Misplaced Pages

Mercy Corps

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
#422577

188-448: Mercy Corps is a global non-governmental , humanitarian aid organization operating in transitional contexts that have undergone, or have been undergoing, various forms of economic, environmental, social and political instabilities. The organization claims to have assisted more than 220 million people survive humanitarian conflicts, seek improvements in livelihoods, and deliver durable development to their communities. Mercy Corps proposes

376-813: A donor who wants to see the supported project managed by a person from an industrialized country . The expertise of these employees (or volunteers) may be counterbalanced by several factors, such as ; the cost of foreigners is typically higher, they have no grassroots connections in the country, and local expertise may be undervalued. By the end of 1995, Concern Worldwide (an international anti-poverty NGO) employed 174 foreigners and just over 5,000 local staff in Haiti and ten developing countries in Africa and Asia. On average, employees in NGOs earn 11-12% less compared to employees of for-profit organizations and government workers with

564-610: A hierarchical structure; their headquarters are staffed by professionals who plan projects, create budgets, keep accounts, and report to and communicate with operational fieldworkers on projects. They are most often associated with the delivery of services or environmental issues, emergency relief, and public welfare. Operational NGOs may be subdivided into relief or development organizations, service-delivery or participatory, religious or secular, and public or private. Although operational NGOs may be community-based, many are national or international. The defining activity of an operational NGO

752-531: A March 2000 report on United Nations reform priorities, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan favored international humanitarian intervention as the responsibility to protect citizens from ethnic cleansing, genocide, and crimes against humanity. After that report, the Canadian government launched its Responsibility to Protect (R2P) project outlining the issue of humanitarian intervention. The R2P project has wide applications, and among its more controversial has been

940-555: A SECURE program in Timor-Leste that seeks to relieve and prevent agriculture related damages caused by extreme rainfalls by connecting local blacksmiths who are able to produce effective small and medium-sized metal silos to broader rural farming populations. In collaboration with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Mercy Corps provided local farmers with subsidies for local farmers to purchase silos, while

1128-442: A SIM telephone card and an ATM cash withdrawal card so that Mercy Corps can send important context-specific financial tips, advice, literacy information via both voice and SMS messages, while BanKO has the opportunity to reach directly to the beneficiaries through electronic banking means. The program has delivered first-hand emergency aids and access to more efficient financial management tools to more than 25,000 households affected by

1316-565: A centralized and bureaucratic effort which was undertaken by the Khmer Rouge regime, according to documents which were recently published by the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) as a result of the discovery of Khmer Rouge internal security documents which instructed the killings across Cambodia. However there were also instances of "indiscipline and spontaneity in the mass killings." On top of that, Etcheson has also proven that as

1504-539: A community, the organization has dedicated increasing effort into engaging and all related actors and stakeholders in the complete market chain to participate in the improvement of the overall health of the targeted economic sector (agriculture, IT, pasture etc.) to eventually create a self-reliable operational market structure. Darius Radcliffe, the Country Director of Mercy Corps in Jordan , stated on 26 September 2023, that

1692-693: A deep understanding of the issues facing people and to tailor their services to meet the specific needs of each community. NGOs vary by method; some are primarily advocacy groups , and others conduct programs and activities. Oxfam , concerned with poverty alleviation, may provide needy people with the equipment and skills to obtain food and drinking water ; the Forum for Fact-finding Documentation and Advocacy (FFDA) helps provide legal assistance to victims of human-rights abuses. The Afghanistan Information Management Services provide specialized technical products and services to support development activities implemented on

1880-470: A mass demonstration which was staged by members of the local Cham community who were shot at by the regime's soldiers. The Cham forcefully retaliated with swords and blades, killing a few soldiers, only to be retaliated against by the regime's military reinforcements, which annihilated the villagers and their property. In another account which was given by Cham refugees in Malaysia, thirteen leading figures within

2068-459: A mission to "alleviate suffering, poverty and oppression by helping people build secure, productive and just communities." As of August 2021, the organization reports to be operating within 38 countries, including Afghanistan , Central African Republic , Myanmar and Yemen , with programs focused in a number of humanitarian sectors ranging from conflict management , children & youth to agriculture and food security . Originally established as

SECTION 10

#1733086354423

2256-687: A new Cambodia. In June 1975, Pol Pot and other Khmer Rouge officials met with Mao Zedong in Beijing, where Mao lectured Pol Pot on his "Theory of Continuing Revolution under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (无产阶级专政下继续革命理论)", recommending two articles which were written by Yao Wenyuan and sending Pol Pot over 30 books which were authored by Karl Marx , Friedrich Engels , Vladimir Lenin , and Joseph Stalin as gifts. During this meeting, Mao said to Pol Pot: We agree with you! Much of your experience

2444-541: A number of initiatives focused on development issues such as "health & HIV/AIDS prevention, domestic violence , education, agro-industrial development, microcredits , environmental development & infrastructure." In the next decade following the formation of Mercy Corps, the organization would gradually expand its mandates into the broader international arena, stationing in countries including Afghanistan , Ethiopia , Jordan , Bosnia , Kosovo , North Korea , North Macedonia , China , Sudan , Democratic Republic of

2632-651: A number of programs that deliver education, training and mentoring for prospective small business entrepreneurs. Its Community Investment Trust seeks to mobilize small community investments (ranging from US$ 10 to US$ 100) in selected commercial properties that are not only affordable venues for small businesses, but can also generate profit dividends for investors from local community in return. The organization also establishes Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) and provides Small Business Grants of up to US$ 3000 through established IDAs for eligible families and individuals who complete specific sets of business training offered by

2820-515: A presentation published by USAID , Mercy Corps defines "resilience" as: "The capacity of communities in complex socio-ecological systems to learn, cope, adapt, and transform in the face of shocks and stresses." To upkeep its new humanitarian focus on long-term community development, the phrase "Market System Development" has become one of the operational concepts of increasing importance for recent and upcoming Mercy Corps programs. Instead of focusing solely upon assisting one type of stakeholder within

3008-467: A range of humanitarian and development issues. The organization has been present in varying locations at different times – cumulatively, it reports to have delivered humanitarian assistance in 122 countries. Mercy Corps delivered its first development program in Honduras in 1982. The program led to the establishment of the non-profit organization Project Global Village/Proyecto Aldea Global (PAG) in 1984 with

3196-643: A range of skill training and cash grants to obtain employment or start small businesses. In the Gaza Strip , Mercy Corps created Gaza Sky Geeks in 2011 with the support of a seed funding from Google , the Coca-Cola Foundation , Skoll and various local donors. The particular initiative seeks to create a stage for new, young talents to grow and share their ideas while improving their skills through receiving professional mentoring and performing hands-on work. It also works to encourage female startup members within

3384-560: A rebellion by the Cham in Region 21 of the Eastern Zone had broken out against the Khmer Rouge after community leaders were arrested. The rebellion was forcefully repressed by the regime and no records of casualties were documented. As much as there are records of these restrictions, resistance, and repressions, there are also accounts by members of the Cham community which deny the oppression which it

3572-485: A result of the systematic and mass killings which were based on political affiliations, ethnicity, religion, and citizenship, a third of Cambodia's population perished, so the Khmer Rouge is effectively guilty of committing genocide. David Chandler has argued that, even though ethnic minorities fell victim to the Khmer Rouge regime, they were not specifically targeted by it because of their ethnic backgrounds, instead, they were targeted because they were considered enemies of

3760-635: A second outflow of refugees , many of whom escaped to neighboring Thailand and, to a lesser extent, Vietnam. In 2003, by agreement between the Cambodian government and the United Nations, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia ( Khmer Rouge Tribunal ) were established to try the members of the Khmer Rouge leadership responsible for the Cambodian genocide. Trials began in 2009. On 26 July 2010,

3948-546: A two-year transitionary period that ended with the appointment of Deng Xiaoping as its new paramount leader in December of 1978. During the transition period, Pol Pot made an official visit to China in July 1977 and he was welcomed by chairman Hua Guofeng and other high-ranking CCP officials, with the People's Daily calling him the "Comrade from Cambodia" ( 柬埔寨战友 ). Pot also toured around

SECTION 20

#1733086354423

4136-528: Is an independent, typically nonprofit organization that operates outside government control. NGOs often focus on humanitarian or social issues but can also include clubs and associations offering services to members. Some NGOs, like the World Economic Forum , may also act as lobby groups for corporations. Unlike international organizations (IOs), which directly interact with sovereign states and governments, NGOs are independent from them. The term as it

4324-401: Is better than ours. China is not qualified to criticize you. We committed errors of the political routes for ten times in fifty years—some are national, some are local…Thus I say China has no qualification to criticize you but to applaud you. You are basically correct…During the transition from the democratic revolution to adopting a socialist path, there exist two possibilities: one is socialism,

