NGOs and development in the third world : assessing NGO policy orientation in Angola's post-conflict reconstruction and development process.

Abstract

This study explores the role of NGOs in Angola's post-conflict reconstruction and development process. The study was motivated by a perception obtained from a preliminary literature acquaintance and events that pointed to the developing of a centralised, state-led model. As a result, NGOs were facing funding crises and political pressure which were obstructing their participation in the process. Thus, the study sought to investigate the substance of these trends and how NGOs were responding to them. The study finds that the current policy dynamics underlying the process supports the perception that a centralised, state-led model is developing. At the same time, NGOs are shifting their engagement from emergency work to a development paradigm; they are focusing their activities on rural development and civic awareness; and they are lobbying for the opening of the public space. NGOs believe that they can contribute a unique socib-economic and political capital to the process which neither the public sector nor the private sector can. For this, they argue that the process should be participatory to enable openness and accommodate the contributions of all social actors. However, they believe that the government should playa leading role because of the need to create the infrastructural basis the country lacks to rebuild and develop.