Non-Governmental Organizations and Finland’s Development Policy

Abstract

This article examines the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) — or ‘civic organizations’ (as the corresponding Finnish wording could be translated) — in Finland’s development policy. Whereas civic aid organizations have been around for a very long time, it was only during the late 1980s and the 1990s that they began to receive particular interest among governments, international development organizations and the development community at large. Suddenly there was much enthusiasm in the air towards ‘direct aid to the poor’ through ‘flexible’ and ‘culturally sensitive’ NGOs. Indeed, NGOs have been praised for their ability to bring development aid back to the ‘citizens’ level’, both in donor countries (for example among private donors and taxpayers) and at the receiving end (for example ‘the target group’ or the expected beneficiaries of aid).KeywordsCivil SocietyDevelopment PolicyFair TradeForeign AffairCivil Society OrganizationThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.