4512-573: Is commonly considered to be a leading organization in its field, contributing "close to 94 percent of its resources to the most vulnerable areas in the world." With primary focuses on disaster relief and capacity building, the organization has also been integrating long-term civil society and human rights initiatives into their humanitarian programs, delivering notable funds and resources to target states of operation. The organization has been gradually expanding its general mandates, and they mainly revolve around 14 main objectives: In 38 countries ranging from

4700-486: Is delivered in a timely and effective manner. NGOs also play a critical role in driving change by advocating for policies and practices that benefit disadvantaged communities. They often work in partnership with other organizations, including government agencies, to address complex challenges that require a collaborative approach. One of the key strengths of NGOs is their ability to work at the grassroots level and to connect with communities directly. This allows them to gain

4888-412: Is disputed and difficult to disentangle from the broader Cambodian Civil War . Estimates range from 30,000 to 500,000. Sliwinski estimates that approximately 17% of total civil war deaths can be attributed to U.S. bombing, noting that this is far behind the leading causes of death, as the U.S. bombing was concentrated in underpopulated border areas. Ben Kiernan attributes 50,000 to 150,000 deaths to

5076-461: Is not founded by an international treaty". The role of NGOs and other "major groups" in sustainable development was recognized in Chapter 27 of Agenda 21 . The rise and fall of international NGOs matches contemporary events, waxing in periods of growth and waning in times of crisis. The United Nations gave non-governmental organizations observer status at its assemblies and some meetings. According to

5264-687: Is observed annually on 27 February, was recognised on 17 April 2010 by 12 countries of the IX Baltic Sea NGO Forum at the eighth Summit of the Baltic Sea States in Vilnius , Lithuania. It was internationally recognised on 28 February 2014 in Helsinki , Finland by United Nations Development Programme administrator and former Prime Minister of New Zealand Helen Clark . In the context of NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations), diplomacy refers to

5452-764: Is often used to judge it; less than four percent is considered good. According to the World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations, more than 86 percent should be spent on programs (less than 20 percent on overhead). The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has guidelines of five to seven percent overhead to receive funding; the World Bank typically allows 37 percent. A high percentage of overhead relative to total expenditures can make it more difficult to generate funds. High overhead costs may also generate public criticism. A sole focus on overhead, however, can be counterproductive. Research published by

5640-470: Is organized on a local, national or international level to address issues in support of the public good". The term NGO is used inconsistently, and is sometimes used synonymously with civil society organization (CSO), which is any association founded by citizens. In some countries, NGOs are known as nonprofit organizations while political parties and trade unions are sometimes considered NGOs as well. NGOs are classified by (1) orientation- entailing

5828-521: Is reported to have 37 offices, 21,000 borrowers of which 92% are female, and a US$ 8.7 million gross loan deliverance profile. As of 2018, it is reported that Mercy Corps has distributed US$ 1.4 billion in forms of micro-loans to 244,315 clients globally. Mercy Corps' SAFE (abbreviation of Supporting Adolescent Girls' Future through Second Chance Education) School program in Niger ensures vital access for young adolescent girls to basic extents of education despite

Mercy Corps - Misplaced Pages Continue

6016-536: Is the implementation of projects. Advocacy NGOs or campaigning NGOs seek to "achieve large-scale change promoted indirectly through the influence of the political system". They require an active, efficient group of professional members who can keep supporters informed and motivated. Campaigning NGOs must plan and host demonstrations and events which will attract media, their defining activity. Campaigning NGOs often deal with issues related to human rights, women's rights, and children's rights, and their primary purpose

6204-465: Is to communicate with NGOs about areas of mutual interest. Department of Defense Directive 3000.05, in 2005, required the US Defense Department to regard stability-enhancing activities as equally important as combat. In compliance with international law , the department has developed a capacity to improve essential services in areas of conflict (such as Iraq ) where customary lead agencies like

6392-695: Is to defend (or promote) a specific cause. Non-governmental organisations need healthy public relations in order to meet their goals, and use sophisticated public-relations campaigns to raise funds and deal with governments. Interest groups may be politically important, influencing social and political outcomes. A code of ethics was established in 2002 by the World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations . Some NGOs rely on paid staff while others are based on volunteers . Although many NGOs use international staff in developing countries, others rely on local employees or volunteers. Foreign staff may satisfy

6580-484: Is transnational coordination by non-official members of the government, including epistemic communities and former policymakers or analysts. It aims to help policymakers and policy analysts reach a common solution through unofficial discussions. Unlike official diplomacy, conducted by government officials, diplomats, and elected leaders, Track II diplomacy involves experts, scientists, professors and other figures who are not part of government affairs. World NGO Day, which

6768-543: Is used today was first introduced in Article 71 of the newly formed United Nations Charter in 1945. While there is no fixed or formal definition for what NGOs are, they are generally defined as nonprofit entities that are independent of governmental influence—although they may receive government funding . According to the UN Department of Global Communications , an NGO is "a not-for profit , voluntary citizen's group that

6956-683: The Asian Credit Fund in Kazakhstan , a microfinancial institution facilitated by Mercy Corps, was able to obtain an operational loan totaled in US$ 1.8 million from the Grameen Credit Agricole Foundation to deliver microfinancial services to people of deprived conditions individual micro-loans with terms of six months to one year, all the while providing education in financial literacy and environmental sustainability. The Asian Credit Fund

7144-669: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2008, also provided financial and technical assistance that increased the operational capacity of Indonesia's Microfinance Innovations Center for Resources and Alternatives (MICRA) to provide extended means of assistance to 851 Indonesian poverty-focused microfinancial institutions. Mercy Corps also implemented similar actions in the Philippines to provide technical and research support to other 359 Filipino microfinancial institutions that provide durable financial capacity-building services. Another example would be

7332-661: The European Convention on the Recognition of the Legal Personality of International Non-Governmental Organisations in Strasbourg in 1986, creating a common legal basis for European NGOs. Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights protects the right to associate, which is fundamental for NGOs. The question whether a public project should be owned by an NGO or by the government has been studied in economics using

7520-706: The Great Chinese Famine . Kenneth M. Quinn , the author of a doctoral dissertation about the "origins of the radical Pol Pot regime" is "widely acknowledged as the first person to report on the genocidal policies of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge." While he was employed as a Foreign Service Officer for the U.S. State Department in Southeast Asia, Quinn was stationed at the South Vietnamese border for nine months between 1973 and 1974. While there, Quinn "interviewed countless Cambodian refugees who had escaped

7708-490: The Kampong Cham Province , where the largest Cham Muslim community could be found. The brothers told their father about the adventures which they had experienced as participants in the revolution, adventures which included the killing of Khmers and the consumption of pork, in the hope that they would be able to convince their father to join the communist cause. The father, who remained silent, was clearly not impressed by

Mercy Corps - Misplaced Pages Continue

7896-527: The Khmer Rouge under the leadership of Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea , Pol Pot . It resulted in the deaths of 1.5 to 2 million people from 1975 to 1979, nearly 25% of Cambodia's population in 1975 ( c. 7.8 million). Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were supported for many years by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its chairman, Mao Zedong ; it is estimated that at least 90% of

8084-570: The National United Front of Kampuchea . In 1970 alone, the Chinese reportedly gave the United Front 400 tons of military aid. In April 1974, Sihanouk and Khmer Rouge leaders Ieng Sary and Khieu Samphan met with Mao in Beijing; Mao supported many of the policies proposed by the Khmer Rouge, but he did not want the Khmer Rouge to marginalize Sihanouk after they won the civil war and established

8272-581: The Philippines , Mercy Corps announced the Maximizing Financial Access and Innovation at Scale (MAXIS) initiative that would the establishment of Bank Andara, a commercial bank that would partner with a broad network of microfinance institutions in the region to provide access to microfinancial services to, reportedly, 12 million Indonesian and 5 million Filipino nationals living in poverty through innovative strategies. The MAXIS initiative, funded by

8460-521: The State Department and USAID have difficulty operating. International Health cultivates collaborative, arm's-length relationships with NGOs, recognizing their independence, expertise, and honest-broker status. International non-governmental organizations date back to at least the late 18th century, and there were an estimated 1,083 NGOs by 1914. International NGOs were important to the anti-slavery and women's suffrage movements, and peaked at

8648-554: The Swedish Government . The program, at its third phase as of 2018, has been focused in improving livelihoods of close to 12,000 vulnerable Liberian youth by providing them pre-employment and entrepreneurial trainings, apprenticeships in 15 partnering host enterprises all the while stimulating overall local markets. It is expected that the program will be able to reach 19,000 youth from Bong, Nimba and Montserrado counties in Liberia with

8836-600: The United States , Mercy Corps Northwest facilitates the Women's Business Center that seeks to empower, grow and support female entrepreneurs in the state of Oregon by providing them with business training, a discussion platform and operation grants/loans. In Nigeria , the organization has recognized that a notable percentage of the adolescent girls want to start a small enterprise, of which most were already engaged in various extents of economic activity. Mercy Corps hence implemented

