ABSTRACT
Funding of non-governmental developmental and emergency relief organizations (NGO) by major bilateral and multilateral donors has long been on an upward spiral. This chapter illustrates how European Union (EU)/NGO relationships are at are the mercy of intergovernmental relationships and the short-term nature of EU planning. It considers EU relationships with NGOs in two countries, South Africa and Cambodia. Both countries have seen exceptional levels of EU support to NGOs. In Cambodia, EU aid to NGOs has followed the usual pattern of assistance to European NGOs, though this has been confined largely to those working with refugees and returning refugees. The European NGOs were soon shown to be dispensable, since their political usefulness had disappeared, and they were quickly phased out from all but marginal involvement with the programme. Though removed from a programme many of them had keenly supported, as well as from some limited if very variable financial benefits, the European NGOs accepted their fate without too much protest.
