%0 Journal Article
%T Impact of international donors¡¯ new policy agenda on project collaboration between community-based women organizations and NGOs in the Kibera slums of Nairobi, Kenya
%A De Feyter
%A Sophie
%J Afrika Focus
%D 2011
%I Gents Afrika Platform, Afrika Brug
%X This article first describes the New Policy Agenda (NPA), a market-based ideology influencing donor agencies¡¯ strategies for international development. The article then continues to discuss how community-based women organizations (CBWOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) evaluate their collaborations or ¡®partnerships¡¯ in practice in the Kibera slums of Nairobi, Kenya. We tested the research hypothesis that the NPA reduces the likelihood of achieving equitable partnerships because of its insistence on ¡®contracting¡¯ partners, i.e. creating a patron-client relationship. This was carried out through qualitative research consisting mainly of semi-structured interviews and participatory observation with NGOs and CBWO representatives working in Kibera. Research results show that the contract conditions for CBWOs to enter into a partnership may reduce the chances of the most vulnerable groups in society of obtaining assistance. This ¡®contracting¡¯ relationship may also cause a loss of CBWO members¡¯ motivation. The NPA and its emphasis on saving time and money also has a negative impact not only on the external development actors¡¯ knowledge about the development context, but also on the multiple accountabilities in a CBWO-NGO partnership, on the quick-fix nature of the solutions applied to remedy the lack of accountability and on the practical implementation of ¡®participatory development¡¯ in Kibera.
%K development
%K donor relations
%K contract
%K participatory development
%K Kenya
%U http://www.gap.ugent.be/africafocus/pdf/Vol24nr2_DeFeyter.pdf