The Changing Roles of Non-Governmental Organizations in Development in South Africa: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

Given the changing environment of public administration, the roles played by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) will continuously evolve. NGOs are considered to be major role players in this era of governance as; in some instances, they fill the vacuum created by governments’ inability to honor the social contract, particularly in developing countries. However, the role of NGOs in the development process does not come easily, as they are faced with a number of challenges and opportunities. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the changing roles of NGOs in development, focusing on the case of a country like South Africa. Using a qualitative method, the chapter relies on a review of the available literature on the roles of NGOs in developing countries with a specific reference to South Africa. Explanatory case studies are considered to ascertain the role NGOs play in development. Specific cases of NGOs operating in local government in South Africa are examined with the aim of highlighting their contribution to the development and also identifying some of the challenges and opportunities available to them. The chapter concludes by suggesting some avenues that could be explored to enhance the role of NGOs in development in South Africa.

1. Introduction

Governance has different means for different people. Broadly, governance refers to the conscious management regimes, which intend to enhance political authority’s effectiveness [1]. Governance can also refer to the establishment of a new process of governing or a transformed condition of the well-ordered rule. Further, governance may also be about the new way of governing a society. From public administration and public policy perspectives, one can rely on definitions of governance as provided by [2, 3]. These authors view governance as:

1. Interdependence between organizations. In this context, governance is considered to be broader than government, as it includes non-state actors. Therefore, altering the borders of the state referred to shifting the boundaries between public, private, and voluntary sectors, which were becoming opaque.

2. Continuing interactions between network members. These interactions are triggered by the necessity for members to exchange resources and negotiate the attainment of collective purposes.

3. Game-like interactions. This is entrenched in mutual trust and steered by rules of engagement agreed upon by members within the network.

4. A significant degree of autonomy from the state. It is important to note that networks are self-organized and they are not accountable to the state. While the state is not playing a leading role, it intervenes indirectly by trying in the best way it can to steer networks.

In light of the above, one can conclude that governance can broadly mean governing with and through networks [4].

In recent years, the discourse on the roles played by public and private institutions in the provision of public services, commonly known as collective goods, has shifted tremendously. In the past, the delivery of public services was the result of interactions between governmental functions and markets, but now, the debate goes beyond to also look at a third component represented by the non-profit sector (NPS). There are numerous factors that account for the shift that has taken place. The limits of the state capabilities coupled with the market failure are among the key factors that triggered the shift. As a result, governments started considering the NPS as an alternative to the provision of public services. Important to note is the fact in many countries due to the pressure they faced to adjust that faced declining public treasuries were declining resulting in public sectors being required to reduce their span of activity as they faced demands from their electorates to preserve established benefits and entitlement. In this context, the NPS is considered to be a sector that could alleviate the governments burden to deliver social services and above all, a sector that could reduce or avoid the risk of the complete termination of certain programs that were meant to benefit communities [5, 6]. To this end, it becomes clear that the provision of public services is now dependent on two tasks that are complementary in nature. Firstly, non-state actors are increasingly involved in global governance. This is because governments are increasingly facing challenges as the sole role-player in the design and implementation of public policies. Secondly, governments are required to ensure that the involvement of non-state actors is well structured and coordinated in order to avoid the dangers of special-interest politics. If provisions are not made to ensure the participation of non-state actors occurs in a well-structured manner, there is a possibility that chaos might erupt since decisions made may become favorable to one group over another leading to a persistence of a holdup in the system [7]. Given the negative effects of the existence of gridlock in the system, it is in the government’s best interest that a smooth collaboration between the public sector, the private sector, and the non-profit sector should be maintained for the effective provision of collective goods.

