Government, Participation, and NGOs (A Survey of the Status and Functions of the Third Sector in Development)

The issue of people’s participation, once held to be an intellectual necessity for development, has now turned into an ethical and human necessity. It is of such importance that it has recently been called the aim of development. In the developmental models of the seventies and eighties in developing countries, people’s participation had a high status. Those decades could also be called “government - directed participation era” a salient feature of which was inciting people to cooperate. From the mid- eighties onward, the governments’ efficiency in development was put under question in developing countries, hence the emphasis was directed towards a new model known as non- governmental which meant the promotion of NGOs or the third sector. This newly- emerged sector had as its aim such things like charity activities and was engaged in manifold roles including the execution, completion or even prevention of governmental projects. The developing countries’ regimes may have boasted of benefiting from the third sector or they may have flauntingly helped its progress. But some humanitarian functions of the NGOs have shown to be in conflict with the ideological and absolutist demands of those regimes. This article surveys the aspects, status and importance of non- governmental and participatory organizations in development and their relation to governments.