From Africa Recovery, Vol.11#4 (March 1998), page 14 (part of Special Feature on the 2-year review of UNSIA)

Civil society empowerment plays a critical role

Running like a thread through many of the national reports presented to the July 1997 Africa Governance Forum was the centrality of civil society empowerment. Swaziland's governance programme, for example, aims to facilitate a new constitutional arrangement that incorporates the empowerment of civil society, social integration and the efficient management of public resources. Ghana stressed its commitment to promoting the involvement of civil society in the development process, using participatory and bottom-up approaches; its decentralization policy provides for the devolution of power and resources to local authorities and their communities.

A few weeks before the forum, some 40 non-governmental and civil society organizations (NGOs/CSOs) from around the continent, including women's, grassroots and labour organizations, as well as churches, research institutes and policy advocacy groups, attended a two-day consultation on governance in Addis Ababa. They drafted, debated and approved a statement which stressed that good governance is a process by which "governments and people together" identify shared values, needs and challenges, set priorities and develop programmes to address them. The statement suggested ways to strengthen good governance in Africa, with special emphases on gender equity and partnerships with civil society.

The statement was presented to the governance forum, and several of the NGO and CSO representatives attended and contributed their views. Recognizing the importance of furthering NGO and CSO involvement in such governance discussions, and in implementation of the UN Special Initiative more generally, it was decided that for the second governance forum in Accra, a number of NGOs/CSOs would be invited directly.

Speaking at a November 1996 symposium in Dakar, Senegalese President Abdou Diouf stressed that any governance programme must seek to strength civil society, an "emerging economic and political actor" in Africa. "Its eruption onto the social and political field is a fact which all strategies of good governance must take into account," he said.

One of the most crucial questions, ECA Executive Secretary K.Y. Amoako argued at a December 1997 conference on democracy, civil society and governance, is "whether civil society in Africa is equipped to play the key role in bringing about good governance that is expected." Whatever shortcomings it may currently have, he added, it is nevertheless clear that "civil society is booming in Africa, and is already having an impact on democracy and governance. This positive role needs to be strengthened."

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