The chapter uses the term “non-governmental organizations” in its title, but it should be noted that the concept falls under the umbrella of the NPS and non-profit organizations (NPOs). Throughout this chapter, those concepts will be used interchangeably. NGOs exist as a result of two important paradigm shift. Firstly, the dawn of the New Public Management has made it possible for governments across the globe to no longer be considered as the only providers of collective goods. Secondly, the advent of globalization has altered the extent to which governments are able to meet the expectations of their respective citizens and it is becoming quite difficult for governments to provide citizens with public services that meet the required standards, particularly in the context of developing countries. Therefore, NGOs play and will continue to play roles that are of significance to the attainment of the social contract. These roles can be categorized into two groups. On the one hand, the era of governance has made NGOs to be major role players alongside governments. On the other hand, NGOs are filling the vacuum created by governments’ inability to honor the social contract, particularly in the context of developing countries. Ref. [6] argues that depending on circumstances, NPOs can play three different roles: complementary, supplementary, and adversarial roles. Firstly, NPOs play a complementary role when they contribute to the creation of an environment that establishes the reign of legitimacy, accountability, and transparency. Secondly, NPOs play a supplementary role when they fill the gap that exists in government operations when they, for instance, militate for the consolidation of democracy, assist in checking and exposing the abuses of state power, avert instances, whereby authoritarian governments resume power, and encourage broader citizen participation and promote public scrutiny of the state. Finally, NPOs do also play an adversarial role. This happens in countries that are plugged by authoritarian rules or those that are going through democratic transitions. In this instance, NPOs play an interesting role in becoming the voice of the people since they are able to rally efforts for the much-needed pressure seeking political change or renewal. Besides the traditional environment in which NPOs operate, one must acknowledge that the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic has called for a rethink of the roles NGOs should play or continue to play in the development process in developing countries. The ever-changing environment of public administration conditions NPOs to face numerous challenges, but it also offers them a number of opportunities as well. The question that remains is, how could NGOs maximize opportunities that are available in order to overcome the challenges that cripple their operations and contributions.

This chapter examines the changing roles that NGOs play in the process of development focusing particularly on the challenges that confront these organizations. The chapter also highlights some of the opportunities that could be tapped into in order to improve NGOs contribution to development. A qualitative methodology is used and it is supplemented by secondary data. A review of available literature was conducted based on keywords that include governance, NGOs, development, and developing countries. After searching and selecting the relevant sources, the literature review was divided into two categories, namely, normative and empirical research. The review was guided by the following research questions:

• What roles do NGOs play in the process of development in developing countries?

• How well do NGOs adapt to the changing environment of public administration?

• Is there any empirical evidence that supports the assumption that NGOs play an effective role in development in developing countries?

• What can be done to improve the contributions of NGOs to development in developing countries?

To answer the above questions, explanatory case studies were used to ascertain the role NGOs play in development. Specific cases of NGOs operating in local government in South Africa were examined with the aim of highlighting their contributions, identifying some of the challenges they are faced with, and outlining opportunities that are available to them.

The argument made in this chapter is supported by two theoretical underpinnings, namely, global public goods theory and the principal-agency theory. Firstly, the theory of global public goods contributed to both the evolution of various development theories and to the role of played by NGOs at advanced levels. These comprise, for instance, debt relief, anticorruption movements, human rights, gender equality, and climate change issues [8]. Elinor Ostrom pioneered a work that proved communities’ capacity to be self-organized and able to share common-pool resources (CPRs). This was done beyond the commonly known pathways of solely public or exclusively private management solutions. In today’s times, one can stress that the commons do, on the one hand, refer to small-scale institutions for the management of shared resources at the local level. On the other hand, the commons do also designate a broader variety of struggles that occur as a result of self-government thus against the existing upsurge of enclosures [9, 10, 11]. Secondly, the principal–agent theory is considered as it deals with circumstances in which one person, the principal, would like to persuade another, the agent, to achieve some duty that is aligned to the principal’s interest, but this is not necessarily in the interest of the agent. Mostly, the principal accomplishes this by either using moral persuasion (in effect, the principal will try to influence the agent’s calculated states in order to make the agent to be more predisposed to perform the task at hand). The principal can also rely on dishing out some incentives in order to motivate the agent to attain a task that is in the best interest of the principal. Though most literature relating to economics have a tendency of focusing on the provision of incentives, one should note that this is not a feature that is inherent to the model [12, 13]. These two theories do provide the basis that motivates the consideration of the various roles played by NGOs to play in the process of development globally and particularly in developing countries.

