UNIVERSITY OF READING

Graduate Institute of International Development and Applied Economics The Roles, Contributions and Challenges of NGOs in Ethiopia By Ayele Angelo Ago Dissertation Prepared in partial fulfilment of the requirements for MA Degree in Social Development and Sustainable Livelihoods, University of Reading, United Kingdom October, 2008

Acknowledgements
I extend my deepest appreciation to my supervisor Dr Henny Osbahr who is also the program director, for social development and sustainable livelihoods and my other two courses conveyor, in the Graduate Institute of International Development and Applied Economics. Her intellectual guidance and keen insight immensely helped me to come up with this thesis.

I am grateful to all individuals who have taken part to make this study successful. My first gratitude goes to Mr. Achame Shana Degebusho and his family who have supported me at various stages of my study.

I am thankful to my wife and children who have tolerated my long absence due to my study program. I am particularly grateful to Mr. John Clements, Managing Director for Jade Security Service LTD Company for his kind and wholehearted support by providing me with part time job, without which completion of my study was impossible.

At last but, my greatest appreciation to Mrs. Ingrid Hartman for her moral and financial support which was instrumental to my success.

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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements Table of Contents List of Tables List of Figures Abbreviations (Acronyms) Abstract Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1. Background 1.2. Aims, objectives and research questions 1.3. Structure of the research Chapter 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1. Introduction 2.2. Definitions 2.2.1. 2.2.2. 2.2.3. 2.2.4. Civil society Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Democratisation Livelihoods
I II IV V VI VII 1 1 3 4 5 5 5 5 7 8 9 9 15 17 21

2.3. General overview of civil society 2.4. NGOs in Ethiopia 2.4.1. 2.4.2. 2.4.2.1. 2.4.2.2. 2.4.3. 2.4.3.1. The Roles of NGOs and Livelihood situation in Ethiopia Major NGOs achievements Food security The role of NGOs on democratisation process in Ethiopia The challenges of NGOs External Challenges
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22 25
26

29

2.4.3.2.

Internal challenges

31
33 33 33 36 36

Chapter 3. METHODOLOGY AND LIMITATIONS OF THE RESEARCH 3.1. Introduction 3.2. Framework Approach 3.3. Method 3.3.1. 3.3.1.1. 3.3.1.2. 3.3.1.3. 3.3.2. Semi-structured interview Interview with a research person Interview with government organizations Interview with non-governmental organizations Secondary data sources

37 38 39
42 42 44 44 44 45 46

3.4. Limitations of the research Chapter 4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 4.1. Introduction 4.2. Major findings 4.2.1. 4.2.2. 4.2.2.1. 4.2.2.2. Ethiopia 4.2.2.3. Ethiopia. 4.2.3. 4.2.3.1. 4.2.3.2. Civil society in Ethiopia Roles and Contributions of NGOs in Ethiopia Genesis and importance of NGOs Major contributions of NGOs in livelihood transformation in 49

47

Roles and Contributions of NGOs in democratisation process in 55 Challenges of NGOs External challenges Internal challenges
61

61 66
71 71 72 73 74

Chapter 5. CONCLUSION 5.1. Civil society in Ethiopia 5.2. NGOs in Ethiopia 5.2.1. 5.2.2. Identified Contributions of NGOs Identified Challenges for NGOs

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5.2.3. 5.2.4.

Future direction Opportunity and future challenges

76 77 78 86

REFERENCES Annexes

List of Tables
Table 1. Growth of Local and International NGOs 1994-2000 Table 2. Expenditure by NGO Category in millions Table 3. Regional distribution of NGOs staff as at December 2002 Table 4. NGOs contributions by programs (1997-2001) Table 5. Share of sectors intervened by NGOs in the period 1997 2001 16 23 24 50 54

List of Figures
Figure 1. Non-Democratic States: Unbalanced Sectors where the state plays predominant roles and the roles of civil society and private sector is limited Figure 2. Balanced sector which is the characteristic of Matured democratic system Figure 3. Position of NGOs within civil society under unbalanced sector Figure 4. The Sustainable Livelihoods Framework Figure 5. Approximate location of capitals of sample regions for semi-structured interviews (http://flagspot.net/flags/et (.html) 37 13 13 14 34

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Abbreviations (Acronyms)
AI Amnesty International CRDA Christian relief and development associations CBO Community based organization CSO Civil society organization DFID Department for international development DPPA Disaster prevention and preparedness agency DPPC Disaster prevention and preparedness commission EPRDF Ethiopian peoples revolutionary democratic front FBOs Faith based organizations GDP Gross Domestic Product GTZ German technical cooperation Ha Hectares HIV/AIDS Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome HRW Human Rights Watch ICG International Crisis Group IFPRI International food policy research institute IRIN International Reality Investors Network Km Kilometre MOA Ministry of agriculture MOCB Ministry of capacity building MOE Ministry of education
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MOEDAC Ministry of economic development and cooperation MOFED Ministry of finance and economic development MOH Ministry of health MOJ Ministry of justice LNGOs Local non-governmental organisations INGOs International non-governmental organisations NGO NonGovernmental Organisation ODS Overseas development study ODI Overseas development institute ODA Overseas development authority Qa Quintal SNNPR Southern nations, nationalities and peoples region UK United Kingdom UN United Nations USD United state dollar USAI United States Agency for International Development

Abstract
It is now eighteen years since the present government came into power by overthrowing the communist regime. Much hope was placed that better democratic system of leadership would prevail in Ethiopia. Except at the initial stages of power shift where by relative improvement in the operating environment was observed, the nongovernmental organization has remained less recognized, struggle for definition, operating space, and suffer from policy bottlenecks and institutional capacity limitations.

Civil society in general and the NGOs sector in particular, traditionally weak in Ethiopia due to lack of democratic system of governance, remain underdeveloped and somewhat misunderstood in the current era of relative political liberalization.

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Many government officials see NGO as political opponents and NGOs are needed when there is some kind of disaster, such as famine and war that challenge the capacity of the governments. Such was the case during the famines of 1973/74/ and 1984/85 and during the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

In spite of excessive and repressive regulation and bureaucratic requirements that consume much of valuable time, NGOs are providing credible services in the area of relief, food security, health, education, capacity building and infrastructure programs in Ethiopia.

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Chapter 1.
Chapter 1.1. Background

INTRODUCTION

The need to address a wide range of problems adversely affecting vulnerable groups prompted the emergence and growth of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) globally as we experience them today (De Waal, 1997: 6668). The famine of 1970s and 1980s has largely contributed for the influx and emergence of NGOs in Ethiopia (CRDA, 2004). The modern understanding of NGOs is new to Ethiopia with a history not extending more than four decades (Desalegn, 2008:1).

