KUCHING: Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) can act as an important pressure group to assist the government in consolidating its policies or laws for the benefit of the people.
Assistant Minister of Early Childhood Education and Family Development, Sharifah Hasidah Sayeed Aman Ghazali said this when launching a symposium entitled ‘Striking the Balance of Development Through NGOs’ held at Riverside Majestic Hotel, yesterday.
She pointed out that NGOs are among significant components in a country.
“It is proven in history that in western countries, NGOs were the ones who started to fight for many rights such as human rights, slavery and so on.
“If we look at the world’s history, NGOs are always an important pressure group to the government to amend policies and laws that is deemed unsuitable to be implemented and so on.
“Therefore, assistance from NGOs is significant because not everything can be done by the government,” said Hasidah in her speech at the launch.
She then added that, NGOs’ contribution in fighting for causes such as animal abuse, human rights, environment preservation is significant.
Hasidah added that the symposium had given opportunity to participating NGOs to know better of their role in fighting for a cause and the basic principles that they should stand for.
“In order to do this, NGOs also need to gain confidence and trust from members of the public so that they support their cause.
“NGOs needs to have a high level of integrity and without support from members of the public, the organisation will not be able to move effectively,” said Hasidah.
