Financing Sustainability and Globalisation

Abstract

Aid financing has an important role in the future. Yet accumulated weaknesses, defects and contradictions in the current concepts of aid and sustainability discussed in this article point to the growing need for a fundamental change in thinking to engage the whole aid relationship and fund management, embracing the role and purpose of aid, the form it takes and its place in the broader relations with different types of NPOs/donors. What is needed is not the creation of a completely new sustainability outlook, but the establishment of a firm contemporary agenda that builds on some of the proven strengths of the community-based agenda. Within this context, the thinking about sustainability in particular ought to be built on a firmer and more strategically robust foundation than available now. This article comprehensively reviews the key questions about aid and sustainability, including the changing motives for and the purposes of providing aid, the need for new aid targets, distinctions among various recipient NPOs, and the implications of globalisation. In fact, it is an attempt to understand the term in the context of globalisation through a process of transforming that understanding into organisational action. Although ‘sustainability’, ‘globalisation’ and ‘organisational action’ can stand by themselves, it may be a useful exercise to explore the sustainability concept under the globalisation setting, drawing on its own experiences and best practices from India.