NGOs Criticized as Destabilizing Force Los Angeles Times--17 November 2000 International non-governmental agencies as a group have drawn criticism for paying high salaries that throw local economies out of balance, for perpetuating their own jobs and missions, and for creating dependency. In Cambodia, for instance, donors and NGOs have virtually taken over funding for education, social services and rural development, leaving the government free to devote its resources to defense and security, the Cambodia Development Resource Institute notes. "NGOs can have a destabilizing influence," said Bill Herod of the NGO Forum on Cambodia, a coalition of 60 local and international organizations. "Schoolteachers with passable English earning $30 a month can get jobs as drivers for NGOs for $150, $180 a month. They they're in the NGO mix and they couldn't get out if they wanted to because they're dependent on the salary. "All these four-wheel-drive vehicles you see NGOs driving around Phnom Penh cost $30,000 or $35,000. You can build three schools for that. Frankly, I think NGOs have gotten a little big for their britches. They need to be more responsive to the people who are putting in the money and more in touch with the realities of Cambodia." Increasingly Western governments find it more cost-effective to disperse aid through NGOs, rather than to carry out programs themselves. Medecins San Frontieres, for instance, gets 46 percent of its income from government sources, and USAID--the American government's developmental body--regularly passes funds to the Asia Foundation for distribution to NGOs. Much of the food supplied to needy nations by the World Food Program, a UN body, is actually distributed by NGOs. "Taking government money robs NGOs of a lot of independence," said a World Bank official who requested anonymity because of the critical nature of his remarks. "The idealism that marked the early days of NGOs has gotten tangled up with commercial and political issues. Obviously if you depend on USAID for your funding, you are, in some respects at least, an instrument of American foreign policy."