Rise of Renewed Mobilization Strategies Beyond Imperialism in the NGO World

Conventional paradigm in the arena of international development has been challenged along with the growth of civil society in the third world. In the predominant model, the balance of power among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) is typically prescribed by traditional North-South relations. Northern entities, which possess an abundant supply of resources, hold hegemony over their southern counterparts in the decision-making processes. Even in the NGO world where people strive to ensure social equity and political equality across borders, the formation of hierarchy has been justified under the name of aid assistance. In other words, the legacy of colonial imperialism still persists due to continuing influences of international NGOs in the Global North. However, a recent phenomenon has substantially proved that southern NGOs attempt to overcome such a subordinate socio-political positioning, becoming an alternative node of mobilizing financial as well as human resources. In addition, those emerging organizations are getting further eager to develop their global operations, which contribute to opening up a renewed horizon of south-south cooperation at the grass-roots level. This tendency indicates that what is called as international NGOs is no longer defined simply by geopolitical conditions in the history. In order to strengthen fiscal foundations toward global expansion, NGOs in developing countries are required to seek methods different from traditional ones: raising the amounts of donations/grants. To name, innovative schemes pursued by these NGOs are fostering and utilizing social entrepreneurs to increase operation profits through program implementation. Based on an empirical research of NGOs in the Asia-Pacific region, this study investigates resource mobilization strategies of southern NGOs aiming for transnationalization and indentify ongoing structural shifts that would undermine the assumption of North-South relations.