Why government and NGOs aren’t friends, and what not to do about it

NGO Coordination Board Executive Director Fazul Mahamed. The national government and non-governmental organisations in Kenya are not good friends. PHOTO | FILE |

What you need to know:

  • There are some non-governmental organisations that thrive on exploiting desperate groups.
  • NGOs conflict with government because of doing what the government ought to do; and doing what the government may not want them to do.

It is common knowledge the national government and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Kenya are not good friends. To put it bluntly, they are not comfortable bedfellows. And they have never been friends. Frosty relationship is a good description of their engagement.

NGOs generally operate between the government and the private sector. They are part of the broader civil society groups.

They are neither government nor private sector. They form to often do things that the government is not doing. They also form to complement government efforts in certain sectors. They also insulate ordinary people from the profit-effects of the private sector.

But there are also those that form without public interest. These are profit musketeers. They do anything for money. They have grown in number in tandem with decaying moral values. They pray money. They are briefcase organisations. We have one person or one family organisations.

There are some that thrive on exploiting desperate groups. NGOs forming to exploit the unemployed youth are good examples in this type.

Strictly speaking these are not NGOs. They are the uncivil lot. They do not fit in the category of NGOs or even the broader civil society groups. They are just that – uncivil enterprises.

Because NGOs and the broader civil society groups advocate specific policies their efforts can come into conflict with the government. They conflict with government because of doing what the government ought to do; and doing what the government may not want them to do.

POOR RELATIONS

Many governments across the globe are now shrinking the space for NGO operations. They are restrictive on NGOs. One recent study by Kendra Dupuy and colleagues point out that about 40 countries have poor relations with NGOs. The study points out that the risk of rolling back NGO issues increases with frequency of competitive elections. One characteristic feature of the 40-plus countries is that they are “developing”.

They are not part of the “developed” world. They are in the category of the poor and low-middle income countries. Kenya and its neighbours on all borders fall in this category.

Governments in some of these countries have moved against NGOs by using restrictive laws and policy conditions on foreign funding. They have passed laws to restrict the funding of NGOs. They have also placed restrictions on what the organisations should do.

Interestingly, some of these restrictive laws were — and are — introduced in these countries around election time. These governments do so because more often than not some of the leaders lack political confidence. They view NGOs as part of the opposition. They crack the whip on NGOs to weaken their political rivals.

It is amazing how they borrow the law and pass it from one country to another. Without exception, they all have sought to crackdown on NGOs using legislation they borrow from one another. A poor and restrictive legislation is drafted in one country and quickly passes on to the neighbour or another region.

One particular event in the late 1980s has remained to shape the relations between NGOs and the government. From this event, we can discern reasons why the government is uncomfortable with NGOs, and why the organisations prefer to keep a distance from the government.

In 1987 the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK), invited President Mwai Kibaki, then a Cabinet minister in President Daniel arap Moi’s government, to their annual meeting. This was held at a time of protests against queue voting system introduced by the government. The Church was the first to protest this rule. It called the rule a “false start”. This was verbalised more in the annual meeting of NCCK.

PRAISED THE CHURCH

Mr Kibaki was candid in his speech. He praised the Church. He said “a modern church is expected to be outspoken because other groups must be cautious”. He proceeded to advise that “we must have some organisations that speak up for the right of men regardless of what happens tomorrow ... I cannot think of any other organisation or better place than the Church to play this role”.

The government interpreted these developments as a declaration of “conflict” by NGOs. The response was immediate. By 1988 a few individuals within the Office of President began to think about how to “tame” the errant NCCK and NGOs that were receiving foreign funding.

NGOs, on their own motion, had requested for a supportive policy legislation. Unknown to them, the Office of the President hijacked the process to draft the law. The intention was to restrict foreign funding of NGOs and control their registration and activities.

This was the beginning of the NGOs Coordination Act 1990. The law was aimed to gain momentum with the re-introduction of multiparty politics at the time.

This history points out that the need for political control of NGOs is a big motivation for these laws and restrictions imposed on NGOs. In all the countries that have adopted restrictive approaches to NGOs, donor funding to the organisations has been increasing. There is fear that the funding would empower the NGOs and increase their influence.

Secondly NGOs use language of “change” or improving “things”. They often champion public issues that are incidentally supported by the opposition. Those in power, therefore, view NGOs as aligned to the opposition. They crack on them because they, too, are part of the rivals. But they do so for self interests.

Those who lose power — even as individuals — always begin by approaching the same NGOs for support. They immediately begin to court them thinking they have influence over society or they can protect them from any new government. There are hilarious and usually humorous stories told about how some individuals in Kanu rushed to different NGOs in early 2003 asking for “cover”.

FOREIGN FUNDING

Relations deteriorate also because the principles of foreign funding to NGOs are not necessarily in the language that the government prefers. Furthermore, funding is always seen as empowering NGOs to be critical of the government. This is not a bad thing for any government that seeks to improve its accountability to the citizens.

The truth is NGOs enhance development in any society. They do so by enhancing the space for freedoms people enjoy. This in turn provides more choices for people to make in what they do. In fact, development in any society is about improvement of freedoms. It is about what Amatya Sen refers to as removing the obstacles to improvement of people’s lives.

Those obstacles include limitations on the choices that people can make in any context. NGOs constitute those groups that advocate removal of these obstacles to development.

Freedom is just an end of development. It is not a means to development. Indeed it is today widely acknowledged that countries develop fast if they approach development from a freedom perspective than when they concentrate on economic growth alone.

Rise in personal incomes, industrialisation, and improving growth are important for development but they are not the end of development. They are a means of achieving development.

REMOVING OBSTACLES

On the other hand, freedom is the end of development. It concerns removing obstacles that prevent people from enjoying themselves. These obstacles include poverty, poor economic opportunities, intolerance, and neglect of public services. Freedom is about enhancing people’s choices in terms of how to remove these obstacles.

Poverty, for instance, denies people the freedom to satisfy ones needs. It denies one an opportunity to live a better live. It leads to people have short life expectancy because life is harsh for them to live longer. Restrictions on freedoms then means restricting the freedom to participate in economic life of society.
Whether economic or political, freedoms are the same. They impact on society in the same manner. Political freedoms are themselves effective in promoting economic development because they are intertwined with enabling people to make appropriate choices to improve their conditions.

Countries that have higher levels of political freedoms appear also to have higher life expectancy. There may be no strong correlation but this is also a pointer to the importance of freedom in the society. Creating room for NGOs to enhance this space for development is a better approach than restricting the space in which they operate.

The dividends of development are found in an environment of freedoms. We have evidence in Kenya dating back to the period between 2003 and 2006.

Prof Kanyinga is based at the Institute for Development Studies (IDS), University of Nairobi; [email protected]