The first indigenous organizations, that were functioning apparently similar to the present NGOs, were traditional self-help groups that existed for generations before they were developed into organized entities. Those traditional self-help groups, which have been registered as proper organizations, are today known as community based organizations (Van, J. 1998:1). In this thesis, NGOs refer to both indigenous and international non-governmental organizations that involve in relief and development programs. NGOs emerged in Ethiopia in 1930s as a result of urbanization and economic development (World Bank, 2000). The early pioneers were missionaries or Faith-Based Organizations that had started operating in 1930s (CRDA, 2006: 2).

The NGOs sector is the strongest part of the civil society in Ethiopia (Zewdie and Pausewang, 2002: 105). NGOs can be classified either by the country of origin (local or

international) or by their engagement (relief, development and advocacy) (GTZ, 2001). In Ethiopia, 90% NGOs are assumed to be local and the rest are accounted by international NGOs (Van, J. 1998:1). However, these are not consistent with Zewdie and Pausewang (2002) that states the proportion of indigenous and international NGOs as 34%:66%, 50%:50%, 59%:41% and 67%:33% in 1994, 1996, 1998, and 2000, respectively.

Iddir and Equb are the two common traditional institutions that existed for generations in Ethiopia serving as funeral and saving associations, respectively. In this thesis, these institutions are not treated as NGOs or as part of civil society as they are established with the purpose mainly to protect only the interests of their members rather than serving interests of wider citizens. Civil society is considered not only from associational life point of view but also from their contribution to influence the government for the desired changes. AusAID (2007) supports the above statement in that civil society is expected to play roles as a watchdog and countervailing agent to influence government for change AusAID (2007:18-19).

World Bank,2002)stated that, eight years of uneven, but continued move towards democracy, the NGOS sectors struggle for definition, operating space in Ethiopia. Civil society traditionally weak in the country remains underdeveloped, misunderstood in the new relatively political liberalization. The historical centralization of power in Ethiopia has left long shadows and the impulses to extend strict and at times arbitrary authority over various civil society entities remains embedded in the psychology of some officials and for

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many to consider civil society actors as political opponents (World Bank 2002:2). The roles of NGOs sector is not limited to relief and developmental work, they are also involving in the area of democratisation process in the country. NGOs have played significant roles in the Ethiopian election of May 2005, however; the crisis that followed the election lefts shadows on the survival of civil society and the NGOs sector in particular (Amnesty International, 2008:1). Currently, Ethiopia is hosting an estimated number of 1,200 civil society organizations of which about 500 indigenous and international NGOs that are operating in different parts of the country (Ministry of Capacity Building, 2004).

There is relatively increasing research works on civil society since recent years. However, evidence-based studies on NGOs are scarce. Moreover, the existing one consists of short pieces and unsatisfactory quality that focus mainly on service provider NGOs and their unhappy relation with government (Desalegn, 2008,). This research, therefore, will contribute to the existing scarce literature on NGOs by assessing and evaluating the roles and challenges of NGOs in Ethiopia.

Chapter 1.2.

Aims, objectives and research questions

The overall aim of the research is to indicate the place of NGOs and identify their major contributions in food security and democratisation process in Ethiopia and the challenges they encountered in their operation.

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The specific objectives of the research are: 1 2 To identify the key contribution of NGOs and review from a historical point of view. To evaluate the contributions and challenges of NGOs in the democratisation process in Ethiopia since 2005. 3 To assess the challenges of NGOs operation in the country.

The key research questions to be answered in this thesis are introduced to achieve the objectives mentioned above. What is the overall policy environment the NGOs are operating in? What are NGOs? Why are they there? How friendly are the government-NGOs relations for partnership? To what level have the NGOs internalised democratic cultures and values? Are there challenges for NGOs operations and what are they?

33. Structure of the research

This thesis is divided into five chapters. Chapter one introduces the topic and the research objectives. Chapter two provides a detailed review with background information about current research on civil society and NGOs at global, regional and national levels. Chapter three explains why qualitative techniques are preferred and how they are applied. The analysis and discussion chapter explores the data and present findings in relevant themes and discuss on them. Finally, the conclusive chapter provides an overview of the main research findings.

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Chapter 2.

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LITERATURE REVIEW
Chapter 2.1. Introduction

Chapter two outlines general aspects of civil society and NGOs in particular at global, regional and national levels. Some basic concepts, which are closely related to the research, are defined. The problems related to operational environment for NGOs sectors are discussed under external and internal challenges.

Chapter 2.2.

Definitions

Different but essential concepts frequently mentioned in this thesis need to be defined in order to give better understanding to the subject matter. The main concepts are: 1. Civil society 2. NGOs 3. Democratisations 4. Livelihoods

4.2.1. Civil society

Civil society embraces different sections of social community. Civil society includes NGOs, professional associations, cooperatives, trade unions, religious institutions, independent media organizations, and think tanks which operate at different levels; global, regional national and local etc (ODS, 2005:2). Civil society therefore refers to the arena;

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distinct from the market and the state; in which citizens come together to pursue common interests through collective actions; neither for profit nor for the exercise of political power. Thus, all organizations and associations that lie between the family and the state (except firms and political Parties) are part of civil society (World Bank, 2003b: 2-3). This research is based on World Banks categorization of civil society. In addition to the World Bank requirements, one requirement is added to define civil society into Ethiopian context. Any group or entity regarded as civil society is required to fulfil one or more of the following conditions. Representations:

Organizations, which aggregate citizens voice. Advocacy and technical inputs:

Organizations, which provides information and advice, and lobby on particular issues. Capacity building:

Organizations, which provide support to other civil society organizations, including funding. Service delivery:

Organizations, which implement development projects or provide services. Social functions:

Organizations, which foster collective recreational activities. Legal status*:

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If any associational entity is considered as a civil society organization, then it is required to have legal status/registration (*this requirement is added taking the Ethiopian situation into account).

Traditional institutions such as Iddir and Equb, associations for funeral and savings, respectively, existed for generations in the country. This thesis, however, will not treat these institutions as civil society organization for reasons that there are no sufficient documented evidences for their contribution in the democratisation process and influencing the governments for change for the interests of citizens beyond the interest of their limited members.

Political organizations and business firms are not also treated as civil society organizations in this study. The exclusion of political parties and private business organizations is that the former is struggling to change the government and take over the power while the private business organizations aspire for profit making to protect the interest of limited members in the groups.

4.2.2. Non-Governmental Organization (NGO)

Like other civil society organizations, NGO has no commonly agreed upon definitions globally. NGOs in their broader definitions are associations formed within civil society bringing together individuals who share common purpose (Turner and Hulme, 1997:200). In the Ethiopian context, as defined by German technical Cooperation (GTZ)

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(2001), the term is broadly used to denote an organization that meets the following requirements: NGOs are voluntary in their genesis NGOs engage in relief, service delivery, advocacy or development activities NGOs are non-profit or self serving organizations working to serve the disadvantaged groups of the society NGOs are non-political NGOs have no permanent program interest or geographical context Legal status: any organization to be considered as NGO, it requires a legal status/registration. NGO refers to both indigenous and international non-governmental organizations (GTZ, 2001:89).

