Are Formal NGO/CSO Missing the Tide of Change Mobilizations in Latin America?

• In Event: Large scale impacts on the sector and its role as change-agent

Abstract

1. Objective of the study

The objectives of this paper is to explore recent events in several countries in Latin America and to analyze if formal non-profit organizations have been supporting mobilizations claiming for human rights and better economic conditions or have been completely passive to these events and not supporting them at all.

2, The research question:

Different indicators and testimonies show that mobilizations claiming for change and better human right and economic conditions for citizens have been mainly supported by informal networks, young and marginal groups and not more stabilized and well-known formal nonprofit organizations. ¿Have formal NGO/CSO that normally claim for better citizens conditions recently looked aside to these mobilizations and are now part of the established status-quo?

3. Methodology to be used:

The different methodological tools will be: a thorough review of media produced during the mobilizations in Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, Colombia and other countries in the region. Also,an analysis of academic papers describing these new events.Furthermore, with interviews to participants of those mobilizations and analysts and academics of those issues.

4. Main results to be achieved

To reach factual elements we should be able to confirm or dismiss the hypothesis that
the more formal or established non-profit organizations in the countries where upheaval and intense mobilizations took place claiming for social change did not deliver to their missions and—on the contrary—had a passive attitude contributing to the status-quo.

5.References and background

Recent conversations with colleagues in the civil society and non-profit area in Chile, Bolivia and other countries in the region have indicated worries and surprise that mobilizations have not been supported by traditional NGO/CSO that normally claim for human rights and better economic conditions but that these huge mobilizations have been organized and called upon by informal networks with almost no background and history in the associational sphere. Also, some written references indicate similar situations. Should this be true it would produce questions and queries for significative new areas for research on the civil society situation in countries in the LAC area.

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Author

• Pablo Baraldi Marsal, Universidad de Buenos Aires