U.S. Democracy Promotion Efforts Face New Resistance
February 1st, 2007 by Steven AftergoodU.S. Government-funded non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that work to advance civil society in developing countries are encountering new obstacles that impede their progress, according to a recent staff study for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“Increasingly, governments around the world have tightened their controls on foreign NGOs by passing laws to restrict their ability to work independently from government approval,” wrote Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) in a transmittal letter.
There is a “backlash against democracy assistance,” as the National Endowment for Democracy put it in another study, which is appended to the pdf version of the Senate report.
“In extreme cases, democracy promoters are being harassed by authorities. In some nations governments have been able to persuade their citizens that the work of NGOs and the financial assistance provided to them by the USG is a form of American interventionism,” Sen. Lugar observed.
“Thus, in some countries opposition to pro-democracy NGOs is cast as a reaffirmation of sovereignty,” he wrote.
The new Senate study assessed the current status of programs in Africa, Asia, Central Europe and Latin America, and proposed principles and recommendations to guide further work of this kind.
See “Nongovernmental Organizations and Democracy Promotion,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff report, December 22, 2006.
February 2nd, 2007 at 6:22 pm
Hi Steve,
Long time reader first time poster. However I couldn’t resist on this issue which tends to typify an inability on the Government’s part at least to evade introspection.
For instance the reason that other countries are tending to curtail “NGOs” may have nothing to do with their aversion to “democracy”, but due to the by now well known fact that many of these so called “NGOs” are hot beds of covert action against the States they are ostensibly assisting.
February 2nd, 2007 at 6:48 pm
Any indications some NGO positions being used as intelligence cover?
July 24th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
Hello.I am the Robin Adair who ran for U S Senate in Washington State as the Independent. I am not the Robin Adair who posted a comment on February 2, 2007. There are many Robin Adairs — Robert Burns wrote a poem and a song was written in 1734…
I am uncomfortable with our gov’t in Wa. DC : both parties. What America represented to people in other nations is tarnished. I have found the American people, however, gathering strength to speak out…that will show the world more about democracy than anything else. I was trying to explain this to a friend from the Repub/Georgia and he said ” “The People” ?? Do you mean the Peasants ?”. I said, “Irakalie, sit down. I have to tell you something about Americans!” No comment has centered me faster than that one! Robin Adair, US Senate candidate, Independent. 2006, Washington State.