ADDIS ABABA-Leaders of the Ethiopian civic societies expressed desire to play a meaningful and constructive role for the implementation of the ongoing broad-based reforms that aim to improve the socio-economic and political conditions of the country.
Office of the Prime Minister staged yesterday a consultative meeting with leaders and representatives of civic societies and professional associations and briefed the latter about the reform’s developments and future directives in areas such as democratic system, peace and stability as well as macroeconomic issues.
During the occasion, the participants applauded the role the government has played to enhance the role and contribution of civic societies in development and its decision to revise the previous Civic Societies Proclamation that was identified as
problematic and hugely constrained their operations. According to participants, civic societies have an immense role for knowledge and experience transfer for the success of political and economic reforms and called on the government to put in place a conducive environment for the country could benefit more from this huge potential.
The government was also urged to incorporate the views of stakeholders, in particular civic societies and professionals associations in policy formulation in bid to maximize their contribution to poverty eradication and success of development goals.
The incumbent also needs to pay attention to address the bureaucratic and systematic challenges the civic societies have been encountering and modernize the service delivery. Lauding the government’s initiative to public-private partnership, the participants stressed that establishing public- civic societies partnership is also something worth equal consideration.
It is crucial to shun the wrong depiction of societies as beggar institutions and rather treat them as active development agents. Furthermore, the participants expressed desire to contribute positive role in the upcoming General Election and called on the incumbent to pave ways for them to take part in the awareness creating activities at grassroots level.
The civic societies also expressed desire to play active role in supporting government’s efforts to ensure rule of law and to become part of commissions the government would establish to maintain law and order.
Questions related with economic inclusivity of persons with physical disability and other national issues were raised by the participants and replies were given by Deputy Persecutor General, Dr. Gedion Timotheus and Senior Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister, Mamo Mihretu. It was indicated that similar discussion would be staged for civic societies in the presence of Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed.
The Ethiopian Herald July6/2019
BY BILAL DERSO
