ugnet_:

[Mulindwa Edward]

Policy Brief Series,No.1 Leadership, Civil Society and Democratization in Uganda (1986- 2000)    Nathan .Byamukama                                                                                       1. Introduction Civil society is crucial to the promotion of human rights and the general process of democratisation and good governance in every country. However, the degree to which the NGOs in a particular country influence state policy is dependent on the character and nature of the state itself and the society in which the NGOs are operating. There is need for a reasonable balance between the activities of the state and those of the civil society for democratisation, good governance and human rights to prevail. NGOs are considered to be more efficient in the development of a universal culture of human rights to rectify the legacy of oppression, dictatorship and violations that had characterised African states. However, civil society and particularly human rights NGOs are underdeveloped owing to the- history and character of the State in Africa. Uganda was not an exception to this phenomenon. There was literally no civil society organisation in the period between 1971-1985. This was a period of extreme uncertainty. Since 1986, the National Resistance Movement (NRM) regime created a relatively free environment for the enjoyment of human rights and for the civil society to flourish to unprecedented proportions. By 2001, there were more than 4000 registered NGOs in Uganda. They are operating in a relatively free environment but the state in Uganda seems to have a low opinion of the NGOs' performance, especially the human rights NGOs', in  the democratization process. Civil society organizations  were seen as either an offshoot of the old divisive political party system and military dictatorships, or as a group with sheer excitement of the dominant  ideology of pluralism propagated by the Western world, which the state was opposed to. The state has either co-opted some of the NGO leadership (e.g., ACFODE) or has drawn the organisations into its hegemonic politics (e.g., NUDIPU). Those that have not been captured within the state politics of power (e.g., FHRl) have not escaped the hegemonic influence and control of the external, rather than local, donors whose human rights interests are often at variance with the local priorities. A close look at some local NGOs reveals the existence of generic problems that  contribute to the relative weaknesses in human rights, e.g., the lack of adequate experience and skills in human rights protection, promotion and advocacy and deficiency in funding for consistent  and   persistent work. This is partly due to poor skills in drafting project proposals or fundraising. There is also a non- representative character of NGOs apparent in their confined membership or location, and hence lack of efficiency and impact. The pecuniary motivation of some NGOs, rather than genuine dedication to human rights causes, sometimes generating intense competition among them, undoubtedly leads to fragmenting the human rights cause. The extent to which some of the organisations have or have not been successful has depended largely on their leadership potential to mobilise, raise funds, advocate, lobby and organise both internally and externally. Of the three NGOs, i.e., Action for Development (ACFODE), National Union of Disabled Persons in Uganda (NUDIPU) and the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI), only ACFODE exhibits consistent  national and democratic tendencies. NUDIPU's leadership started espousing professional ethics and a discipline of work in financial management, recruitment and national outlook after several years of mismanagement and trials. Three  of  them  have, however, not yet been able to separate their presumably independent NGO status with the state. FHRI has also been criticised for being undemocratic and lacking a national character in its structure and  personnel. FHRI has, however, been learning from its previous mistakes and has been consistently improving its methods of leadership, structure and  advocacy.     However,   like  all   others, it   has   the challenge of identifying local sources of funds for sustainability . 2. Policy Recommendations 1. There is a need for governments, particularly the government of Uganda, to appreciate the weaknesses of NGOs engaged in human rights promotion activities. Governments should encourage freedom of expression, flexibility of action and liberty of movement, which in certain circumstances would allow the NGOs to perform tasks which the governments and intergovernmental organisations are unable or even unwilling to perform.  2. There is a need for the government of Uganda and NGOs' to have a framework of co-operation in order to ensure that there is compliance with international human rights instruments. The NGOs must pressurise and insist that the government writes initial and periodic reports to the UN; the NGOs, if not satisfied, must also submit shadow reports. 3. The NGO Bill that is being considered is highly criticised by the NGO community. It is aimed at controlling  the  NGOs  rather  than  providing them with more freedom. While too much freedom can also be disastrous to society, there is a need to consider balancing the freedom of the NGOs without sacrificing state control for wider public interests: Widely acceptable criteria for assessing human rights NGOs should be agreed upon for the re-alignment of existing programmes and for the design of human rights-based civil society programs. 