First of all, scholars (Spires, 2011a; 2011b;
Henderson, 2002; Mendelson & Glenn, 2002) noted that initially donors
supported the officially registered professional organizations rather than
grassroots. This resulted in a negative effect on participation or involvement
of different social groups and/or local communities in the activity of NGOs[4].
Weakly connected with local communities initially, formal professional NGOs
lost their last incentives to engage with ordinary people. International
assistance changed decisively their orientation from doing with the people
towards doing for them. Moreover being dependent on western aid, LNGOs moved
away from politics and shifted their focus from local towards global issues
(Luong & Weinthal, 1999: 1270). “It often leads to tremendous competition
between groups for funding, as NGOs spring up around issues important to
donors, simply to receive money” (Mendelson, 2002: 235). Thus, “new civil
society organizations that aspired to be independent developed strong
dependency on donors and their ideologies and agendas” (Nezhina & Ibrayeva,
2013: 339).