9024-498: The Urban Institute and Stanford University 's Center for Social Innovation have shown that rating agencies create incentives for NGOs to lower (and hide) overhead costs, which may reduce organizational effectiveness by starving organizations of infrastructure to deliver services. An alternative rating system would provide, in addition to financial data, a qualitative evaluation of an organization's transparency and governance: In

9212-879: The Washington Consensus . Twentieth-century globalization increased the importance of NGOs. International treaties and organizations, such as the World Trade Organization , focused on capitalist interests. To counterbalance this trend, NGOs emphasize humanitarian issues , development aid , and sustainable development . An example is the World Social Forum , a rival convention of the World Economic Forum held each January in Davos , Switzerland. The fifth World Social Forum, in Porto Alegre , Brazil in January 2005,

9400-568: The communist revolution in China , class conflicts , Communist International , etc. Pol Pot also met with other officials, including Deng Xiaoping and Peng Zhen . He was particularly impressed by Kang Sheng 's lecture on how to conduct a political purge . In 1970, Lon Nol overthrew Sihanouk, who fled to Beijing, where Pol Pot was also visiting. On the advice of the CCP, the Khmer Rouge changed its position, and in order to support Sihanouk, it established

9588-438: The genocide . Pol Pot was influenced by Marxism–Leninism and he wanted to transform Cambodia into an entirely self-sufficient agrarian socialist society that would be free from foreign influences. Stalin's works have been described as a "crucial formative influence" on his thought. Mao's works were also heavily influential, particularly influential was Mao's booklet which was titled On New Democracy . Jean-Jacques Rousseau

SECTION 50

#1733086354423

9776-508: The sarong ; farmers were forced to wear rudimentary dark or black clothing; religious activities like the recitation of the mandatory daily prayers were forbidden. Vickery notes that the Cambodian Cham were discriminated against by the Khmer before the beginning of the war "in some localities", partly because the Cham were stereotyped as being practitioners of black magic. In other localities,

9964-458: The 2019 fiscal year. The organization has received a 66/100 confidence score (Give with confidence) and an "C" transparency grade from MinistryWatch , a Christian charity watchdog organization, as of November 22,2024. In 2019, senior staff resigned following public disclosure of the organization's longtime inaction over its co-founder's sexual abuse of his daughter. Non-governmental organization A non-governmental organization ( NGO )

10152-740: The Adolescent Girls in Northern Nigeria: Financial Inclusion and Entrepreneurship Opportunities Profile program to identify key challenges and barriers for adolescent girls to initiate economic activities and gain a stable revenue to pay for their tuition and living expenses. Around 1800 adolescent girls have been profiled in Northern Nigeria. These profiles would assist Mercy Corps and other related development organizations to facilitate future programs that aim to empower female to engage in entrepreneurial actions and contribute to

10340-663: The Article 1 of the Law on the Establishment of the Extraordinary Chambers, jurisdiction ratione temporis is limited to the period from 17 April 1975 to 6 January 1979 https://www.eccc.gov.kh/sites/default/files/legal-documents/KR_Law_as_amended_27_Oct_2004_Eng.pdf In 1975, upon the victory of the Khmer Rouge over the Khmer Republic's forces, two brothers of Cham descent who had joined the Khmer Rouge as soldiers returned home to Region 21 within

10528-917: The Better Than Cash Alliance in the Philippines , Mercy Corps sought to take advantage of existing financial technologies to meet the emergency financial needs for the surviving victims of the Haiyan Typhoon in the country. Rather than relying on the traditional physical cash-transfer methods, Mercy Corps partnered with the BPI Globe BanKO to offer a range of electronic financial services that can deliver emergency recover aid to typhoon survivors. Program beneficiaries were "enrolled in BanKO's mobile savings accounts, through which they received one to three separate electronic cash transfers totaling 3,950 Philippine Pesos (about $ 90)." The beneficiaries are provided with

10716-673: The Cambodian Civil War vary widely. Sihanouk used a figure of 600,000 civil war deaths, while Elizabeth Becker reported over a million civil war deaths, military and civilian included. Other researchers were unable to corroborate such high estimates. Marek Sliwinski notes that many estimates of the dead are open to question and may have been used for propaganda, suggesting that the true number lies between 240,000 and 310,000. Judith Banister and E. Paige Johnson described 275,000 war deaths as "the highest mortality that we can justify". Patrick Heuveline states that "Subsequent reevaluations of

10904-501: The Cambodian army. Documents which were uncovered from the Soviet Union 's archives reveal that the invasion was launched at the Khmer Rouge's explicit request after negotiations were held with Nuon Chea. A North Vietnamese force quickly overran large parts of eastern Cambodia, reaching within 15 miles (24 km) of Phnom Penh before being pushed back. By June, three months after Sihanouk's removal, they had swept government forces from

11092-536: The Cambodian issue. As a result of Chinese and Western opposition to the Vietnamese invasion of 1978 and 1979, the Khmer Rouge continued to hold Cambodia's United Nations (UN) seat until 1982, after which the seat was filled by a Khmer Rouge-dominated coalition which was known as the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea (CGDK). Owing to support from China, Thailand, other South East Asian countries,

11280-649: The Canadian government's use of R2P to justify its intervention in the coup in Haiti. Large corporations have increased their corporate social responsibility departments to preempt NGO campaigns against corporate practices. Collaboration between corporations and NGOs risks co-option of the weaker partner, typically the NGO. In December 2007, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs S. Ward Casscells established an International Health Division of Force Health Protection & Readiness. Part of International Health's mission

11468-428: The Cham communities could be found across Cambodia, various Cham communities might have experienced the effects of the Khmer Rouge's pre-1975 rule differently; some communities experienced the repressions and restrictions but other communities did not. When Pol Pot consolidated his power by the end of 1975, the persecution became more severe, and it indiscriminately affected all of the Cham people. This could well be one of

SECTION 60

#1733086354423

11656-477: The Cham people to participate in the revolution. Sos Man's Islamic Movement was also tolerated by the Khmer Rouge's leadership between 1970 and 1975. The Chams were gradually forced to abandon their faith and their distinct practices, a campaign which was launched in the Southwest as early as 1972. Ten Cham villages were taken over by the Khmer Rouge in 1972–1973, where new Cham leaders were installed, and they forced

11844-556: The Cham were renamed "Islamic Khmers" in an attempt to disassociate them from their ancestral heritage and ethnicity and force them to assimilate into the larger and Khmer-dominated Democratic Kampuchea. The Khmer Rouge believed that the Cham would jeopardize their attempts to establish close-knit communities where everyone could be easily monitored. As a result, the regime decided to disperse the Cham by deporting them from their respective localities and forcing them to work as peasants across Cambodia, hence forcing them to directly contribute to

12032-460: The Cham were well-assimilated within the host communities, speaking the Khmer language and marrying Khmers, Vietnamese, and Chinese. Between 1972 and 1974, the Khmer Rouge intensified the enforcement of the restrictions which they imposed on the Cham because they believed that the Cham were a threat to their communist agenda due to the existence of their unique language, their culture, their beliefs, and their independent communal system. Additionally,

12220-434: The Cham. The Khmer Rouge officially blamed minority groups, particularly the Cham and the Vietnamese, for the country's ills. The regime initially ordered the expulsion of ethnic Vietnamese from Cambodia but then conducted large scale massacres of large numbers of Vietnamese civilians who were being deported out of Cambodia. The regime then prevented the remaining 20,000 ethnic Vietnamese from fleeing, and much of this group

12408-566: The Congo , and Haiti . Mercy Corps incorporated the Conflict Management Group founded by Roger Fisher in 2004. Three years later, it also moved to incorporate NetAid seeking to broaden its scope of youth engagement in fighting global poverty. Its programs have gradually gained structural and facilitating consistency throughout the course of the organization's development, ranging from long-term market system development programs, such as

12596-485: The Democratic Republic Congo, Haiti and Guatemala to Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Mongolia, Mercy Corps reportedly designs and delivers both temporary and long-term humanitarian assistance programs that are predominantly funded by other partnering international donor institutions. Some of the partnering donors include: Mercy Corps accepts contributions from both individual and institutional donors. For instance,

12784-402: The Eastern Zone demonstrated their displeasure with the Khmer Rouge's restrictions by beating their drums—they traditionally beat their drums in order to inform locals that it is time to recite the daily prayers—at local mosques . This act of communal defiance prompted the blanket arrest of many Cham Muslim leaders and religious teachers. In February 1974, the Cham who lived in Region 31, which

12972-601: The FAO provided training and material assistance for blacksmiths to produce. Mercy Corps has also been operating in post-conflict Uganda since 2009: as the state approaches societal recovery, it has been facing a range of development challenges, one of which being the production under-capacity of the farming sector. The Revitalizing Agricultural Incomes and New markets (RAIN) program was created to target key areas that are detrimental for long-term assurance of food security, including financial services for small and medium agro-businesses at

