NGOs work as communities worked earlier, through exchange, transference and transmission of knowledge and experience. They explore, enhance and endorse each other's efforts on behalf of the common consumer. They try to reach beneath and beyond the surface concerns which pre-occupy a majority of us and consume most of our waking time. The real issues never change and haven't changed. A fair deal in life, justice, transparency, accountability - all these are aspirations which contribute to the quality of our daily lives beset with fears, stresses and anxieties that are generated and abetted by the market.

Communication technology helps NGOs to email, fax, phone, even meet up once in a while, have teleconferences, put up websites and pool their strengths to ease out the wrinkles in the patterns of polity and governance. There is constant effort for mutual empowerment and building of global strategies to combat inequities and imbalances in consumer lives.

NGOs have built quite a track record in handling several salient issues for the benefit of the common citizen. They have emerged as a parallel work force to counter and control the imbalances created by single-minded pursuit of profit and the pressure to commercialise all aspects of individual and community lives.

NGOs thrive on the genuine concern of conscientious citizens to keep day to day life on the right track, but their activities are increasingly being perceived as a threat to many governments. As the consumer movement gels and coheres with environmental and sustainability concepts, it is beginning to threaten the powerful nexus between governments and the industry. Main among this is the Bush administration which is taking serious note of NGOs helping the citizens to wake up to their rights and use their democratic vote to pressure their government to be accountable to them. There are several NGOs which flourish on huge support from government, national and international sources, and hence do not pose much of a threat, specially when they willingly tout the relevant political stance to the people who are at the receiving end of their munificence. Post-war Iraq and Afghanistan are a free-for-all for such activities. As a result of this arm twisting by the state, NGOs are increasingly pressured to askew their independent stand (often critical of the state) and mouth what they are told by their pay masters.

The whole point of NGOs is that they have to be committed to their cause and they have to be willing to turn their scrutiny onto their own home ground as well as on all other errant entities. In any democratic set up, growing political influence of non-profit or the “unelected” sector is increasingly being perceived as wielding parallel influence on citizens and governments to measure up to their stated or unstated agenda. This is a cause of great concern for the elected governments. In India, we have NGOs which have assumed partnership status with the government to fulfil development targets by using public funds. However, the growing funnelling of funds to the Gram Panchayat is throwing up new complexities. Actually this should in all fairness create very viable partnerships between the NGOs and the Panchayats but again not very surprisingly, clashes are beginning to emerge as Panchayats are increasingly appropriating all government funds and pushing out the NGOs who in most cases have worked over several years in close proximity with the local communities, thus developing insights and expertise combined with dedication and self-less hard work.

What you may ask is, what is the point of raising this point in this forum?
It is to focus on the role of consumers, individually and as communities, to link with NGOs which work for protecting and promoting their interests independent of the officials whose honesty is increasingly becoming questionable and who lack any commitment to a people-oriented work ethic.

We at VOICE look towards building a strong subscriber base across the nation to be able to continue independent projection of the cause of consumers at all levels.

Join Us and exercise your democratic right to good governance and accountability in all walks of life.