The Role of NGO in Sustainable Development




The Role of NGO in Sustainable Development 

Economic, environmental, and social development,  securing a high standard of living for both present generation and generations to come;  and providing an enabling environment for now and generations yet unborn are considered as the greatest aspirations of every thinking society. These aspirations are the essentialities of Sustainable Development, Sustainable Development aims at providing solutions to the major problems confronting humankind, these include hunger, water scarcity, gender inequality, high death rate, injustice, climate change,  conflict, human displacement, environmental degradation, etc. The need for reconciling and integrating the economic and environmental development to better human existence can not be overemphasized, and thus several bodies unrelated to the government are also at the forefront of this reconciliation attempt, This body is generally referred to as the Non-governmental organization (NGO). The NGO officially came into existence immediately after WWII due to needing for the United Nations to separate and mark differences between intergovernmental and international private activities, though before this time NGOs have been contributing to the services of humankind most notably for the role it played in the abolition of the slave trade.

Non-Government organizations are the civil organization made interdependent of any country's government whose purpose is to contribute and address social and political issues, they are the “non-political, non-violent”  (Willetts, 2006) and non-profit making organization constituted solely for improving the quality of life for the less advantaged people (Lewis, 2007: 47). they are a non-profit driven organization whose proactiveness can be felt in every level of human existence, such as;  the community, national and international level. This is premised on the notion that citizens of all nationalities can make an impact on this global quest as examined by Edwards and Gaventa, 2001).  (Jelin, 2000) also believed that we are now at that point that can be referred to as “global environmental citizenship” hence everyone is taking this noble quest as ones father’s business.  The scope of Sustainable Development is enormous, it includes issues such as International law, Biodiversity, Demographics, Biotechnology, Agriculture, etc. The impact of a non-governmental organization in this quest is seen in several dimensions of Sustainable Development, I will discuss these dimensions and the roles of NGOs in the subsequent paragraphs.

First the social Dimension is a deliberate effort geared towards eradicating poverty in the world and reasonably promoting social health, it is the sustainable dimension that tries to deal with the social challenges, it entails, Urban planning and transport, ethical consumerism, international law, health, education, eradication of poverty  etc. From the information provided by Global Health Research Canada (CGHRC) in 2001 NGO is a regular health Research contributor, stimulating the relevance and effectiveness of the research , resource mobilization, generation, and management of knowledge and capacity development.  NGOs also plays the role of socio-political agents by participating and providing information necessary for political activism. Furthermore, Since NGOs are often politically neutral, They serve as a watchdog of government by keeping government on their toes, by the means of evaluating the quality and quantity of goods rendered to the public and alert the public in case of any problem, a role so essential for good governance in participatory democracy. 

Another dimension of Sustainable Development in which NGO have several impact  is the Economic Dimension, at the health of this dimension is  human economic welfare for both present and future generations with attention in “natural capital” it includes economic system such as ,soil, fish, bio-environmental systems, plants , The average per capital consumption of people in the world, etc. NGOs are considered a critical player of socio-economic development especially in developing countries.  (Welker and Ahmed,2008 ;Anheier and Salamon ,2006). Also observed that NGOs  are not just important in influencing policy ,they also play crucial role in Development issues such as debt relief, provision of basic education, HIV/AIDS awareness campaign. NGOS are civil organization dedicated to the reduction of human suffering and the development of poor countries 

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