The Good Project: Humanitarian Relief NGOs and the Fragmentation of Reason

by Monika Krause

NGOs set out to save lives, relieve suffering, and service basic human needs. They are committed to serving people across national borders and without regard to race, ethnicity, gender, or religion, and they offer crucial help during earthquakes, tsunamis, wars, and pandemics. But with so many ailing areas in need of assistance, how do these organizations decide where to go―and who gets the aid?

In  The Good Project , Monika Krause dives into the intricacies of the decision-making process at NGOs and uncovers a basic It may be the case that relief agencies try to help people but, in practical terms, the main focus of their work is to produce projects. Agencies sell projects to key institutional donors, and in the process the project and its beneficiaries become commodities. In an effort to guarantee a successful project, organizations are incentivized to help those who are easy to help, while those who are hardest to help often receive no assistance at all. The poorest of the world are made to compete against each other to become projects―and in exchange they offer legitimacy to aid agencies and donor governments. Sure to be controversial,  The Good Project  offers a provocative new perspective on how NGOs succeed and fail on a local and global level.

Genres: Nonfiction, Economics, Politics, Sociology

220 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Mai Bui]

The ideas are interesting, but not eye-opening. The writing is messy and tautological - but that's not the author's fault. In certain circles your ideas won't translate unless you speak in pedantic tongue. She talks about the commodification of the humanitarian relief field, in which global South are being packaged as a commodity to be sold to the donors in the global North. Modern humanitarianism are less acts of goodwill but more strategic project management. All worthy ideas. Except for that "commodification" is becoming such a buzzword with our sociology friends -- commodification of culture, of love, of education, of heathcare etcetera -- that the word is losing its semantic punch.

It's a great book, nevertheless.

[Clara]

Interesting idea of projects (and their beneficiaries) being sold to donors just like readers are being sold as ad-consumers to companies by online medias. The book helps understand how the unit of project can limit the effectiveness of humanitarianism and development aid. It is easy to read, can be a good entry point to these topics. At the end I got a bit bored as the author always comes back to the same one idea. But overall her argument is convincing.