Stakeholders in Rural Development: Critical Collaboration in State-NGO Partnerships

Despite decades of governmental effort and large-scale expenditure on development, the lot of world’s underprivileged remains largely dismal. This failure of state-sponsored development has prompted many in recent years to call for a closer collaboration between the public and private sectors. Even though this idea has gained wide currency, there are as yet very few studies which actually draw a road map of how such joint efforts can be successful in practical terms. Addressing this lacuna, John Riley describes and elaborates on a form of collaborative effort between governments and voluntary agencies which appears to be working in practice, despite a widespread atmosphere of mutual distrust and antagonism. He calls it critical collaboration, defining it broadly as a working relationship in which the two sides retain their individuality while participating as partners both in policy formulation and implementation, but where the NGO often acts as a critic of the Government Organization (GO).