Searching for a partner: how "partnership" is informed by the relations between southern non-governmental organisations and foreign government donors in Bangladesh

Abstract

'Partnership' is a term so often employed to describe development relationships, that its meaning is usually assumed to be understood, and its relevance rarely challenged. This thesis is a qualitative, critical analysis of 'partnership' in the relationships between non governmental organisations (NGOs) and foreign government donor agencies (FGDAs) in Bangladesh. The research objectives were to determine how participant NGOs and FGDAs understand and apply partnership; how participants exercise power within these relationships; and what is required for 'partnership' to be realised, and relationships to improve. A close textual analysis, informed by Foucault's theory of power, was applied to twenty unstructured interviews and was triangulated with a focus group discussion; qualitative questionnaires; two case studies; and interviews with key informants. The findings are grounded in an analysis of the Bangladeshi context. The analysis found that the term 'partnership' was widely and often employed by participants, and constructed in positive terms to suggest co-operation, openness and consensus. However, there was a lack of conceptualisation of partnership, and associated with this, an absence of mechanisms to establish and support partnership in practice. In contrast, conflict was constructed negatively, but was common in NGO-FGDA relations. Most participants' interviews indicated that there were incompatibilities between NGO and FGDA approaches to development; and distrust, suspicion and resentment recurring in their statements about one another. Furthermore, relations were shaped by a context of competitive divisiveness within the NGO sector and strained relations with the government of Bangladesh. Within NGO-FGDA 'partnerships', there were various mechanisms of engagement through which organisations related to one another. These included the memoranda of understanding, 'contracting' and logical framework analyses, and constituted techniques of power through which participants regulated and perpetuated their preferred development approaches. These mechanisms were often sites of conflict, and there was evidence of widespread and varied NGO resistance to FGDA dominance. Two sets of recommendations are provided based on the findings; firstly relation to possible improvements to NGO-FGDA relations, and secondly in regards to the achievement of partnership between NGOs and FGDAs.