Who do they represent and where do they get their mandate from? It is a difficult question to answer if you open the closet of today's NGOs. Not only have they abandoned the lofty ideals of fighting injustices, impunity, corruption, etc, but they are themselves party to these vices.
Robert Wundeh Eno, Cameroonian in The Gambia
BBC debate: NGOs: achievers or deceivers? 20 Feb 2004

In an unprecedented step, international civil society organisations have come together to demonstrate their commitment to transparency and accountability.
Amnesty International News on the signing of the Accountability Charter 6 June 2006

They can be as militant and high-profile as Greenpeace, or as lowly and unknown as the Chembe AIDS project in Malawi. Oxfam, Medecins Sans Frontières, the World Wildlife Fund, Amnesty International –and a small group of women in Bangladesh supporting each other's one-person textile businesses with small loans and advice: they are all NGOs. The large Northern-based organizations, and the small self-help community based in the South, all fit the definition of a Non-Governmental Organization. The World Bank, itself an IGO or intergovernmental organization, describes NGOs as: "private organizations that pursue activities to relieve suffering, promote the interests of the poor, protect the environment, provide basic social services, or undertake community development." For the United Nations an NGO is "a not-for-profit, voluntary citizens' group, which is organized on a local, national or international level to address issues in support of the public good."
NGOs are commonly understood to follow an essentially altruistic mission, striving to work for the underprivileged or persecuted, and often in circumstances where officially elected bodies fail to do so. To understand the criticisms levelled against them, especially of late, we might ask: Who in these private organizations decides what is good for the public?

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