Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction : can NGOs make a difference? The challenge of development alternatives / Anthony J. Bebbington, Samuel Hickey and Diana C. Mitlin -- Have NGOs 'made a difference?' From Manchester to Birmingham with an elephant in the room / Michael Edwards -- Challenges to participation, citizenship and democracy : perverse confluence and displacement of meanings / Evelina Dagnino -- Learning from Latin America : recent trends in European NGO policymaking / Kees Biekart -- Whatever happened to reciprocity? Implications of donor emphasis on 'voice' and 'impact' as rationales for working with NGOs in development / Alan Thomas -- Development and the new security agenda : w(h)ither(ing) NGO alternatives? / Alan Fowler -- How civil society organizations use evidence to influence policy processes / Amy Pollard and Julius Court -- Civil society participation as the focus of northern NGO support : the case of Dutch co-financing agencies / Irene Guijt -- Producing knowledge, generating alternatives? Challenges to research-oriented NGOs in Central America and Mexico / Cynthia Bazán ... [et al] -- Anxieties and affirmations : NGO-donor partnerships for social transformation 196 / Mary Racelis -- Reinventing international NGOs : a view from the Dutch co-financing system / Harry Derksen and Pim Verhallen -- Transforming or conforming? NGOs training health promoters and the dominant paradigm of the development industry in Bolivia / Katie S. Bristow -- Political entrepreneurs or development agents : an NGO's tale of resistance and acquiescence in Madhya Pradesh, India / Vasudha Chhotray -- Is this really the end of the road for gender mainstreaming? Getting to grips with gender and institutional change / Nicholas Piálek -- The ambivalent cosmopolitanism of international NGOs / Helen Yanacopulos and Matt Baillie Smith -- Development as reform and counter-reform : paths travelled by Slum/Shack Dwellers International / Joel Bolnick -- Reflections on NGOs and development : the elephant, the dinosaur, several tigers but no owl / David Hulme.