When Civics go Governance

A synthesis study by Ria Brouwers

Tags: Africa , Kenya , Uganda , Eastern Africa , Uganda , Tanzania , Zambia , Southern Africa , Civil Society Building
Additional tags: Civil society building governance

In ‘When Civics go governance’ Ria Brouwers analyses the stormy ascent of African NGOs in the field of good governance. Tracing the tracks of the NGO-boom in Africa, Brouwers brings together key academic writings with ISS led field on NGO interventions in Zambia, Uganda, Kenia and Tanzania conducted under the banner of the Hivos/ISS Civil Society Building Knowledge Programme.

Since the mid nineties or so governance interventions, ranging from  budget tracking to civic engagement in decentralized service delivery  and lobby-activities for pro-poor public policies have increasingly  complemented or replaced  Yet, the combined picture emerging from desk-  and field research offers a sobering picture of questionable impact and a  fragmented patchwork of intermediary actors and projects, out of touch  with local realities, lacking the constituency and capacity to seriously  challenge power structures. Combining the small sample of cases with  recent larger studies by the IDS Citizenship DRC and The United States  Institute of Piece, Brouwers comes to question the main assumptions  underneath NGO-led, foreign funded governance interventions.  These  include the western notion of civil society as countervailing power to  the state, the rhetoric versus the reality of participation, the  technical capacity of civic organizations to engage governance processes  and issues of legitimacy and constituency.

Going forward, Brouwers joins other recent calls (eg. McGee 2011) that  call upon NGOs and their international partners to critically rethink  their Theories of Change.  Suggestions for further research include the  effectiveness of civic networks, the exploration of non-western forms of  governance, the dynamics of associated and non-associated civic action  and further critical reviews of the effects of donors support, which may  at times have been disruptive