Social participation and local development – role of civil/nonprofit organisations

Settlement or region development is a kind of conscious action, which influences the operation of the region in a way to ensure the required living standard for the population and to be able to ensure a desired future of the given region. State and local government actors play an important role in the development by ensuring the legal framework to the realization of the goals. However key actors of the development are those citizens who can promote the development through their activity. That goals can be only efficiently and successfully realized, when people are attached to the given settlement or region, and when they attend such kind of relations, which can contribute to the realization of the goals. These local relations can be shaped by the civil/nonprofit organizations. So these organisations can have a direct and indirect effect on the development of the settlements and regions. In this way the local development concept connect to the framework of social participation. In the focus of my study are the civil/nonprofit organisations and they role in local development from the approach of social participation. At first I show the conceptual framework of development, civil/nonprofit organisations and social participation. After it I display the role of the civil/nonprofit organisations in the development processes, and then I feature the advantages of the participation and the preconditions of a well-functioning participatory system. I close my study with some recommendations for the future. One of the main results of my study is the determination of the role of the civil/nonprofit organisations in the process of development concerned with social participation. This type of approach is quite new also in the Hungarian literature and also in the international practice. That’s why I hope that my study will contribute to a better future where people will know what they have a dominant role in shaping their future. All in all I think that every actor should participate in local development – besides national and local actors – who are involved by developments so that the country could be democratic both in social and economic sense. Thus more effective decisions can be made and the community integration of people can develop as well.