13160-420: The Geneva Conventions, and genocide of the Vietnamese ethnic, national and racial group. The Chamber additionally convicted Nuon Chea of genocide of the Cham ethnic and religious group under the doctrine of superior responsibility . Both Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan were sentenced to terms of life imprisonment. In 1968, the Khmer Rouge officially launched a nation-wide insurgency across Cambodia. Even though

13348-487: The Haiyan Typhoon. In May, 2017, Mercy Corps publicly announced that it had commenced the investigation of two staff members in its refugee program stations in Greece after receiving a call through the complaint hotline with regards to the "serious misconduct" of addressed workers. After the Greek representative officials probed into the issue with regards to two staff from an unnamed, European Union-funded non-government organization having sexually violated refugees and misused

13536-976: The IT community to engage in business and software engineering activities. The Gaza Sky Geeks also provide considerable start-up grants for eligible young IT entrepreneurs to begin their businesses in the challenging market environment of Gaza. It hosts up to 140 people a day, with almost half of those hosted being women, with a prospective second location opening in the near future. Meanwhile, it has promoted local youth startups that receive significant attention from large U.S. technology firms such as Strips and Silicon Valley Bank. Mercy Corps has been facilitating programs that deliver micro-financial services to individuals in different community contexts to promote long-term, self-sustainable economic growth. These particular programs offer small, short-term business loans to people of economically deprived conditions for them to start-up local businesses gain financial independence. Domestically within

13724-657: The Khmer Rouge a "chauvinist" regime, due to its anti-Vietnam and anti-religion policies. Stephen Heder also believed that the Khmer Rouge were not guilty of genocide, stating that the atrocities of the regime were not motivated by racism . Ben Kiernan makes the argument that it was indeed a genocide and he disagrees with these three scholars, by bringing forth examples from the history of the Cham people in Cambodia, as did an international tribunal finding Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan guilty of 92 and 87 counts of said crime respectively. Genocide scholar Gregory Stanton concluded that

13912-429: The Khmer Rouge among the Cambodian peasantry. According to Ben Kiernan, the Khmer Rouge "would not have won power without U.S. economic and military destabilization of Cambodia. ... It used the bombing's devastation and massacre of civilians as recruitment propaganda and as an excuse for its brutal, radical policies and its purge of moderate communists and Sihanoukists." Pol Pot biographer David P. Chandler writes that

14100-474: The Khmer Rouge banned the existence of more than 20 minority groups, which constituted 15% of Cambodia's population. While Cambodians in general were victims of the Khmer Rouge regime, the persecution, torture, and killings committed by the Khmer Rouge are considered an act of genocide according to the United Nations as ethnic and religious minorities were systematically targeted by Pol Pot and his regime. Scholars and historians have varying opinions on whether

14288-438: The Khmer Rouge emptied the cities and frogmarched Cambodians to labor camps in the countryside, where mass executions, forced labor , physical abuse, torture, malnutrition , and disease were rampant. In 1976, the Khmer Rouge renamed the country Democratic Kampuchea . The massacres ended when the Vietnamese military invaded in 1978 and toppled the Khmer Rouge regime. By January 1979, 1.5 to 2 million people had died due to

14476-430: The Khmer Rouge under the justification that they "used to exploit the Cambodian people". The Chinese were stereotyped as traders and moneylenders associated with capitalism, while historically the group attracted resentment due to their lighter skin color and cultural differences. Hundreds of Cham, Chinese and Khmer families were rounded up in 1978 and told that they were to be resettled, but were actually executed. At

14664-462: The Khmer Rouge's new recruits were apolitical peasants who fought in support of the King, rather than for communism , of which they had little understanding. By 1975, with Lon Nol's government running out of ammunition due to its loss of support from the U.S., it was clear that its collapse was imminent. On 17 April 1975, the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh and ended the civil war. Mortality estimates for

14852-615: The Khmer Rouge's policies, including 200,000–300,000 Chinese Cambodians , 90,000–500,000 Cambodian Cham (who are mostly Muslim ), and 20,000 Vietnamese Cambodians . 20,000 people passed through the Security Prison 21 , one of the 196 prisons the Khmer Rouge operated, and only seven adults survived. The prisoners were taken to the Killing Fields , where they were executed (often with pickaxes , to save bullets) and buried in mass graves . Abduction and indoctrination of children

15040-529: The Khmer Rouge's revolutionary ruralism and its evacuation of city residents to farms. The government of the People's Republic of China did not protest against the killings of ethnic Chinese in Cambodia, despite its awareness of the atrocities and its simultaneous condemnation of the Vietnamese government's mistreatment of ethnic Chinese who lived in Vietnam. According to Ben Kiernan, the "fiercest extermination campaign

15228-411: The Khmer Rouge's rise to power. Vickery—erroneously, as has been proven by the research which was more recently conducted by Ben Kiernan —argued that the number of Cham victims who were killed during the Khmer Rouge's rule of Cambodia was around 20,000 which would still be a substantial part of the Cham group and would thus constitute the crime of genocide by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. The killings were

15416-593: The Khmer Rouge. As a result, Pol Pot has been described as "a genocidal tyrant" by journalists and historians such as William Branigin. The British sociologist Martin Shaw described the Cambodian genocide as "the purest genocide of the Cold War era". The attempt to purify Cambodian society along racial, social and political lines led to purges of Cambodia's previous military and political leadership, along with business leaders, journalists, students, doctors, and lawyers. Due to

15604-464: The Khmer language, and even inter-marrying with the majority Khmers as well as with the minority Chinese and Vietnamese. The diverse ethnic and cultural practices of Cambodians began to deteriorate during the rise of the Khmer Rouge in 1972, when the Cham were prohibited from practising their faith and culture: Cham women were required to keep their hair short like the Khmers; Cham men were not allowed to wear

15792-559: The Office of Refugee Resettlement uses to help integrate immigrants to America. Government funding sometimes accounts for the vast majority of overall funding for these NGOs, for example Global Refuge received 180 million dollars of its 207 million dollar budget from federal funding. In recent years, government contracts to non-profits have exploded both in number and size. The Budget for the Office of Refugee Resettlement has increased from 1.8 billion in 2018 to 6.3 billion in 2022. Critics point to

15980-489: The Refugee Fund, focused on providing the means necessary to respond to first-hand emergencies of the grim implications of the genocide: short-term aids in food, water, shelter and other corresponding refugee assistance. As Mercy Corps expanded its mandates and progressed into a large humanitarian aid organization with a notable international presence, it has also gradually transformed its main philanthropic focus from solely

16168-630: The Resilient Communities Program in Mongolia that would last until 2019, to short-term emergency response programs, such as the organization's post-disaster relief initiatives in Puerto-Rico after Hurricane Maria in the months following September 2017. According to Ellsworth Culver's daughter, Tanya Culver Humphrey, Culver sexually abused her from her early childhood until she was a teenager. Humphrey said that despite her repeatedly bringing

16356-615: The Save the Refugee Fund in 1979 to provide first hand post-conflict relief after the Cambodian genocide under the Pol Pot regime, the organization has since expanded its mandate to deliver humanitarian assistance. In 1982, the organization's founders, Ellsworth Culver and Dan O'Neill, chose the name of Mercy Corps to represent the broader international activities of the organization that has since been focusing on delivering durable, long-term solutions to

16544-572: The Trial Chamber convicted Kang Kek Iew for crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. The Supreme Court Chamber increased his sentence to life imprisonment. Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan were tried and convicted in 2014 of crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions. On 28 March 2019, the Trial Chamber found Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan guilty of crimes against humanity, grave breaches of

16732-482: The U.S. bombing. The relationship between the United States' massive bombing of Cambodia and the growth of the Khmer Rouge in recruitment and popular support has been a matter of interest to historians. Some scholars, including Michael Ignatieff , Adam Jones and Greg Grandin , have cited the United States intervention and bombing campaign from 1965 to 1973 as a significant factor that led to increased support for

16920-566: The U.S., and some Western countries, the CGDK held Cambodia's UN seat until 1993, long after the Cold War ended. China trained Khmer Rouge soldiers on its soil from 1979 to at least 1986, "stationed military advisers with Khmer Rouge troops as late as 1990", and "supplied at least $ 1 billion in military aid" during the 1980s. There are allegations of United States support for the Khmer Rouge , because they wished to weaken Vietnam's influence in Southeast Asia. The UK has also been accused of helping

17108-498: The UN, an NGO is a private, not-for-profit organization which is independent of government control and is not merely an opposition political party . The rapid development of the non-governmental sector occurred in Western countries as a result of the restructuring of the welfare state . Globalization of that process occurred after the fall of the communist system, and was an important part of

17296-521: The United States, Mercy Corps Northwest partners with the AmeriCorps VISTA and offers small business loans and grants to help eligible individuals with jump-starting their own small enterprises. Internationally, Mercy Corps offers microcredits to people living in transitional or developing contexts through its networks of affiliations with banking sectors across the globe. For example, in Indonesia and