The main contributions that this chapter intends to make are as follows. Section one explores the imperatives of the governance era. Section two discusses the relevance of the roles of non-governmental organizations in development. Section three analyzes the changing roles of NGOs in development. Section four highlights the cases of the contributions of NGOs to development in South Africa. Section five outlines the challenges facing NGOs before identifying the opportunities at their disposal. Section six suggests ways that could be explored to improve NGOs contribution to development before the chapter concludes.

2. Imperatives of the governance era

In the twentieth century, the hierarchical government bureaucracy was considered to be the major organizational model, which was used for the delivery of public services and also to achieve the agenda of public policy. This made it easy for public managers to win approval by instructing their subordinates to follow and complete highly monotonous–albeit professional–tasks with uniformity but without discretion. In the twenty-first century, things are different as societies are increasingly becoming complex and they require public officials to come up with governance models that are new and adapted [14]. For instance, during the period of managerialism and rationalization (between 1980s and 1990s), governments were expected to exclusively use competition and initiate collaboration with market players to carry out their essential business operations and activities [15]. As a result, governments became interested in engaging in higher levels of collaboration. This practice became common particularly in vertical and horizontal collaboration, in whole-of-government amalgamation, shared solutions as well as in numerous dynamic partnerships. This paved a way for governments to consider themselves more like facilitators engaged in value chains just to allow other actors to thrive and they also considered themselves as working through markets, rather than autarkic “doers” who owned, operated, and produced things themselves. Governments ended up realizing and accepting that they should rely on other sectors (private and non-profit) represented by role players who contribute to the delivery of effective outcomes. The two actors outside the confine of the public sector have the means to provide improved services as they have at their disposal the necessary knowledge and skills, they have access to the market or are specialized or they concentrate their efforts on crucial aspects of public services delivery networks. There are four apparent types of collaborative relations that should exist between actors, namely [16], collaboration within government, which involves the participation of various agencies and players; collaboration between governments, which includes agencies that fall under different jurisdictions; collaboration between governments and external third-party actors that are involved in the provision of goods and services; and collaboration that exists between diverse government institutions and citizens or clients considered individually.

Ref. [6] cites the works of some prominent writers, such as [17, 18, 19, 20] who argue that the disadvantages of bureaucracy as an apparatus of rational action, such as rigidity, red tape, and logrolling, contributed to the development of western states into a new stage characterized by the post-bureaucratic stage. This stage consisted of a delegation or dissemination of authority as well as the reduction of control. In this stage, policies’ implementation was no longer the sole mandate of core government agencies. This is to say that the governance era opened up the restrictions on the value-chains of the delivery of public services to accommodate other role players to collaborate with governments and be part of providers of collective goods. This is, for instance, evidenced by the various roles NPOs play in developed and developing countries. Relying on a poll organized by GlobeScan experts [21], it is reported that business plays a leading role in the attainment of sustainability (35%). Interestingly, NGOs follow (30%) and governments come in the last position (24%). Given the results of this poll, it becomes clear that governments are now forced to engage in partnerships with businesses and the non-profit sectors.

