A new model for South African NGO`s to follow?
blurb:isstoday01Sep2008
1 September 2008: A new model for South African NGO’s to follow?
The Action for a Safe South Africa initiative, launched at a convention in Johannesburg last week, is aimed at ensuring greater civil society participation in the fight against crime. The initiative could well offer some clues as to the role and mode of operating ofNGO’s in South Africa – organisations that have become accustomed to their role of ‘informing policy’, consulting with government departments, assisting in capacity building and not criticising government too vigorously.
The role of NGO’s in South Africa has changed significantly since the end of apartheid. In the early 1990s, soon after the unbanning of the ANC, a conference was held at the World Trade Centre in Johannesburg. It was a face-to-face meeting of NGO’s and the ANC, to chart the course for the future of civil society/government interactions. Until then, with few exceptions, NGO’s had maintained an openly and intentionally antagonistic relationship with the state. This was based on the principled view that it was impossible to engage developmentally with an oppressive, undemocratic state. That being the case there was only one possible avenue for interaction with the state – to push it towards accepting that negotiations for democratic change were unavoidable and essential, while at the same time advocating fiercely in South Africa and internationally against the oppressive actions of the state. There were instances in which NGO’s developed strategic relationships with individuals representing the state, or with particular organs of government, but it was clear that the role of NGO’s was as watchdogs, advocates and activists.
The World Trade Centre conference was about how NGO’s should operate after democratic elections and how their relationship with the state would be defined. For the ANC leadership it was about ensuring that NGO’s would not be competing with the state for donor support, and about preventing NGO’s from undermining the democratic state during its infancy. This was not an easy message for all NGO’s to accept, and harder still for those amongst the NGO community who were cynical activists concerned about the affect diminishing the watchdog role of civil society would have on accountability. In the years that followed many of the organisations represented at that meeting ceased to exit, either because they could no longer find funding; because they no longer had a clearly defined role in the new dispensation; or because it was impossible to find skilled black staff who were sufficiently driven by passion to accept the mediocre salaries most NGO’s can afford to pay.
Nevertheless, since 1994 the NGO community has become accustomed to its role of ‘informing policy’. Indeed, we are only too aware of the fact that criticism of government departments is likely to lead to the door being closed for further interaction. In short we have moved from being watchdogs to lapdogs, leaving the media - in many instances staffed by increasingly junior reporters - to bite back when government falls short on its commitments. Indeed, since relevance in the NGO sector is measured to a large degree by the access an organisation has to government agencies, departments and politicians, fostering positive working relationships has been competitive - almost as competitive as the process of gaining access to the limited resources of donors.
The Treatment Action Campaign, Jubilee South Africa and the Landless People’s Movement stepped, with varying levels of success, into the gap left by the tamed NGO community - and this seemed appropriate. Yet, since we are fourteen years into the development of the new state, and since there are a number of very serious matters that draw into question the commitment of the ruling party to accountability, the time seems right for civil society to once again assess its role and mode of operating.
The Action for a Safe South Africa initiative is rallying NGOs, research institutes, community-based organisations, political figures and big business to address crime. It is informed by the view that the criminal justice system alone cannot be responsible for bringing down the high levels of crime, and that civil society has to work actively to reduce socio-economic inequality, develop social cohesion in our divided society and ensure access to opportunities for all young people.
From this, it seems that the answer about the way forward seems to lie somewhere between activism and pragmatism: a good measure of both combined with action. This action is a recognition that fixing the broken systems that the apartheid legacy and poor management in many sectors of the civil service has left, requires a joining of forces between those with resources in the private sector and those with skills, knowledge and capacity in civil society. In other words, that the responsibility for fixing the problems left by apartheid, is not governments’ alone.
The initiative’s self-stated goals are to address the socio-economic causes of crime and build on a vision of a society in which, as their Charter states, ‘every South African contribute[s] to making South Africa safe through sustained science-based, inclusive partnerships and actions’. For those who recoil in healthy cynicism from this obviously idealistic goal, which is difficult to achieve, perhaps the fact that organisations involved in the initiative have at least agreed, on paper, to not duplicate the work of organisations and structures already engaging in activities to this end, nor to compete with them, is something to hold onto. Indeed, a healthy cynicism should prevail as this initiative unfolds and it should be called to account if it remains little more than a Petri dish of ideas, but perhaps the mix of organisations, individuals and corporates is right for the time, and perhaps South African society can be motivated this time not by anger at the failures of the state but by a positive vision for the future.
Chandre Gould, ISS Crime and Justice Programme, Pretoria Office
