Part of the issue has to do with relationships. We talk about partnerships all the time, but what we have are not partnerships; they're contractual arrangements between people with money and people who don't have money. Often, these partnerships are not very solid, they're not very old, and they don't last very long. It really is a contractual arrangement.
One of the advantages NGOs have is that the relationships are deeper and do last longer, but often they are of the same sort. Over time, if you really spend time getting to know a country and really getting to work very closely with people, I think you begin to understand how the system works, who can be trusted, who shouldn't be trusted, how to protect yourself if there is a risk, and how to minimize risk.