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Civil Society comes of age

Finance | Gareth Jones | 23 Mar 2009

The NCVO’s annual conference is always one of the most lively, stimulating and  well-attended events in the sector’s calendar and 2009’s jamboree was no exception.

Despite an ever-tightening squeeze on resources, the number of delegates pouring into the opening plenary to hear Vince Cable held up admirably and the cacophony at the evening drinks reception was easily as deafening as in any previous year.

Between plenary and drinks there was also much food for thought. There was a renewed emphasis from the NCVO on the notion of a broad civil society sitting between the state and the market, which comprises not just charities and voluntary organisations  but every form of socially collaborative,  non-profit-distributing entity from trades unions to book clubs.

This was combined with a strong sense that the crisis created by the collapse of the market economy and the stale patronage of the state has opened up space for a new set of values to flourish in which civil society can really spread its wings. This is great leadership – to create a sense of optimism and enthusiasm from the deep gloom of escalating need and shrinking resources – and the NCVO should be congratulated for this.

It is also exciting to finally be able to support a positive vocabulary that succinctly but clearly summarises the whole not-for-profit sector, especially so when the term in question is so readily accepted in other countries as well.

Civil Society is that term, and it is infinitely preferable to Non-This or Not-for-That or Third-the-Other. Civil Society immediately means something, it is not expressed as a negative, it is not waiting in line behind first and second-placed sectors, it is positive, constructive, intuitive and pleasant on the ear. I know I want to live in and be part  of a civil society, don’t you?

Last-chance saloon

The inclusion of climate change as one of the four key areas that the NCVO has identified as needing particular attention from civil society groups over the next ten years, has come not a moment too soon.

All four of the areas pinpointed – the others are community cohesion, individual and community wellbeing and financial security – are highly complex issues that will require courageous and imaginative interventions.  But climate change is the one that’s certain to impinge on all the others, and if urgent attention is not paid to tackling it then time and effort spent addressing the rest may turn out to be futile.

The NCVO appears to have been convinced by the excellent report published by Green Alliance director Stephen Hale at the end of last year. In it, Hale argues that civil society organisations hold the only remaining key to averting catastrophic climate change and must seize the opportunity now to mobilise their supporters and beneficiaries.

He says that until now, pressure for action on climate change has been driven by environmental groups, but it is time the rest of the sector realised the impact that global warming will have on their constituents, and began characterising it as a problem that will directly affect them. “We must unleash the full power of the sector,” Hale said.

At last, it seems, the NCVO seems to be listening and, it promises, taking action. Better late than never….let’s hope.

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