The nature of empowerment through business organisations and government action has been described in the preceding chapters. Besides these two types of organisations, there are a large number of entities engaged in social development activities for different segments of the population. This category, called non-governmental organisations (NGOs), constitutes the third actor in our comparative framework for empowerment. The role of non-governmental organisations and the nature of empowerment emerging from their actions are discussed in this chapter.

What is an NGO?

At the generic level, every legal entity (whether commercial, educational, religious, social, political, charitable, not-for-profit, recreational, etc.) that is not a part of the state or government machinery comes under the umbrella of non-governmental organisation. At the specific level, however, self-appointed groups of people registered as a variety of legal entities, and engaged in development work for the deprived sections of people are included in this category. These are commonly referred to as NGOs. Over the last thirty years or so, NGOs have created a societal context to portray themselves and government as the key actors in improving the lives of deprived people. The societal function of governance is rightfully that of the State, but for various historical and ideological reasons, in many countries, the State has also taken upon itself the societal function of ‘development’ and ‘development programme implementation’. The emergence of NGOs as vehicles development is based on this reality.

Yet another type of system, concerned with the well-being of the deprived sections, has emerged in recent times. These are known as People's Organisations (POs).