Middle East Centre NGOization of the Palestinian civil society post-Oslo: our community-based ways out
Oct 31, 2025
Dr. Amal Nazzal, an expert in NGOization and feminist organizing, joins Soheir Asaad, a Palestinian political organizer at Rawa, for an insightful discussion on the impact of NGOization on Palestinian civil society. They explore the ways funding alters activism, examining how donor conditions often depoliticize grassroots efforts. Soheir underscores the detrimental effects of humanitarianism in the context of Gaza and critiques traditional philanthropy's fragmentation of movements. Together, they propose community-driven alternatives that aim to restore power and self-determination.
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Grants Can Advance Displacement Plans
- Asaad shows donors like USAID use grants to redirect community rebuilding toward integration and away from refugee rights.
- She links conditional grants to attempts to empty refugee camps and erase refugee claims.
Philanthropy's Money Often Funds Harmful Systems
- Asaad highlights philanthropy's hypocrisy: funds given to movements often come from investments that profit from harms movements oppose.
- She urges scrutiny of philanthropy's political economy and sources of wealth behind grants.
Funding Created A Professionalized Class
- Funding professionalized activism, created a salaried class and turned communities into service recipients rather than co-organizers.
- Asaad links this shift to competition, fragmentation, and loss of collective volunteer political culture.