Toward a Conditional Analysis of NGO-Local Government Relations in Developing Countries

Across the globe, governments continue to seek ways to enhance the provision of public services. Shifts toward decentralization to empower local governments have also been met by an increased engagement of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in service delivery. As a result, there are more venues for interaction between these two sets of actors at the local level. Existing literature is nascent when it comes to examining the relationships between NGOs and local government in the developing world. In this article, we identify and discuss five features that can condition these relationships: origin of the relationships, boundaries of the relationships, policy authority, structural arrangements, and the local context. These five features are interconnected and should help researchers structure subsequent scholarly studies of NGO-local government interactions as well as guide practitioners working in development.