What is an NGO?

NGO = Citizens' action groups for mutual interests and objectives

Organisations, interest groups, citizens’ initiatives, clubs or associations – what is understood by NGO’s (Non-Governmental Organisations) varies from country to country (because of the differences in the legal definitions). Nor are scientific investigations always in agreement – how non-governmental organisations are seen in the public eye often depends on

a) the trust in the independence of the NGO’s from party politics,
b) the expertise of committed citizens,
c) many activities for the benefit of the public that are free of commercial interests,
d) and the recognised effort in making even complicated contexts accessible, understandable and applicable for everyone.

And in addition there are various other trends that involve difficult topics and problem areas that other organisations prefer not to deal with:

• Supposed "needs to save" in politics and business (e.g. the trend towards so-called globalisation) that result in the first savings being made in the areas of social work, culture and the environment. In many cases there is also a low regard of regional needs and special related problems. This often means that it is left up to NGO’s to pick up on these problems and deal with them competently. This however often has to be done with voluntary workers, trainees and those who choose to do community service instead of military service.
  
  
• Whereas politicians like to pick up on certain headlines that can be op use for their re-election (and thus the reservation of their personal situation and influence), and since business always treats everything that doesn’t bring in a direct profit as being of secondary importance, NGO’s work in many problem areas, bring them into the domain of public knowledge and suggest solutions.
  
  
• The loss of faith in politics and business. Although many claim to act in line with democratically orientated party manifestos or market economy orientated strategies in the interest of their voters or customers, many of these activities turn out to have personal, self-interest, or short-term commercial motives or be examples of a pervading “sleaze mentality” or murky bureaucratic procedures. All of these are of course only “isolated cases” – but the number and type of questions coming into the NGO’s show that citizens’ loss of trust in the above mentioned areas is triggering a search for other partners who show more interest in the problems these people have. On top of this there are general trends (e.g. the development of the European Union) in the context of which general questions arise such as: Can things keep going on like this? or, Can we achieve anything if we ourselves become active and represent our interests ourselves?

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