Preface
Since the 1980s, non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
have emerged as an important force on the world stage working to democratize
decision-making processes, protect human rights and provide essential services to the most
needy. Underpinning this expanded role in global governance has been a certain
disillusionment with the role of the state in facilitating sustainable human development
and the belief that more flexible, motivated and decentralized structures have the
required skills and responsibility to undertake this role.
In recent years, the arena of NGO action has expanded
rapidly from local and national settings to the international level. The institutional
transformations that are occurring in the context of globalization have seen international
actors — such as United Nations agencies, regional organizations, finance and trade
institutions and transnational corporations — as well as inter-governmental "summits"
assume an increasingly prominent role in global governance. NGOs have been late-comers to
this evolving system of global governance but are now finding ways to influence the
international decision-making process associated with development issues.
UNRISD work on the institutional and social effects of
globalization has highlighted the concern that certain international economic, finance and
trade organizations are enjoying greater freedom and power, but often without any
commensurate increase in social responsibility. There are high hopes that the role of NGOs
on the world stage will act to correct this potentially dangerous imbalance. But are NGOs
sufficiently effective to perform this role? Have they been able to penetrate the dominant
fora of international decision-making? And can they retain the cohesion and moral
authority needed to influence the process of global governance?
These are some of the questions addressed in this paper by
Riva Krut. Basing her inquiry on a rich collection of secondary sources and a survey of
500 NGOs, she examines the achievements, tensions and limits of NGO action in global
governance.
Following an introduction that identifies some of the
concerns that globalization poses for democracy and the potentially constructive role that
civil society organizations might play in global governance, the paper consists of three
main sections. The first considers the issue of NGO representation and participation: who
are they, what do they stand for, and how representative are they? The second section
looks at the varying degrees of access which NGOs enjoy to different international
decision-making institutions. The third assesses the impact of NGOs in certain areas of
international decision-making and the various strategies adopted to exert influence and
pressure.
The author concludes with a dual warning. First, NGO
access to global institutions of power has indeed improved — but it remains highly
uneven, and in relation to certain key institutions that have tremendous power to affect
our lives the door still remains firmly shut. Second, the ability of global civil society
to act in a cohesive fashion may be coming under greater strain as the NGO "community"
becomes increasingly differentiated and as tensions increase between Northern and Southern
NGOs.
Riva Krut is a Director at Benchmark Environmental
Consulting in Portland, Maine, USA. She was project director of Benchmark's work on global
civil governance with the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This paper forms part of
an ongoing UNRISD programme on Globalization and Citizenship. At UNRISD, production
of the paper was co-ordinated by Peter Utting.
| April 1997 |
Dharam Ghai
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Director
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