NGOs, Civil Society, and Global Governance in the Era of Sustainability and Consolidation: A Taxonomy of Value

The Rise And Evolution

International NGOs go as back as the early 19^th century, the anti-slavery movement and the Geneva Disarmament Conference in 1932. Through the Article 71 of Chapter 10 of the United Nations Charter, NGOs were officially recognized and appointed as participating organizations with a distinctive consultative role that differentiates them from governments or member states. The term INGO was first defined in resolution 288 of ECOSOC in February 1950 as “any international organization that is not founded by an international treaty”.

The fall of communist regimes in Eastern Europe, coupled with the rise of globalization in the 20^th century and the disruption in the delicate balance between the welfare state and the classical liberalist model of the western countries –in total favor of the latter—amply demonstrated the gap between the minimized standards of living provided by free economies and the actual needs of the weaker strata within populations. NGOs were assigned the vital role of counterbalancing this trend, emphasizing humanitarian issues and sustainable development, struggling to keep societal interests into sharp focus. The World Social Forum, a rival convention to the World Economic Forum held annually in Davos, is a striking example of an alternative move to compensate for the unilateral attribution of primacy to capitalist interests.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s conservative governments in Britain, America, and other countries, reduced the roles of government in direct service provision in alignment with the privatization of public sector. By funding NGOs, governments were able to avoid service provision and direct, regulate and overlook their strategy and performance. Governments obtained a “social approval” through their collaboration with NGOs, promotion and use of volunteerism, and contributed significantly in their growth through channeled funding over the last two decades (Kim, 2010).

In the years following economic recession the shrinking space for NGOs becomes a global phenomenon that is only getting worse. Restrictive laws as well as formal and informal tactics on civil society are introduced by democratic and non-democratic governments.

The EU has developed and gradually improved an effective range of policy tools to push back against restrictions on civil society across the world and protect activists at risk. Notwithstanding this, the EU needs to sharpen its ‘shrinking space’ strategy. Precise policy changes to contemplate to this end include advocacy of strategic guidelines that help make the EU’s responses more proactive; improved tackling of the broad structural elements of the shrinking space; balance between political and development approaches; and more inclusive alliances against new restrictions on civil society.

Figure 1.

The influence of non-governmental organizations in the UN system

Source: Adapted from: “The Conscience of the World”, London: Hurst and Washington: Brookings Institution, 1996.