17484-418: The Vietnamese invasion and continued its material support to the Khmer Rouge. In early 1979, China launched an invasion of Vietnam to retaliate against Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia. Deng was convinced by a conversation with Singapore's prime minister Lee Kuan Yew to limit the scale and duration of the war. Following the one-month war, Singapore attempted to serve as a mediator between Vietnam and China on

17672-771: The Wax Bar Carruurta Soomaaliyeed, also known as the Educate Somali Children (ESC) program. This three-year program aimed to enhance access to high-quality and inclusive primary education for 42,071 Somali Out-of-School-Children (OOSC) residing in the Federal Member States of Galmudug , Hirshabelle , South West , Jubbaland , and Banadir region, as well as in Puntland and Somaliland . Mercy Corps has facilitated linkages between gender dimensions and positive aspects of long-term market development. In

17860-457: The World NGO Day, we celebrate the key civil society's contribution to public space and their unique ability to give voice to those who would have went [sic] otherwise unheard. Service-delivery NGOs provide public goods and services which governments of developing countries are unable to provide due to a lack of resources. They may be contractors or collaborate with government agencies to reduce

18048-479: The accounts which were given by his sons. Instead, he grabbed a cleaver, killed his sons, and told his fellow villagers that he killed the enemy. When the villagers pointed out that he murdered his own sons, he recounted the stories which his sons had previously told to him, citing the Khmer Rouge's hatred for Islam and the Cham people. This event prompted the villagers to make a unanimous agreement, that night, they would kill all Khmer Rouge soldiers who were stationed in

18236-411: The advanced and the backward, even when Communism is realized. Today we cannot explain it completely. Pol Pot replied: "The issue of lines of struggle raised by Chairman Mao is an important strategic issue. We will follow your words in the future. I have read and learned various works of Chairman Mao since I was young, especially the theory on people's war . Your works have guided our entire party." On

18424-488: The agrarian self-sufficiency of the area's isolated tribes—while the Khmer Rouge gained power. Attempts to implement these goals (formed upon the observations of small, rural communes) into a larger society were key factors in the ensuing genocide. One Khmer Rouge leader said that the killings were meant for the "purification of the populace." The Khmer Rouge virtually forced Cambodia's entire population to divide itself into mobile work teams. Michael Hunt has written that it

18612-455: The agricultural production model of Dazhai , a product of Mao's era. Chen Yonggui , Vice Premier of China and the leader of Dazhai, visited Cambodia in December 1977, commending the achievement of its movement towards communism. In 1978, Son Sen , a Khmer Rouge leader and the Minister of National Defense of Democratic Kampuchea , visited China and obtained its approval for military aid. In

18800-532: The area. The next morning, more Khmer Rouge soldiers descended upon the area with heavy weapons, and they surrounded the village, killing every single villager in it. Similarly, in June or July 1975, the Khmer Rouge authorities in Region 21 of the Eastern Zone tried to confiscate all copies of the Qur'an from the people, and at the same time, they tried to impose a mandatory short haircut on Cham women. The authorities encountered

18988-449: The beginning of the rule of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1975, there were 425,000 ethnic Chinese in Cambodia. By the end of 1979, there were just 200,000, most of them were stuck in Thai refugee camps and the rest of them were stuck in Cambodia. 170,000 Chinese fled from Cambodia and moved to Vietnam, and others were repatriated. The Chinese were predominantly city-dwellers, making them vulnerable to

19176-552: The bombing "had the effect the Americans wanted—it broke the Communist encirclement of Phnom Penh", but also accelerated the collapse of rural society and increased social polarization. Craig Etcheson agrees that U.S. intervention increased recruitment for the Khmer Rouge but disputes that it was a primary cause of the Khmer Rouge victory. According to William Shawcross , the United States bombing and ground incursion plunged Cambodia into

19364-594: The border and entered the village, slaughtering 3,157 Vietnamese civilians. This caused an urgent response from the Vietnamese government, precipitating the Cambodian–Vietnamese War in which the Khmer Rouge was ultimately defeated. The state of the Chinese Cambodians during the rule of the Khmer Rouge regime was alleged to be "the worst disaster ever to befall any ethnic Chinese community in Southeast Asia." Cambodians of Chinese descent were massacred by

19552-472: The brutal clutches of the Khmer Rouge." Based upon the compiled interviews and the atrocities he witnessed firsthand, Quinn wrote "a 40-page report about it, which was submitted throughout the U.S. government." In the report, he wrote that the Khmer Rouge had "much in common with those of totalitarian regimes in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union ." Quinn has written of the Khmer Rouge that "[w]hat emerges as

19740-477: The chaos that Sihanouk had worked for years to avoid. Since the 1950s, Pol Pot made frequent visits to the People's Republic of China , where he received political and military training—especially on the theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat —from the personnel of the CCP. From November 1965 to February 1966, high-ranking CCP officials such as Chen Boda and Zhang Chunqiao trained him on topics such as

19928-675: The communists as early as the 1950s, with a Cham elder, Sos Man joining the Indochina Communist Party and rising through the ranks to become a major in the Party's forces. He then returned home to the Eastern Zone in 1970 and joined the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), and he co-established the Eastern Zone Islamic Movement with his son, Mat Ly. Together, they became the mouthpiece of the Khmer Rouge and they encouraged

20116-405: The cost of public goods. Capacity-building NGOs affect "culture, structure, projects and daily operations". Advocacy and public-education NGOs aim to modify behavior and ideas through communication, crafting messages to promote social, political, or environmental changes (and as news organisations have cut foreign bureaux, many NGOs have begun to expand into news reporting). Movement NGOs mobilize

20304-461: The country's health. According to Pfeiffer, NGOs in Mozambique have "fragmented the local health system, undermined local control of health programs, and contributed to growing local social inequality". They can be uncoordinated, creating parallel projects which divert health-service workers from their normal duties to instead serve the NGOs. This undermines local primary-healthcare efforts, and removes

20492-411: The course of Mercy Corps' history in its deliverance of humanitarian programs, the organization's focus in its overall operational strategies has seen substantial shifts. Starting as a non-government humanitarian aid organization specifically focused in the immediate humanitarian complexity of the refugee dilemma caused by the Cambodian genocide in 1979, the preceding incarnation of the organization, Save

20680-489: The creation and maintenance of the new Cambodian economy. This move was undertaken in an attempt to ensure that the Cham would not congregate in an attempt to form their own community again, which would have undermined the regime's plan to establish centralized economic cooperatives. Slowly, those Cham who defied the restrictions which the Khmer Rouge imposed on them were arrested by the regime. Hence, in October 1973, Cham Muslims in

20868-607: The cultural underpinnings of the Khmer civilization and to impose a new society through purges, executions, and violence." Ben Kiernan has compared the Cambodian genocide to the Armenian genocide which was perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire during World War I and the Holocaust which was perpetrated by Nazi Germany during World War II . While each genocide was unique, certain features were common in all three genocides, and racism

21056-404: The deliverance of temporary assistance that contribute short-term impacts to the development of broader socio-economic infrastructures that encourage long-term improvements in the well-being of target beneficiaries. In a nutshell, Mercy Corps programs' main focus has transitioned from direct deliverance of emergency aid to long-term provision of assistance in improving community "resilience". Through

21244-456: The demographic data situated the death toll for the [civil war] in the order of 300,000 or less". From 1970 to 1973, a massive United States bombing campaign against the Khmer Rouge devastated rural Cambodia. An earlier U.S. bombing campaign of Cambodia began on 18 March 1969 with Operation Breakfast , but U.S. bombing in Cambodia had commenced years before that. The number of Cambodian civilian and Khmer Rouge deaths caused by U.S. bombing

21432-511: The domestic market chain to promote better access and more extensive availability of financial services and market platforms to ensure the continuous operation of the agricultural supply and demand chains, with the broader objective to encourage sustainable food security. Mercy Corps has been operating the PROSPECTS program in Liberia with the support of Exxon Mobil , Coca Cola Africa Foundation and

21620-1027: The duration of its presence, Mercy Corps has moved from food assistance to working on long-term agricultural and economic solutions: apple trees and fish farms and cross-cultural exchange. The effort involves aid workers living in Pyongyang , and in Chagang and North Pyongan provinces to visit families, monitor distribution and assess impact. Mercy Corps offers a number of agriculture-oriented programs in various countries, often delivered with water conservation and disaster prevention focuses. In Timor-Leste , for example, Mercy Corps seeks to build "market-based incentives to mitigation activities" so that local farmers are able to exercise different types of farming practices with different weather-resistance characteristics. By providing them with seed and farming assistance, these practices can enable Timorese farmers to contribute more "nutritious food source to households and to local markets" all

21808-604: The education system." Since its launch, it has engaged nearly 500 girls and 27 teachers (mostly female), as well as provided 20 learning centers with diversified management and teaching skills. In Kailali, Nepal , Mercy Corps implemented the Education of Marginalized Girls in Kailali from 2013 to 2017. The program seeks to broaden the spectrum of education for local girls in far western Nepal through organizing girls' education hubs/clubs that encourage girls to continue their education above

