Background and Context

As Civil society organizations (CSOs) embrace the challenges of this 21s century, their success rests as much in recognizing their limitations as it does in exploiting their full potential. They must actively strive to ensure that democracy and participation – these admirable qualities, for which they have earned a reputation - are adhered to and practiced among themselves, regardless of gender, race, nationality, religion, age, or income. This precondition, and the organizational transparency to verify it, is essential for CSOs to legitimize their voice and validate their claims. The United Nations Millennium Declaration, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), as well as the UN Panel of Eminent Persons on United Nations - Civil Society Relations, recognize civil society's critical role in advocating "bottom-up" changes that are essential to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. The efforts of the Office of the Special Adviser on Africa (OSAA) to strengthen African NGOs will continue to support this process. The first edition of the Directory of African NGOs was published in 1999. It was updated in 2002 and 2004. The number of NGOs listed increased from 1,896 in 1999 to 2459 in 2002. A total of 3776 organizations will feature in third edition 2004.

How to use the directory

The organizations are arranged by country, and under each country are listed alphabetically according to their official name within the country. The order of countries follows the English alphabet. The text appears in either English or French, regardless of the official language used by the NGO, as, in most cases, these were the two languages used in the questionnaire.* The main menu, which serves as table of contents, appears only in English.

Each description gives general information, including the name of the organization, the year of creation, the type of organization, the contact person and address. It also includes the NGO's purpose, its major activities, an illustration of the organization's work, the international and local languages used in its work, financial sources and the list of networks, umbrella organizations or federations with which the NGO is affiliated.

Methodology

In the preparation of the third edition, questionnaires were mailed to organizations together with a copy of the second edition. The revision was based on information updates from NGOs already listed, while other NGOs provided questionnaire responses for the first time.

Annexes

Six annexes follow the descriptive section:

1. List of organizations in alphabetical order, by country.

2. List of organizations grouped by the following priority action areas: agriculture, health, HIV / AIDS, education, environment, poverty eradication, conflict resolution, micro-finance, and youth and women organizations.

3. List of organizations by category.

4. List of networking organizations at regional and international levels (Affiliates) **.

5. List of NGO focal points.

6. The questionnaire used to collect information, in both English and French.

Note of Appreciation

A special note of thanks goes to all representatives of NGOs and networks who cooperated with us in this information-sharing initiative. We also like to acknowledge the efforts of the UN/OSAA team that spearheaded this project under the coordination of Ruth Bamela Engo, Senior Economic Affairs Officer at OSAA. This team consisted of Shamsuz Zaman, Isabelle Martinez, Rosanne Greco, Ved Arya, and Yvanne Joseph.

Success in strengthening African civil society depends on promoting partnerships and linking resources. While a database of this kind could never be considered complete, our hope is that readers would create new partnerships and reinforce ongoing ones, share information, and explore new approaches to development. This can be facilitated only if organizations can readily communicate with one another. The challenge ahead is to continue to make use of this tool.

* Exceptions relate to a number of youth organizations referred to OSCAL in 1999 by the Youth Forum, where all information appears only in English despite the fact that other primary international languages are used.

** African NGOs under the latter category that would like their entries to contain more details, may provide such detailed information for the fourth edition by returning the questionnaire annexed to this database.