Academic Samples

ACADEMIC SAMPLE:

NGO - Strategic Management

Abstract
 To take into account all the solutions that can potentially serve the purpose of public health and cleanliness in Knysna. Achieve the goal of formulating regular and authentic ways of producing fertilizers for agricultural aid. For the purpose, the organization will focus on the use of waste materials in an effective way. To make sure that all the helpful materials even if they can be extracted from the waste are preserved in a right way. Taking into special consideration all the scarce water resources, the organization also aims to find factual ways to preserve water resources.

Community’s involvement

• o   To build awareness in the community and unite people in the positive activities of finding sanitary solutions on a regular basis.
• o   To involve people more actively for the achievement of organization’s basic goals. To plan friendly activities that may attract people’s interest for the environmental benefits.
• o   To ensure that all the activities are adopted that can serve the basic aim as well as the environmental and health benefits to the people.
• o   To research all the resources that can serve or even secondarily help with the production of fertilizers.
• o   To maximize the food production in town that can be helped with the use of beneficial fertilizers and   making the agricultural process more effective.
• o   To involve women of Knysna in the organizational activities and ensure that they put their equal contribution to make the environment healthy.
• o   To make proper groups that can implement all the sanitary and other plans with efficacy and generate the desired outputs.
• o   To find leaders in different groups. These leaders are supposed to not only assess and enhance the performance of their groups but also engage the community and supply them with time to time alerts about the occurrences and developments.

Educating and Employment

• o   To provide training to the team and community members at all levels of activities
• o   To apply the recognized workable model that is friendly for the environment.
• o   To introduce interesting educational methods in the program.
• o   To educate the community members and common people about what the model is and how it can be applied in the relevant situations.
• o   To involve the locals in the training and educational programs.
• o   To provide fair employment opportunities for the people of Knysna.
• o   To use the trained members of the community for the growth of the organization effectively.  

Research Methods

• o   To research the low cost but unique methods for sanitation.
• o   To bring into effect the Urine-diversion dehydration toilets in Knysna. Since, it is an already known and successful method that organizations follow for the production of fertilizers at a very low cost. 
• o   To spread word about the small precautions like washing hands. These habits can lead individuals to form a healthy society.

Final Aims

• o   To use the abilities and ideas of individuals in a community for bigger environmental benefits.
• o   To make the concept of hygiene and cleanliness understandable and applicable for all.
• o   To help employment goals of the state.
• o   To discover and apply the affordable ways for the production and conversion procedures.
• o   To frame plans that can be applied on a long term basis.

Factors that will influence NGO’s performance

The NGO’s basic aim is to create a hygienic environment in a growing town of South Africa. The organization tends to do this by finding ways for the conversion of waste materials into fertilizing materials. It is also a great concern for the NGO to carry out the activity on the broad spectrum and indulge the in town community in the sanitary operations. The NGO may follow a number of ways to fulfil the sanitation purposes and also to positively participate in the growth of Knysna. However, the ways, outcomes and limitations that it may have and face will be depending upon different circumstances.

Scarcely growing population

According to the official reports of Municipality reports (Press Lagoon Pollution Report 2012), the Knysna is a town that is facing a major problem of the inadequately growing population. The unplanned changes occurring in the town are leading towards the pollution problems. The fat from the traps of businesses are also reported to be not disposed correctly therefore, the town is in need of a better sewage disposal system.

The NGO will work to implement all the mechanical, electrical and community programs that will ensure the advancement of sewage system for a low cost.

Long Term plan

Another major problem that is caused by the inappropriate growth of population is insufficient infrastructure. Presently, Knysna has another major problem of unemployment which the NGO is also planning to solve by implementing the long term programs. This plan may include several mechanical and electrical operations to advance and develop a better sewage system. To follow how the setup is working the projects will need a number of trained professionals. The need of people to activate these programs will be fulfilled by the NGO.

The services of NGO mainly focus on the provision of better communal services and working out the job of reproducing from waste by the maximum contribution of the community. Therefore the NGO will introduce programs to educate and train the community members who can not only help to develop a better sewage network in their town but may also grow personally through the employment.

Low Costs

As it is clear from several statements above, Knysna is a developing state therefore low cost is the biggest concern for the developers. All the long term plans even those including mechanical and electrical equipment are confirmed to incur as low cost as possible.

The NGO aims to help lower costs by introducing simple awareness programs for the people. It is one of the basic concerns for the municipality to have as much water saving as possible. According to the Presser Lagoon report, almost 7 times more water gets wasted when it rains in Knysna. This is due to the illegal constructions and improper sewer system. The NGO may help the projects that are already ongoing like chlorinating the storm water and abolish the illegal sewer networks.

The greater involvement of the locals is also emphasized by the community of NGO as it will incur less cost than if the organization depends on outsourcing. In addition to that with the involvement of citizens it is easier to convey the benefit and service message on regular terms. The NGO also ensures the regular feedback for the better estimation of, if the plan is working out according to the expectations.

These are the basic factors that are likely to contribute to the performance of the NGO. There can be a lot of other primary factors that may move and shape the aims and performance of the NGO.

A clear justification of the intervention the NGO hopes to make

The NGO has set a target to achieve its goal by spreading awareness among the people about hygiene and sanitation. Since the NGO is a private group it can more effectively form a bridge between the municipality of Knysna and common people. By involving people for the sake of communal service the idea can spread at great pace.

There are certain targets the NGO hopes to achieve by addressing the following issues in the Knysna’s society on a regular basis.

On minimizing the use of extra water:

Water is an important resource for living and production causes as well and according to the recent research conducted by the UN (The Millennium development goal reports: 2012), the main problem of less developed regions was having no access to the clean and healthy drinking water. According to the same report the proportion is brought to half in the last year with continuous efforts of the UN.

