Kenen leipää syöt, sen lauluja laulat? : Pienten ja keskisuurten kansalaisjärjestöjen asema Suomen valtiollisessa kehitysyhteistyössä

Finland's development cooperation with non-governmental organizations has grown in importance, especially since the 1990s and the resources allocated to development cooperation of state appropriations have been on the rise. Due to increased funding NGOs have become increasingly dependent on government support, and this has created pressures on the relationship between Ministry for Foreign Affairs and organizations. NGOs' growing dependency on the funding of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs has raised questions on the use of power, and governing the activities of NGOs to increase development cooperation coherence of the state. Especially small and medium-sized NGOs are highly dependent on the funding provided by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Purpose of this study is to determine relations between the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and small and medium-sized non-governmental organizations, and to explore if the Ministry for Foreign Affairs pursues direct NGOs' development cooperation project applications in certain areas and how the project applications regional placement supports Finnish bilateral aid placement. Study methods include both qualitative and quantitative methods. The primary methods of the thesis are qualitative and quantitative content analysis, complemented by interviews. The main data of the thesis consists of NGOs' development cooperation project funding applications, limited to the years 2003–2011, as well as other archives of unit for nongovernmental organizations of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Background analysis is based on books which were concerned with development cooperation in general. In addition, the data includes publications that guide the Foreign Ministry's development cooperation, as well as interviews with the NGOs. Interviewed small and medium-sized organizations consider that the project support is important instrument enabling the Finnish NGOs operate in developing countries. With the project funding supported NGOs development cooperation projects regional placements into Finland's long-term partner countries have been low in 2003–2011 although the Ministry for Foreign Affairs has recommended NGOs to carry out development projects for its long-term partner countries. The projects approved each year from 40 to 50 countries, and the regional distribution of bilateral cooperation did not appear to significantly contributed to the distribution of projects supported by the project funding, on the contrary, most of the projects carried out elsewhere than in Finland's long-term partner countries. In searching of the project funding, the main problems of NGOs are related to the administrative and financial capacity shortages. The interviewed organizations were mostly satisfied the Ministry for Foreign Affairs actions as an authority. Recommendations and priorities imposed by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs will be monitored, but the Ministry is not seen to guide NGOs activities and they are allowed to operate with its own strengths and regionally where the organizations have contacts and networks. Dependence on the Ministry support is very strong, especially activities in developing countries would be almost impossible for many NGOs without the support of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Kepa's role of NGOs' parent organization and the trustee is an important point, especially for small NGOs. Fluent cooperation between the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Kepa is an important factor for the development of NGOs. Distribution of a wide spectrum of projects regionally impedes the monitoring and evaluation of their results, because the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and in particular unit for non-governmental organizations does not have the resources to monitor outcomes. Also, the amount of bureaucracy should be reduced, and smaller NGOs increasingly dwindling resources and a weak economic capacity should be taken into account for project support allocation criteria. Kepa's role should be strengthened and bring it more and more, particularly in small and inexperienced NGOs development. In the area of project support partner organization's expertise and knowledge of the field should be utilized by directing small NGOs project support management to Kepa when the amount of work to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs would be substantially reduced.