Empowerment through Intermediation: Assessing the Role of Civil Society Support Organizations

The overarching goal of development is to promote policies, institutions and capacities that strengthen the voices and participation of the poor and the marginalized in improving their socio-economic status through democratic governance in society. In recent years there has been an increasing recognition of the importance of strong civil society, wide-spread citizen participation and empowerment being key to sustainable development and democratic societies. As a result of this, two kinds of tendencies have become more visible on the contemporary development practice.

This paper argues that empowerment of citizenry is well facilitated through various forms of intermediation by CSOs; and local voluntary development organisations (VDOs) definitely contribute to the empowerment of citizenry through formation and strengthening of various citizen collectives or community based organisations and strengthening institutions of local self governance; and the effectiveness of VDOs depends on the quality of support provided by the intermediary support organisations.