21996-465: The entire northeastern third of the country. After defeating those forces, the Vietnamese turned the newly won territories over to the local insurgents. The Khmer Rouge also established "liberated" areas in the southern and southwestern parts of the country, where they operated independently of the Vietnamese. After Sihanouk demonstrated his support for the Khmer Rouge by visiting them in the field, their ranks swelled from 6,000 to 50,000 fighters. Many of

22184-438: The explanation for the terror and violence that swept Cambodia during the 1970s is that a small group of alienated intellectuals, enraged by their perception of a corrupt society and imbued with a Maoist plan to create a pure socialist order in the shortest possible time, recruited extremely young, poor, and envious cadres, instructed them in harsh and brutal methods learned from Stalinist mentors, and used them to destroy physically

22372-400: The fact that the perpetrators and the victims of the mass murder were largely members of the same ethnic group, the term autogenocide was coined to describe the unique character of the genocide. According to Samuel Totten , 25% of the urban Khmer population or 500,000 people perished under the rule of the Khmer Rouge , along with 16% of the rural Khmer population or 825,000 people putting

22560-456: The fields of humanitarian assistance and poverty alleviation. Funding sources include membership dues, the sale of goods and services, grants from international institutions or national governments, corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds and private donations. Although the term "non-governmental organization" implies independence from governments, many NGOs depend on government funding; one-fourth of Oxfam 's US$ 162 million 1998 income

22748-411: The financial resource that was allocated solely for refugee use. Responding to the particular probe, Mercy Corps has launched related investigations, and the two identified staff members were put on leave with further decisions on behavior outcomes to be made. The Charity Navigator gave Mercy Corps a 3-star overall rating, a 2-star financial rating and a 4-star accountability and transparency rating for

22936-475: The following ways;: Similar terms include third-sector organization (TSO), nonprofit organization (NPO), voluntary organization (VO), civil society organization (CSO), grassroots organization (GO), social movement organization (SMO), private voluntary organization (PVO), self-help organization (SHO), and non-state actors (NSAs). Numerous variations exist for the NGO acronym, either due to language, region, or specificity. Some Romance languages use

23124-477: The forces that controlled them, whatever the governments concerned might think about the matter." Some NGOs, such as Greenpeace , do not accept funding from governments or intergovernmental organizations. The 1999 budget of the American Association of Retired Persons ( AARP ) was over $ 540 million. In America, government funding of NGOs relating to immigration is common, and is one of the stated methods

23312-738: The foreign aid which the Khmer Rouge received came from China, including at least US$ 1 billion in interest-free economic and military aid in 1975 alone. After it seized power in April 1975, the Khmer Rouge wanted to turn the country into an agrarian socialist republic , founded on the policies of ultra- Maoism and influenced by the Cultural Revolution . Pol Pot and other Khmer Rouge officials met with Mao in Beijing in June 1975, receiving approval and advice, while high-ranking CCP officials such as Politburo Standing Committee member Zhang Chunqiao later visited Cambodia to offer help. To fulfill its goals,

23500-460: The former Cambodian government along with anyone whom it suspected of having connections with foreign governments, as well as professionals, intellectuals, the Buddhist monkhood , and ethnic minorities. Even those people who were stereotypically thought of as having intellectual qualities, such as wearing glasses or speaking multiple languages , were executed out of fear that they would rebel against

23688-450: The full-scale mass killing of the Cham people. American professor Samuel Totten and Australian professor Paul R. Bartrop estimate that these efforts would have completely wiped out the Cham population were it not for the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge in 1979. In a Khmer Rouge official meeting took place in Sector 41, Kampong Cham province in 1977, a plan was proclaimed up to "smash enemies of

23876-616: The genocide, China was the largest military and economic supporter of the Khmer Rouge, supplying "more than 15,000 military advisers" and most of its external aid. It is estimated that at least 90% of foreign aid to Khmer Rouge came from China, with 1975 alone seeing US$ 1 billion in interest-free economic and military aid, "the biggest aid ever given to any one country by China". A series of internal crises in 1976 prevented Beijing from exerting substantial influence over Khmer Rouge policies. After Mao's death in September 1976, China underwent

24064-497: The good intentions of NGO leaders and activists, he is critical of the "objective effects of actions, regardless of their intentions". According to Shivji, the rise of NGOs is part of a neoliberal paradigm and not motivated purely by altruism; NGOs want to change the world without understanding it, continuing an imperial relationship. In his study of NGO involvement in Mozambique , James Pfeiffer addresses their negative effects on

24252-405: The government of North Vietnam were not informed about the Khmer Rouge's decision, its forces provided shelter and weapons to the Khmer Rouge after the insurgency began. North Vietnamese support for the Khmer Rouge's insurgency made it impossible for the Cambodian military to effectively counter it. For the next two years, the insurgency grew because Norodom Sihanouk did very little to stop it. As

24440-584: The government's ability to maintain agency over its health sector. Pfeiffer suggested a collaborative model of the NGO and the DPS (the Mozambique Provincial Health Directorate); the NGO should be "formally held to standard and adherence within the host country", reduce "showcase" projects and unsustainable parallel programs. Cambodian genocide The Cambodian genocide was the systematic persecution and killing of Cambodian citizens by

24628-824: The ground by other organizations. Management techniques are crucial to project success. The World Bank classifies NGO activity into two general categories: NGOs may also conduct both activities: operational NGOs will use campaigning techniques if they face issues in the field, which could be remedied by policy change, and campaigning NGOs (such as human-rights organizations ) often have programs which assist individual victims for whom they are trying to advocate. Operational NGOs seek to "achieve small-scale change directly through projects", mobilizing financial resources, materials, and volunteers to create local programs. They hold large-scale fundraising events and may apply to governments and organizations for grants or contracts to raise money for projects. Operational NGOs often have

24816-554: The group as the SAS trained non Khmer Rouge soldiers of the CGDK coalition from 1985 to 1989 in Thailand. After the 1991 Paris Peace Accords , Thailand continued to allow the Khmer Rouge "to trade and move across the Thai border to sustain their activities ... although international criticism, particularly from the United States and Australia ... caused it to disavow passing any direct military support." Ideology played an important role in

25004-529: The improvement of the market capacities of their own communities. In Afghanistan , Mercy Corps' INVEST program has had a meta-objective on developing durable market capacity of the Southern region of Helmand through introducing vocational education and skills training to local young Afghani population. Funded by the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID), it is specifically designed for

25192-567: The insurgency grew in strength, the party openly declared itself to be the Communist Party of Kampuchea. Sihanouk was deposed in 1970 by Premier Lon Nol , with the support of the National Assembly , establishing the pro-United States Khmer Republic . On the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s advice, Sihanouk, who was in exile in Beijing , formed an alliance with the Khmer Rouge, and became

25380-645: The investment cost of crop production in the post-Syrian war environment with destroyed infrastructure, and provide technical and business training that teach farmers efficient ways of planting and cultivation, as well as exchanging surplus productions in local markets. Like most of its other development programs, Mercy Corps work to "provide communities with the tools and support they need to transform their own lives to support resilient well-being." With regards to food security, it targets five main areas for development: Pro-Poor Markets, Empowerment, Good Governance, Human Well-Being, and Economic Health. It has been maintaining

25568-511: The issue to the attention of Mercy Corps senior leadership, no action was taken beside moving Culver to another position in the organization. Following a 2019 documentary on the sexual abuse allegations released by the Oregonian , the leader of Mercy Corps, Neal Keny Guyer, as well as senior legal counsel, and a longtime board member resigned. Beth deHamel served as interim CEO and was succeeded by Tjada D'Oyen McKenna on 15 October 2020. Throughout

25756-569: The killing at a scale comparable to the genocide of the Roma (25% of the Roma population of Europe, or 130,000 to 500,000 people) and the genocide of Serbians (300,000 to 500,000 people) during the Holocaust . Ethnic Vietnamese , ethnic Thai , ethnic Chinese , ethnic Cham , Cambodian Christians , and other minorities were also targeted for persecution and genocide. The Khmer Rouge forcibly relocated minority groups and banned their languages . By decree,

25944-435: The killings were "largely the result of the spontaneous excesses of a vengeful, undisciplined peasant army." This point of view was also supported by Alexander Hinton , who cited an account by a former Khmer Rouge cadre who claimed that the killings were acts of retribution for the atrocities which were perpetrated by Lon Nol's soldiers when they killed people who were known to be former Viet Minh agents before Pol Pot and

26132-540: The life of these programs, Mercy Corps has worked with "15 health care providers at community pharmacies and health centers to ensure that they have increased knowledge in family planning counselling and stock management to improve access to contraception." In North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo , Mercy Corps delivers the Emergency Assistance to Conflict-Affected Populations (EACAP) program to provide first-hand emergency aid to internally displaced populations in

26320-421: The local level, advising larger food-related enterprises for agricultural investment opportunities at the regional and national level, and technical training for returning farmers at the individual level. In parallel of training programs for the farmer communities that seek to improve land-capacity, growth and cultivation capacity and production efficiency, Mercy Corps has also been facilitating various actors within

