development. Essentially, this is engineering, the process of generating, evaluating, and generalizing solutions to problems. Computing can play a critical role, enabling new and innovative solutions and better ways to demonstrate their contribution to human well being.

I start here with an overview of NGOs and CBOs and the value chain for recognizing and rewarding their work. To illustrate, I describe two information systems my students and I developed for improving NGO efficiency and accountability. I conclude by further describing the inherent engineering process within rural development and how computing can help enable it.

civil society

“Men are not birds,” wrote Garrett Hardin, a professor of biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, implying that for millennia humanity has abandoned the path of the animals (such as birds that would peck siblings

to death when faced with the prospect of overpopulation ). The only civilized

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solution to the “tragedy of the commons,” wrote Hardin, was “mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon by the majority of the people affected.” Mutual coercion, or cooperation, is the basis for order in all human societies.

Civil society is an umbrella term for many kinds of voluntary and cooperative activities. Civil society organizations are nonprofit, non-state organizations representing people’s social, economic, political, cultural, and environmental interests. In the developed world, they include charities, foundations, advocacy groups, and a variety of social service organizations. In the developing world, they are usually called NGOs, which, according to the World Bank, are characterized by their “ voluntary and altruistic approach.” ²²

NGOs focus on any number of issues, including educating children, empowering women, stemming rural migration, conserving the environ-

ment, and linking farmers to markets. They are characterized as operational or advocacy, depending on whether they “work in the field” designing and implementing specific development projects or influence policy and public opinion. Here, I use the term NGO to refer primarily to the operational NGOs working for socioeconomic development in rural areas of the developing world, including Latin America, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Where state and business infrastructure is limited or inaccessible, NGOs play a key role in organizing and supporting isolated communities, helping them access services like health care, education, training, and business development. By raising the standard of living and exposing people to new opportunities, NGOs are catalysts for change in rural areas throughout the developing world.

The World Bank classifies development NGOs into three categories: international, national, and commu-

 

Parikh explains to nGo field staff member how to use the self-help mis mobile data-collection system while conducting usability studies in a village outside madurai, tamil nadu, india, summer 2005. (university of california, Berkeley.)