This article examines the results of, and the prospects for, the declared shift of NGOs from relief operations to development activities in the Red Sea Province of eastern Sudan. Most of the NGOs which arrived in the area from late 1984 engage in a wide and diverse range of activities including community activities, agriculture and extension, irrigation, forestry work, range and pasture rehabilitation, education and training, health, nutrition and drinking water projects, as well as food relief. Statistical and qualitative information contained in the reports of NGOs themselves provides the main data source on which the analysis is based. Although NGOs have been successful in conducting massive relief operations in the area, the article asserts that they have not yet and are not expected to achieve any tangible results on the development front. The main reason for this is the apparent misconception of development on the part of the NGOs as an isolated, localized activity which they can perform; another is the NGOs’ failure to recognize the difference in the methods, means and prerequisites necessary for relief and for development; a third is the failure of NGOs to equip local institutions to absorb and/or sustain any achieved ‘development’, since most NGOs operate in complete isolation from governmental and traditional Beja institutions. Fieldwork for this study was carried out in 1988/1989. Bibliogr., notes, sum.