3. Relevance of the roles of non-governmental organizations in development

According to ref. [22] NGOs are described as organizations that are designed from within civil society by allowing individuals who share some common purpose to come together. Ref. [23] notes that NGOs’ existence stems from both internal and external factors. Internally, the governments steady withdrawal in the process of public service delivery has created a vacuum that can be filled by NGOs. Today, governments are becoming unable to provide high-quality public services to citizens. Externally, the formation and growth of the civic space are influenced by the political and socio-economic milieu within which actors operate. The third wave of democratization has primarily defined this milieu in a way that it so dramatically culminated in the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. While it is evidently impossible to come up with an accurate timeline of developments that took place in the aftermath of historical events that constituted the drivers of the third wave of democracies, the main effect of these was the combination of democracy with neo-liberal economic prescriptions. This vision was supported by Western powers and international financial institutions, and it was also promoted by the mainstream academy in both the developed and developing world [24, 25]. However, a significant element that characterizes civil society’s new responsibilities consists of the move made to step into the domain that delivers social services, partly abandoned by the state in terms of the standard brought by neo-liberal budgetary and fiscal directives. The logic maintained by neo-liberals started mainly with the efficiency argument as they insisted that NGOs could provide better, more efficient, and cost-effective services than government departments, thus because of their proximity with communities that are beneficiaries of collective goods. In order to do this, government departments partner with NGOs to deliver public services or foreign donors directly collaborate with NGOs and fund them to rollout certain programs on behalf of the state [25].

The wave of globalization has challenged the effectiveness of the state and its bureaucratic systems, especially centralized political, administrative, economic, and fiscal systems. NGOs in developing countries play an important development role. They advocate for policy change and are often the vehicle for community participation in policy and political processes. NGOs have played a critical role, including providing social services, advocacy, and institutional capacity building and development work. NGOs were celebrated for their critical role in serving the poor and providing services in areas where the government could not serve. In the era of new public management, NGOs hold increasing responsibility for social, political, and economic development. To succeed, southern NGOs must help the community implement its own vision. They must become responsible agents of change. And northern NGOs must help them succeed. Table 1 gives a synopsis of the phases NGOs have gone through up-t0-date.

	Era 1 (1945–1963)	Era 2 (1963–1980)	Era 3 (1980–2000)	Era 4 (2000–2015)	Era 5 (2015–present)
	Relief/basics	Community development	Technology/fall of iron curtain	Overreach/Push Back	Social impact/Balanced systems
Focus	Specific	Local/specific	Regional/national	National/global	Ecosystem/mega-cities
Time frame	Immediate	Project life	10–20 years	Open-ended	Variable
Scope	Individual	Neighborhood/village	Region/nation	Nation	Ecosystems (natural/constructed)
Participants	NGO members	NGO/communities	“Everyone”	Networks	Super networks
NGO role	Primary/central	Mobilize/direct	Catalyze/innovate	Active/direct involved	Educational/tech support

Table 1.

Eras of NGOs emphases.

Source: [8].

In light of the above table, Era 5 clearly depicts the phase under which NGOs are currently operating. In this context, the performance of NGOs will mainly depend on the stage of development recorded in various countries. For instance, in developed countries’ governments were able to move with time as they followed the sequence of the above-mentioned eras. In developing countries, there are mixed results since some countries made considerable progress, whereas other lagged behind. As a result, the contributions made by NGOs were tremendously affected by the weaknesses of government structures and social changes. In this context, the effectiveness of NGOs was hampered as they had to catch up with the shortfalls and exigences of previous eras while the global governance is acting as per Era 5 expectations. It is for this reason that this chapter examines the changing roles NGOs should play in the process of development, particularly in developing countries.

4. The changing roles of NGOs in development

NGOs have played and will continue to play a vital role in the shaping and implementation of participatory democracy. Their reliability lies in the significant role they play in society. For instance, NGOs are known to serve a host of functions that can include, among other things the provision of basic services and enhancing access by using local accountability mechanisms, and they usually play advocacy functions for the poor and marginalized [26, 27]. For NGOs to attain their full potential in terms of the contribution they bring to the table, there is a need to promote effective communication and cooperation between all the actors involved in the networks of public services delivery, namely, international organizations, national and local governments, and NGOs. However, given the change in public administration and the outbreak of the pandemic of Covid-19, NGOs will be required to devise new ways that would allow them to collaborate and cooperate with other actors in a meaningful way. Above all, NGOs should adapt and come up with a communication strategy that can assist them in communicating well among themselves and initiate fruitful collaboration with other actors. The following roles were identified as critical for NGOs to remain relevant despite of the changing environment in which they operate [28]:

• Institutional scale (multi-layer): NGOs must play a significant role alongside national, regional, and local institutions as well as international organizations.

