Government funding of NGOs is controversial , since , according David Rieff , writing in The New Republic , `` the whole point of humanitarian intervention was precisely that NGOs and civil society had both a right and an obligation to respond with acts of aid and solidarity to people in need or being subjected to repression or want by the forces that controlled them , whatever the governments concerned might think about the matter . '' Government funding of NGOs is controversial , since , according to David Rieff , writing in The New Republic , `` the whole point of humanitarian intervention was precisely that NGOs and civil society had both a right and an obligation to respond with acts of aid and solidarity to people in need or being subjected to repression or want by the forces that controlled them , whatever the governments concerned might think about the matter . ''