ABSTRACT
A huge amount of information and experience from a wide range of contexts has been reviewed by the different contributors to this book. Clearly, any attempt to identify common conclusions and implications runs the risk of over-generalisation, particularly given the difficulty of disentangling the effects of official aid and the New Policy Agenda from pre-existing or other related influences. It is clear from the pictures painted by the contributors that NGO and GRO performance, accountability and legitimacy are tremendously complex areas. The situation of Sudanese migrant associations described by Pratten and Ali Baldo in their chapter provides a particularly good example of these complexities, with all sorts of ‘checks and balances’ between GROs and their members mediated by history and culture, and dependent on ‘contemporary reconstructions of community identity’. Nevertheless, there are some clear and common threads which run through previous chapters which do seem to indicate that similar influences are at work. At least five sets of conclusions present themselves.
