Investigating the issues and problems of interactions between non-governmental organizations and municipalities : A case study in Tehran Municipality

abstaractIn urban areas there are some overlaps between the activities carried out by the municipalities and Non-Governmental Organizations, especially in social and cultural aspects, and in some cases, the existing parallel functions may be considered as a negative point. Nevertheless creating synergy and improving interaction between the municipalities and NGOs, will lead to their effectiveness and performance enhancement. This study aimed to identify the issues and problems of the interactions between Tehran Municipality and NGOs and to provide suitable solutions and suggestions to improve existing interactions. In order to collect data, this qualitative study used semi-structured interviews with 14 active NGOs in Tehran and 6 well-informed officials in related organizations, namely Tehran Municipality, Ministry of Interior and Synergy Committee. The findings were described and analyzed by Braun and Clarke’s six-phase model for thematic analysis.Findings show that the most important problems regarding the interactions between NGOs and public organizations such as the municipality were as follows: complex bureaucratic administrative procedures, multiplicity of administrators and overlapping functions of public organizations, lack of understanding NGOs and their position and potential, lack of supervision and evaluation of NGOs’ performance, officials’ arbitrary points of view regarding NGOs, distrust, mutual irresponsibility about their commitments, weakness in legislation and regulation, NGOs’ shortcoming in knowledge and expertise, weakness in group work, NGOs’ lack of transparency, weakness in the municipality’s intra-organizational coordination, i.e. regional municipalities and affiliated organizations, and inter-organizational coordination, i.e. public organizations and institutions, and also deprivation of NGOs’ of legal power.