4.2.3. Democratisation
The word democratisation is a widely used terminology in the present development discourse. It is derived from democracy that comes from two Greek words demo means people and kratia means power or rule. Therefore, in Greek democracy means system of governance that was characterized by direct exercise of political powers by citizens actual participation in city-state gathering. The small size of the city- state made it possible for citizens to gather freely and cast votes for or against something under discussion (Sisay and G, 2002: 3, citing Sartori, Giovanni, 2000).

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Although democracy comes in many forms, nowadays, the concept generally implies majority rule, minorities and individuals rights, equality of opportunities, equality under the law and civil rights and liberties. A democratic government is a form of government in which supreme power is held by the people and exercised directly or through elected representatives (Sisay and G, 2002:3-4, citing Rohman, 1999). Therefore, the democratic process includes the recognition of the people as sovereign and as the ultimate source of any political authority; freedom to form associations and organizations for all interest groups and the unhampered advancement of their causes by all peaceful means; freedom of the press; freedom of all political parities to operate in every part of the country; free and fair elections through which the people elect their representatives and administrators; and the total rejection of violence or war as a means of acquiring or maintaining political power. (Sisay citing EHRCO, 1995).

4.2.4. Livelihoods
The term livelihood is used in different ways. The following definition by department for international development (DFID) captures the broader notion of livelihoods. Livelihood comprises the capacities, assets (including both material and social resources) and activities required for a means of living. A livelihood is sustainable when it cope with and recover from stresses and shocks and maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets both now and in the future while not undermining the natural resource base(DFID, 1999:1).

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4.3. General overview of civil society

Civil society is an aggregate of many community groups, such as NGOs, professional associations, trade unions and human rights advocators. The concept of civil society is not new. It has been contested with political philosophy, sociology and social theory for hundreds of years. What is new is the increasing emphasis on the concepts over the last decade. Civil society has become a buzzword within international development (Anheier et al. 2004, Edwards, 2004). The importance and place of civil society for Africas development is well articulated by many writers. For example, Murunga and Shadrack (2007:19) stated the importance of civil society by saying that literature on African politics indicates that civil society is the missing key to sustain political reform, legitimate state, improved governance, viable state-society and state-economy relationships, and insurance of political renewal.

The International Crisis Groups (2001) and Kasfir (1998) indicated that, much hope has been placed on civil society to secure democracy and sustainable development in developing countries and in Africa in particular. They considered, civil society as a major force to change or remove undemocratic governments or make the states democratic, more transparent and more accountable to their people. In Africa, because of the prevailing, social, economic, cultural, colonial and political history, civil society assumes different characteristic when compared to Western liberal democracies. The prevailing ethnic and kinship structure, the legacy of colonialism, the pattern of economic

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development, and authoritarian governance system gave rise to civil society that markedly differ from the voluntary associational form that characterise the civil society in United States or Western Europe(Fatton, 1992; Kasfir 1998, cited in IDS 2005: 7).

African governance system and its civil society is perceived and looked at in accordance with exactly the situation that is prevailing in Europe or United States. Perceiving African politics and its civil society in this manner will lead to wrong recommendations and solutions to Africans problems. Abbink (2006: 173) stated that, the African politics is

conceptualised from the point of view of western context without taking the historical and cultural aspects into account. Abbink further states the need to revisit and reconceptualise the analysis of politics in Africa in more cultural and historical terms. Although politics and civil society are misconceived, there are many in which it has played vital roles in improving, for example, good governance and exhibited unprecedented growth in social sector. Civil society organization in Ghana, Zimbabwe and Kenya now provide 40% of all health care and education services (ODI, 2005) and globally 15-20% of the worlds poor has been reached by the NGO sector (Fowler, 2000) and development NGOs have an annual global budget of some US$5.5 billion (ODI, 2005).

The expectations of international institutions from civil society for Africas development and democratization are increasing from time to time. The problem is that the African political, historical and institutional environment under which African civil society is working is not treated contextually, for which reason most of the expectation does not

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match with achievements. The ambitious aspiration of international organizations and donor community is well expressed by Zewdie and Pausewang (2002:103) who stated that, the hopes that are put on civil society in Africa, excitement with which the donor community has embraced the concept make it appear as if some one had just discovered a magic formula called civil society which would painlessly make African governments more democratic, transparent and accountable. Crugel (1999) states that the political context under which the civil society operates at local, regional and global levels conditions the extent to which the civil society can influence government policy. The contribution of civil society like in other social issues mentioned above, have been significant in supporting and promoting pro poor policy formulation.

ODI (2005) suggests that civil society generate issues or actions, raises new ideas or questions, and creates new ways of framing policy issues. Civil society represents the views of others, shares expertise and experiences, put forward new approaches. They can add, correct or change policy issues, hold policy makers accountable; evaluate and improve own activities, particularly with regard to service delivery and learn from each other (ODI, 2005:2-4). Despite tremendous potentials that the African civil society has, the political environment for civil society involvement has not been encouraging and improving. Civil society and governments in Africa see each other in hostility rather than as partners for development.

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The following statements by Kukah (2003) explicitly reflect the present African civil society government relation and the political environment. The relationship between states and civil society in Africa seems to have some of the basic characteristics of a fortified city, communication between those inside and those outside is severely restricted by the nature of the fort itself. So there are naturally outsiders and insiders. These characteristics are supposed to inspire awe and causes intimidation in the minds of the observers. When civil society feels completely locked out it begins to seek relevance by resorting to such alternatives as migration, informal economic activities, sorcery witchcraft, cults, genocide, forced relocation, intra-and inter-ethnic, communal or religious violence, ethnic cleansing etc (Kukah, 2003:9-10).

Figure 1. Non-Democratic States: Unbalanced Sectors where the state plays predominant roles and the roles of civil society and private sector is limited

Civil society Society Source: Rahamato, (2008)

State Sector

Figure 2. Balanced sector which is the characteristic of Matured democratic system

Private Sector

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State Sector

Source: Rahamato, (2008)

Figure 3. NGOs within under sector Civil Society Private Sector Position of civil society unbalanced

Society
NGOs C i v i l Society

SOCIETY

State Sector

Private sector

Source: (2008)

Rahamata,

NGO sector as a different part of civil society

emerged as the aftermath of World War II. The prevalence of varied

socio-economic problems that followed the war encouraged the emergence of NGOs as we experience them today. Massive dislocation, destruction that followed the war challenged the capacities of governments requiring resources and structure that could address the problems outside of the state domain. The 1950s and 1960s witnessed the emergence and rapid proliferation of NGOs to support and assist the people that need

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support (Zewdie and Pausewang, 2002). For example, there was a dramatic increase in the number of NGOs worldwide. The number of international NGOs increased by 345% in last 20 years, from 13,232 in 1981 to 45,674 in 2000(International labour organization, 2001: 10).

