Context: Every year, 27th February is observed as the World NGO day all over the world to recognize, celebrate and honour all non-governmental and nonprofit organisations, and the people behind them that contribute to the society all year around.
Background

• The World NGO (Non-Governmental Organisations) Day assumed its official status when 12-member countries of the IX Baltic Sea NGO Forum on April 17, 2010 formally recognised it. 
• In 2012, the forum's Final Statement Resolution adopted the day. Later, in 2014 it was decided that this day would be celebrated as World NGO Day when the United Nations celebrated it.

About NGOs

• Non-governmental organisations, or NGOs, were first called such in Article 71 in the Charter of the newly formed United Nations in 1945. 
• They are nonprofit entities independent of governmental influence who work for, environmental, social, advocacy, and human rights work. 

Range of function

• They work across a range of arenas and play important roles of facilitator, catalyst or partner in bringing social transformation. 
• NGOs play a critical part in developing society, improving communities, and promoting citizen participation. 

Aim

• The main objective of NGOs is humanitarian and cooperative work rather than commercial purposes.

Importance

• The central government gives a great thrust to NGOs that promote the country’s development. 

Significance
Core issues dealt by them

• The NGOs look into accelerating activities like issues dealing with poverty alleviation, water, environment, women’s rights and literacy. 
• In the past decades, there has been significant growth in areas where NGOs have been active. 

Dynamic

• They have been dynamic in almost all sectors: Health, education, livelihood in rural and urban areas to name a few. 

Influence the Government policies

Another major achievement of NGOs includes influencing the Indian government to formulate various developmental laws and policies, which include:

• Right to Information, 
• Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), 
• Juvenile Justice and 
• Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS). 

Partner in campaigns

• NGOs also partnered with the government to successfully implement major campaigns like Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.
• Such partnerships gives better results and involvement of common people.

Great help in crisis situations

• NGOs have always been on the forefront, taking accountability by offering multiple solutions for development. 
• During the pandemic, NGOs played a pivotal role and supported the government’s COVID-19 response initiative full-fledged. 

Grassroot presence

• Given their grassroots presence and solid community relations, local NGOs played a very important role in accelerating vaccination drives and encouraging communities to practice COVID-19 protocols.

Challenges faced by NGOs
Lack of Long-Term Strategic Planning

• NGOs appear to be incapable of predicting what they will do even in one or two months. 
• Most of their activities look like one time shots. However, a single event is not enough to change the attitude towards some problem.

Lack of Funds

• NGOs feed on their want to be able to help more individuals and communities depending on their needs. To do so, NGOs need to constantly acquire funds. 
• In some cases, NGOs become complacent and simply wait for donations or previous supporters to contact them. 
• This practice will in no way contribute to the successes of an NGO. 

Absence of networking

• NGOs working together to reach their goals more efficiently is one perspective. 
• However, some NGOs also see it as a form of competition. 
• For some reason, there are NGOs who believe getting close to other NGOs or nonprofits will cause them to have more competition in terms of applying for grants.

Lack of maintenance

• In many developing countries, the lack of infrastructure is quite common and NGOs believe that people deserve a better standard of living. 
• Without proper maintenance, the benefits to their living standards may only be temporary.

Lacking skill

• Most NGOs lack the technical know-how for efficient working and are also not interested in investing in training etc. 

Initiatives by the government to control the sector

• An NGO has to be registered and get its annual reports/accounts approved by an independent chartered accountant.
• It has to be registered under FCRA (Foreign Contribution Regulation Act) that comes under the purview of the home ministry, in order to be able to access foreign funds.
• NGOs were brought under CAPART: It is a government agency that was set up specially to fund non-profits working on rural development.

Road Ahead

• NGOs need to step in where governments couldn’t, and provide services that governments do not.  The working of NGOs should never be put on the back-burner.