NGOs, social change and the transformation of human relationships: a 21st-century civic agenda

Globalisation shifts the balance of power from public to private interests, including NGOs. However, sustainable development requires a change in power relations that runs much deeper than this: a shift from using power over others to advance our selfish interests, to using power to facilitate the self-development of all. This demands constant attention to personal change, and a series of reversals in attitudes and behaviour. In this paper we argue that NGOs-as explicitly values-based organisations-have a crucial role to play in supporting these changes through their programme activities, constituency-building work and organisational praxis. The decline of paternalistic foreign aid and the rise of more genuine international co-operation provide an excellent opportunity to advance this agenda. The paper provides a detailed rationale for these claims and a set of examples that show how power relations could be transformed by civic-led approaches in economics, politics and the structures of social power.