A government-organized non-governmental organization (GONGO) is a non-governmental organization that was set up or sponsored by a government in order to further its political interests and mimic the civic groups and civil society at home, or promote its international or geopolitical interests abroad.
The term GONGO had become established by the late 1980s,[1] and it was suggested that it was first introduced by a group of Indonesian non-governmental organizations.
[2] Most contemporary attempts to understand GONGOs have come from studies of authoritarian contexts, where these organizations have proliferated as a deliberative strategy by the state to have a (corporatist) mechanism that feeds directly into a grassroots civic space.
It is thus unsurprising that the current theorizing on the nature of GONGOs primarily highlights their role in undermining liberal democratic values.
[7][8][9] This control is often not seen in a positive light, as it compromises the spirit of an NGO by introducing hidden actors and withholding the government's intentions from the public.