Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-1-2005
Abstract
Three intersecting trends create an interesting arena for this study – collaboration is increasingly being portrayed as the way to solve wicked problems at a time when significant cross-border social issues are ever more pressing and when the number and level of activity of Non Government Organizations (NGOs) is on the increase. The result is a world where NGOs are working together differently, more collaboratively, to address these intractable social issues. But results indicate that their collaboration efforts are not always successful. This study was based on interviews conducted with 19 leaders of NGOs working collaboratively to tackle the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa. It has powerful implications for practice in that there are differences from the conventional literature in both the nature of the collaboration as well as the barriers and enablers to collaboration. Our interviewees suggests that in this particular set of circumstances – NGOs collaborating to address wicked social problems in super-stressed environment – collaboration is a noisy, messy, unwieldy situation fraught with competition, tension and ambiguity and where seven ‘orientations’ are required for the collaboration to be successful, namely: a drive to action, clarity of roles and responsibilities, careful selection of partners, orchestration of the collaboration, management of internal competition, implementation of a sufficiency of structure and process and finally, knowing when to end or transform the collaboration.
Keywords
non-governmental organizations, HIV infections--prevention--South Africa, AIDS (disease)--prevention--South Africa, NGO, collaboration, barriers and enablers, wicked social problems, super-stressed environments
Rights
© The Author(s). Kelvin Smith Library provides access for non-commercial, personal, or research use only. All other use, including but not limited to commercial or scholarly reproductions, redistribution, publication or transmission, whether by electronic means or otherwise, without prior written permission is strictly prohibited.
Department/Center
Design & Innovation
Recommended Citation
Cooke-Lauder, Jane, "Social Change - Making the Improbable Possible Through Collaboration: Barriers and Enablers to NGOs Working Together in South Africa to Tackle HIV/AIDS" (2005). Student Scholarship. 387.
https://commons.case.edu/studentworks/387