Research Objective and Questions

Objective

As I am progressing with reading and research, my objectives seem to change.  Initially, I wanted to explore whether partnerships between large, international NGO’s and local organisations are resulting in a “strengthening of civil society”. I am still interested in exploring what this buzz-phrase means in practice, but I am now wanting to focus more specifically on youth organisations and networks in Malawi.

I want to explore the dynamics of partnership between International NGO’s and local youth organisations and networks within civil society, with the aim of exploring if and how the partnership contributes to their strengthening. In order to do this, it is also important to explore how these organisations themselves understand concepts such as “civil society” and “organisational strength”.

Questions

Main question: How does cooperating with International NGO’s influence the strength of  youth organisations within civil society in Malawi?

Sub-Questions:

◦       How are concepts such as “organisational strength” and “civil society” perceived by local youth organisations and International NGO’s? How do they see their role within civil society in Malawi?

◦       What are the key factors affecting the strength of youth organisations?

◦       How do International NGO’s influence these factors?

How to define “strengthening” will be key here. Off the top of my head, I imagine it being defined simply as “enhanced ability to achieve their aims”. This could include both components of organisational development (for example: budgeting, proposal writing, organisational management, sustainability) but also knowledge of political decision-making processes and how to influence them, of how to mobilise popular support, and so on.

This is still work in progress, and I still have some choices to make. For example, I need to choose my main emphasis. Partly, I want to take a more theoretical angle and explore the concept of civil society and the idea of “strengthening”, getting a deeper understanding of what it means in this particular context of youth organisations operating in Malawi. Also, I am interested in whether cooperating with international NGO’s result in a strengthening of the youth organisations, in other words a form of impact evaluation. Both are interesting, relevant and will contribute with much -needed knowledge within the field of development. But it may be too ambitious to do both, and it would require rather different methodologies.

At the moment, I am continuing to explore both angles — what do you think I should focus on?