• Cooperative management: NGOs must incorporate the management (planning, implementation, evaluation, and adaptation) of the knowledge, skills, resources, and perspectives based on a diverse and inclusive representation of participants. This is characterized by deliberation and accountability among actors.

• Collective action: NGOs must be involved in representation and participation with local, regional, national, and, in some cases international institutions.

• Information sharing: NGOs must share information both vertically (higher and lower levels), as well as horizontally (between regions, communities, or institutions that are at the same level).

• Co-production of knowledge and services: NGOs can contribute to the multitude of knowledge, sources, and types. They need to create a community of practice (COP) that, if it is well designed and applied, can assist in advancing systems-oriented understanding of problems faced by the sector.

• Social learning: NGOs must initiate a collective process of learning-by-doing as it may result in new knowledge and skills development.

• Institutional interplay: NGOs must promote multi-level linkages. A linkage is considered to be a formal rule, strategy, or regularized action that establishes interdependencies between two distinct actors regarding different tasks.

5. Cases of the contributions of NGOs to development in South Africa

According to ref. [6] NPOs play an indispensable role in bridging the gap between governments and citizens, particularly in the provision of basic services, such as health, water, sanitation, and education, to name but a few. For instance, Radebe and Nkonyeni interviewed by the Mail & Guardian on 5 March 2020, explained that currently in South Africa, there are close to 200,000 NGOs, whereas they were about 140,000 registered NGOs in 2015. Kagiso Trust reports that the rising number of NGOs represents an increase of over 200% over the past 10 years. Nazeema Mohamed, the executive director of Inyathelo, explains that this increase is influenced by many factors, such as the economic recession, unemployment, and failed service delivery. The persistence of a poor economic outlook in South Africa accounts for a decline in public expenditure across critical sectors. This means that NGOs play and will be required to play an important role in closing the gap created by governments’ inability services to fully attain their social contract [29]. The following cases are selected in order to highlight the various roles played by different NGOs in South Africa.

5.1 AIDS foundation of South Africa

The AIDS Foundation of South Africa (AFSA) was established in 1988 with a mandate to combat the spread of AIDS in South Africa. This NGO’s mission is to support regional, local, and national efforts that aimed to reduce the expansion of HIV, STIs, and TB infections. Throughout its operations, AFSA aims to contribute to addressing some of the structural and social drivers of the spread of HIV. The organization works toward educating citizens and raising consciousness about sexually transmitted diseases and helping communities to be resilient. AFSA is of the view that, in South Africa, the HIV epidemic is mainly entrenched in environmental, cultural, socio-economic, and political conditions that prevail in the country. AFSA is cognizant of the fact various communities are affected differently, therefore, it uses a variety of strategies in its quest for solutions. It integrates interventions into a larger sexual and reproductive health framework. Through its programs and strategies, AFSA has helped people suffering from HIV and AIDS all throughout South Africa.

5.2 World vision South Africa

World Vision South Africa is a branch of an international organization operating on a global scale. This NGO strives to build an environment that provides children with protection, health, education and/or employment (once they are of age). This organization starts first by identifying communities that are fragile and impoverished due to a lack of access to basic services. After the identification, the NGO proceeds with the assessment before it can design a program that is specific and suited to the circumstances faced by that region. Then it puts all the resources together in order to implement that program and address the challenges facing the children and the community. To date, the actions of the South African branch of World Vision have benefited close to 320,000 lives in the country.

5.3 The viva foundation of South Africa

Viva endeavors to play a significant role in transforming the realities of certain areas that are crippled by high-priority poverty. The NGO aims to intervene in informal settlements and work toward transforming these areas into viable, stable, and economically sustainable communities by providing residents with education, employment, business, and recreation opportunities. The foundation is committed to providing services to these areas and above all, it strives to address the community’s needs by creating a hub for its services [30].

