The effectiveness of non-governmental organizations to participate administration within the frame of local governance: Antalya City Council example

For the first time, the concept of governance which was formally used in the report of the World Bank in Sub-Saharan Africa: From Crisis to Sustainable Growth in 1989, was considered an important concept in the development of underdeveloped countries. This concept is not with single actor administration concept but rather a multi- actor, including state, non- governmental organization and private sector stakeholders. Instructions were made about the governance understanding in the 28th part of the Agenda 21 Program, one of the outputs of the 1992 Rio Conferance. The Habitat II Conference held in Istanbul in 1996, and the reflection of the Local Agenda 21 which the countries will implement, has become a city council in Turkey. This is also a reason why civil society organizations become important. The way to provide participatory democracy is to enable the participation of the stakeholders of the society in the administration. In this context, the city councils are formed as a structure that associates the residents of the city with the decision-making process in order to find out the problems of the city and find solutions, to develop the consciousness of urbanity, to generate collective mind and to develop local governance. There are also successful examples of this work as well as those established only for necessity. In this study, which focuses mainly on non-governmental organizations in terms of governance, it is aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of non-governmental organizations in local governance in Antalya, the attitudes of the city council and non-governmental organizations to each other and the contribution of the city council to participatory governance. This work is covered in three chapters. In the first part, the changes that have taken place in the concept of public administration in the world, governance concept, understanding of civil society and increasing importance of non-governmental organizations are taken into consideration. In the second part, development of civil society in Turkey, civil society organizations, development of governance concept, Agenda 21, Local Agenda 21 and City Councils are emphasized. In the last part, the interviews conducted with representatives of non-governmental organizations and city councils in Antalya were evaluated in order to examine the effectiveness of non-governmental organizations in Antalya participating in the administration in accordance with the purpose of the study. Keywords: City Council, Civil Society, Civil Society Organization, Governance, Local Agenda 21, Local Governance