Issue 383 of New Internationalist

Reader-owned global journalism

October 2005

Bingo!

Big international non-governmental organizations (BINGOs) have recently been getting very much bigger and more numerous. Amid the world’s myriad campaigns, social movements and relief organizations, just a few – almost all of them based in the rich world – have grown into lumbering giants. Some even resemble transnational corporations, with cultures, assets and influence to match. So what are they now trying to achieve? Who, and what, do they represent? Are they the compassionate, enlightened face of globalization – or corporate predators in disguise? Some BINGOs are now coming under assault from both Right and Left. It is tempting for them to believe that they are right in the middle. But there may be no such place in the movement for global justice. This month the *NI* takes issue with some hallowed institutions.

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In this issue

  • It could have been their finest hour. But Mari Marcel Thekaekara encountered bad behaviour by bingos after the tsunami in Tamil Nadu.
  • Rwanda after the genocide, in our Country Profile series
  • The invasion of Papua New Guinea by giant conservation corporations. Glenda Freeman reports from the front line.