ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the socio-economic and political context against which both nongovernmental organizations (NGO) and foreign donors developed their strategies and programmes. With the beginning of planned development and the aid regime the term NGO became popular in development discourse and came to be used to include a wide array of institutions outside the government. The NGOs positioned themselves as serious players on the development scene offering alternative development strategies and programme implementation comparable to state action. NGOs were perceived to have some special strengths which gave them an edge over government as agents of development. The NGO sector was also instrumental in promoting human rights, women’s rights, ecology, consumer rights, and sustainable development as priorities in political and policy discourse, and in sensitizing the mass media in these. Civil society, as an intellectual response and as a collective action frame for NGOs campaigning against neo liberalism has been defined in many ways.
