
The NGO Challenge
Delivering third sector projects demands tenacity, agility and, increasingly, professionalised project management skills, finds Conrad Heine Life‑saving or life‑changing third sector projects are, as Peter Marlow, co‑chair of PM4NGOs, puts it, part of a sector that is “really big”. In 2019 alone, the UK government spent £14bn of public money on foreign aid. “Projects in uncontrolled environments”, as Marlow calls them, are needed on a huge scale – a need likely only to grow in the face of, for example, the huge numbers of refugees displaced by ongoing conflicts or the hardships likely to emerge on the back of climate change and the Covid‑19 pandemic. Project managers in the sector face the same challenges as elsewhere. But the contexts – including conflict zones, rapid onset emergencies, food relief distribution and refugee…