4.4. NGOs in Ethiopia

Ethiopia was hit with two devastating famines in almost in a decade. The first famine occurred in 1973/74 and the second more devastating occurred in 1984/85 causing involuntary mass migration and huge loss of lives and properties. These two famines resulted in dramatic increase in the number of NGOs operating in the country. During the first famine 1973/74 various groups engaged in relief operations formed a network that became known as Christian Relief and Development Association (CRDA) World Bank, 2000). CRDA is an umbrella organization for more than 150 both international and indigenous non-governmental organizations in Ethiopia (CRDA, 2004).

The significance contribution of NGOs has increased since these devastating famines. The role of NGOs during these famines was very essential in saving the lives of famine victims when the governments capacities were completely eroded. These famines compelled the then governments to allow a large influx of western NGOs into the country. During the first famine, the total number of NGOs mostly operating on relief in the country was not more than twenty-five; of which the vast majority were church based and very few of local

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origin. This number increased to 70 at the later part of 1980s (Zewdie and Pausewang 2002).

Table 1. Growth of Local and International NGOs 1994-2000

NGOs LNGOs INGOs Total NGOs

1994 24 46 70

1996 96 96 192

1998 160 119 270

2000 246 122 368

Source; DPPC, (2000)

The increase in the number of NGOs is not a unique phenomenon to Ethiopia. An increase of 525% was recoded from 1994 to 2000. The increase in indigenous NGOs was 1025% while international NGOs increased by 265%. In a similar way tremendous increase has also been observed in different parts of the world. For example globally, the number of international NGOs increased by 345% in the last 20 years, from 13,232 in 1981 to 45,674 in 2000 (International Labour Organization, 2001: 11). In Bolivia in 1980 the total number of NGOs operating in the county was only 100. This number increased to 1000 in 1999 (ODI, 2005). In a similar way in Bangladesh there were only 70 NGOs in 1970s, but in 2000 this number surged to 22,000 (Matin and Taher, 2000). A tremendous increase (1025%) in the number of indigenous NGOs was observed from 1994 to 2000 in the Ethiopia, however; the increase has not been matched with institutional and human capacity.

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Civil society in Ethiopia remained the weakest by all measurements due to the governance history, which was based on, centralized states ruled by autocratic governments, which gave no or little space for associational structure (World Bank. 2000:2). This together with the inflexible, controlling and bureaucratic nature of the government has made the NGOs sector to remain very small when compared with other African countries, where we have more than 54,000 operating NGOs in South Africa, Kenya and Zimbabwe each has more than 700 NGOs and about 2,700 NGOs in Palestine (GTZ, 2001). NGOs forceful involvement started following the famine of 1973/74. However, missionaries or faith-based organization came and engaged as a non-governmental organization in Ethiopia in 1930s. Norwegian Lutheran Federation was the first that started its program in the then Gamo-Gofa- region now under SNNPR State in 1930s (CRDA, 2004; CRDA, 2006). The second famine 1984/85, which was more devastating, highly, boosted the visibility of NGOs and created opportunity to expand their areas of operation, relief, rehabilitation, development and so on.

4.4.1. The Roles of NGOs and Livelihood situation in Ethiopia

There is scarcity of studies done on NGOs in Ethiopia and most of the existing ones focus on the activities of the organizations, especially in the areas of relief and rehabilitation and their unhappy relations with government (Zewdie and Pausewang, 2002). The NGO being

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relatively the strongest part of civil society has pivotal roles in the political and economic transformation in Ethiopia (World Bank, 2000).

Perhaps the greatest challenge that the country faces is that of ensuring food security. This is so because of the low technological base of agriculture, limited rural infrastructure and off-farm employment compounded by neglect and inappropriate policies over many years. The food security strategy, whose implementation has begun, is meant to break the complex problems to close the food gap and ensure food security. Mekonnen

Manyazewai (2000 as cited in Devereux, 2000: 1) Vice-Minister, Ministry of Economic Development and Cooperation (MEDAC), Government of Ethiopia.

Ethiopia is known for its wealth of natural resources and biodiversity as a result of its extreme altitudinal variations that range from 4620 metres above sea level to 116 metres below sea level with more than 100 ethnic groups. Ethiopia is the second most populous country in Africa and yet one of the least urbanized countries in the world (USAID, 2007). Most of its population of more than 65 million people lives in highlands, where land degradation and drought threatens food security. The highland households are mainly dependent on better market access or external assistances in order to avoid starvation (international food policy research institute (IFPRI), 2005). Ethiopia has an estimated population of more than 78million in 2008(Index Mundi, 2008).

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The total population, which was 42 million in 1984 and 53 million in 1994, surged to more than 78million in 2008, increasing at 2.9% per year. About 15% of the population is accounted by nomadic people occupying 60% of estimated landmass of the country, which is highly inaccessible, and food insecure (USAID, 2007). Agriculture is the source of livelihood for 85% of the population where the bulk of the poor live (MOFED, 2002, USAID 2007). Food security problems in Ethiopia are consequential to a combination of factors. Ethiopia has been structurally food deficit since at least 1980(Devereux, 2000:1). The growing and serious food insecurity problems in the country affecting as much as 45% of the population has made more than 5 million people dependent on food aid each year, even during years seemingly with normal weather and market conditions. Over 700,000 tons of food aid has been imported every year to meet the food needs in the country (Food security Bureau, 2004:2). The agricultural sector remains our achilles heel and source of Vulnerability. Nonetheless, we remain convinced that agricultural based development remains the only source of hope for Ethiopia; Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister of Ethiopia, April 2000 as cited in Devereux, 2000:2).

The following report by International Reality Investors Network (IRIN) on the current food insecurity situation in the country matches with the speech of the Premier after eight years. The overall food security situation in the drought-affected areas has not improved. It has been exacerbated by the country's dependence on rain-fed agriculture. Parts of Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region and Somali region pastoral and

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agro-pastoral populations are extremely food insecure due to successive seasons of below-average rains, flooding in riverine areas, livestock disease, an army worm infestation, conflict, inadequate humanitarian assistance and extremely high food prices. More than 4.6 million people are in need of emergency relief (International Reality Investors Network (IRIN), August 18, 2008 citing in Minister of Ministry of Agriculture, Abera Deresa).

Ethiopian economy is highly volatile and unsustainable due to structural rigidity, external shocks, conflicts and is dominated by smallholder agriculture which employed 89% of the labour force, 56% of GDP and 67% of export earnings in 1997(Devereux, 2000). On the other hand Aredo et.al, (2007), indicates that approximately half of GDP (45%) is contributed by agricultural sector and agriculture creates employment opportunities for an estimated 85% of the total population in the country (Aredo et, al. 2007). It can be noticed that some improvement was observed between the reporting period of Devereux and Aredo in the total labour force employed in agriculture and in GDP.

Environmental degradation is one of the most serious problems in Ethiopia. IFPRI (2005) indicates that Ethiopia is among the most soil nutrient depleted Sub-Saharan African country. Such land degradation reduces average agricultural productivity; increase farmers vulnerability to drought and food insecurity. More than 1.1 billion tons of soil is lost every year as a result of soil erosion due to water from highlands (Australian development cooperation, 2004:7).