6. Challenges and opportunities

In the global south, the existence of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has been a result of two important factors. Firstly, the government is no longer a sole provider of public service delivery, and secondly, governments have proved to be incapable to meet citizens’ expectations and provide public services that are of high quality to their citizens. This specific situation has paved a way for NGOs to play a significant role in terms of service delivery. But the role of NGOs in the development process in developing countries is confronted by challenges and opportunities.

6.1 Challenges facing NGOs

Here are some of the challenges confronting NGOs:

6.1.1 Social impact

With a decrease in funding, NGOs are placed under significant pressure to deliver high social impact whilst dealing with expectations from funders, work within the confines of restricted funding grants, and illustrate positive outcomes. Part of the challenge is that NGOs are operating in a starvation-cycle context; NGOs with limited funding are forced to underinvest in critical organizational operations, such as financial systems, human resources, and fundraising. Some funding grants explicitly only cover programmatic costs and not the indirect costs associated with delivering an intervention or program. This often means NGOs are not capacitated to deliver high social impact and this can, in some instances, lead to the mismanagement of organizations. In addition, the unequal power dynamic between NGOs and funders also means that NGOs are not positioned to challenge the rationale for underfunding indirect costs, which would allow NGOs to invest in the organization and be sustainable. A consequence and contradiction presented to NGOs are that the pressure to illustrate the impact, in order to secure funding, sometimes undermines the core mission of the organization.

6.2 Focus

NGOs will be required to devote a substantial part of their resources to the collection of data on selected indicators and targets as opposed to what most of them are currently doing. The results of such studies will assist NGOs in identifying the critical needs of various communities and come up with timely interventions. This will lead to most NGOs discovering areas or sectors they should be focusing on rather than duplicating activities that might not benefit communities [29].

6.2.1 Funding model

The current funding model used should be revisited. There is a need to develop a system that assists NGOs to be supported adequately so that they can have well-designed outcomes because impact measurements could help funders, government, and communities to identify where change is needed and how they could assist NGOs to do what they are supposed to do [29].

6.2.2. Unpredictable landscape

The environment in which NGOs operate plays a significant role in the extent to which they will achieve their mandates. It is therefore essential for NGOs to enhance their capacity to innovate and reinvent themselves. In this context, NGOs should tap into the opportunity they have to collaborate among themselves and with other actors that are part of the networks. NGOs must avoid working in silos and competing with one another [29].

6.3 Opportunities at NGOs disposal

Despite numerous challenges NGOs are facing, there are opportunities that could be considered to overcome those challenges. Here are some of the opportunities:

6.3.1 Collaboration

Collaboration can be considered to be an opportunity that could offer pool of resources to NGOs and allow them to invest in greater mission-led initiatives that could ultimately reinforce the societal impact that NGOs have on communities. This is critical, as funding and social impact are key components within the sector [29].

6.3.2 Increased responsibilities

Due to the changing nature of public service in modern days, governments across the globe have embarked on a journey to decentralize their functions and operations. This is particularly visible in developing countries where, because of a lack of capacities or weaknesses in delivering public services, governments endeavor to empower other actors to deliver on their mandates. As a result, NGOs are presented with numerous opportunities and they are granted considerable space by governments in order for them to fill the gaps.

6.3.3 Promotion of transparency and accountability

Maximizing accountability tools, such as social audits could improve municipal accountability and it will improve communities’ knowledge about government policies and programs. It can also provide a platform for residents to articulate their needs. NGOs could play an important role in the coproduction of knowledge as this is a critical intervention that would help communities to become more active participants in local government and this will provide a compelling basis for residents to adequately engage with municipalities [31].