26508-427: The main aim to providing its beneficiary population with necessary tools (both technical and material) and assisting them with utilizing these particular tools for the advancement of their own well-being. In Niger , Mercy Corps jointly delivered the "Sawki" Program with Africare and Helen Keller International . The program, funded by USAID , aimed to respond to the food security needs of a reported 118,000 people in

26696-406: The many elements of its deliverance of programs that encourage inclusive education for children with disabilities in Jordan , including various worksheets, plans, exercises and checklists to aid targeted disabled student populations with better managing their curriculum. In 2018, Mercy Corps, in collaboration with Educate A Child (EAC) and implemented through a consortium with Mercy USA, spearheaded

26884-468: The mass killings and starvation by the Khmer Rouge did constitute genocide, both as defined in the Genocide Convention and in the broader definition of Raphael Lemkin, which includes destruction of political, social, and economic groups. The crimes were genocide under the Genocide Convention because they included the intentional destruction of a significant part of two ethnic groups, the Vietnamese and

27072-467: The million-dollar salaries of CEOS and the use of funds for "music therapy" and "pet therapy" as a worrying sign that the money might not be appropriated to help the migrant crisis, but rather as a political move to keep wealthy backers loyal. Overhead is the amount of money spent on running an NGO, rather than on projects. It includes office expenses, salaries, and banking and bookkeeping costs. An NGO's percentage of its overall budget spent on overhead

27260-480: The most vulnerable regions of the country, including Maradi and Zinder. Understanding that 60% of the marginalized population in the program's target areas were children of severe malnutrition, the program sought to " bring together complementary activities in nutrition, health, agriculture, livestock husbandry, livelihoods promotion, and market development," with an emphasized focal point on the empowerment of adolescent girls. From 2009 to 2013, Mercy Corps has delivered

27448-510: The nation's difficult socio-economic conditions. The program is a part of Mercy Corps' SAFE program series that, together, have the overall aim to improve the well-being of the female population in target areas. In collaboration with N's Ministry of Education and a local non-government organization, Organisation Nigerienne des Educateurs Novateurs, the SAFE School program sought to help "adolescent girls from vulnerable households to enter or re-enter

27636-585: The necessary education nationally established time frame (after obtaining the School Leaving Certificate), all the while persuading girls who have dropped out of their education to return to school. In addition, the program has also funded school curriculum in natural sciences, math, English and sexual health education to ensure the targeted adolescent girl population have extensive exposure to knowledge that are necessary for maintaining proper livelihoods. Mercy Corps has also created two tool kits as one of

27824-532: The new state grew." Analysis of existing mortality estimates show that men accounted for 81% of all violent deaths and 67% of all excess deaths in this period. The killing of about 50–70% of Cambodia's working-age men led to a shift in norms regarding the sexual division of labor and correlates with present-day indicators of women's economic advancements and increased representation in local-level elected office. The Khmer Rouge regime frequently arrested and executed anyone whom it suspected of having connections with

28012-468: The nominal head of a Khmer Rouge–dominated government-in-exile (known by its French acronym, GRUNK ) backed by China. Although thoroughly aware of the weakness of Lon Nol's forces and loath to commit American military force to the new conflict in any form other than air power, the Nixon administration announced its support for the new Khmer Republic. On 29 March 1970, North Vietnam launched an offensive against

28200-500: The number of the country's primary schools and health centers. The United States, by comparison, has approximately 1.5 million NGOs. NGOs further the social goals of their members (or founders): improving the natural environment , encouraging the observance of human rights , improving the welfare of the disadvantaged, or representing a corporate agenda. Their goals cover a wide range of issues. They may fund local NGOs, institutions and projects, and implement projects. NGOs can be in

28388-568: The organization received a combined operational grant of more than US$ 13 million from the United States Agency for International Development 's 2016 Emergency Food Security Program in post-Ebola recovery in Liberia and conflict response in Yemen. Mercy Corps Northwest operates domestically within the United States with focuses in primary economic development. It mainly aims to stimulate business growth opportunities for individuals and communities in

28576-484: The organization will enhance diverse, dynamic economic opportunities that foster sustainable and comprehensive growth in Jordan while also improving water and energy management practices. Mercy Corps International is the organization's main branch of operation. It focuses on resolving humanitarian and development challenges currently faced by societies in countries of unstable, transitional backgrounds. Mercy Corps International

28764-1014: The organization. The organization hosts a Women's Business Center that aims to empower start-up female entrepreneurs through training, microloan and grant provisions. For former prisoners seeking re-integration into the community in Portland, Oregon, Mercy Corps Northwest also operates the Reentry Transition Center that offers joint business and social reentry training curricula that assist ex-offenders with managing independent and successful lives after being released from prison. A number of Mercy Corps' agriculture-related programs are jointly delivered with objectives in other areas such as water conservation, disaster resilience, emergency crisis response and market system development. For example, Mercy Corps establishes partnerships with local farmers or agribusinesses to stimulate local market exchanges in Uganda , with

28952-525: The other hand, during another meeting in August 1975, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai warned Sihanouk as well as Khmer Rouge leaders including Khieu Samphan and Ieng Sary of the danger of radical movement towards communism, citing the mistakes in China's own Great Leap Forward . Zhou urged them not to repeat the mistakes that had caused havoc. Sihanouk later recalled that Khieu Samphan and Ieng Thirith responded only with "an incredulous and superior smile". During

29140-422: The other is capitalism. Our situation now is like this. Fifty years from now, or one hundred years from now, the struggle between two lines will exist. Even ten thousand years from now, the struggle between two lines will still exist. When Communism is realized, the struggle between two lines will still be there. Otherwise, you are not a Marxist. This is unity existing among opposites. If one mentions only one side of

29328-480: The particular demographics of the target region, and has provided specific technical training opportunities for nearly 22,000 young men and women, over 70% of which were able to find employment or self-employment in fields of tailoring, electric, mechanics and plumbing. INVEST's gender-neutral delivery has enabled a significant number of local women to gain a progressive amount of personal autonomy in patriarchal communities where they are still extensively marginalized, all

29516-455: The party with the larger valuation need not be optimal when the public good is partially excludable, when both NGO and government may be indispensable, or when the NGO and the government have different bargaining powers. Moreover, the investment technology can matter for the optimal ownership structure when there are bargaining frictions, when the parties interact repeatedly or when the parties are asymmetrically informed. Today we celebrate

29704-478: The party with the more important investment task should be owner. Yet, Besley and Ghatak have argued that in the context of public projects the investment technology does not matter. Specifically, even when the government is the key investor, ownership by an NGO is optimal if and only if the NGO has a larger valuation of the project than the government. However, the general validity of this argument has been questioned by follow-up research. In particular, ownership by

29892-402: The persecution and killings which occurred during the rule of the Khmer Rouge should be considered genocide. These conflicting opinions exist because scholars who conducted research in Cambodia immediately after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979 claimed that the victims could have been killed due to the circumstances which they were living under. For instance, Michael Vickery opined that

30080-1192: The practice of building and maintaining partnerships with other organizations, stakeholders, and governments to achieve common objectives related to social or environmental issues. NGOs often work in complex environments, where multiple stakeholders have different interests and goals. Diplomacy allows NGOs to navigate these complex environments and engage in constructive dialogue with different actors to promote understanding, build consensus, and facilitate cooperation. Effective NGO diplomacy involves building trust, fostering dialogue, and promoting transparency and accountability. NGOs may engage in diplomacy through various means such as including advocacy, lobbying, partnerships, and negotiations. By working collaboratively with other organizations and stakeholders, NGOs can achieve greater impact and reach their goals more effectively. Tanzanian author and academic Issa G. Shivji has criticised NGOs in two essays: "Silences in NGO discourse: The role and future of NGOs in Africa" and "Reflections on NGOs in Tanzania: What we are, what we are not and what we ought to be". Shivji writes that despite

30268-447: The public and coordinate large-scale collective activities to advance an activist agenda. Since the end of the Cold War , more NGOs in developed countries have pursued international outreach. By being involved in local and national social resistance, they have influenced domestic policy change in the developing world. Specialized NGOs have forged partnerships, built networks, and found policy niches. Track II diplomacy (or dialogue)

30456-425: The regime. Chandler also rejects the use of the terms "chauvinism" and "genocide" just to avoid drawing possible parallels to Hitler. This indicates that Chandler does not believe in the argument of charging the Khmer Rouge regime with the crime of genocide. Similarly, Michael Vickery holds a similar position to Chandler's, and refuses to acknowledge the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge regime as genocide; Vickery regarded

30644-564: The region created by related domestic instabilities. The program, at its second phase in 2012, operated with the main focuses on economic recovery and WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) maintenance. Responding to the socio-political effects of the M23-related armed conflicts in Goma and broader North Kivu, Mercy Corps reached to assist a total of 122,769 internally-displaced populations to respond and mitigate existing instabilities. Operating as part of

