And it is not enough merely to set up organisations. In Africa, this cannot happen without first establishing and consolidating a legitimate state - essential for a coherent policy of providing aid to civil society, especially in the context of a long term plan. This, in turn, means helping to strengthen the capacities of the state, whose duty will not only be to run the country but also to restructure it. We hardly need remind ourselves that decentralisation is an extremely recent phenomenon in many countries, and in some places, it has not even got off the drawing board. The aim in these few general observations, has been to show how complex the subject is.
Civil society is an enormous and extremely diversified theme.
NGOs are often called on to act simultaneously or consecutively, depending on the specific circumstances, at the local, national, regional and even transnational levels. Their roles and allegiances are many and varied. Whichever way we look at it, there is no clear demarcation between civil society and the state. The two overlap to varying degrees because they have the same common denominator - the citizen. All the same, when people associate themselves with civil society, they expect a relatively independent entity, both in terms of its organisation and its actions, within the framework of which they can establish a much broader dialogue with political institutions.