The CPD journey is now in its 30th year as a civil society institution. The journey is still in progress. For a non-state institution, without any regular source of funding, operating in periods when the state was far from friendly, even adversarial in its approach to civil society, this remains a tribute not just to CPD but to the journey of civil society over three decades.
In the course of this paper, we have discussed how civil society had emerged and survived in years past as an issue-based entity designed to advocate the concerns of particular segments of society, articulating civic concerns on specific issues. What CPD brought to the table, at the end of 1993, was a civil society institution which committed itself to address a broader range of issues ranging from development policy and its implementation, the quality of governance, the state of democracy, the deprivations of the dispossessed, macroeconomic performance, external economic relations, regional cooperation and other issues of public concern.
Publicarion Period: November 2024