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Mbeki's Attacks on NGOs Undermine Civil
Society's Right and Duty to Criticise
By Terence Smith, Ismail Davids and Glenn Hollands*
Cape Times
October 25, 2005At least twice recently, President Thabo Mbeki is reported to have questioned whether NGOs in South Africa are being manipulated by foreign donors and the extent to which our civil society is indepen-dent. As a network of NGOs commit-ted to democracy and free speech, we feel compelled to respond to his attack on the credentials of NGOs.
The president's statements were made in the context of the coming African Union peer review of South Africa and civil society's push for greater representation on the panel to review the state of governance in the country. Mbeki's views reiterate government's ambivalent line on NGOs, particularly on matters related to contested development strategy and NGOs' oversight role.
The roots of government distrust of NGOs predate the Mbeki era. In a speech to the ANC's 50th National Conference in December 1997, Nelson Mandela, usually renowned for supporting a strong independent civil society, made a scathing attack in which he accused elements within the NGO sector of working with foreign donors to undermine the government and its development programme, and of lacking a popular constituency or membership base among the population.
Mbeki's latest remarks have again stirred up the debate about the role of NGOs and their relationship to the state, donors and communi-ties. We respect the president's right to raise this important debate as it is something upon which government and NGOs need to constantly reflect. What concerns us, however, are government's repeated unsubstanti-ated statements about the agendas of "certain" NGOs and donors that cast doubt on the integrity of all NGOs and foreign donor agencies, many of which have shown their commit-ment to democracy and development over several decades. As the views of the president command considerable weight, his generalised critique serves to under-mine the credibility and legitimacy of NGOs in the eyes of communities with which they work.
The concern about foreign donors setting the agenda of civil society organisations is valid, here as in all developing countries. It is wrong to imply that this is necessarily the case, though, and that NGOs cannot assert their independence. It is also naive to assume that donors enter developing countries without agendas. However, these are not necessarily sinister and usually align with mainstream aims and values within South African policy and law. In the area of governance, for example, few would dispute the goals that many donors are helping South African NGOs pursue - such as consolidating and deepening democracy, promoting participatory development, protecting human rights, and promoting clean and accountable governance.
The obvious point must also be made that the government itself is the recipient of large amounts of foreign donor support. Does this make government the puppet of foreign donors? Are these donors shaping the government's agenda? The difficulties faced by NGOs in trying to get financial support from government are well-known. For many NGOs, foreign support is indispensable to sustaining services and support for many poor communities, which find little relief within government programmes.
There appears to be a view among influential elements in government that NGOs seek merely to criticise and discredit whatever government (read "ruling party") does. This political insecurity and the presump-tion that NGOs should be pliant servants of the government's development agenda is unsophisti-cated at best and suggests a worrying propensity for the centralisation of power and an increasingly intolerant form of political leadership.
It is important to acknowledge that many NGOs (and foreign donors) played a significant role in supporting the struggle against apartheid and in bringing the government to power. In our free and open democracy, NGOs and other organs of civil society have the right to criticise government when they believe it is not abiding by the letter and spirit of the law, and where it is not adhering to its constitutional obligations. In our political context of one-party dominance and a largely ineffective parliamentary opposi-tion, it should be acknowledged that political pluralism rests heavily with the voices from below expressed through a diverse range of NGOs and other civil society organisations.
Government has the right to voice concerns about NGOs and others within civil society. We need a robust, vibrant dialogue between the government and civil society. However, unsubstantiated criticisms of NGOs that smack of political expediency do little to enrich a constructive dialogue.
About the Authors:Smith and Davids are researchers at the Foundation for Contemporary Research in Cape Town. Hollands is manager of the Local Government Transformation Project at Afesis-corplan in East London. They write on behalf of the Good Governance Learning Network, which is a network of NGOs working to promote greater citizen partic-ipation, transparency, accountability and a pro-poor focus within local government in South Africa.
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