Nongovernmental Organizations, Governments, and Humanitarian Aid

The terms nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) have loosely been aligned with the humanitarian sector, but NGOs can be political, entrepreneurial, developmental, or humanitarian in their vision and are not limited to nonprofits. Approximately 40,000 NGOs have appeared on the humanitarian stage during the last 30 years. A plethora of humanitarian and other NGOs flooded the humanitarian field during the 1990s, challenging good practice and interagency collaboration and creating diplomatic challenges for governments of nations involved in giving aid, as well as the sovereignty of recipient nations. Groups not affiliated with established humanitarian organizations and societies scrambled to respond to disasters, often neglecting to gain invitation from the host nation. Hugo Slim, a leading international scholar of humanitarian studies, has criticized many ...