A brief presentation of the course
This entirely online, open and distance course is restricted to professionals with several years of experience in International Development Cooperation in NGOs (Non Governmental Organizations) or Governments, in the South or in the North. The two basic goals are (a) to provide better knowledge of what are the identity, role, challenges and potential of Northern NGOs, basically European, and (b) to afford a hands-on experience with some Internet tools.
In 1999 Northern NGO channeled around 7 billion dollars of foreign aid, which is far more than the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) or many bilateral Agencies. How is the growing dependency of NGOs on official aid affecting them? What weaknesses are challenging them? What are the principal trends and discussion issues among them? What will they be like in ten years? Through the course you will also get familiar with and be learning to use some internet tools, such as search tools and discussion forum. The course is given by Olivier Berthoud, SDC staff, who has a wide experience in teaching in different contexts, and has been working these last 19 years for and with NGO in Development Cooperation, 14 years in the field mostly in Latin America and 5 years in SDC's headquarters in Bern.
To participate in the course you need to have access to a computer with an Internet connection and a browser, and connect 2 to 5 hours a week in several sessions, at times of your convenience. The course is 7 weeks long, and it will demand you between 6 and 8 hours a week of work. The course admission fee is US$ 200 and you have to add to that your local communication fees to access your Internet provider as well as the printing cost of some material you will wish to rather read offline. The course is organized by Edinter.net and supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC, Berne) and the the Swiss Coalition of Development Organizations, although these institutions cannot be held responsible in anyway for the form and content of this course. A participation certificate will be delivered to students satisfactorily responding to the evaluation criteria.
Course
pre-requisites
Expected student
outcomes
Course methodology
Course
general topics
Description
of content
Course
evaluation
Resources
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Course
pre-requisites:
1/
You are working in a Southern or Northern Country - where you come
from does not matter -, and you have several years of experience
in Development Cooperation within NGOs or Government. You will be
admitted on the basis of your experience and not of your actual
academic grades. You should have at least a passive understanding
of English.
2/ You have access
to the Internet with a browser (Netscape or Explorer 3 or higher,
Mac or PC) and you are familiar with the basic functions of a
browser (find a site, page back, work with several windows). That
means that you are familiar with a Word Processor and e-mail as
well. During the course, we will not be able to help you with
problems related to these issues. Computer system requirements:
IBM or compatible (486/33 CPU minimum) with Windows or MAC or
compatible with 6.05 operating system or higher, 8 megabytes RAM,
20 megabytes free hard disc space, modem with a 9600 baud rate
minimum.
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Expected
student outcomes
1/
A better understanding of how the identity, goals and strategies
of Northern NGO affect their relation with their partners in the
Southern countries, their negotiating margins of maneuver and
their real ( open or hidden) agendas.
2/ A better
knowledge of how to retrieve useful information from the Web
without loosing time and a practical and critical idea and feeling
of some basic communication and learning tools available on
Internet.
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Course
methodology
The
course is 7 weeks long, and it will demand you between 6 and 8
hours a week of work. The course will be mostly asynchronous, that
means that you will have to connect to the course sites with
Internet 3 or 4 times a week, but at times of your convenience,
for a total connection time of 2 to 5 hours a week. You will not
have to load on your computer any additional software for the
course. You will have readings to do, some compulsory and others
optional, and you are expected to actively take part in the online
discussion forums. You will have some assignments to fulfill,
mostly individual work on issues that you will choose, and some
group work. A final assignment will be discussed among peers.
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to summary
The background,
the role and the strategies of NGOs as actors in the Civil
Society.
Some
confusion exists on the specific role of NGOs. Are they Civil
Society? What are their background, their role and their
constituencies? Whom are they speaking for? What has been and
should be their role in a changing world and in influencing
change? Are they fit for acting locally in a global world? What
are their strategies in the short and the long term?
The growing
dependency of NGOs on official aid as an identity threat.
The
growth in number as well as in resources of Development NGOs this
last decade is mostly due to an increase in the official aid
channeled through NGOs. What impact do these close relationships
with governments have on NGOs identity, independence and
sustainability? How are the major NGOs in the OECD countries
addressing these issues?
Accountability
and performance assessment as vital challenges.
Accountability
is one of the major dilemmas of development cooperation. How can
you do a good job with people from a different background (the
poor) when paid by other people living far away? When your first
motivation is to help (the poor) how do you accept that your
performance should be measured? The impact of NGOs intervention
has been strongly questioned these last years: what lessons can be
learnt from these studies at an international level?
Scaling up and
mainstreaming as weaknesses and potentials.
NGOs
have built their reputation on small scale projects with
participatory and innovative approaches. Few were able to scale up
their local experience. What are the factors limiting or favoring
the expansion or the multiplication of successful projects?
NGOs have been innovative in testing new solutions to old problems. What are the limitations to making these new solutions regional or national policies, and thereby expanding the impact of local experience?
Resources and
tools for further information and learning
An
introduction to the main databases, publications and Internet
resources on NGOs and development cooperation as well as a hand-on
experience with Internet tools will help you deepen and keep
updated your knowledge after the course.
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to summary
Description
of content
This
course is offered online in 7 weekly sessions. Sessions start on
Tuesday.
Before session 1: You should take the introductory tour to the Web platform that will be used during the course.
Session 1: An introduction to the course and resources, preview of the subjects to be covered. Personal work will include a pre-test and a brief biography.
Session 2: Northern NGOs. What are we talking about? An introduction to the history of these institutions. Their principal goals and strategies. Different ways of classifying them. humanitarian assistance and development aid. Personal work will include writing a brief paper.
Session 3: Identity and role of Northern NGO and their relation to the State. Common characteristics and variety in a diversity of national contexts. Transnational and multinational NGOs. Specialized and emerging NGOs. Personal work will include a role play in a live online chat.
Session 4: A case study: the Swiss NGO scene. Major and minor actors. Classification methods. Particularities of the Swiss Institutional set-up. Financial relations with the Government. Fund raising policies. Accounts and accountability. The image of themselves and of their partners in their campaigns. Personal work will include a sketch of your final work.
Session 5: What is the impact of NGOs? Evaluation, self-evaluation and planning methods. Meta-evaluations of NGO impact. Personal work will include a Internet search on an issue of your choice.
Session 6: What future for NGOs? Some basic challenges: accountability, scaling up, mainstreaming, global issues and local action. Within or outside of the system. Emergency Aid as a threat. True partnership with or dominant role over Southern NGOs. Relations to corporate world. Personal work will include writing your final paper.
Session 7:
Students' work discussion and wrap up. Grades. Course
evaluation.
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Course
evaluation
The
course evaluation will be based on: 30% of the grade for your
participation in the discussion forum, 40% for the 4 partial
assignments. 30% for your final assignment. The certificate will
be given for a 80% grading.
Resources
All
resources needed for the course will be made available on line at
the beginning of the course. A CD-ROM with these resources will be
shipped to students from developing countries with a slow or
expensive internet connection.
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summary
23 November 2000
Olivier Berthoud
This
work is licensed under a Creative
Commons License.