Managerial strategies and entrepreneurial thinking within Non-Government Organizations : A model for lokal NGOs capacity development in developing self-sustain projects in East Africa

Abstract: In several countries, the contributions of Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) in promoting the livelihood of the communities can clearly be identified. As a matter of fact, international development agencies increase their trust to NGOs in running development projects because they have proven capable of running these projects at a lower cost while reaching the huge number of poor communities. However, several factors have influenced the development of NGOs had little participation, contribution, and impact in undertaking the more structurally-entrenched causes and indicators of poverty. In addition, in most of the countries in Africa, local NGOs are weak with regards to the implementation of development projects. Consequently, there are ongoing questions towards these challenges faced by NGOs, especially at the local level. Most of the research focus on the external factors such as corruption, political instability, climatic unreliability, inadequate resources as the main reasons for less performance of the projects. Additionally, other researchers pinpoint the issue of upward accountability from sponsors and donors, but still they do not tell us the full story, therefore, realizing the gap of internal factors that have been overlooked by many researchers in the successful implementation of projects in Africa. This research seeks to explore the concept of leadership within local NGOs that conduct Economic Empowerment Projects, in East Africa. Through the qualitative study, our research findings would be analyzed to provide an insight to management team on how managerial and entrepreneurial thinking may influence the performance of the community development projects. In this study, the capacity development model will be identified and proposed as a guideline for organizational leaders in the capacity building interventions. This would support development practitioners of NGO sector in tackling the ongoing practical challenges in developing countries. In several countries, the contributions of Non-government Organizations (NGOs) in promoting the livelihood of the communities can clearly be identified. As a matter of fact, international development agencies increase their trust to NGOs in running development projects because they have proven capable of running these projects at a lower cost while reaching the huge number of poor communities. However, several factors have influenced the development of NGOs had little participation, contribution, and impact in undertaking the more structurally-entrenched causes and indicators of poverty. In addition, in most of the countries in Africa, local NGOs are weak with regards to the implementation of development projects. Consequently, there are ongoing questions towards these challenges faced by NGOs, especially at the local level. Most of the research focus on the external factors such as corruption, political instability, climatic unreliability, inadequate resources as the main reasons for less performance of the projects. Additionally, other researchers pinpoint the issue of upward accountability from sponsors and donors, but still they do not tell us the full story, therefore, realizing the gap of internal factors that have been overlooked by many researchers in the successful implementation of projects in Africa. This research seeks to explore the concept of leadership within local NGOs that conduct Economic Empowerment Projects, in East Africa. Through the qualitative study, our research findings would be analyzed to provide an insight to management team on how managerial and entrepreneurial thinking may influence the performance of the community development projects. In this study, the capacity development model will be identified and proposed as a guideline for organizational leaders in the capacity building interventions. This would support development practitioners of NGO sector in tackling the ongoing practical challenges in developing countries.