Globalisation shifts the balance of power from public to private interests, including NGOs. However, sustainable development requires a change in power relations that runs much deeper than this: a shift from using power over others to advance our selfish interests, to using power to facilitate the self-development of all. This demands constant attention to personal change, and a series of reversals in attitudes and behaviour. In this paper we argue that NGOs-as explicitly values-based organisations-have a crucial role to play in supporting these changes through their programme activities, constituencybuilding work and organisational praxis. The decline of paternalistic foreign aid and the rise of more genuine international co-operation provide an excellent opportunity to advance this agenda. The paper provides a detailed rationale for these claims and a set of examples that show how power relations could be transformed by civic-led approaches in economics, politics and the structures of social power.
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Edwards et al. (2000) studied this question.