Development, NGOS, and Civil Society - Selected Essays from Development in Practice (Paperback, Annotated edition)

A powerful international agenda has defined what constitutes good governance, democracy, and the proper role of the state and civil society in advancing development. As public spending has declined, NGOs have secured a measure of financial security by taking on service-delivery. At the same time, NGOs are a convenient channel through which official agencies can promote political pluralism.But can NGOs play these roles simultaneously? Can they both facilitategovernments' withdrawal from providing basic services for all and also claim to represent and speak for the poor and the disenfranchised? Are NGOs legitimate political actors in their own right?Jenny Pearce introduces papers that describe some of the tensions inherent in the roles being played by NGOs, and asks whether NGOs truly stand for anything fundamentally different from the agencies on whose largesse they increasingly depend.