Non-governmental organizations popularly referred to as civil society are legally constituted bodies that operate independently from the government. There are close to 40,000 internationally operating NGO’s in the world with many more operating within many countries borders. NGO’s largely focus on humanitarian work in areas where governmental reach is minimal. According to the World Bank, they are organizations that champion the rights of the poor, protection of the environment and undertake community development. According to Kim (2002), the growth in the number of NGO’s has made them significant players in social welfare development (p 2). These organizations mainly depend on government funding and they ensure their independence by not nominating government representatives to their boards. Kim (2002) further says that these are actively engaged in local, national, regional and international issues sometimes in collaboration with government s. in some cases however, they may work against government. These organizations play different roles and many functions within the larger context of the civil society. According to Kim (2002), there is no universal agreement on the functions of these organizations. Their role in the community through civil society is ambiguous as well. However, there is some level of agreement of the functions that these organizations play in the society. Civil society functions can be described as specialized given that they do not focus on many issues as governments do. Before the roles and functions of these organizations are tackled, it is important to understand their scale of operations, their fields of operation and the activities that they carry out. Their scale of operation as noted earlier includes local national, regional and international. In some cases in may include Southern and Northern, (Kim, 2002 p 14). NGO fields include human rights environment, anticorruption activities, international aid, refugee relief, poverty eradication, women and youth affairs, economic justice and consumer protection. The activities that they carry out to ensure the fields are well served include advocacy, monitoring, campaigns, funding, policy formulation and service provision. The activities capture the roles that they play. However on a larger scale, their function ca be summed as acting as; social providers and monitoring advocacy and criticism. Roles and functions Social service providers NGO’s largely act as alternative service providers where national authorities have been unable or willing to provide services (Kim 2002, p11). The size of government and the bureaucracy that is involved in planning and delivery of services may overwhelm it resulting in the failure to deliver critical services. NGO’s sometimes work in partnership with governments where authorities delegate service delivery to the organization due to their extensive reach of the grassroots. Many governments have increasingly adopted the approach of delegation of government services to NGO’s especially considering that they delivers with a personal touch. Governments have also realized there is an element of cost effectives in using NGO’s to deliver services to the pe