ABSTRACT
In many fields – including poverty alleviation, women’s emancipation and sustainable development – NGOs are ascribed a range of virtues, based partly on presumed advantages such as efficiency, effectiveness, flexibility, participatory approach and proximity to vulnerable people. However, such virtues are rarely proven: they are brought out in an invidious comparison with the ‘vices’ of the state. Another motive for emphasising the role of NGOs is ideological: those of a social-democratic persuasion attach great importance to bottom-up participation, especially of less privileged groups; more recent neo-liberal values prefer a reduced role for the state and a strengthening of private initiative. On the basis of such arguments, expectations of NGOs run high, especially if NGOs can overcome weaknesses such as their localism and limited outreach, lack of technical or professional expertise, and constraints in working both at ‘micro’ and at ‘macro’ levels.
