BY GETACHEW MINAS
The institutional capacity of domestic civil society is traditionally weak in Ethiopia and it is projected to remain fragile. It continues to be underdeveloped and somewhat misunderstood unless it rejuvenates itself in view of the current reality in the country. Those that functioned well are those who depended on the support they access from international NGOs operating in the country. In recent years, due to relative political liberalization, civil societies and NGOs have been able to operate in fulfilling their objectives in the country. Civil society is increasingly vibrant and becoming relevant to the nation’s political and economic revitalization. This includes recovery and regeneration of the private business sector. Similarly, academic freedom in various civil society entities is reinvigorated leading to the birth of democracy.
Likewise and correspondingly, the media are slowly gaining credibility, which they had lost during previous regimes that used them as mouthpieces, spokespersons and representatives. This was a great professional disgrace in the past. Actually, civil societies proved to be capable of delivering their services to the poor Ethiopians without any prejudices. The capacities of civil societies to address the complex development agenda have been growing and expanding.
Hundreds of national and international NGOs were officially registered with the government mainly to contribute to the development of the country. However, the operating space was replete with excessive regulations. In the past, the bureaucratic requirement could not create and improve the enabling environment for NGOs and civil society organizations to operate freely. Foreign development agencies are expected to assist the NGOs whenever they needed support.
These agencies, nevertheless, remain committed only in words, not serious about development schemes and their implementation. They rarely focused on building the institutional capacity of Ethiopia to engage in planned interventions. In reality, the civil society sector suffers from internal divisions and precludes cohesion around important public policy issues. Several studies provide a quick overview of the potential role of NGOs and other civil society actors in meeting the immense development challenges of Ethiopia.
It has been noticed that civil societies are trying to institutionalize fundamental changes whenever they are consulted by concerned government agencies on policy issues, structure and economic orientation. They may be consulted on human rights, family law, and ethics in government. These are springboards for the country’s transition from absolute dictatorship, command economy, and authoritarianism to democracy and economic liberalization. These are taken as positive inputs of civil societies and NGOs to the transition.
NGOs provide efficient mechanism for addressing poverty alleviation in Ethiopia. They have tried to address poverty reduction through reducing child malnutrition by assisting parents. They also tried to contribute to the reduction or eradication of illiteracy. NGOs made a strategic shift in emphasis from short-term relief to long-term development. This approach increased their acceptance and relevance to the Ethiopian reality. In the transitional period, these organizations proved to be flexible and changeable.
They began to emerge instrumental in preventing even greater destitution and loss of lives of the poor people. However, the civil society entities were slow to develop and spread across the country until the crises of famine occurred in Ethiopia. This provided a chance for the NGOs to operate autonomously until they were treated harshly by the previous governments.
The operations of NGOs spread throughout the country due to the rounds of famines that occurred fast.These incidents provided a semblance of legitimacy for the NGOs. But, they faced increasing pressure from various elements, including armed groups.Though they focused on relief operations, they faced political pressure groups. They provided relief assistance to the rebel groups under duress, coercion, threat and compulsion. This situation kept the NGOs at crossroads between rebel groups and the government.
They had to walk a tightrope, a slight mistake of which brings disaster to the relief operations. Those engaged in relief operations are forced to break their activities in view of the danger it implies. They may be forced to close down and leave the country for good. Ultimately, the losers are those poor people who seek assistance from anywhere.
Government agency responsible for relief operations plays a pivotal role in the coordination of assistance to the needy. These operations continue until the poor people of Ethiopia become self-reliant. This agency delivers a critical support to disaster prone areas at the early stage of the crises, mainly through coordinating relief activities. The agency continues its operations in cooperation with the drought affected local people.
The agency also operates in collaboration with NGOs that have rich experience in crises management and operation. The sheer size of the crises demands the cooperation of external partners or international counterparts that offer support to local NGOs, with focus on a shift from relief to long-term development in the country. However, it has been observed that there has been dominance of the sector by international entities that have lingered well into the current period.
Other factors in civil society groups and NGOs emerged from the wreckage they found themselves in. They have been rendered weak, disorganized and standing on opposite sides of the previous Ethiopian governments, as civil war raged across the country. Local NGOs were decidedly junior partners in these wars that led to a totally dysfunctional economy causing massive starvation. As a result, people perished in large numbers, without any humanitarian aid arriving. The aid has been stolen or blocked by the rebel groups from reaching the starving people on both sides of the battle field. The rebel groups also snatched vehicles, oil tankers and other facilities from reaching the starving people. Local NGOs made tremendous efforts against famine and massive population displacement.
