Whoever supplies the money sets the agenda

The argument

The case that nongovernmental organisations constitute a form of neocolonialism begins with the direction in which money flows and the direction in which accountability runs. Proponents of this view argue that an organisation funded from abroad must satisfy its funders, and that funders set priorities, define what counts as success, require particular forms of reporting and renew support on the basis of results they recognise. The effect, proponents argue, is that the agenda of work done in a country is determined substantially outside it. The mechanism proponents emphasise is selection rather than coercion. No one compels a community to accept a programme it does not want, but the programmes available are those that attracted funding, and proponents argue that this quietly removes the question of local priority from the process. A village that needs a road may receive a workshop, because workshops are fundable and roads are not; local organisations learn to describe their work in the vocabulary that attracts grants; and the problems no distant audience finds legible go unaddressed. Proponents argue this reproduces a defining feature of colonial administration, which is that decisions about a place are made according to criteria formed elsewhere. Proponents accept that intentions are generally good and argue that intention is beside the point. Colonial administration also understood itself as benevolent, and proponents argue that the structural question is who decides, on what criteria, and to whom they answer. On this account an arrangement in which foreign money, foreign metrics and foreign reporting shape what happens in a country is neocolonial in form, whatever the motives of the people carrying it out.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Critics of the comparison argue that it strips colonialism of what made it colonialism. Colonial rule rested on conquest, sovereignty and the legal power to compel; an organisation that can be refused, expelled or regulated by the host government holds none of these. They add that donor influence over priorities is a feature of all funding, including domestic government and local philanthropy, and that calling it neocolonial where the funder is foreign makes the term a synonym for external money. The comparison, on this account, obscures more than it explains.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Donor influence over priorities is a feature of all funding, including domestic and governmental funding, so the premise identifies nothing specific to foreign organisations. [Rejecting P2] Communities and host governments regularly refuse, redirect and expel programmes, which shows local priority is exercised rather than removed. [Rejecting P3] Colonial administration was defined by conquest and the legal power to compel, so an arrangement lacking both does not reproduce its defining structure. [Rejecting C] At most the premises establish that external funding distorts priorities, which is a criticism of aid practice rather than a finding of neocolonialism.