CIVIL SOCIETY -PART OF THE PROBLEM OR PART OF THE SOLUTION?

Is Civil Society part of the problem or part of the solution?

By Dumisani O. Nkomo

A number of people who have read my articles have challenged me on the role that Civil Society plays or should play or is  failing to play in nation building. Civil Society Organizations by their nature play a critical role in influencing policy generation, public accountability, sustainable development and civic awareness. However in spite of the mushrooming of literally thousands of civic groups throughout the country we need to ask ourselves whether there has been a corresponding impact resulting in increased democratization and social transformation. I will attempt to write this article in the first person plural in order to engender a sense of collective responsibility having been a civic activist and practitioner for over 15 years.

We as civil society have distinguished ourselves as masters of reaction and issue inertia as we seem to be in the same place where we were in ten years ago. The main brief of C.SO’s has become that of responding to ZANU P.F, Mugabe and human rights violations. We continue to address the same issues we were addressing ten years ago using the same methods but expecting different results. Civil society actions have become so predictable such that I wonder whether serious people still take us seriously We continue to be fat on description and thin on prescription, we continue majoring on what ZANU P.F and Mugabe do and not on what we can and should do. The typical civil society conference is likely to come up with resolutions to condemn violence, issue a press statement, form a steering committee, meet the SADC mediator or the principals, hold an all stakeholders conference and the like. Yes this is what we do as C.S.O‘s and most of the resolutions are correct but what we lack is the requisite strategy to get to the desired goals. The result of this poverty of fresh strategies is that we continue to describe the problem without the faintest clue on what should be done about it. Our role has been reduced to documenting human rights violations instead of stopping them. Our advocacy consists of verbose and long winded press statements lambasting the government and endless all stakeholders meetings, scenario planning meetings, regional consultative meetings and about three to four trips to SADC, the A.U and one or two European countries.

Our definition of civic education in rural areas is targetted workshops focusing on known activists in Bulawayo City, Gwanda Municipality, Mutare, Gweru urban and Marondera town. Our work with remote rural communities is scant and ineffective. Our programming in civic education and citizen participation wrongly premised on “hit and run activities” with no long term impact or effect and yet we expect things to change. Yes we continue on our predictable path of doing the same things the same way and expecting different results and being disappointed when we get the same results. Yes we as civil society are part of the problem but we can be part of the solution and we are part of the solution.

Some of the reasons why we have not been effective as civic organizations include the following:

1. Many civic organizations have become appendages of political parties. Instead of agenda setting we have agendas set by political parties and supporting partners,

2. Failure to influence donor trends and priorities,

3. Failure to read international politics – for example a simple thing such as what did the change of government in the United Kingdom entail for Zimbabwe? Instead our approach is business as usual without due regard to possibilities of shift in foreign policy,

4. Competition for constituencies and turf especially in urban areas,

5. Competition for scarce resources resulting in 90% of the C.S.O’s spending 80% of their time looking for resources and getting 20% of the resources and spending 10 % of their time implementing projects and the remainder of the time accounting for funds, writing reports etc. The core business of C.S.Os has become resource mobilization and not programme implementation and this is no fault of civic organizations because times are tough,

6. Skills flight leading to weak institutional memory and capacity,

7. Lack of institutional funding leading to organizations having huge programmes run by weak institutions and Zimbabwe needs strong democratic institutions,

8. The mushrooming of so many C.S.O‘s is a problem in itself,

9. Lack of personal safety for C.S.O operatives, high stress levels and absence of job security resulting in skills flight, fatigue, diminishing returns and in effectiveness,

10. Poor co-ordination of so called umbrella organizations which receive a lot of basket funding which rarely trickles down to member organizations in the form of services or capacity enhancement.

There are four key factors that are the foundation to the effectiveness of civil society and its agenda of agenda setting and these are:

1. The need for visionary civil society leaders and organizations. There are already numerous vision documents that have been produced by the church and civil society which are gathering dust because of our propensity of abandoning our vision and chasing whatever new issues crop up. These vision documents include “The Zimbabwe We Want” produced by the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe, the Catholic Bishops Conference and the Zimbabwe Council of Churches. Other documents include the “Democracy Charter” and other civil society blueprints which are rapidly becoming yellow prints because they are gathering dust in some God forsaken cabinet. Vision will enable us to set the pace, to identify what is priority and to define and set the agenda in terms of the broad social, economic and political issues that need to be addressed.

2. Developing value systems – most civic groups are founded upon fundamental belief systems, ideologies, worldviews, philosophies or value systems. Unfortunately most civic groups are no longer driven by what they believe to be right but whatever can bring in the most donor funding or resources. Civic groups should be able to challenge political parties, public institutions and officials on the basis of values not personalities, inclinations or political affiliations. We should be able condemn ZANU PF when it does wrong and M.D.C – T, M.D.C or ZAPU when they do wrong but instead we tend to take sides with individual parties or interests outside of our value systems. This has eroded the credibility of C.S.O‘s and their capacity or ability to influence political, legislative and development processes and agendas.

3. Developing Relevant and Effective Intervention strategies – civil society organizations need to develop value adding, relevant and sustainable intervention strategies based on local experiences but also informed by global perspectives and best practices. Models which need to be reviewed include advocacy and lobbying models, peace building packages, civic awareness projects and concepts of community development. Some text book interventions and methodologies lifted from some professor’s book in America or Europe may not work in our context and civil society needs to begin to challenge concepts and models that do not work in our context. There is need for homegrown approaches to peace-building, advocacy and civic awareness.

4. Building alternative funding and resource generation models – donor funding can be very useful if used efficiently to resource sustainable initiatives which build the capacity of both the community and the organization that implements the programme. However if wrongly applied it could result in wastage of resources on high cost and low impact short term projects which are impressive for donors but do not contribute in any way to  long term democratization and transformation. Civic groups need to explore alternative funding models that tap into partnerships with corporates that benefit from advocacy activities of civics. This can only be possible in the medium to long term as the economy is in distress at the moment. I have discovered that smaller, under -funded organizations tend to do better than huge organizations which are thin on ideas, creativity and flexibility. Somehow they have ways of quickly mobilizing resources for effective community led interventions.

More practical activities include:

1.       Focus on grassroots civic education which will remove the culture of panic reaction to elections, constitution making or budget making as communities would already have soft skills to participate in such processes. Contrary to last minute obsession with elections and voter education a few months before elections which has been the case for the past ten years. Imagine if we had focused on these long term interventions for the past ten years instead of the so called high impact short term projects which if cumulatively measured do not have the effect of transforming communities? Do we honestly think for example that the road show or one workshop will change the mindset of a rural woman or man who has known nothing but repression since birth? Development partners need to also involve implementing partners when they develop country strategies or priorities not just for window dressing or political purposes but so that they can have value for money through smart funding.

2.       Partnerships with broader civil society such as academic institutions who can play a major role in research and development which can undergird the programming of civic organizations.

3.       Focusing on things that we can do and not setting impossible goals that we cannot attain as Steve Covey prescribes when unpacking his theory of “circle of influence and circle of concern” in his bestselling book: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. In this way we will be more effective

Civil society organizations can certainly be part of the solution because together we can make it “Mayibuye iZimbabwe “

Dumisani is the chief executive officer of Habakkuk Trust and principal spokesperson of the Matabeleland Civil Society Consortium

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