What Is The Role of NGOs In Society?

By Jon Kofas

Courtesy: Countercurrents.org | 01 September, 2015

In the last three decades, a number of books and articles have been published about
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). Some focus on the marginal impact the NGOs have because they work within an existing institutional framework responsible for
the absence of social justice. While some works praise the kind of unique services of
NGOs to people in need, others are critical, stressing that NGOs’ goal is integration
into an international political economy and institutional structure rooted in
inequality and injustice. While it is beyond doubt that there are NGOs serving worthy
humanitarian causes and acting as instruments of alleviating misery among the poor,
refugees, and others in need, there are many more such organizations acting as
instruments of globalization, and in some cases aggressive neo-imperialism.