30832-462: The revolution", stating that "the enemies of the revolution are many, but our biggest enemy are Cham. So the Plan calls for the destruction of all the Cham people before 1980." In fact, more telegrams were sent from Pol Pot to local governments between 1978 and 1979 than usual hastily ordered the total eradication of the Cham must be achieved before 1980. The Cham began to rise in prominence when they joined

31020-478: The same number of qualifications . However, in many cases NGOs employees receive more fringe benefits. NGOs are usually funded by donations, but some avoid formal funding and are run by volunteers. NGOs may have charitable status, or may be tax-exempt in recognition of their social purposes. Others may be fronts for political, religious, or other interests. Since the end of World War II , NGOs have had an increased role in international development , particularly in

31208-621: The same year, high-ranking CCP officials such as Wang Dongxing and Deng Yingchao visited Cambodia to offer support. Soon after Deng became the Paramount Leader of China , the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia and ended the genocide by defeating the Khmer Rouge in January 1979. The People's Republic of Kampuchea was then established. In order to counter the power of the Soviet Union and Vietnam in Southeast Asia , China officially condemned

31396-540: The simpler reasons as to why the Cambodian government and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) have not prosecuted any Khmer Rouge members who perpetrated atrocities during the pre-1975 period, the period before Pol Pot consolidated his power. As a result, the accounts of those Cham who experienced the repressions prior to 1975 were not considered parts of the genocide , mainly because according to

31584-514: The states of Oregon and Washington. Through different community development programs, Mercy Corps Northwest seeks to offer financial and technical assistance to low-income individuals to start a business, or small local business owners who experience financial hardships to overcome particular challenges, with the ultimate end-goal to enhance community-level economic capacity. Some of the specific target populations include (but not restricted to): Mercy Corps Northwest targets several social fronts through

31772-499: The synonymous abbreviation ONG ; for example: Other acronyms that are typically used to describe non-governmental organizations include: Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) play a vital role in improving the lives of people who have been affected by natural disasters or are facing other challenges. NGOs can act as implementers, catalysts, and partners to provide essential goods and services to those in need. They work to mobilize resources, both financial and human, to ensure that aid

31960-638: The time of the 1932–1934 World Disarmament Conference . The term became popular with the 1945 founding of the United Nations in 1945; Article 71 in Chapter X of its charter stipulated consultative status for organizations which are neither governments nor member states. An international NGO was first defined in resolution 288 (X) of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) on February 27, 1950, as "any international organization that

32148-449: The tools of the incomplete contracting theory. According to this theory, not every detail of a relationship between decision makers can be contractually specified. Hence, in the future, the parties will bargain with each other to adapt their relationship to changing circumstances. Ownership matters because it determines the parties' willingness to make non-contractible investments. In the context of private firms, Oliver Hart has shown that

32336-405: The two, this is metaphysics. I believe in what Marx and Lenin have said, that the path [of advance] would be tortuous ... Our state now is, as Lenin said, a capitalist state without capitalists. This state protects capitalist rights, and the wages are not equal. Under the slogan of equality, a system of inequality has been introduced. There will exist a struggle between two lines, the struggle between

32524-441: The type of activities an NGO undertakes, such as activities involving human rights , consumer protection , environmentalism , health , or development; and (2) level of operation, which indicates the scale at which an organization works: local, regional, national, or international. Russia had about 277,000 NGOs in 2008. India is estimated to have had about 2 million NGOs in 2009 (approximately one per 600 Indians), many more than

32712-503: The ultimate target to not only help farmers gain market competitiveness, but also make affordable food choices more accessible for local populations living in deprived conditions, including incoming refugees within Uganda and from neighboring countries in crisis. In response to the food crisis of the mid-1990s and at the request of North Korea , Mercy Corps began their work in 1996 focusing in the areas of local agricultural development. Throughout

32900-399: The village communities which assisted the locals by providing food and provisions to them, and there were no bans on local cultures or religions; even if restrictions were imposed, the consequences of them were not harsh. Many regarded the Khmer Rouge as heroes because they believed that the Khmer Rouge supported the peasantry during its war against the United States backed government. Because

33088-441: The villagers to work in the fields which were located away from their hometowns. A witness who was interviewed by Kiernan asserts that at that time, they were well-treated by the Khmer Rouge, and in 1974, they were allowed to return to their homes. Moreover, the Cham were classified as "depositee base people", making them vulnerable to persecution. Despite their plight, the Cham and the locals live side by side in many areas, speaking

33276-461: The while contributed to the capacity-building of the overall Afghani market economy. In Niger, where adolescent girls and women experience increasing exposures to gender-based violence in their communities, Mercy Corps have delivered the SAFE Space and later on, the SAFE Space + Livelihood programs that aims to provide safe platforms for young women and men to have access to accredited information on contraception, sexual health and family planning. Over

33464-454: The while diversifying farming practices so that "communities are not so reliant on one or two key crops for income and nutrition." In Syria since 2011, it has been supporting an estimate of 9,000 local farmers and small gardeners by providing technical assistance in seasonal planting to mitigate with not only natural weather conditions but also man-made humanitarian crises on the ground. The organization purchases seeds for local farmers to reduce

33652-409: Was "an experiment in social mobilization unmatched in twentieth-century revolutions." The Khmer Rouge used a forced labor regime, starvation, forced resettlement , land collectivization , and state terror to keep the population in line. The Khmer Rouge's economic plan was named the "Maha Lout Ploh", a direct allusion to the " Great Leap Forward " of China that caused tens of millions of deaths in

33840-403: Was a major part of the ideology of all three regimes. All three regimes targeted religious minorities and they also tried to use force in order to expand their rule into what they believed were their historic heartlands (the Khmer Empire, Turkestan , and Lebensraum , respectively), and all three regimes "idealized their ethnic peasantry as the true 'national' class, the ethnic soil from which

34028-413: Was also executed. The Khmer Rouge also used the media to support their goals of genocide. Radio Phnom Penh called on Cambodians to "exterminate the 50 million Vietnamese." Additionally, the Khmer Rouge conducted many cross-border raids into Vietnam, where they slaughtered an estimated 30,000 Vietnamese civilians. Most notably, during the Ba Chúc massacre in April 1978, the Khmer Rouge military crossed

34216-440: Was attended by representatives of over 1,000 NGOs. The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro , attended by about 2,400 representatives, was the first to demonstrate the power of international NGOs in environmental issues and sustainable development. Transnational NGO networking has become extensive. Although NGOs are subject to national laws and practices, four main groups may be found worldwide: The Council of Europe drafted

34404-417: Was directed against the ethnic Chams , Cambodia's Muslim minority." Islam was seen as an "alien" and "foreign" culture that did not belong in the new Communist system. Initially, the Khmer Rouge aimed for the " forced assimilation " of Chams through population dispersal. Pol Pot then began using intimidation efforts against the Chams that included the assassination of village elders, but he ultimately ordered

34592-489: Was donated by the British government and the EU, and World Vision United States collected $ 55 million worth of goods in 1998 from the American government. Several EU grants provide funds accessible to NGOs. Government funding of NGOs is controversial, since "the whole point of humanitarian intervention was precise that NGOs and civil society had both a right and an obligation to respond with acts of aid and solidarity to people in need or being subjected to repression or want by

34780-501: Was located in the Western Zone, protested against the Khmer Rouge's policy which required fishermen to register their daily catch with the local cooperative and sell it to the cooperative at a low price. At the same time, the locals were also forced to buy those fish from the cooperative at a higher price. This policy prompted the locals to confront the cooperative to express their discontent, the locals were shot at, "killing and wounding more than 100", as one account put it. By December 1974,

34968-634: Was one of Pol Pot's favorite authors, according to historian David Chandler. In the mid-1960s, Pol Pot reformulated his ideas about Marxism–Leninism to suit the Cambodian situation by advocating goals such as bringing Cambodia back to an alleged and mythical past of the powerful Khmer Empire , eradicating influences which he viewed as "corrupting", such as foreign aid and Western culture , as well as restoring Cambodia's agrarian society . Pol Pot's strong belief that Cambodia needed to be transformed into an agrarian utopia stemmed from his experience in Cambodia's rural northeast—where he developed an affinity for

35156-418: Was subjected to by the regime between 1970 and early 1975. While restrictions on certain activities like trade and travel were imposed during that period, they were understood to be the by-products of the ongoing civil war. Moreover, some Cham had also joined the revolution as soldiers and members of the Khmer Rouge. According to some local accounts, people had confidence in the Khmer Rouge when they first came to

35344-401: Was widespread, and many were persuaded or forced to commit atrocities. As of 2009, the Documentation Center of Cambodia has mapped 23,745 mass graves containing approximately 1.3 million suspected victims of execution. Direct execution is believed to account for up to 60% of the genocide's death toll, with other victims succumbing to starvation, exhaustion, or disease. The genocide triggered

#422577