Research Papers

This study examines how NGO board effectiveness and characteristics influence perceptions of innovation in Nepalese NGOs. Surveys of 225 board members found board effectiveness in resource acquisition and monitoring strongly predicted higher innovation perceptions, aligning with theories on the primacy of oversight. However, strategic involvement, diversity, tenure, and organizational characteristics showed insignificant or negative relationships. The strong positive link between resource oversight and innovation highlights the universal importance of this governance role. However, strategic involvement’s insignificance suggests it may play a different role in non-Western contexts based on cultural perspectives. Longer tenure’s negative association indicates longevity can stifle innovation, so turnover may better encourage adaptability. Size only weakly predicted innovation, implying other factors like effectiveness are more impactful. While cross-sectional, the developing country context provides useful insights on optimizing resource acquisition and monitoring to enable innovation. The findings indicate oversight effectiveness and active governance matter more than structural characteristics for NGO innovation.

This research note highlights the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in developing countries. It takes Nepal as a case study and illustrates the effects of the pandemic on NGOs in the country and their contribution to the response to and recovery from the pandemic. It presents the findings of two surveys, one conducted in 2020 and one conducted in 2020–21, among 482 NGOs. The study’s findings suggest that NGOs faced a three-fold pressure in terms of a spike in demand for their services, a reduction of funding and other supporting resources and a challenge in dealing with state-imposed restrictions on mobility.

This study compares the need of the communities, the availability of financial resources for the organizations, and the density of existing organizations on NGOs’ and NFCs’ founding behavior in Nepal between 2012 and 2018. The study uses negative binomial regression models to demonstrate that NGOs and NFCs emerge in relatively prosperous areas than serving the …

This research analyzes the factors that determine the placement of development NGOs in Nepal through the examination of the placement data of 39,606 NGOs. Using multivariate ordinary least squares, this investigation demonstrates that the location of an NGO is determined by: level of community needs, resource availability, and the level of political engagement. NGOs are in …

Soon after the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) received accreditation from the Election Commission of Thailand (ECT), this author was invited to join the network’s election observation mission (EOM) as an official international observer. Coming from Nepal, a country which has experienced significant political upheavals over the past 13 years—including the end of a …

ultilateral and bilateral donors, INGOs, and NGOs targets the poor at the sub-national level. Using Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) models, this study finds fundamental differences in aid allocation in the needy regions of Nepal. Findings suggest bilateral and multilateral aid better targets areas with need than aid through INGOs and NGOs. Better governance systems and the presence of better institutional arrangements appear to be the significant driver of sub-national allocation of aid across all three types of studied aid. The findings of this study contribute to our understanding of aid allocation behavior within recipient nations.