Civil Society and Democratic Institutions

As President Obama and the 111th Congress prepare to assume office, Urban Institute (UI) experts offer their advice on evidence-based policymaking and the policy issues facing the country. Charles Cadwell, Director of UI’s Center on International Development and Governance (IDG) argues that foreign aid and a renewed emphasis on international development are essential to national security and international stability, but that money alone will not achieve the desired policy outcomes. Policies and institutions, not resources, pose the greatest constraints and require the most work ahead.

Local governments sit at the confluence of formal and informal governance systems in Pakistan. Law and order, service delivery, and citizen interaction with the state take place in villages, towns, and cities, where families, tribes, political parties, religious organizations, and government officials share dominion. In 2001, then-President Pervez Musharraf called for the creation of local governments better attuned to citizen preferences and adept at providing improved services. Today, this autonomy initiative is up for grabs as Pakistan’s provinces reconsider the role of local government and the nation readies for fall elections.

Charles Cadwell, a University of Maryland expert on the political economy of reform in developing nations, the relationship of institutions to economic development, and the implementation of legal and judicial reforms, has joined the Urban Institute as the director of its International Activities Center.

This brief provides an overview of the report, The International Charitable Nonprofit Subsector in the United States. It provides a snapshot of the international subsector through an analysis of trends in their size, resources, and scope from FY 2001 to FY 2003 in three major areas of operation: international development and assistance, international understanding, and international affairs. The brief confirms the central role of private support and financing for foreign aid and provides a window into the financial health of these organizations. It also gives an overview of the geographic concentrations and the depth of U.S. international nonprofit activities and enumerates the importance of small organizations.

A new report from the Urban Institute shows that despite widespread public concern in recent years about the plight of people in foreign lands, 40 percent of U.S.-based international nonprofits ran deficits in 2003.