Right Wing Think Tank Takes Aim at NGOs

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The industry-funded right-wing think tank the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) has taken aim at non-governmental organizations. During a recent all-day conference, "Nongovernmental Organizations: The Growing Power of an Unelected Few," speakers delivered the message that NGOs "are using their growing prominence and power to pursue a 'liberal' agenda at the international level that threatens U.S. sovereignty and free-market capitalism." According to AEI and the conference co-sponsor, the rightist Institute of Public Affairs of Australia, "NGOs have created their own rules and regulations and demanded that governments and corporations abide by those rules."
Jim Lobe writes for OneWorld, "Several speakers praised the work of NGOs ... but stressed that, at the international policy level, much of what they did actually hurt the intended beneficiaries." NGOs' opposition to the use of DDT to fight malaria and to the delivery of genetically-engineered corn in southern Africa were cited as examples of policies which amounted to "eco-imperialism" and showed a "callous disregard for human life."