NGOs And Drive For Development, Accountability In Governance—-Since 2014, every Feb. 24 has been commemorated as World NGOs Day, to highlight and celebrate the role non-governmental organisations play globally as non-state actors in fostering accountability and good governance.

The commemoration started as a regional recognition in April 2010, when 12 countries of the Baltic Sea NGO Forum adopted the day in Lithuania.

The member countries of the Baltic Sea NGO Forum were Belarus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Norway and Sweden.

With over 10 million NGOs and nonprofit organisations worldwide operating in over 96 countries and employing more than 50 million workers, the importance of NGOs to development cannot be discountenanced.

According to research, the NGO covers a variety of organisations, including civil society organisations, nonprofit organisations, private voluntary organisations and pressure groups.

Be it watchdog activist groups, aid agencies, or development and policy organisations, NGOs are so defined because their activities are more for public interest than for profit making.

Especially in democratic spaces where they are allowed to function without much hindrance, NGOs have helped organise ordinary citizens into independent groups that serve the needs of their communities.

Their activities often fall into any or all of the following: advocacy, education and mobilisation, and they use their influence and resources to empower citizens to improve their societies.

Because they are independent of government, even if, on occasion, they get government funding, their activities complement, supplement and/or challenge the conduct of government at all levels.

Over the years, NGOs have used their network and direct access to communities to impact politics and governance. From just rendering assistance and complementing state efforts, they have become a formidable voice and influence in policy-making.

Examples all over the world have shown that NGOs exert influence in the promotion of social and political change, just as they play a critical part in developing society, improving communities, and promoting citizen participation.

Their involvement in human rights issues, the rule of law and criminal justice system, gender mainstreaming, civic education, press freedom, accountability in government and political participation contributes positively to the promotion of the principles of democracy.

However, NGOs – local and international – come under heavy criticism sometimes for leaving a trail of the direct opposite of what they claimed were their aims.

One of the most common criticisms of the NGOs is that their activities overly burden bureaucratic systems thereby reducing their impacts on society.

A recent report on LinkedIn said, “One of the key concerns surrounding NGO interventions is the risk of disempowering local communities. Over-reliance on external organizations can undermine community self-sufficiency and perpetuate a cycle of dependency.”

Some critics have also identified talent grabbing as one of the downsides of NGOs’ involvement in the civic space.

They say NGOs, especially international ones, offer high pay to incentivise workers to perform better, which ends up tapping talent away from government services that citizens depend on.

A recent study in Ghana and Uganda showed evidence of NGOs “crowding out government-provided services and, in doing so, inadvertently harming the people they’re seeking to help”.

According to critics, other so-called negative effects of NGOs in civic spaces include political interference, insensitivity to cultural and traditional practices in areas of operation, ineffective universal rules of engagement, and a lack of government control and regulation.

In 2019 for instance, the Nigerian government accused some international organisations of supporting terrorists and shut down the regional offices of two prominent NGOs operating in the northeast.

The offices of Action Against Hunger, the global non-profit focused on providing food aid, were sealed off, followed by the closure of four offices of Mercy Corps, another prominent non-profit in the troubled northeast region.

An official of a non-profit organisation active in the region told a news platform then that “Starvation is a military strategy. But if we’re doing food distribution, NGOs don’t pick sides – and the army doesn’t like that.”

Before then in 2018, the government also temporarily banned UNICEF operations, claiming the agency spied for Boko Haram terrorists.

Many international NGOs operating in Nigeria, however, accuse the government of shrinking the civic space by attempting to regulate the operations of nonprofit and civil society groups.

Mr Oladipupo Gbenga, who worked as a project manager in the civil society space before relocating the UK, said regardless of the criticisms, NGOs exist due to government failure in certain aspects.

“NGOs fill the gaps poor governance leaves open. When they provide services in crises, did they create those conflicts? When they advocate free and fair elections, doesn’t it accentuate a poor electoral system?

“NGOs have been unduly criticised and ostracised but many of us cannot imagine a society without them,” he said.

Supporters of NGOs and their activities believe that they represent the interests of citizens who might otherwise be left out of national policies and programmes.

They also emphasise that they open the public discourse to people of all socio-economic classes, including women, the youths and other minorities.

These impacts can be summed up in Global Rights Nigeria’s message on this year’s World NGOs Day:

“Empowering change, one step at a time. Let’s come together to amplify the impact of NGOs in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and building a brighter, more sustainable future for all.”

The Minister of Budget and National Economic Planning, Sen. Abubakar Bagudu, appreciates the role of NGOs in nation building.

“Essentially, NGOs existing cover the space not covered by the government by seeking propositions on issues such as health care, environment, economy, public policy, empowerment and support to vulnerable citizens.

The policy objective of government is very critical for both state and non-state actors like the NGOs.

“The role of NGOs is to work with the government through its national development plan’’, Bagudu said at 30^th Annual Development Forum organised by Life Above Poverty Alleviation in Abuja.

It is important, therefore, that NGOs that operate in the country re-dedicate themselves to this role for the good of the society.

By Kayode Adebiyi, News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).