Pathologies in peacebuilding: Donors, NGOs, and community peacebuilding in Croatia

Scholars studying postwar settings are often highly critical of the work of NGOs in peacebuilding. In this chapter, I argue that many of the limitations of the NGO model are the result of the structure of funding. Using ethnographic and archival data from donors and NGOs engaging in peacebuilding in Croatia, this chapter examines the incentives build into the dominant donor–NGO model of funding. I find that the incentives for both donors and NGOs built into funding for peacebuilding lead to dysfunctional behavior by both donors and NGOs, and ultimately to ineffective and sometimes counterproductive peacebuilding projects. I find that donors actively shape the agenda of NGOs and push NGOs to see projects as the unit of peacebuilding. Donor funding is novelty seeking, rewarding NGOs for coming up with new project ideas and working in new locations. It also favors quantifiable events and activities for the purposes of reporting. In practice, these systematic preferences lead to the abandonment of successful projects, difficulty in securing long-term funding for work in troubled communities, and the favoring of countable events over development of the interpersonal relationships that are at the heart of successful peacebuilding.