Stakeholders' Perspectives and Experiences on and Possible Consequences of the 2009 Charties and Societies Proclamation on NGOs and CSOs in Addis Ababa
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2010-05
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
A.A.U
Abstract
Ethiopia has a long history of informal community-based organizations but it took some
time for the formal civil society to take root during the imperial regime in Ethiopia, and
was severely restricted during the socialist derg regime. After the downfall of the derg,
it became a relatively better period with respect to the freedom of civil society activities
and their operational climate.
Through the ages, different governments have enacted their own laws and regulations
for the proper registration, coordination and administration of organizations in the third
sector. The icebreaker was the 1966 Associations Proclamation based on the then civil
code of Ethiopia. Other regulations to mention are the 1995 Guidelines for NGO
Operations and the 1999 NGOs Code of Conduct. Recently, the FDRE came up with a
new proclamation providing for the registration and regulation of charities and societies
in the country. The proclamation was met with mixed reactions, predominantly negative
from opposition parties, human rights watch dogs and the NGOj C50 community.
This research was undertaken to find out the actual fact on the ground regarding the
perspectives, experiences and possible consequences of the proclamation as per the
views of NGOs and C50s; government officials and parliament members; and
development practitioner researchers and journalists. The research used explanatory
and descriptive research methods. The findings of the research indicate that there are
indeed sizable disparities as to how the different respondent groups perceive the
proclamation: how important they think the proclamation is, the actual reason for the
government to come up with the proclamation at this time, how satisfied they are with
their actual experiences, whether they think the pre-enactment process was fair and
open to all, what they think of specific provisions and what they th ink would be the
effect of the proclamation and whether those effects are positive or negative. But, the
common ground that can be reached from their views on the issue is that there are
some areas where by each and every concerned party should work on more to make
the overall outcome better. Accordingly, based on the research's findings, conclusions
and recommendations were drawn.
The recommendations include that NGOs should be more proactive in their operations
to align themselves better with the proclamation's provisions, that the agency should
build more capacity to better meet the needs of its clientele, that the agency and the
NGOj C50 community should promote a spirit of cooperation between them, that if
possible some provisions have to be amended in the proclamation, that awareness
programs should be undertaken, that the NGOs and C50s should be given more time to
register, and finally that the agency should offer strategic assistance to organizations in
the third-sector.
Description
Keywords
Possible Consequences, Societies Proclamation