NGOs and Social Welfare : New Research Approaches

Contents: Contributors. Introduction: Researching the non-governmental sector: perspectives from India and South Asia/David Lewis and N. Ravichandran. 1. Issues and priorities in non-governmental organization research/David Lewis. 2. Social research in Pakistan: an overview/Qadeer Baig. 3. Perspectives on non-profit mission and financing in India/N. Ravichandran, S. Rajashree, Ajit Jain and Y. Sathyapriya. 4. The changing local rural power structure: the elite and NGOs in Bangladesh/Abul Hossain. 5. Managing NGOs for better outcomes and sustainability: the Nepalese experience/D.R. Khanal. 6. Regulatory challenges and non-profit welfarism: implications and the sustainable framework for choice/N. Ravichandran. 7. Negotiating autonomy: organizing identities in NGOs/Sadhvi Dar. 8. Understanding the human resource challenges in not-for-profit organizations from a life cycle perspective/Vasanthi Srinivasan. 9. Financing sustainability and globalization: theory and research/N. Ravichandran and S. Rajashree. 10. NGO management and operation: a South Asian perspective/Mustaghis-ur-Rahman. 11. NGO relations with government and private sector/S. Sai Krishnan. 12. Top-down or bottom-up? A study of grassroots NGOs' approach/Biswambhar Panda. 13. Performance evaluation of non-government development organizations: a study in Vadodara, Gujarat/Arti Nanavati. Index.

"The non-governmental sector is a little understood area of institutional life, and has so far received very little attention from scholars. Its increasing roles within a range of public services--health, education and rural development--have also been accompanied by a growing non-governmental 'voice' in the form of campaigning and advocacy within public policy at local and international levels. Yet, our understanding of the implications of the growth of the non-governmental sector, and itself, remains quite limited. There is a need to consider factors like the quality of the services provided by these organizations and perceptions of service users; the implications of the growth of a set of non-profit yet commercialized service provides; the differences in the management of non-governmental organizations from other types of organizations; the changed accountability relationships between citizens and government implied by the growth of NGOs; the international dimensions of the growth of the non-governmental sector; and the wider role of NGOs as actors within wider neo-liberal economic processes. The growing profile of NGOs has both its supporters and critics. Nonetheless, this book addresses towards a set of exciting and important issues in relation to the non-governmental sector, such as the question of funding, issues relating to democratization and governance, and the management challenges in terms of building improved sustainability and more accountable public policy. This book will build better links between researches and NGO practitioners, in support of strengthening the potential role and contribution of NGOs to development processes." (jacket)