Since Finland has been generally acknowledged as a reliable donor; its decision to cut official development assistance abruptly raised concerns about the abilities of Finnish NGOs to compensate for the government funding in such a short notice. Before the cut was effected, all three NGOs had released different predictions in the media, ranging from quite negative to relatively optimistic, about their likelihood to be able to continue their development programs and projects that were previously funded by the government. With the method of structured, focused comparison and using the theoretical lens of Resource Dependency Theory; the focus of this study is to examine the three NGOs’ exit strategies in terms of the continuation of their development activities after the abrupt cut of government funding, and to find out the importance of other sources of funding and partnerships with other development organizations when compensating for the official development assistance allocated by the government of Finland that has been an important source of funding with little conditionalities. The study finds that while partnerships are useful in certain cases, regarding the transferring of certain development activities over to other organizations; early planning to increase funding outside of the government’s financing as well as having diverse funding sources without conditions are vital for successful exit strategies.}},
author = {{Sene, Mariem Nicole}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Less is less? – A comparative case study of Finnish NGOs’ exit strategies after the cut of Finland's official development assistance in 2016}},
year = {{2017}},
}