4. The government should put a mechanism in place and establish a system for ensuring that there is human rights advocacy at all levels in society, and improve the operational capacity of NGOs, especially human rights organisations, in order to promote the rights and freedoms of the people. 5. There is an urgent need for building the capacity of civil society NGOs that can deliver services in an effective, efficient and sustainable manner. This will require increased resource allocation, especially since some of these NGOs are donor- driven, project- oriented, and urban-based and more often than not poorly managed. 6. NGOs should start focusing on domestic social base in the form of an entrepreneur class that would support their agendas and  interests  to enable  them to push the interests of the indigenous population, establish priorities and work according to them. 7. Strengthening civil society NGOs is an essential element to their growth. The success of civil society NGOs largely depends on their leadership. There is a need in Uganda to have a clear position on a collaborative arrangement whereby the relationship between the government and NGOs should not compromise the independence of the latter. The government, for example, should as a policy consider allocating a budget to those NGOs that have established reputable records in their promotion and protection of human rights. ********* A scholar speaking at the seventh annual conference of Development Policy Management Forum (DPMF) here at the UNCC said that Africa is "a continent following a wrong vision and others, those who are feeding on our ignorance, impoverishment, greediness of the few, naivety and stupidity are helping us follow the wrong vision." Marie M. Shaba, Chief Guardian, the Marcus Garvey Foundation, Tanzania and Chair of Tanzania Association of NGOs (Tango) made her remark on "The Challenges of Globalization to Democratic Governance in Africa: what Role for Civil Society and other Stakeholders?" a theme chosen for this year's conference, which brought together researchers, representatives of civil society organizations, government officials and donor agencies from 16 sub-Sahara African countries. Marie said that the dream of making Africa fit in the global system as an equal has never worked, it is not working and will take very long time to work, "by then we shall all be slaves, our resources will be finished ---" Marie strongly commented that Africa was told that to benefit and be integrated in the global structures/institutions, it has to fulfil certain conditions such as to build the capacity of certain executives to understand how these institutions operate and how Africans can negotiate within their systems, increase foreign investment and technical aid, eradicate corruption and poor governance, and maintain peace and security. She, however, challenged these conditions when she asked, "Why do we want to be integrated into systems that are unjust, systems that don't care whether we live or perish? Who says we need technical aid, why and for whose benefit really?, What is the purpose of insisting about the need for a committed visionary leadership and how we get them? And why are we not talking about equal rights and justice as the preconditions for peace and security?" Marie believes that the vision of African leaders gives the people hope on one hand and discourages them [the people] when it comes to the strategy of dependency they have chosen. Hence, she says, we [Africans] need to ask ourselves a few basic questions such as: How come that after four decades of independence, we are still up against underdevelopment, economic dependency, human rights violation and most of all a foreign development model? How come for nearly four decades now, we have failed to organize as a continent? How come the West is not ready to let go power relations? Further elaborating the need for Africa to have its own model, Marie stated that the Western political and economic development model we have faithfully adopted was designed to benefit industrialized countries. "Through this model, the West had created institutions that excluded a large part of the population from benefiting. To date, nothing has basically changed, the majority are still lagging behind, and there is still male, racial and class domination," she says, adding that the Western political and economic development model has created for us economic dependency. Speaking about how unfair globalization is becoming for Africa's democratic governance, Marie said Africans are told that globalization is making the world a small village, and we all should become part of it. But, she said, "we all know there is no justice and equality in the global economic and political structures those who control the institutions give us funding, technical assistance and train us so that we can conform to the systems as structured by them, this aid is supply driven, not demand driven." She believes that capitalists use more sophisticated means today than before. Instead of the colonial army and administration coming to the colonies, she said, we have the World Bank and IMF doing it by remote control. The conference, which was concluded on Wednesday, also discussed the role of other stakeholders such as, political parties, unions, military and the government, in safeguarding and consolidating democratic governance in Africa in the face of the challenges from globalization. Prof. Ali Mazrui, Director, Institute of Global Cultural Studies, USA, Dr, Kinfe Aabreha, President, Ethiopian International Institute for Peace and Development and Dr. Frene Ginwage, Speaker of the National Assembly, Republic of South Africa attended the conference.        The Mulindwas communication group "With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy"