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The annual budget of NGOs varies greatly by region and is
difficult to estimate. In general,
NGOs do not have large budgets and funding is a major preoccupation.
Their budgets often reflect the conditions of the local economy.
A typical NGO in a developing country operates out of a
member’s house, consist of a few people, and rarely pays sustaining salaries.
Membership dues amounting to a substantial percentage of an operating budget are
unheard of. Members of NGOs consists mostly of intellectuals, professionals and
activists within the liberal tradition who work in conventional ways by
resorting to legal processes. Most NGOs experience great difficulty in enlarging
the number of active members. NGOs in developed and developing countries mirror
their worlds’ differences in wealth.
Although NGOs operate on limited
budgets, they play a key role worldwide in terms of channeling development
dollars. It is estimated that over
15 percent of all international development funds are channeled through donor
agency NGOs in industrial countries. The
UNDP study identified 2,5000 Northern agencies, which fund $5.5 billion in
private donations and $2,2 billion in government funds annually, to the existing
50,000 “Southern” NGOs. (Steiner)
EASTERN
EUROPE
Notably, all Eastern European
NGOs have serious material problems. The NGO population is almost unanimous
in evaluating their financial status as negative or disastrous (23% and 33%
respectively). One third of the organizations say they have no funding and
the staff members work entirely on a voluntary basis. Less than 10% of NGOs
say "we have enough funds, but
some of our programs lack sufficient financing". With regard to the
financial status, it does not matter which country an organization is from
or how old it is. (SOURCE)
When
studying a more detailed distribution, we can state that the average budget
shifts to the lower values in Moldova, where 58% of surveyed NGOs report an
annual budget equal to or lower than $1,000, while the average budget within
the Russian and Ukrainian NGOs shifts to $1,000 to $10,000 per year.
Shares of NGOs with Different Annual Budgets:
Average
AFRICA
NGOs in Africa have
extremely low budgets. In
Ethiopia, for example, the total annual budget of all NGOs combined in 2001
is $80,360. The limited budget
of NGOs in Africa makes new technology for these groups virtually
inaccessible.
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