CASE STUDIES IN CONFLICT MANAGEMENT AND DECISION MAKING
IN INTERNATIONAL NGOs

CASE #1. Food for the children—or bribes for the Minister of Education? Food for the Children, an international NGO based in the UK, provides foodgrains and powdered milk to families where children are at risk of malnourishment or starvation. It has provided food to families in the small South Pacific Island nation of Papua Tuyua for the past eight years, utilizing the school system as the means of identifying needy children and distributing the food. The Minister of Education in Papua Tuyua has approved the involvement of the school system in this project, though each year the process of approval has become more cumbersome and drawn out. Sarah Britton has arrived from London for a one week visit as the representative from Food for the Children sent to negotiate the arrangement, and she quickly comes to the opinion that the Education Minister is delaying the process in hopes for a bribe. The local school officials are eager for the food supplies and assure Sarah that they can distribute the food on their own with or without the Minister’s approval. Sarah sends an email to the executive committee in London requesting instructions on what she should do. The food has to be supplied within the next several days before the monsoons come.
ROLE PLAY. You are members of the executive committee. What should Sarah do?

CASE #2. Combatting AIDS can be fun—or not? Jessica Eager is a young American working with a group of international interns in the President Clinton AIDS-Awareness Campaign—a US-based educational NGO operating in Africa—that has sent the team out after a slide-show introduction to African culture and instructions to be creative. She thinks she has the perfect approach to getting the word out about condom use to young people in the village of Northern Nigeria. Remembering how AIDS education was effectively conducted when she was in college in Santa Barbara, Jessica thinks that the best way to reach young people is through a positive approach. Rather than promoting the health benefits of condoms and scaring young people with the threat of disease, she and her fellow interns create a local campaign based on skits that describe the fun of condom use in sexual situations. One of the more amusing skits involves a young woman attempting to put a condom on a banana and then on a large gourd while talking to the vegetable as if it were her naughty lover. Initially Jessica is delighted that the skits appear to be such a huge success. Enormous crowds gather, and the young men in the village seem to be especially delighted with the presentations. But the Muslim elders in the village meet secretly and decide that this nonsense has to be stopped. They demand that Jessica and the interns leave the village immediately and that the Clinton AIDS-Awareness Campaign be reprimanded for promoting immorality. New York staff members rush to Nigeria to deal with the crisis.
ROLE PLAY. You are in one of the following three groups: 1. Sarah and the interns 2. The Muslim village elders 3. The NY staff of the Clinton Foundation Explain your position and see if it is possible to come to a compromise or a resolution of the conflict.

CASE #3. Human rights or human wrongs? A factory owner in the Southeast Asian country of Malaria, Mr. Ikan Sacrudakids, was severely criticized by an international human rights organization, Human Rights Watchout. After undertaking a summer research project involving scores of college interns from Europe and the US, HRW wrote a report claiming that Mr. Sacrudakids was exploiting his workers, relying on young children of a minority ethnic group to work long hours at substandard wages. The report is published in the national newspaper, the Malaria News Press. The very next day Mr. Sacrudakids submits his own expose—of the Human Rights Watchout organization. It is also published in the News-Press. Mr. Sacrudakids’ article points out that the HRW organization itself is hardly equitable: the organization consists almost solely of one ethnic group, white Europeans and Americans; the young, previously unemployed workers often toil 60-hour work weeks to file their reports; HRW provides no job security or benefits, and offers salaries—especially to interns—at pathetically low wages relative to their peers. Some are paid hardly at all.
ROLE PLAY. The Malaria Times-Press invites HRW to respond. You are part of the HRW public relations team. What are the main points that you would like to present in your counter to Mr. Sacrudakids’ article?

CASE #4. The high cost of doing good. The board of directors of the Winds of Change international hurricane relief agency are listening to a proposal for a new advertising campaign. The proposal is to use direct mail, telemarketing, spot ads and television infomercials that will focus only on the most appealing aspects of the WOC organization’s work—rescuing pets and children affected by a tsunami—even though much of the aid is for prevention and reconstruction following seasonal storms. The advertising campaign is estimated to bring a huge increase in donations: at least 100%, doubling the organization’s 2 million dollar yearly budget to 4 million dollars. The costs of the increased advertising, mailing and promotional staff costs are high, however—rising 1000%, from only $200k to $2 million (it also takes a larger percentage of each dollar contributed—from 10 cents to 50 cents on the dollar). Still, the net gain is considerable, an additional $200,000 for relief work (ie, from $1.8 to 2 million) which is a 20% increase in the WOC net and significant additional funds for those in need.
ROLE PLAY. You are a member of the board of directors as it heatedly discusses the proposal. You are part of one of the follow cliques within the board: -A third of the members of the board who think that this expenditure is justified. -A third of the members of the board who think that this approach is wrong. -A third of the members of the board who are undecided, and will be swayed by the arguments of one or other of the two sides. What issues does each clique raise to the board, what questions does the undecided group ask, and how do the other members respond? Is a compromise possible?

MJ Nov28/07