Non-Governmental Organizations

This guide attempts to collect some of the best resources for finding information generated by NGOs around the world.  Non-governmental organizations include both national and international groups that are not part of any official government body, but which often cooperate or interact with governments in order to try and influence government policies.  They are often at the forefront of the struggle for human rights, the economic and social development of the world’s most vulnerable populations, and the advancement of various important social issues. NGO records, therefore, are crucial for researching and understanding current events around the globe.  Unfortunately, the world of NGO-generated information is scattered and complex, and while no one guide can hope to collate all the useful links and resources, this guide is organized to help the researcher locate particular NGOs, search for NGO documents, and find NGOs that are active in particular areas of interest or regions of the world.

The page titled NGO Directories is the place to start if you want to search for NGOs by name, field of activity, or region.  The page on Finding NGO Publications collects some of the very few resources out there that have attempted to aggregate and make searchable or browseable large amounts of NGO information.  The Think Tank tab focuses on finding information generated by non-profit research institutes, which have become very important and influential NGOs in the development of governments’ policies around the world.  The Human Rights and Economic and Social Development pages collect some good starting places for researching the large number of NGOs active in these areas.