CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background To The Study

There are ranged various varieties of NGOs such as private voluntary organizations, civil society organization and non-profit organization. (Mc, Gann and Johnstore, 2006). It is believed that the first international NGO was probably the Anti-Slavery society formed in 1839. However, the term NGO originated at the end of world-war II when the united-nations sought to distinguish between private organizations and intergovernmental specialized agencies (Hall-Jones, 2006).

NGOs originated from all over the world and have access to different level of resources. Some organizations focus on a single policy objective of aids while others will aim at larger policy goals of poverty eradication (Hall-Jones, 2006). In the middle 1980s, the world-bank realized that NGOs were more effective and less corrupt than the typical government channels. The food crisis in Ethiopia in1984 spurred a new market for humanitarian aid (Berthoud, 2001).

The number of NGOs organization has grown dramatically and NGOs have become a powerful player in global politics facilitated in part by the increasing funding of public and private grants (Mc Gann and John Stone, 2006). The world biggest NGOs is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with an endowment of $28.8 billion (Aall 2000). NGOs have moved from being in the background to having a presence in the midst of world politics and as a result are exerting their influence and power in the policy making at global scale.

NGOs bridge the gap between government and the community and are essential in organizing poor people, taking collective action, fighting for their rights and representing the interest of their members in dialogue with the government. NGOs are better at facilitating the supply of inputs into the management process, mediating between people and the wider political party, networking, information dissemination and policy reform.

In essence NGOs have served as the major conduit for disseminating western aid, for instance, the US government channels about 40% of its aid programs through NGOs to Africa. Together, the NGOs operating in Africa account for the distribution of between 10% and 20% of all aid transferred to Africa (Njoku, 2006).

Donors, governments, corporations, international agencies and the UN are concerned about the role and accountability of NGOs. NGOs themselves are recognizing the need to ensure good practices and are supporting different measures for the assessment of positive outcomes to improve the accountability of organization to the people they are serving (DPI, 2007: UNOG, 2007).

NGOs in Cameroon even being in the primary phase of their existence, are conducting activities that have an impact on the process of socio-economic development of the countries where they operate. Despite their significant contribution to the population, they face a significant number of problems of which it is imperative to find solutions, if the government of Cameroon including funders wants NGOS to be the full partners in development and well-being.

The reality of NGO management differs significantly from what obtain in the public sector. Fundamentally, management has not been a major concern for many NGOs until very recently. As the non-profit sector expands it has been subject to new competitive pressure. NGOs have realized the importance of management in the last 2 decades and a lot of thinking is been done over the issue of vision, mission, strategic planning, goals effective coordination and communication and leadership.

Today most of them in Cameroon compete for increasingly scares donor resources. Both the private and public institutional donors demand greater financial acceptability and more concrete evidence of program impact. Those who find it hard to keep pace are the smaller NGOs against the larger ones who take advantage of economies of scale in marketing, operation and NGOs believe that their organization’s strength fueled by the staff primary motivation is in its determination to help people improve their lives. But in this more competitive NGO world it is no longer enough to simply have good intentions and a strong value orientation.

Management in NGOs is responsible for combining and using organizational resources to ensure that their organization achieve their purposes. The role of the management in this organization is to move an organization towards it purposes or guide the organizations toward goal accomplishment, by assigning activities that organization member perform. If management ensures that all activities are designed effectively, the production of each individual worker will contribute to the attainment of the organizational goal. Management strives to encourage individual activity that will hinder the accomplishment of the organization objectives. These problems reveal a clear gap between the values that NGOs espouse and what actually happens in practice. Balancing the needs of the different stakeholders who each feel they have equal rights to the decision making process has created a number of management problems in this organization (Mukasa, 2006).

Armstrong (2006) identified several strategic management factors that have been adopted by various organizations to enhance their performance. These management practices include strong visionary leadership from the top, powerful management team and effective team work, well-motivated, committed, skilled and flexible workforce optimal organizational structure; clearly defined mission, vision and objectives and a sound financial base (Armstrong, 2006)

Regardless of recent growth and importance of NGOs as part of the voluntary sector, particularly in developing countries such as Cameroon, research focusing on the role of management on the performance of NGOs lag behind.(Salamon et al 2004: NGO coordination Board 2010). Therefore the aim of this research is to assess the role management play in the performance of NGOs in Cameroon.

1.2 Problem Statement And Justification Of The Study

NGOs in Cameroon depend solely on funding from donors and international aid bodies. Due to the pressure of obtaining and maintaining funding, less effort is placed on management leading to a lack of accountability and inefficiency in service offered to the public. Lewis (2003), states that more and more is being asked of NGOs by citizens, governments and donors but the organization and management of this distinct sub-group of third sector organization has so far received relatively little attention from researchers.

NGOs in Cameroon faced the challenge of funding. They require funds to carry out programs and maintain the organization. Unavailability of funds for these NGOs could mean a total stand still. External funding to local NGOs is mostly available for small period of time like 1 year to 18 months and it has been reducing over the past years. This limits the scale of NGO’s interventions.

Some NGOs have more or less becomes contractors to government, particularly if they do not have other programs of funding source. NGOs may become unwilling to criticize government publicly thus soften their advocacy work and / or human rights campaigns. They find accessing donors as challenging with their funding condition.

In fact NGOs have tended to be late to the idea of management: most of them see management practices as an orthodox mainstream concern from which they are seeking to disengage, NGOs have considered it necessary to pay serious attention to their management aspect, especially if this has been perceived as taking attention away for their actual work (Lewis, 2003. Lecy et al, 2012).

Within the Cameroon context particularly Leadership is a matter of concern considering the highly personalized nature of leadership in the sector. The sector is full of anecdotal stories about the detrimental impact paternalistic founder leaders, charismatic autocrats (Hailey 1999). On one hand such leaders demonstrate a drive and commitment and a remarkable ability to mobilize people and resources while on the other hand they are criticized for dominating organization being unacceptable and failing to adapt to changing circumstances.

Chambers (1997) points out those NGO leaders can achieve many things through their guts, vision, and commitment but the way they use power is a “disability” that jeopardizes organization effectiveness. They are not easily contradicted or corrected. As a result they actively suffocate promising initiatives that may threaten their power base, relationships or position of patronage.

(Yenshu, 2008). There exist inadequate collaborations amongst NGOs to come up with new ideas on working in the ever changing and challenging socio-political environment. NGOs’ now more than ever function on rules and regulations attached by donor funding, with little attention on the ‘real needs’ of the target population from our observation.

A measure of disillusionment is being felt in the development circles as NGOs performance in key development areas has fallen below expectation in relation to its performance, sustainability and impact (Lewis, 2001). There are now stronger claims by donors according to Lewis and Opoku-Mensh (2006.667) of bringing back the state in through development policies that entail budget support, governance reforms and poverty reduction plans for better economic growth and poverty reduction strategies.

However, there seem to be no study on the role of management on the performance of NGOs in Cameroon. It is from this background that this study seeks to assess the role of management on the performance of NGOs in Cameroon and to provide answers to the following questions below:

1.3 Research Questions

1. What is the contribution of management in the performance of NGOs Cameron?
2. How do the various motivation strategies affect performance of NGOs in Cameroon?
3. How does leadership influence performance of NGOs in Cameron?
4. What role does communication play in the performance of NGOs in Cameroon?
5. What are the management challenges faced by NGOs in Cameroon?