British development NGOs and advocacy in the 1990s

During the 1980s and early 1990s donor governments and official institutions have increasingly channelled development aid through NGOs. Various reasons have been suggested for this, including a general shift in development thinking about the importance of human capital formation (World Bank 1990), and a shift from a materialist to a more humanist conception of development ¹ . However, the most significant factors are the general ascendance of free market economics (Toye 1987) and its corollary, a belief that government agencies are ineffective ² . Whatever the reason, NGOs find their credibility enhanced and their responsibilities increased; this includes a responsibility to themselves to decide where their own priorities lie.