International/NGO’s

OVERVIEW

The international community of organizations that seeks to operate world-wide to address the global issues of the day is as vast as the development goals they confront: poverty alleviation, access to education, gender equality, child mortality, maternal health, HIV/Aids and malaria, environmentally sustainable development, and building global development partnerships; these are the eight Millennium Development Goals around which much of the international community focuses its efforts. With issues this big, where do you begin?

First, develop a basic sense of the players, their roles in the international development and aid arena, and their respective strengths and weaknesses.

How they work together: Intergovernmental Organizations (IGO’s), including the Multi-Lateral Development Banks (MDB’s), and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s) seek to bridge the gap and mediate between the governmental and business interests which are the primary drivers (and barriers) to addressing the development goals listed above. IGO’s, MDB’s and NGO’s often work in partnership with one another, with IGO’s providing international governing and consensus, MDB’s the financial instruments and NGO’s the link between global advocacy and regional, community action.

A. Intergovernmental Organizations

Comprised of sovereign, member states, the primary types are:

The United Nations and Agencies. With five main bodies (such as the General Assembly the Security Council and the International Court of Justice), several specialized agencies (UNICEF, UNDP, UNESCO, UNEP, UNHCR, WHO) and primary headquarters in New York City, Geneva, Nairobi and Vienna, this is the biggest single player in the international arena; take some time and study its organizational structure at http://www.un.org/aboutun/chart_en.pdf.
Multilateral Development Banks. The five primary banks are the World Bank Group, the African Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Membership is comprised of developed, donor member countries and developing, borrowing members.
Regional Organizations. Some better known ones include the Arab League, the African Union, the European Union, the Organization of American States, NAFTA and NATO. Their unifying principle may be politically, economically or security-based.

B. Non-Governmental Organizations

NGO’s are also known as the volunteer sector, the grassroots community, the civil society sector, INGO’s (international NGO’s), BINGO’s (big international), ENGO’s (environmental) and even QUANGO’s (quasi-autonomous), which receive government funding, but maintain autonomous decision-making.

NGO’s may be grouped according to their mission. While not comprehensive, this list is a basic overview:

Children & Youth
Communications
Conflict Resolution
Disarmament
Disaster Relief
Drug Abuse
Education
Environment
Ethics & Values
Family
Health & Nutrition
Human Resources
Human Rights
Law
Natural Resources & Energy
Peace & Security
Religion
Trade, Finance & Transport
Population & Human Settlements
Refugees
Science & Technology
Sustainable Development
Status of Women

For access to the most comprehensive database of international organizations available, including mission and staffing, please visit the Yearbook of International Organizations On-line. Username: heinzstudent; Password: IDcareers.

NGO’s can be further categorized by their method of operating:

Public Relations
Consulting
Project Management

Due to their charitable nature, NGO’s from their early history in the 19th century have used sophisticated techniques to take their case to the public both to raise money, but also to apply social and political pressure to influence outcomes. With enhanced fundraising techniques, technical staff expertise has climbed, allowing NGO’s to hire experts to run in-house consultancy practices and also directly manage their own projects. While the number of NGO’s consulting to UN organizations has skyrocketed in the last 50 years, awareness that management techniques are crucial to project success is very good news to Heinz students; your tools-based curriculum is ideally suited to building strong project management and program evaluation skills, functions that are of critical importance to NGO’s as they increasingly move in the direction community involvement and direct local implementations.

For more information on internal organizational functions, please review our web-pages on domestically-based nonprofits.

SEARCH STRATEGIES:

Building a career that involves work in any one of these types of organizations requires a specific strategy for each, advance planning and lots of networking. IGO’s are large, bureaucratic and very competitive, while NGO’s can vary immensely in size, scope and competitiveness. Salaries and impact will vary as well: World Bank salaries often exceed entry level offers in high-paying private sector firms, while NGO salaries will vary widely according to donor base, organizational size and mission. But keep in mind that a World Bank career may keep you largely behind a desk in downtown Washington, while the NGO brings you in direct one-to-one contact with people benefitting from your assistance.

Because of financial and staff limitations, it is rare for IGO’s and NGO’s to recruit via on-campus visits. Heinz Career Services is subscribed to a number of on-line and hard copy job services featuring international listings, and we will list opportunities in TartanTrak and include them in eClips, our weekly e-newsletter. You should also book mark sites listed in the international section of our on-line resources.

You must be proactive: winning strategies include informational interviewing, networking with alumni, seeking a career alumni mentor through Career Services or Alumni Relations, carefully selecting elective courses that help you build a strong international profile, working on language and tools acquisition in spare moments, developing close ties to Carnegie Mellon and University of Pittsburgh faculty, getting active in the Heinz College International Development Group, attending conferences, using on-line social networks, and keeping up-to-date on foreign affairs and development issues.

RESOURCES

Career Services has hard and soft-copy subscriptions to The Economist, Foreign Affairs and the International Career Employment Weekly. We also have over 20 titles focused on international affairs and development that you may sign out for a 2-week period. Titles include:

Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for our Time
William Easterly, The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good
David Bornstein, How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas
David Landes, The Wealth & Poverty of Nations: Why Some are So Rich and Some So Poor
Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Tom Friedman, The World is Flat
Alternatives to the Peace Corps: A Directory of Third World and U.S. Volunteer Opportunities
Martin Meredith, The Fate of Africa
Reza Aslan, No god but God: The On-going Evolution and Future of Islam