Charities against capital

Non-Governmental Organisations, NGOs, have played an important but highly contradictory role in the anti-capitalist movement. They have often been to the fore in opposing the G8 and IMF policies for the Third World and have been crucial in alerting the world to the consequences of those policies. At the same time, as we shall see, they have themselves flourished as a result of those policies and have developed into the most systematically right wing trend in the movement.

The term "non-governmental organisation" originates in the United Nations. The UN itself accredits some 1,500 NGOs. At one pole, are groups like Oxfam, Greenpeace, Médecins sans Frontieres, Save the Children, Amnesty International, Christian Aid and the World Wildlife Fund, which are huge global organisations with large professional staffs as well as extensive networks of volunteers. Amnesty International has more than one million subscription payers in 140 countries. Friends of the Earth also has more than one million members and 5,000 local groups.

By contrast, tiny groups of anti-globalisation vigilantes, like Corporate Watch, run web sites and dog the actions of corporations, international finance institutions and governments and the most they are likely to get are a few tax breaks and donations from the occasional radical wealthy benefactor. While they certainly contribute to the overall image of the NGO's, they carry little weight at the international level.

Despite the independence from government implied by the name, NGO's are no longer the entirely autonomous, donation-financed organisations that some originally were. According to Global Civil Society, 2003...

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