A Third Sector or a Second Preference? What is Distinctive about NGOs?

Abstract

Can one be a non-smoker in a community that has not discovered tobacco? Can an organisation be ‘non-governmental’ when there is no government? The notion of being ‘non-governmental’ assumes implicitly the existence of a government from which NGOs can be distinguished. And the notion of NGOs constituting a ‘third sector’ assumes that the other branch of the trinity, the private sector, is also flourishing. We shall look briefly at the presence, strength or weakness of this trinity before pursuing the question of how far NGOs are able to manifest themselves as distinctive entities.