The NGO being the responsible representative of the UN in Knysna aims to further minimize the waste of water with the help of awareness programs and make its availability possible to the deprived region possible. As it is also forecasted to help in achieving the no or less pollution goals within the next five years (Press Release Lagoon Pollution: Nov 2012). Through the intervention programs the NGO expects to spread awareness among people about how beneficial it could be to save the water in their region and for the planet as well.

Fasten the production process to minimize poverty:

Knysna is a warm region due to which Tourists and senior citizens of the world like to spend much their time here. It is in target consideration of NGO that how they can involve the citizens of all ages in the regular sanitation activities. The organization has provided training to the number of individuals and these members are now likely to spread the word and skills among others.

Due to the improper settlements the infrastructure of Knysna is not very helpful to play an important role in the economy. Therefore, it is on priority concern for the NGO to find and develop cheap and yet advantageous ways to use the wasted materials.

To enhance the labor productivity:

In Sub Saharan Africa and Southern Asia poverty remains widespread despite of significant progress. (Eradicate extreme poverty: The millennium development goals report). This puts in the NGOs in Knysna in the great responsibility zone to take into account all the ways that can minimize the poverty in the region.

On the other hand in the same report it is stated that the gap between the labor productivity in the agricultural sectors of the developing countries is much than developed countries.

The NGO educational programs wish to consume the abilities of all the members of the society without any bias and make them contributors to the economy even if they are less skilled. The strategy developers of the organization believe that through the training and motivation the lower productivity rate of the labor can be influenced.

In several regions of Africa these communal services and education programs have shown positive results in the last few years. 

How the NGO aims to achieve its individual and global targets?

The organization is following all the basic targets of the United Nations that are planned to achieve the eradication of poverty from the lesser developed areas. Most of the African regions are included in this unfortunate criterion therefore the NGO has this target to follow the all the steps that analyst suggest to have a safe and clean environment.

As we have Peter Morgan’s report which stated that most of the rural African areas don’t have access to the safe and clean toilets (Toilets that make compost 2007). The author in his report suggested detailed procedure of how the people of rural areas can be provided with the affordable yet hygienic toilets. The author not only brings up the solution for building these hygienic toilets but also have put forward certain ways that can be used to make the compost. As he describes, there can be three kinds of compost making toilets which include two shallow pit types and a urine diverting toilet. There can be simplest and cheapest materials may be used to build these toilets like the sand of river and slabs.

The NGO is an independent body with fewer funds in hand but still intends to serve the sanitation purposes through finding cheap ways. The communal toilets can be a great way to serve any town including Knysna where public toilets are not a great facility.

Having better sewage networks requires a lot of expensive and long term working. On the other hand the cheaply built communal toilets can serve both the primary purposes of hygiene and production of fertilizers at the same time.

With the community programs it is utterly possible to convince people on the use and construction of these toilets in all over the town. In addition to that the interest of the people could also be earned due to immediate and understandable results for the common people. Short programs like these may also effectively involve the informal settlements for the betterment of the environment.

Further the NGO aims to focus to minimize the child mortality that happens at large in the less developed states, those which have not suitable cleanliness conditions. Small activities like washing hands are aimed to incorporate in the daily routine of people. The basic hygiene knowledge is emphasized greatly in the United Nation’s MDG research report.

For women the NGO has very specific importance. Not only they will be given a prior chance to get involved in the activities of NGO but also their empowerment, basic and maternal health will be attended by all possible means.

In Asian countries the graph of availability of clean water showed all the positive signs, in fact the results were faster than what was expected in China in India. The NGO aims to continue the progress by ensuring all the plans that are beneficial to the environment and health of people.

A long term plan within the boundaries and globally is of greater concern for the NGO to better follow the overall environmental sustainability targets.

References:

1.      Hendriksen, A., Tukahirwa, J., Oosterveer, P. J. M. & Mol, A. P. J., 2011. Participatory Decision Making for Sanitation Improvements in Unplanned Urban Settlements in East Africa. The Journal of Environment Development, 21(1), p. 98–119.

2.      Jewitt, S., 2011. Geographies of shit: Spatial and temporal variations in attitudes towards human waste. Progress in Human Geography, 35(5), p. 608–626.

3.      Knysna Municipality, 2012. Knysna Municipality Integrated Development Plan 2012-2017, Knysna: Knysna Municipality.

4.      Morgan, P., 2007. Toilets That Make Compost: Low-cost, sanitary toilets that produce valuable compost for crops in an African context. Stockholm: Stockholm Environment Institute.

5.      Rieck, C., von Münch, E. & Hoffmann, H., 2012. Technology Review of Urine-diverting dry toilets (UDDTs): Overview of design, operation, management and costs, Eschborn: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH.

6.      Scholtz, A., 2012. Knysna Municipality’s R68-Million Plan to Save Lagoon [Press Release]. [Online]
Available at: http://www.knysna.gov.za/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Presser-Lagoon-Pollution-Report-8Nov2012.pdf
[Accessed 16 March 2013].

7.      Scholtz, A., 2012. Lagoon Plan Approved [Press Release]. [Online]
Available at: http://www.knysna.gov.za/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Press-Release-Lagoon-Pollution-Report-20Dec20121.pdf
[Accessed 16 March 2013].

8.      Traxon, D., 2010. Happy Children at Bakotech1 [Photograph]. [Online]
Available at: http://cope-yp.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/youthful-abandon-or-mental-health-issue.html
[Accessed 16 March 2013].

9.      United Nations, 2013. Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability. [Online]
Available at: http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/environ.shtml
[Accessed 16 March 2013].