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NGOs Urged to Participate in Land Reform - NGOs - Global policy Forum NGOs Urged to Participate in Land Reform
By Godfrey Mutsago
Sunday Mirror
October 13, 2002
The civic society in Zimbabwe has been challenged to include issues of agrarian reform to their bona fide operations as a way of filling in the gaps that exists between different players in the land reform exercise.
Professor Sam Moyo, an expert on agricultural policy, told the National Association of Non-government Organisations NANGO on Friday that NGOs could start playing a part in the land reform process. This would not be construed as yielding to pressure on their part, but a genuine response to a critical challenge facing the nation, he said.
Among issues that needed urgent attention included solving the plight of displaced farm workers, AIDS pandemic on farms, conservation of the environment and provision of farming inputs in the ‘gigantic agrarian programme’. The advice has come at a time when NGOs are under fire from government, which has accused them of taking sides and working hand in hand with the opposition. Mistrust is already rife between the state and civic groups. Government has already demanded a code of conduct and ethics on which the NGOs operate.
Moyo said it was unfortunate that the government no longer took kindly even the good services civil society was providing. “Yet there are so many issues the NGOs are addressing, such as creating AIDS awareness, which is a great issue,” he said, adding that there had developed mistrust between the government and civil society, which must be resolved. Moyo said individual civic organisations should consider focusing on the land reform programme where many issues were going on unnoticed.
He challenged civil society to play a role in matters that affected agriculture in Zimbabwe. “‘You have not done much on the plight of the displaced farm workers. You have not adequately addressed the problems the displaced families are going through,” lamented Moyo. The researcher called on civil society to tackle agricultural issues both at local and international levels, projecting problems that must be addressed within the industry. “You need to be critical on issues that affect agriculture both locally and globally to ensure that special attention is given to areas of concern,” Moyo said. He urged civic society, especially those groups that are engaged in rural development, to put their weight behind the agrarian reform in the provision of training, research and extension services.
Moyo accused NGOs of having weak policies on matters that affected farming and agriculture as a whole. He challenged the organisations to adopt and define a role they should play to draw the attention of players in agriculture to issues that are demanding and should be solved immediately.
Responding to comments and questions from participants at the expo, Moyo challenged the civic organisations to take up agriculture as an additional issue on their priority list while they pursued what they had in their terms of reference. Addressing the same occasion, Dr Enoch Moyo, the chief economist of a Germany non-government organisation, Friedrich Neuman Foundation, challenged civic organisations to prove their worth by cultivating a business culture in order to overhaul the beggar mentality that dogs most organisations. He noted that many civic organisations nurtured a beggar attitude and at times were not creative enough to portray a sense of self-reliance.
The Friedrich Neuman Foundation has funded several civic organisations and some government programmes since independence.
Moyo said it was now time for local civic organisations to develop and adopt self – reliance as a means of earning a living if they plan to live longer. ‘This is a time you gear yourselves to sell your products to each other and earn some income for your living. In developed countries, many NGOs have started to sell their products and are becoming self-reliant,’ said Moyo.
He gave an example of a Germany organisation, GZL, which he said was self-reliant through selling services in development-related programmes in the Asian countries. He challenged the NGOs to form alliances and team up to deliver their set goals. ‘Much of your work, non-government organisations, is directed mainly at rural development. There is need to identify, for instance, areas where a number of non-governmental organisations are operating together. Then it would be wise for them to devise a method in which they worked together, each organisation providing its product.’ ‘The NGOs must start to re-assert themselves to attract donors. They should aim to attract and entice support from donors, most of whom are supported by governments and other corporate organisations. ‘Unless individual non-governmental organisations articulated themselves, proving their efficiency, they are not likely to get support from donors,’ said Moyo.
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