6 - In Search of Legitimacy

Summary

The backdrop to this chapter is the West’s response to the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia in 1979 and the debates over where, how, and with what partners NGOs should intervene in the region. The chapter argues that states and international organisations played a central role in setting the parameters of the NGO moment. This was visible in how, where and what NGOs could access the region. Oxfam’s decision to collaborate with the Vietnam-backed government in Phnom Penh, for example, left it open to influence from the regime’s priorities. But Cambodia’s most lasting impact on the NGO sector came in the legitimacy it accorded to those organisations. As this chapter shows, their actions in South-East Asia were crucial in convincing donors of the sector’s expertise and efficiency – as well as its ethical authority. This quiet transfiguration had huge implications for NGOs. From the early 1980s onwards, it became impossible to imagine emergency relief in the Third World without a significant NGO contribution.