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The dominant farm system in Ethiopia is characterized by traditional methods of farming with little surplus and heavily influenced by changes in the weather conditions. According to an estimate, 30% of farm produce is supplied to local market while more than 60% of the produce is used for own consumption. Moreover larger proportion of the rural population (more than 40%) is a net purchaser and the poverty situation in Ethiopia is among the worst by most social and human development indicators (Aredo, et al 20007). Ethiopia ranks 169th from 177 countries in human development index having Gini index of 30(UN Human development Report 2007/2008: 284). Recent government reports of Ministry of finance and economic development (MOFED) (2005) indicated that the head count poverty index was 44% in 1999/2000 implying that about half of the population is under absolute poverty.

In short, Ethiopia is vulnerable to all sorts of food insecurity, chronic, cyclical and transitory problems. The major causes of food insecurity problems are drought, war, poverty land degradation, weak institutional capacity, such as market, land tenure system, and inconsistent government policy (Devereux, 2000:1).

As can be understood from the speech of premier Zenawi quoted above, the Ethiopian economy is entirely depended on agriculture. Focusing the economy on which more than 80% of the total labour force is engaged may sound rational, however; depending dominantly on unsustainable natural resource base, on highly degraded land, on rain fed

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agriculture, which is the characteristics of Ethiopian agriculture, is debatable unless it is followed by structural transformation of agriculture, such as promotion of technological inputs or land tenure reforms and gradually reducing the roles of agriculture and significantly increase growth in other sectors (Befekadu and Berhanu 2000:29).

4.4.2. Major NGOs achievements

It is impossible to list what NGOs have accomplished in the course of their involvements, however; some highlights on major achievements can indicate program successes, however; major achievements are summarized below.

4.4.2.1. Food security

Following is the achievements recoded by the NGO sector from 1984 1996 as an indication of NGOs contribution in the area of food security in Ethiopia. Figures of disaster prevention and preparedness commission (DPPC and CRDA, as cited in Zewdie and Pausewang 2002) show that in twelve years (1984-1996) NGOs provided relief assistance on the average to 6.5 million beneficiaries every year which was about 14% of the then total rural population. In 1990 alone 13 million beneficiaries have received assistance from NGOs. The volume of the food assistance distributed by them ranged from 1.5 million quintals in 1984 to 5.1 million quintals in 1992. The development project undertaken by NGOs in 1990s was estimated to have cost 2.3 billion Birr and was believed to have benefited 26 million people both rural and urban and created 14,000

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employment opportunities (DPPC and CRDA, cited in Zewdie and Pausewang 2002: 107-108). Table 2 below demonstrates the extent of the NGOs contributions in the area of food security, capacity building and infrastructural development programs from 1997-2001 (CRDA, 2004). In short, the NGOs sector in five regional states, in six program areas in five years (1997-2001) have benefited 23.2 million people of which 20 million benefited from development projects and the remaining 3.2 million from relief and rehabilitation programs. A total of 360 projects were implemented by 271 NGOs (188 Local and 83 International) in development programs. A total budget of 3.53 billion Ethiopian Birr or about USD 392, 222,200 of which 90% or USD 352,999,980 was spent on development programs and the remaining 10% on relief and rehabilitation operations (CRDA, 2004)

Table 2. Expenditure by NGO Category in millions

Sector

NGOs Indigenous International 385.47 475.48 74.26 267.80 115.93 119.93

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Share in % Indigenous 59 52 62 62 60 43 International 41 48 38 38 40 57

Food Security Health/Water HIV/AIDS Education Capacity Bldg Infrastructure

563.02 515.83 35.96 432.95 171.54 89.83

Emergency

144.12

202.71

41

59

Source: CRDA & DPPC (2004)

In December 2002, NGOs operating in the five regions had a total 9,803 employees of whom 64% were males and 36% females. Nearly 98.5% of the NGOs employees were Ethiopians. About 11% of NGOs staffs hold management positions with executive roles, 39% of the staffs provide technical support and the rest 50% were support-giving staffs. About 77 %( 7,551) of the NGOs workforce is accounted by local NGOs of whom 36% were females (CRDA 2004).

As can easily be seen from the Table 4, high NGOs staff concentration was observed in Addis Ababa (41%), where relatively better facilities are available. On the other hand, Somali regional state, which is one of the remotest and food insecure parts of the country, accounts only 3% of staff.

Table 3. Regional distribution of NGOs staff as at December 2002

S/N

Regional states

Regions share in Staff gender aggregated in % % Male Female 48 26 17

1 2 3

Addis Ababa Amahara SNNPR

41 27 17

62 74 83

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4 5

Tigray Somali Source: CRDA (2004)

12 3

88 82

12 18

The concentration of NGOs workforce indirectly indicates program concentration as well. It is therefore debatable that NGOs and their programs are concentrated in areas where there are relatively better facilitates and also questionable whether there is an equitable distribution in NGOs programs in the country.

4.4.2.2. The role of NGOs on democratisation process in Ethiopia

Ethiopia is one of the African countries, which have become politically unstable since the overthrow of imperial regime in 1974. The communist regime that took over power from the emperor ruled Ethiopia with absolute tyranny and shameful killings and imprisonment of its citizens for 17 years. The feudal monarchy followed by a brutal dictator Marxist regime made civil society in general and the NGOs sector in particular weak and invisible. Zewdie and Pauswange, (2002), states that when the Mengistus regime collapsed in 1991 some NGOs were tolerated by the government for the fact that the governments capacity was completely eroded to address the problems of the then catastrophic famine (Zewdie and Pauswange, 2002).

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The roles of NGOs in the democratisation process are insignificant for the fact that NGOs have been operating under restrictive and controlled environment. Advocacy is a risk business in Ethiopia. NGOs those who involved in advocacy work during the election of May 2005, have suffered much because of their involvement. A good case in point is

Christian relief and development association (CRDA). CRDA is an umbrella organization of more than 200 NGOs in Ethiopia. CRDA is currently facing serious challenges because of its position statement regarding the election crisis of May 2005. The following case is a good example of the challenges advocacy NGOs currently facing and ahead of their future involvements. During the year under review (2005), due to the political situation in the country, a few training programs on Resource Mobilization, Leadership, etc., which were planned to be conducted within the fourth Quarter had to be postponed to the next year (2006). All programs of CRDA have felt the impact of this situation since it created misunderstanding between CRDA and the Government. CRDAs involvement in election-related activities posed both opportunities and challenges. While CRDA was able to show its shift towards and/or accommodating lobby and advocacy issues on top of its conventional service delivery mission, it faced serious challenges in the regions as authorities questioned at every communication the role of CRDA in politics instead of continuing its development partnership. This challenge has exacerbated since CRDA voiced its position regarding the situation in the country following the May 15 National Elections. Cases in point are; different offices in Oromia did not show interest in inviting CRDA on issues dealing with NGO category, despite CRDA's recognition as a CSO partner in the region. CRDA has

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also been unable to form partnership with existing authorities of Addis Ababa due to the pending administration hand-over of ruling party to the opposition(CRDA, 2005:33).

