Civil Society Building and Democratization: Cooperation among Private Aid Agencies, NGOs and the Indigenous Movement in Ecuador

Author(s): Camilo Villa
Publication date: Monday 17 July 2006

Cooperation between Northern donors (private aid agencies) and local civil society organizations (NGOs and the indigenous movement). The research seeks to test theories of how civil society building helps promote democratization and consequently to help redistrtibution towards marginalized areas.

The paper will look at how civil society organizations, made up of grassroots organizations and "indigenous" organizations that are part of the Ecuadorian indigenous movement, and there relationship with supporting NGOs. The research seeks to evaluate how civil society organizations have helped empower indigenous people from the Amazon region of Ecuador and how they have contributed to securing access to power and consequently resources for marginalized communities. Civil Society building strategies provide long term institutional support to civil society organizations in Ecuador to provide the required associational spaces for indigenous groups from the Amazon to voice there demands and debate about the desired life. Civil society building programs, however, may also overlook power hierarchies assuming civil society actor relationships are horizontal. Signals of tensions and fragmentation within Ecuadorian civil society, requires exploration into the relationships between local civil society actors in unequal societies. Particular attention will be given to the challenges faced between environmental NGOs and the indigenous movement, putting into question the assumption that NGOs are the best mechanism to channel resources to social movements.