Africa’s nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) mirror the wide variations in governance among the countries of the continent. Here, the best and the worst examples of NGOs can be found. Throughout much of Africa, strong NGOs have been on the frontline of the battle for civic freedom and better environmental governance, while in other parts of the region they are weak, insecure, and vulnerable to repression.
Yet, even in places where formal government structures are in disarray, such as in parts of the Great Lakes region, or Somalia, community organizations and NGOs have managed to address social and environmental concerns-against great odds. During the Rwanda genocide crisis in 1994, for example, local organizations worked in the communities that hosted refugee camps, helping people find alternative energy sources in order to reduce the destruction of local forests for fuelwood.
Similarly, in war-torn Somalia, local groups have been working with UN agencies such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to help build a culture of reconciliation and peace, and a foundation for economic growth. In the oasis of Iskushuban in the Somalian desert, local groups using seed funding from UNDP have formed a water-users committee to rebuild irrigation channels, established a microcredit plan to finance new village enterprises, started a demonstration farm to spread organic farming techniques, and constructed retaining walls to prevent erosion of the steep valley terrain. These locally led initiatives have become a model for civic action in other villages in the Iskushuban district.
Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, South Africa, and Zimbabwe are home to large numbers of NGOs, and many have played a critical role in advancing policy reform at the national level. In Zimbabwe, civil society found its voice during the years when the capital city Harare was the center of resistance to the apartheid regime in South Africa, and continues to address Zimbabwe’s current civil troubles. Over the past decade, NGOs in Ghana and Kenya have defended the public’s right of association in the face of government attempts to legislate a limit to this basic freedom. In Kenya in particular, NGOs such as the Mazingira Institute, Kenya Human Rights Commission, and the Green Belt Movement, in partnership with churches and other groups, have helped catalyze constitutional reform. Civil society also played a central role in the dramatic changes in South Africa’s political system in the last two decades-a story that has somewhat overshadowed the important influence of NGOs as drivers of change elsewhere on the continent.
Much of the story of NGOs in Africa revolves around the relationship between civil society and government. Governments tend to look favorably on NGOs that provide services such as healthcare, education, or other activities that the state would ordinarily perform. On the other hand, politically active NGOs may provoke government ire. With the slow growth of democratic governance across the continent, civil society organizations are often seen as the only acceptable and effective vehicle to work for change in society. Consequently, many African governments have viewed NGOs with suspicion, if not outright contempt. But NGOs do not always work in opposition to the state. Since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, many African NGOs have worked to strengthen their governments’ positions in international policy forums. And in some countries, such as Senegal and Uganda, serious efforts have been made to bring civil society more meaningfully into the national policy-formulation arena.
Nonetheless, there remain many weaknesses in Africa’s NGO sector. Despite the strength of ZERO in Zimbabwe, ENDA in Senegal, Friends of the Earth Ghana, Environmental Justice Networking Forum in South Africa, and Zambia Wildlife Society, to name a few, the vast majority of NGOs face critical financial constraints and capacity gaps. African NGOs argue that the high level of poverty makes it difficult to raise local funds, so they rely on international donors. Yet, charitable giving is not alien to most African cultures, and the difficulty of soliciting local funds is often simply due to a lack of fundraising skills, or the absence of strong support among local constituents.
What often is alien to Africans is the social concept of the nongovernmental association as it has developed in European cultures-a variety of citizens from different walks of life and often different communities, coming together to address a specific set of social issues. Instead, many African NGOs reflect a narrower social base. Some have arisen from the activity of urban elites, along the lines of the European NGO model. Many others were created at the request of financial donors to carry out projects at the community level. Often, these NGOs have bypassed and alienated traditional social norms, which are community-focused and governed by traditional leadership structures, such as local chiefs. This cultural mismatch is one reason that NGOs in Africa are frequently accused by governments, as well as by some donor agencies, of lacking the capacity or mandate to succeed in their mission. Other shortcomings include corruption, tribalism, and the “Big Man syndrome”-where most decision-making power is vested in one individual or leader. These problems can become obstacles to fostering democratic norms, transparency, and accountability among the continent’s civil society groups.
Although these concerns are real, they are often overblown by critics. This focus frequently leads to unfair or inappropriate treatment of NGOs by African governments, while a great deal of effective work by civil society organizations goes unrecognized. The many success stories among NGOs in Africa indicate that creative and culturally sensitive approaches to capacity development-such as fostering mechanisms for accountability, or nurturing democratic and effective leadership-have strong potential to broaden the response of civil society groups to Africa’s environment and development needs.
Contributed by Robert Sinclair, capacity development consultant, Nairobi, Kenya.
Kenya’s healthy civil society
Number of voluntary nonprofit organizations in
Kenya, 2002 (including informal organizations)
(Hakkarainen et al. 2002)150,000
Number of government-registered NGOs in Kenya, 2003 (Sinclair 2003)2,511
Percentage of Kenyan hospitals run by NGOs, 199950.2%
(Government of Kenya Ministry of Health 2001:63)
Percentage of Kenyan health clinics and medical centers run by NGOs, 199987.1%
(Government of Kenya Ministry of Health 2001:63)
Percentage of Kenyan nursing and maternity homes run by NGOs, 1999100%
(Government of Kenya Ministry of Health 2001:63)
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