4.4.3. The challenges of NGOs

The governance system in the past regimes gave little space for the establishment of a strong and a vibrant civil society in Ethiopia. The centralized and autocratic nature of the governance highly contributed for the limited number and nascent civil society in general and the weak disintegrated NGOs sector in particular in the country (World Bank, 2000).

The year 1991 was considered to be more promising for the emergence of a vibrant civil society in Ethiopia (Milikia, 2006). It was not deniable that more civil society was established since the indicated period due to relatively improved political environment. The number of NGOs operating in the country in 1994 was only 70 of which 46 were international and the remaining indigenous. This number dramatically increased to 368 in 2000 of which indigenous was 246 and the remaining international (Kassahun, 2002).

The year 1991 has never brought favourable situation for the emergence and re-emergence of a strong and a vibrant civil society in the country, rather the promises and hopes remained rhetoric. The ever-relapsing relation between the NGO and government seems going from bad to worst these days. The following statements by World Bank in 2000 surprisingly after eight years are found to be so relevant to the current Ethiopian situation.

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Eight years into Ethiopias uneven, but continuing move towards representative democracy, the countrys NGOs sector struggles for definition, operating space, and institutional capacity. Civil society traditionally weak in Ethiopia remains underdeveloped and somewhat misunderstood in the current era of relatively political liberalization (World Bank, 2000: 1). Amnesty international(AI) in its June 2008 report states that Amnesty international is deeply concerned by the repressive Draft Charities and societies proclamation, which clearly aims not only to undermine and frustrate the work of independent civil society organizations in Ethiopia but also bar foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as Amnesty international from operating in the country. The proclamation is a clear demonstration of the governments intolerance of the work of human rights defenders and civil society organizations, and would seem to be a ploy by the government to conceal human rights violation and prevent public protest and criticism of its actions(AI, 2008:1)

The EPRDF led government soon after taking power, has become hostile to civil society groups especially; international NGOs some of which provided support for the then guerrilla fighter groups the present EPRDF (government) when it was still an insurgent movement. The NGOs who supported EPRDF and hoped for policy environment more favourable than that of communist regime were disappointed with unfriendly outlook of the new government-EPRDF (Campbell, 1996).

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Why the then guerrilla fighters, the present leaders became unfriendly to their former supporters? May be one of the other parties is suspicious that there is no reason why one should not do what had been done during the guerrilla fighting times, for the fact cleaning ones own house is better than suffering from the consequences.

What one could easily understand from the above citation is how the political environment for civil society and the NGO sector in particular is unfriendly and hostile. Zewdie and Pausewang (2002) stressed that EPRDF after coming to power, was of the opinion that NGOs, especially international ones were not really needed in the country and that they could be replaced with local, party-controlled organizations which would be safe and friendly.

The Ethiopian civil society, especially the NGOs sector has been engulfed with various external and internal problems for a long time. The challenges may be categorized into two broad parts; external and internal. This thesis will look at the challenges in relation to the NGOs operation under the present government.

4.4.3.1. External Challenges

There are various external challenges that NGOs face in Ethiopia today. Government attitude

Strong, vibrant and independent institutions have been considered by the present government as a threat and categorized as part of opposition and working to undermine its power bases (Desalegn, 2008).

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Marked improvement was observed in the relation between NGOs and the state immediately after the war with Eritrea, for the fact that the government aspire to win the support of the civil society following the war; nevertheless; the government has no interest and appetite to consider the NGOs and other civil society sector as real partners for development (CRDA, 2006; Milkias, 2006; Desalegn, 2008). Lengthy Bureaucracy and bureaucratic requirements for registration, demanding reporting

requirements, and continued lack of transparency on the part of government executive bodies exacerbate the ever-volatile Government-NGO relations (GTZ, 2001). Pro-government NGOs

The state is deliberately promoting its own party controlled parallel civil society groups, such as local indigenous NGOs, women organizations, youth associations and trade unions. This highly reinforces the suspicion that is held in the voluntary sector that the state does not have confidence in independent civil society groups and may be planning to replace them at some time in the future (Zewdie and Pausewang, 2002). Participation

Major decisions that concern the civil society themselves are passed at regional and federal levels without the participation of civil society representatives (GTZ, 2001). A good case in point is that officials in the ministry of justice responsible for drafting new laws that govern NGOs operations have been unwilling to involve the NGOs sector in the preparatory efforts (CRDA, 2006). The study of Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) on capacity building program in Ethiopia (2005) complained that the

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Ethiopian government is considerably more restrictive with respect to the space it allows to international and national NGOs than the Sri Lankan state (Norad, 2005: 1). Rules and regulations

It is the state that sets the rules, regulations that govern civil society engagements and that the rules are vague, ambitious, and subject to arbitrary interpretation by the regulating organizations (Desalegn, 2008, Zewdie and Pausewang, 2002, CRDA, 1997). The deliberate provision of regulation contrary to provision of their parent law restricted freedom of association, violated essential provision of the constitutions and international human right agreements ratified by Ethiopia (CRDA, 2006: 13). It is possible to mention more similar challenges in addition to the aforementioned cases. However, what have been mentioned so far can indicate as how hostile is the working environment for NGOs operations in particular and civil society engagement in general. What is important to mention here is that the external constraints are the major bottlenecks that remain the most difficult to overcome at present, and have been responsible for restricting wider involvement of civil society in the country (CRDA, 2004).

4.4.3.2. Internal challenges

Internal challenges refer to limitation in the resource and managerial capacity within the NGOs themselves. Capacity limitation

There is significant capacity limitation among indigenous NGOs. Limitation in human resource and budget constraints are the prominent features of local NGOs. GTZ (2001)

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stressed that, lack of access to funds, physical assets and competent human capital is the features of Ethiopian NGOs. Weak private sector

In Ethiopia the private sector is so weak and fragile as to become internal funding sources for NGOs, as is the case in many other countries. The private sector is so weak due to unfriendly policy environment and government control of major economic sectors, (Zewdie and Pausewang, 2002). Dependence on external funding

The overwhelming majority of both international and local NGOs depend on external funding sources to run their programs. Government and donors play major roles in supporting NGOs programs which usually has compromised the independence and effectiveness of NGOs (Hellinger, 1987:137). The NGOs who based their funding source on governments end up with negative bearing against the poor by failing to distance themselves and compromising their impendence with the government (Weston, 1994). Personal interest

Many of the NGOs are not home-grown, they are distant from many of the social and cultural aspects of the society, and many NGOs have tendencies to preserve institutional and personal interests rather than the wider beneficiary (Zewdie and Pausewang, 2002). Democratic culture and values

Many of the NGOs, especially indigenous ones have not internalised democratic cultures. They lack the culture of tolerance and constructive debate and have no media to inform the general public about their activities (Gebre-egzibiaher and Sisay, 2002).

