Civil society and urban poverty - examining complexity

Abstract

CIVIL SOCIETY IS increasingly recognized as being critical to the successful realization of development. Grassroots organizations are regarded as a new panacea for people-centred, pro-poor development. But should this be the case? Low-income communities are subject to division due to unequal access to power, prestige, income and capital. Do such organizations really support their poorest members to increase and achieve development options? How do NGOs truly support participatory processes? Do their staff use their professional skills and expertise to enable the poor to control development programmes, or does decision-making remain in the hands of a few? Do grassroots organizations and NGOs reduce poverty, or is their role to reinforce dependency, powerlessness and exclusion? And how does the state intervene to influence these organizations and the way in which they are developing? These are the questions that need to be understood if issues of empowerment and participation are to be addressed. This paper draws together a wide range of development literature to consider the activities of grassroots organizations and NGOs in poverty reduction in urban areas. It does not attempt to be exhaustive, rather it draws on a range of documents to provide an overview of issues and themes. The focus of the discussion is on the issue of governance and how authority and control are exercised within civil society institutions and between civil society and the state. The discussion begins by introducing the concept of civil society and examines the growing interest in recent years in civil society, NGOs and the related concept of social capital. Later sections explore the nature of participation and governance within grassroots organizations, the relationships between grassroots organizations and NGOs and, finally, relations between civil society and the state. Governance is broadly defined and refers to the process whereby institutions govern themselves, be they nation states or residents’ associations. In the case of the nation state, the process of governance refers primarily to relations between citizens (either individual or collectively) and their governments. In the case of membership organizations, it refers to relations between members and leaders.