EN - FR - Yükselen Afrika ve Türkiye / Rising Africa and Turkey 3

256 Yükselen Afrika ve Türkiye / Rising Africa and Turkeying and development in general; privatization of public property; creation ofan enabling environment for investors; liberalization of both internal andexternal (goods and financial) markets; reduction of the state’s role in theeconomy and promotion of individual, private and ‘community’ roles; etc.‘Community’ roles were being promoted under the aegis of voluntary agencies,which were now relabeled NGOs/civil society. Thus, in Britain,Germany, Canada, USA and other developed countries, voluntary agenciesspecializing in development and research were being brought together undervarious liaison committees, such as the Centre for World DevelopmentEducation (CWDE in Britain), Federal Congress of Development Groups(BUKO in Germany), etc. The Canadian International Development Agency(CIDSE) established the Public Participation Programme (PPP), which coordinatedseveral religious development agencies from Europe and the USA.This was at time when increasingly, there were liaison committeesbetween official and voluntary sector. Thus there began the EEC/NGO LiaisonCommittee as an apex-mediating agency of Europe in the late 1970s. In reality,these various developments were an expression and a reinforcement of theWB and IMF sponsored SAPs. With the implementation of SAPs, NGOs andtheir participatory approaches became extremely important to disarm people.In fact, given this approach, they seemingly seemed to offer a critique to thestates, which were supposed to be inefficient, corrupt, bureaucratic and centralized.These NGOs were very central in the agitation of state withdrawalfrom social provisioning, welfare in general and planning for development, infavor of individualized and localized initiatives.By late 1970s and early 1980s, it had already been established by thesesponsoring agencies that voluntary agencies (NGOs) had a comparativeadvantage over the WB and IMF direct intervention in reaching the “targetgroups” as far as the evolution of the “new ethos” of development were concerned.With their objectives of meeting the “basic needs” through the processof “people’s participation”, and their notions of partnership in development,international NGOs, backed by financial support of their governments, privateindividuals, multinationals and International Financial Institutions (IFIs);together with specialized UN agencies such as UNESCO, UNICEF, WHO,FAO, etc, were now working with indigenous/local organizations. Where noneexisted, efforts were made to create them. Their operations were boosted in acontext of a perceived ‘failure’ of official aid agencies and governments.NGOs had become more desirable and efficient conduits for “developmentprogrammes” than official ones.