Actually, the people in the northern part of Ethiopia where war is waged between rebel groups and the government have faced both famine and war. Whoever wins the war does not remove the famine immediately unless fully supported by foreign relief organizations. But, these entities come with double or triple missions apart from the relief one. They enter the country with open and hidden agendas. The latter one is filled with a mission to destabilize the federal government by creating disagreement on external resource allocation and distribution.
These issues are designed by external donors that intend to germinate and incubate disagreements between the regional states and the federal government that may go out of control. The external donors mostly use their trusted NGOs for allocating resources to the regions affected by war and the resultant famine. These organizations deliberately go against the government, whenever they felt it is weak to challenge them.
Various NGOs show divided loyalty to the federal government. Some of them tend to gamble on the weakness of the government. But, when the government becomes victorious, they tend to stick to its policy and directives. Similarly, both the local and international aid agencies succumb to the wishes of the winner. And they do the same in regions where the social and economic crises are acute.
The NGOs closely watch power centers that controlled valuable resources of Ethiopia and closely align themselves with them. New NGOs that are led by honest managers are bound to operate freely at the initial stage. They may operate contrary to the strategy of the government that addresses the social needs of the country. They finally redefine their roles related to the environment they find themselves in.
They begin to aband on their relief oper ations in favor of long-term develo pment in line with the goal and objectives of development plans of the government. They design their programs and projects to be endorsed by the government. In this manner, they find their role well-defined by the situation in the country. This is a strategy of survival that provides them with a kind of confidence that allows them to operate freely. Once settled, they pretend to succumb to the rules and regulations of the government on the role of NGOs.
Yet, they take secret instructions from their alien superiors, supervisors, controllers and overseers on how to fulfill their clandestine missions. These foreign forces may have several field operators that have to be coordinated in performing secret or open services. The field workers, mostly local and highly educated persons, are given instructions on how to operate. These workers wear different masks for diverse missions.
The local staff are employed or engaged by NGOs that serve the interests of foreign powers that either want to destabilize or assist the Ethiopian government. This is dependent on the submission of the government to the supremacist policies that are realized in the guise of development projects. These projects have horns, sharp or stunted, implemented differently in varying situations.
The problem with the local staff engaged in externally financed projects is that they may not be able to know the changing policies of alien powers. Being local, they are not trusted by their employers. Their duty is “not to ask but take orders” in fulfilling their daily assigned duties. They are, for example, instantly ordered to take a trip to the farthest corner of Ethiopia and collect information unrelated to their duties. They are like cogs in a machine, moving in different directions by the whims, impulses and fancies of the NGO manager.
Amazingly, in a country that is filled with corrupt personnel in the bureaucracy, the NGOs are relatively free from fraudulence, deceit, duplicity, dishonesty and deception. These behaviors are exhibited and displayed within the public sector, where some civil servants practice various and strange types of corruption. The exemplar duties of these foreign organizations operating in Ethiopia have to be adopted by those working along with them. In fact, this helps in detecting the goals, objectives and strategies of the so-called development projects as they are being implemented in Ethiopia. It is wise of the responsible agency dealing with the NGOs to be able to dissect the “Triple edged” strategy of foreign aid during inception, adoption and implementation of projects.
The three edges are aid, disruption and recovery. The first edge, aid comes in the form of grain that could not be replanted due to chemical processes in the country of origin. This elongates the duration of food aid dependency. The second edge is disruption of farming life which results in mass hunger. Once poor people are in a cycle of poverty, they do not see bright future in aid dependency. But, they are helpless to break the cycle by means of hard work, which is essentially traditional farming.
This style of farming needs at least a hectare of fertile land, draft animal, farm tools, storage facility, sheds and huts. But, this again is not a good practice for applying modern farming technology. In today’s Ethiopia, though late, a new agricultural system is being encouraged by the government in some rural areas.
In this system, farmers are advised by agricultural agents to combine their small farms for the purpose of applying tractors, combine harvesters, threshers, and reapers that raise farmer’s productivity per unit of land. Such efforts will eliminate or reduce poverty and hunger thereby diminishing any excuses for NGOs with disguised missions and intriguing roles to operate in Ethiopia anymore.
Editor’s Note: The views entertained in this article do not necessarily reflect the stance of The Ethiopian Herald
The Ethiopian Herald October 13/2022
