Doing the ‘donor dance’: agency in unequal NGO partnerships in Nigeria’s farmer-herder conflict

Martinluther Nwaneri; Balázs Szent-Iványi

doi:10.1007/s11266-025-00763-x

Doing the ‘donor dance’: agency in unequal NGO partnerships in Nigeria’s farmer-herder conflict

Martinluther Nwaneri, Balázs Szent-Iványi

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Abstract

Partnerships between international and local NGOs (INGOs and LNGOs) have often been analysed using principal–agent theory, where INGOs treat LNGOs as implementing agents and control their actions. The paper examines how LNGOs can improve their agency in these relationships to create more equal partnerships and thus greater local ownership. We propose a framework in which LNGOs can draw on material, organizational and ideational sources of power to improve their agency. The framework is applied to a case of a peacebuilding project in Nigeria’s farmer–herder conflict. The project was run by an INGO in partnership with two Nigerian LNGOs. The LNGOs had rather different experiences of the partnership. The paper argues that these are explained by differences in their organizational power and how this power was enhanced by ideational power. Material power mattered, but did not play a central role. The findings show that LNGOs can enhance their positions in partnerships if they have effective internal policies and procedures, local and contextual knowledge, and can frame these strategically.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	791-801
Number of pages	11
Journal	Voluntas
Volume	36
Early online date	28 Aug 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-025-00763-x
Publication status	Published - Oct 2025

Bibliographical note

Copyright © The Author(s) 2025
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Keywords

Farmer–herder conflict
NGOs
Nigeria
Partnership
Power relations

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10.1007/s11266-025-00763-xLicence: CC BY 4.0

Doing the ‘donor dance’ - agency in unequal NGO partnerships in Nigeria’s farmer-herder conflict
Copyright © The Author(s) 2025 This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Final published version, 281 KBLicence: CC BY 4.0

Cite this

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abstract = "Partnerships between international and local NGOs (INGOs and LNGOs) have often been analysed using principal–agent theory, where INGOs treat LNGOs as implementing agents and control their actions. The paper examines how LNGOs can improve their agency in these relationships to create more equal partnerships and thus greater local ownership. We propose a framework in which LNGOs can draw on material, organizational and ideational sources of power to improve their agency. The framework is applied to a case of a peacebuilding project in Nigeria{\textquoteright}s farmer–herder conflict. The project was run by an INGO in partnership with two Nigerian LNGOs. The LNGOs had rather different experiences of the partnership. The paper argues that these are explained by differences in their organizational power and how this power was enhanced by ideational power. Material power mattered, but did not play a central role. The findings show that LNGOs can enhance their positions in partnerships if they have effective internal policies and procedures, local and contextual knowledge, and can frame these strategically.",

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Doing the ‘donor dance’: agency in unequal NGO partnerships in Nigeria’s farmer-herder conflict

Abstract

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