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Chapter 3.

METHODOLOGY AND

LIMITATIONS OF THE RESEARCH

Chapter 3.1. Introduction

Chapter three presents the reasoning behind the selection of the topic, the underlying livelihood framework, the methodology used and analysis of the research data and associated limitations.

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Chapter 3.2.

Framework Approach

The sustainable livelihood framework has been used as a structural tool to analyse main inter-related factors that can identify the roles of NGOs in transforming livelihood. The sustainable livelihoods framework presents the main factors that affect peoples livelihoods and the typical relationships among them. It can also helps in assessing contributions of development activities to livelihood sustainability. Sustainable livelihood approach is mainly concerned with people and seeks to gain an accurate and realistic understanding of peoples potentials (DFID, 1999:1). In this study, the sustainable livelihood framework is, therefore, used as a tool to analyse the roles of NGOs in transforming livelihoods in Ethiopia.

Figure 4. The Sustainable Livelihoods Framework

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In general, survival of human being depends on livelihood assets. The livelihood assets include material, social, tangible and intangible assets that people can have in possession. Livelihood assets are resources that can be seen as the capital base from which different productive streams are derived to construct livelihoods (IDS, 1997:7). DFID (1999) focuses on the use of different types of capitals for sustainable livelihood. The types of

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capital are human, natural, physical, social and financial capitals. Human capital represents the skills, knowledge, ability to labour and good health that all together enable people to pursue different livelihood strategies to achieve their livelihood objectives. Social capital refers to the social resources upon which people draw in pursuit of their livelihood objectives. Natural capital is a term used for natural resource stocks from which resource flows and services useful for livelihoods are derived. Physical capital comprises basic infrastructures and producer goods needed to support livelihoods, and the financial capital denotes the financial resources that people use to achieve their livelihood objectives (DFID 1999:7-17).

Such studies that engage to identify the roles of NGOs in transforming livelihood, recognizes the fundamental influence of peoples surrounding which includes the broad political and economic structure and the immediate physical, social and cultural environment (Hebinck, 2002). The broad political, economic, social, physical and cultural environment influences the involvement and contributions of NGOs. The sustainable livelihoods framework that can help to analyze the whole factors is, therefore, selected as a more appropriate tool for this particular project. Within the sustainability framework, the theme of the research mainly focuses on the role of NGOs, in livelihood transformation and democratisation process in Ethiopia, is mainly developmental. However, their roles on development are mainly determined by the nature of the governments and system of governance in the country.

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Despite the importance and diverse use of the sustainable livelihood framework, it has weaknesses that need considerations. Firstly, the analysis of livelihoods in relation to various capitals requires enormous financial, time and personal resources, which are often lacking. Secondly, its integrated approach considers many aspects that deliver a flood of information challenging to be analysed. The decision about what aspect to consider with priority is also another challenge. The difficulties to obtain clear indicators that can help to measure and compare the analysis. For example, a persons social capital and asset status that are highly associated with the amount of resources he/she earns can vary according to the local context. For instance, some actors might be able to satisfy their needs with low level of financial capital, whereas others with more financial capital. In this study, to reduce the above mentioned weaknesses of the sustainable livelihood framework, a semi-structured interview was used as a source to prioritise issues to be focused.

Chapter 3.3.

Method

Qualitative research techniques are used in this research. The advantage of using the qualitative method is to get an in depth examinations of an issue. It is not also limited to rigidity on definable variables, it enables examination of issues that otherwise may not be uncovered through quantitative techniques.

Primary data as well as information from secondary sources are accessed. Literatures covering the main publications on civil society in general and on NGOs sectors in

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particular at global, regional and national level were reviewed. Information was gathered from books, reports, journals, and from electronic sources.

Chapter 3.3.1.

Semi-structured interview

Primary data were generated through semi-structured interviews conducted on twenty-seven governmental (15) and non-governmental (12) organizations. The semi-structured interview was conducted in three federal regional states and two federal government organizations and twelve non-governmental organizations (see figure: 5 below).

Chapter 3.3.1.1.

Interview with a research person

An independent interview was made at the last stage of this research with Desalegn Rehamato who is one of the researchers who has long research experience with civil society groups in Ethiopia. The interview was mainly focused on the recent situation of the civil society in the country. In depth discussion was made in relation to charity and society draft laws expected to be enacted in October 2008.

Figure 5. Approximate location of capitals of sample regions for semi-structured interviews (http://flagspot.net/flags/et (.html)

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KEY: Sample Federal and regional capitals where interviews made with government officials Head office of non-governmental organizations where interview made with selected officials.

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Chapter 3.3.1.2.

Interview with government organizations

Two conditions were considered in selecting regions and organization for semi-structured interview. Concentration of NGOs and program diversification

The number of NGOs and program diversifications were taken as conditions while selecting sample regions and organizations. Regions with many NGOs and diversified programs were selected for the interview. Level of partnership programs

Government organizations within the selected regions were screened based on the variety of programs/projects that are being carried out in partnership with NGOs. Government organizations those, which have the coordinating roles both at federal and regional level, were included in the interview.

In accordance with conditions mentioned above, three regional states, one ministry and one agency were selected for semi-structured interview. From each region four bureaux that have partnership projects and coordinating roles, two federal organizations with coordinating roles were selected, which make the total number of interviewees from the government side to be 15. In many circumstances, department heads and experts working closely with NGOs-government partnership programs/projects were interviewed as these staffs were considered to have better understanding about the policies of the government and the programs and policies of NGOs.

The government organizations included in the interview were bureau of agriculture, bureau of health, bureau of disaster prevention and preparedness and bureau of labour and social affairs. In the case of southern nations, nationalities and peoples regional state (SNNPR), bureau of finance and economic development was included instead of bureau of disaster prevention and preparedness as the former was responsible to coordinate the operation of NGOs from the government side in the region.

From federal level government organizations, Ministry of Justice and the Agency of disaster prevention and preparedness were selected for the interview. Ministry of Justice is currently responsible to coordinate the over all operation of civil society organization in the country and Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Agency, formerly responsible for coordinating the over all operations of NGOs and currently responsible only to coordinate the operations of relief oriented NGOs in the country.

The attempts made to have interview with Minster of ministry of justice and Directorate of disaster prevention and preparedness agency could not become successful. However; it was possible to manage to get valuable information from the interview made with Desalegn Rahamato, who has done an extensive research work on land use and civil society in Ethiopia.

Chapter 3.3.1.3.

Interview with non-governmental organizations

LI

Interviewing with non-governmental organization was done at their head office level for convenience. The interview was carried out with 12 non-governmental organizations of which 5 are international and the remaining 7 are indigenous NGOs. The screening of NGOs for the interview was done taking into account their area of specialization such as advocacy relief, their experience with government-NGOs partnership program/projects, their knowledge in government policies, programs and in the concept of governance and democratisation.