It is important to note that the demand for transparency requires local authorities to account for the running of programs and delivery of basic services to their communities. This will not happen in a vacuum. Municipal officials should therefore partner with communities through NGOs and community-based organizations (CBOs) in order to positively affect the lives of citizens. As a result, NGOs can play a significant role in strengthening local communities capacity to monitor the implementation of programs intended to better the lives of the people. In most cases, politicians do give empty promises to communities, hence, the involvement of NGOs would be critical in empowering communities to closely follow up on the rollout of programs and service delivery projects.

7. Ways to improve NGOs contribution to development

Based on the description of challenges and opportunities, one would like to suggest the following as avenues that could be considered in the process of enhancing the contributions of NGOs to development:

7.1 Extraordinary leadership is needed

The success or failure of collaboration does not lie in the emergence of governance network structures or in the growing systems by which influence is exerted. The collaboration will surely require new forms of leadership behavior, particularly on the part of the public servants. Despite the changes that have occurred in the way the public sector operates; the role of public officials remains central to most deliberations of public policy and administration. Effective administrative leadership is required as it will assist public servants to negotiate and not imposing public policy agendas. In this context, the need to collaborate with other actors requires public servants to understand their partners and build trust. Collaboration can also be boosted by a clear indication that public servants will steer the collective decisions of the group using their disproportionate power on behalf of the collaborative venture [32].

7.2 Partnership and collaboration

Society, governments and international bodies should develop mechanisms to allow non-governmental organizations to play their partnership role responsibly and effectively in the process of environmentally sound and sustainable development. With a view to strengthening the role of non-governmental organizations as social partners, the United Nations system and governments should initiate a process, in consultation with non-governmental organizations, to review formal procedures and mechanisms for the involvement of these organizations at all levels from policy-making and decision-making to implementation.

7.3 Sustainable funding

True collaboration and partnerships NGOs should find sustainable ways of raising funds and delivering on their mandates. Instead of heavily relying on external funding, they will be required to also explore internal or local means of funding their operations and projects.

7.4 Refocus

Given the competition that prevails because of so many NGOs that are registered, it is essential that NGOs strive for the same goals and decide to unite and consist of a united and strong front. This will assist in having strengthened NGOs that focus on key socio-economic issues that communities face.

7.5 Co-create/−production

Closely linked to collaboration, coproduction processes move from jointly implementing action to generating new knowledge from numerous knowledge sources. These latter offer ways to link local, indigenous and technical knowledge sitting at different scales and contexts in ways that expand the range of possibilities of what individual tools or approaches may offer [33].

8. Conclusion

This work examined the changing roles of NGOs in development, focusing on the case of a country like South Africa. Given the changing environment of public administration, the roles played by NGOs will continuously change given the circumstances at hand. From public administration and public policy perspectives, governance was defined as interdependence between organizations; continuing interactions between network members, caused by the need to exchange resources and negotiate shared purposes; game-like interactions, rooted in trust and regulated by rules of the game negotiated and agreed by network participants; and a significant degree of autonomy from the state. Governance was therefore referred to as governing with and through networks. Throughout the chapter, it was made clear that the successful provision of global public goods in the twenty-first century rests on two complementary tasks. Firstly, increasing the involvement of non-state actors in global governance secondly, ensuring that non-state involvement is structured to avoid the dangers of special-interest politics, because otherwise decisions may favor one group over another or lead to gridlock in the system. In this context, NGOs are expected to smoothly navigate throughout the network constituting organizations that serve the public interest. However, the contributions of NGOs to the development process do not occur easily, as they are faced with a number of challenges and opportunities. Despite the challenges NGOs are faced with, one acknowledges that there are a number of opportunities available to assist these organizations in adding value to modern public administration. In this context, NGOs will be required to re-engineer themselves by working toward fostering collaboration and partnerships that would assist them to share responsibilities and lean on other strengths. Reinventing themselves and adapting to the changing environment will be critical to NGOs survival and effectiveness in the attainment of their mandates in the development process.

Conflict of interest

The author declares that there is no conflict of interest.