In a recent blog, I argued that the Australian government provides aid to too many countries. This article was easy to research. Every year, Australia, along with other OECD donor governments, reports to the OECD where it spends its aid and what it spends it on. It is a very useful transparency tool.
Globally, there is nothing equivalent when it comes to NGO humanitarian aid work. It is not easy to know what NGOs in most countries are doing. However, in Australia, thanks to the work of the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) and the transparency of its members, there is reliable data on the work of NGOs overseas. The data is not completely comprehensive (some NGOs are not members of ACFID and some members do not report fully), but it does cover an important and broad subset of the Australian NGO community.
In my recent discussion paper on Devpolicy, Australian NGOs abroadI used ACFID data to study where Australian development NGOs work and what they do. A key focus of the report was fragmentation: are Australian NGOs working in too many countries? Or in too many sectors? Or are they running too many projects?
In today’s blog I’ll focus on one type of fragmentation: whether Australian development NGOs spread their work across too many countries. (The other types of fragmentation are discussed in the paper It may be tempting for NGOs to work here, there and everywhere (needs are plentiful, after all), but working across many countries can come at a cost: it can prevent NGOs from carefully learning about national contexts or prevent them from forging the lasting partnerships that are essential to aid success.
The figure below is a histogram. It shows how many countries the 135 NGOs included in the study worked in between 2013 and 2018. (Some readers may prefer a fragmentation index. There is one in Appendix 1 of the paper – reveals a similar image.)
Histogram: Number of countries in which Australian NGOs work
As the histogram shows, most Australian NGOs do not work in many countries. Almost 40 per cent worked in five countries or fewer (almost 20 per cent only worked in one country). The median NGO, shown by the vertical red line, worked in seven countries. However, while most NGOs do not work in many countries, some do: 14 NGOs worked in more than 30 countries and four NGOs worked in more than 40 countries.
It’s a striking difference: most NGOs focus on one particular country, while others work in many places. However, there is an explanation: size. You can see it below. NGO size (based on revenue) is plotted on the x-axis. The number of countries NGOs work in is plotted on the y-axis. Each dot represents one NGO.
NGO fragmentation by country versus NGO size
The correlation is clear: larger NGOs tend to work in more countries. This is a healthy pattern. Larger NGOs have the resources to focus on a broader scope. Some are also members of international federations, which means they can contribute to existing projects run by other affiliates with the right expertise in the country.
Taken together, the patterns seen in the figures above seem to be fairly accurate. The typical Australian development NGO does not divide its work across numerous countries, and NGOs that work in more countries are generally larger and probably better able to do so.
However, there are still uncertainties. My first uncertainty is simply that I don’t know how many countries is too many. The patterns in the numbers above seem reasonable to me, but I don’t work for an NGO and I don’t manage aid projects. I think more could be learned in the future from interviews and surveys of NGO aid workers and managers: what is their experience of aid fragmentation? Questions could be asked about each of the types of fragmentation discussed in my article, not just about fragmentation by country. Do NGO staff struggle with projects spread across different countries? Or are they spread across too many sectors? Do they simply find themselves having to manage too many projects?
In the case of country fragmentation, interviews may teach us that a few countries are too many, or that the role of international federations and local branches makes fragmentation easily tolerable.
My second uncertainty is about NGOs that go against the trend shown in the second figure above. In particular, NGOs that fall substantially above the diagonal line of best fit. These are organisations that work in a surprising number of countries for their size. Six NGOs with revenues under A$1 million worked in more than ten countries. That seems like a lot. Of course, numbers can be deceptive: smaller NGOs that work in many countries may work well with local partners or in other ways that eliminate problems. This is also true of the other types of fragmentation shown in the report: there are often outliers, but there may be good explanations. Or there may not. This is a question that NGOs need to ask themselves.
Overall, I think my findings are positive, but they are not a cause for complacency. The industry as a whole could learn more, and some organisations should look closely at how they fragment their work. They may find that everything is fine. Perhaps, however, they will learn how they can change and become more effective.
This post is the first in a two-part series summarizing Devpolicy Discussion Paper No. 94 Australian NGOs abroadYou can find the second post here.
Divulgation
This research was carried out with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The research was also made possible by our data collaboration with the Australian Council for International Development. We are grateful to ACFID and its members for their transparency. The views expressed in the publication are solely those of the author.
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