If states, markets and NGOs fail to bring about change and social justice, then who will?

Can citizens come up with new perspectives on social change? Are civic driven changes a potential solution to global political problems? They might. In fact they are...

The CDC initiative supported by some of the largest development and peace organizations in the Netherlands started from a conviction that the mix and nature of today’s global problems requires a wider range of solutions than those coming from government and market. A missing story is one of people themselves acting as citizens to change the society they live in, not as needy beneficiaries, participants, political clients or economic producers and consumers, but as agents of their own future. Finding out what such a story might look like has been the guiding objective for the core group of ten internationally recognized practitioners, analysts and writers. But the CDC story arising from their work is a starting point for a much bigger task. This is to take forward the challenge of promoting a public debate about the role of citizens - from all walks of life and active in civil society organizations and other spheres - to explore ways in which international cooperation can embrace a different approach to development. The innovation of this CDC story does not lie in finding an unknown magic ingredient for social change. What is ‘new’ is to be found in trying to look through the eyes of citizens to gather and join up experiences of bringing about change that are scattered around the landscape of aid.