About civic participation The decline of the state, underway since the close of the Cold War, paired with the rise of participatory democracies and escalation of free-market policies, have created a world climate of exceptional encouragement for human initiative. According to the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project, "the nonproft sector outpaced the overall growth of employment [in the overall economy of the countries studied] by nearly 2.5 to 1... Even this does not capture the full scope of the nonprofit sector, for this sector also attracts a considerable amount of volunteer effort. Indeed, an average of 28 percent of the population in these countries contribute their time to nonprofit organizations." In a December 1999 article in The Economist, the rapid growth of the citizen sector was expressed through the exponential rise of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The article reports that "One conservative yardstick of international NGOs (that is, groups with operations in more than one country) is the Yearbook of International Organizations. This puts the number of international NGOs at more than 26,000 today, up from 6,000 in 1990. Far more groups exists within national borders." The Economist went on a recent article by World Watch, the bimonthly magazine of World Watch Institute (itself an NGO), which "suggested that the United States alone has about 2m NGOs, 70 percent of which are less than 30 years old. India has about 1m grass-roots groups, while another conservative estimate suggests that more than 100,000 sprang up in Eastern Europe between 1988 and 1995." The work of nearly all Ashoka Fellows could be clustered under civic participation: social entrepreneurs mobilize citizens and resources for social change. They tap dormant human and economic resources, and shape them towards such ends as enriching learning, protecting the environment and public health, advancing human rights, and spurring economic development. Civic Participation is most likely the field in which the founder and president of Ashoka, Bill Drayton, would figure. Bill's work, and that of Ashoka, inspire and enable individuals to take initiative and ownership for social change, and is a driving force behind the rise of the competitive citizen sector. Although innovative in every instance, Ashoka Fellows provide many common themes of civic participation. The effectiveness of Ashoka Fellows in mobilizing the citizen sector in their region and beyond ensures that individuals throughout the world are engaged in decision making and acquire a voice. By mobilizing their communities and shifting resources to citizens, Ashoka Fellows strengthen the power of the civil sector. Contact
information: The JDW Network
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