Nicola Macnaughton graduated from Edinburgh University with a degree in Politics in 2006. She is currently volunteering with Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) – an international development organization that works through volunteers to fight poverty in developing countries.
Through VSO, she has been placed with the National Centre for Advocacy Studies (NCAS) – an NGO based in Pune, India. NCAS provides support to grassroots organizations and people’s movements which are working to improve human rights and social justice in India. By providing training, research and campaign support, it seeks to help people to advocate on issues of public concern.
Articles
Nicola's Blog
NGOs: Inside Out
Increasingly, NGOs are taking on immensely varied and complex roles, from compensating for ineffective governance structures to directly providing aid to the needy to acting as think tanks for international institutions. Yet the more involved NGOs become in everyday world affairs, the more one is led to question their tactics, effectiveness, accountability structures, and in whose interests they are working.
“NGOs: Inside Out” seeks to shed some light on these issues, from inside the groups and outside in the field. Through interviews with NGO workers, analysis of current NGO efforts on the ground—and by giving due attention to the role of NGOs in anarchic regions, conflict zones and in advocacy and policymaking—this blog aims to stimulate some debate, raise questions, and generate a dialogue about the roles, responsibilities and impacts of NGOs. What difference do NGOs really make? And do the perceptions of the helpers and the “helped” match up? Read on to understand more...
