NGOs: The Emerging Third Sector?

Abstract

Thirty years ago, it is unlikely that this book would have been contemplated. Though there already existed significant voluntary involvement within the health sector of developing countries, particularly in the form of missionary activities together with a few international organizations such as Oxfam and The Save the Children Fund, attention was focused heavily on the public sector. For many recently independent developing countries facing severe health challenges, the way forward was seen to be in the expansion and strengthening of Ministries of Health. International donors, though less interested in the health sector at that time than in the development of the economic infrastructure, put the bulk of the available health aid into the government sector. Health plans for that era rarely did more than almost grudgingly acknowledge the existence of a set of health care providers outside the government service, and the voluntary sector typically was bundled together with the private-for-profit sector and the industrial health sector.