Response to Discussion Question

 The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) states that in many cases, private-sector organizations and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s) are responsible for operating and maintaining elements of Nation’s critical infrastructure (Hoog, 2011).  The effectiveness of NGO disaster relief efforts has in many ways affected the independent functioning of developing, and in many cases even developed, nation states.  More and more governments across the world are becoming reliant private sectors entities for emergency response.  This has taken the onus of response away from governments as they begin to rely more and more on private entities.  Those who have the money have begun to “contract out” emergency services while poorer nation aren’t trusted by the international community to manage their own response (2011).  Corruption in developing government systems force NGO’s to bear the brunt of relief and response efforts.  For example, in the 1970’s, the Bangladeshi government stopped receiving aid from international donors after external sources observed widespread corruption and misuse of relief aid (Paul, 2003).  These same sources concluded that external NGO’s were more effective at dispersing aid and relief than the Bangladeshi government (2003).  Rather than donating to government services, donors went direct to external NGO’s who properly managed resources and were more impartial in their distribution.  Though this was necessary at the time, the argument could be made that it impeded Bangladeshi efforts to fix the corruption from within and manage their own emergency response.  Rather than putting international pressure on Bangladesh to fix the problem, NGO’s solved the problem for them.  Establishing NGO response as the norm takes away the government responsibility to manage their own crisis.