The interviewed indigenous NGOs are: Forum on street children, working on disadvantaged street children, HUNDEE-Oromo Grass-root organization that involve on micro finance and natural resource conservation, Pro-pride working on health and capacity building programs, Rehabilitation centres for the victims of torture in Ethiopia purely working in the area of advocacy and rehabilitation of tortured prisoners, Sustainable Land-use forum, working in the management of natural resources, Adult and non-formal education association in Ethiopia, purely working on informal education program, Water action Ethiopia, working on the provision potable water to rural community, and Action for development working in nomadic areas on advocacy on the rights of nomadic community and capacity building to nomadic people.

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The interviewed international NGOs are: Pact-Ethiopia which intensively follow right-based approach in effect working on advocacy and capacity building program in different parts of the country, Adventist development and relief agency mainly relief oriented NGOs, Handicap international working with handicapped sections of the community, Islamic relief organization, working on education and health service provision to the Muslim community, World vision international Ethiopia, mainly working on integrated rural development and relief program, SOS Sahel UK working on integrated rural development program, Trocaire, working as funding NGO to indigenous NGOs on HIV/AIDS, capacity building programs.

A total of 37 and 27 questions were prepared to the NGO sector and to government organizations, respectively. The questions are prepared in different forms. Many of the questions are yes or no, agree or disagree, multiple choice and short answer types (see annex 1and 2).

The semi-structured questions were sent to the interviewees before the interview date so they can prepare themselves for the response to be simple and systematized. Many of the interviews were undertaken through telephone directly from reading. Initially the plan was

LIII

to undertake the interview with executive directors and department heads, however, due to the difficulty to get and make an interview with executive directors and department heads, interviews made with project coordinators and officers.

Chapter 3.3.2.

Secondary data sources

Secondary data were gathered by referring to previous research/study papers, project survey reports, periodic monitoring and evaluation reports and; electronic sources. Information on policies and legislation related to the operations of NGOs were mainly gathered from the resource centre and the webpage of Christian Relief and Development Association (CRDA), which is an umbrella organization of more than 150 NGOs. Contemporary literatures on NGOs and civil society in Ethiopia and African situation were also consulted.

Chapter 3.4.

Limitations of the research

The following major limitations were encountered in the research process. Lack of evidence based research

Lack of detailed and extensive research carried out on NGOs in Ethiopia has limited this research to depend heavily only on limited secondary data sources. Lack of cooperation

The semi-structured interview was delayed beyond initially planned timeframe. Some of the government staffs were busy on their routine; some of them were not cooperative in providing the required information. The support and collaboration of international NGOs

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was also very limited. In some cases, the lack of collaboration from some of international NGOs forced to include other NGOs apart from initially planned. Limited reliability

The reliability of data was very limited. Firstly, there was lack of coherency between the feedbacks that was obtained from governmental and non-governmental organizations. For example, for the question whether the working environment for NGOs is conducive or not?, the responses were positive and negative from government and NGOs interviewees, respectively. Such interest based inconsistent responses created challenges to decide what is relevant and what is not for the analysis. Time constraints

Exceptionally too much time and resources were spent to arrange and undertake interviews.

Chapter 4.

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FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

Chapter 4.1. Introduction

Chapter four mainly deals with identifying the major findings and make discussions on these major findings. The study has dealt with various issues in relation to roles and operations of NGOs in Ethiopia. Some understandings have been created on civil society, NGOs, democratisation and livelihoods situation in Ethiopia. The research has identified the place and position of civil society and the NGOs sector in particular, the contributions of NGOs in livelihood transformation and democratisation process and major challenges that NGOs face in their operations. Discussions have been made on the findings which emanated from the literature review and the semi-structured interview. The discussion section mainly focused on major areas such as, the role and operational environment for NGOs, major contributions and challenges of NGOs and livelihoods situation in Ethiopia.

Chapter 4.2.

Major findings

The following findings are inferred from the reviewed literatures and semi-structured interview. The organizations that participated in the interview represent diverse areas of operations, such as relief and rehabilitation, economic and social development, advocacy on human rights issue, women, youth, handicapped and street children. Executive directors, departments heads, program/project coordinators and in some cases project officers were involved in the interview. In order to protect the anonymity of the names of

LVI

the persons interviewed they will remain unnamed, but the persons interviewed are coded so as to make the analysis suitable.

Chapter 4.2.1.

Civil society in Ethiopia

There is no universally agreeable definition for civil society, however; World Bank (2003b) defines civil as an arena; distinct from the market and the state; in which citizens come together to pursue common interests through collective actions; neither for profit nor for the exercise of political power. Thus, all organizations and associations that lie between the family and the state (except firms and political parties) are part of civil society (World Bank, 2003b: 2-3).

The idea that civil society has a key role to play for good governance in developing countries has risen to prominence in recent years. The UN millennium project report (2005) Investing in development for example claims that strong civil society engagement and participation are crucial to effective governance while AusAID report (2006) on good governance states that good governance requires a strong and pluralistic civil society where there is freedom of expression and association. The contribution of civil society organizations to democracy is not limited to their capacity to influence public policy; they also foster voice and participation, which in turn are functions of internal governance practices. Their capacity to offer citizens a say in decisions and to enhance pluralism may be as important as their ability to influence policy and demand accountability from state actors (AusAID, 2006).
LVII

In Ethiopia working space and the contribution of civil society is limited. The state is sole role player in the country. According to Desalegn (2008), the state has occupied dominant positions that play important roles in the society; thus, the role of civil society and private sector has remained invisible. Figure 1, p.17 clearly shows the unbalanced involvement of private sector, civil society on the one hand and the state on the other in Ethiopia. The government dominates the role of civil society and private sectors. Rahamato (2008), states that, with the exception of very few civil society groups, civil society involvement in democratization and advocacy and human rights issues has been limited. The Ethiopian human rights council and The Ethiopian Women Layers association have played relatively significant roles on human rights abuse since their establishment (Rahamato, 2008). For example, all NGOs interviewees (100%) said that NGOs are ineffective in advocacy work and advocacy work is a risky business in Ethiopia. This idea is supported by Zewdie and Pausewang (2002) who have indicated that civil society is operating under restrictive and highly controlled political environment (Zewdie and Pausewang, 2002). The recent draft of charity and society law is a good indication of the restrictive and controlling nature of the government. Concerning the genesis of NGO/CSO, article 1, sub article 2(2) of the draft proclamation states that charities and societies established by Ethiopians under Ethiopian law are deemed to be foreign institutions solely for receiving more than 10% of their annual income from external sources (Ministry of Justice, 2008:1).

Chapter 4.2.2.

Roles and Contributions of NGOs in Ethiopia

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The first indigenous organizations, that were functioning apparently similar to the present NGOs, were traditional self-help groups that existed for generations before they were developed into organized entities. The fact in Ethiopia today is different. Independent and visionary NGO sector, in the sense we understand them today, is new to the country with a history of not more than four decades (Rahamato, 2008).

Chapter 4.2.2.1.

Genesis and importance of NGOs

In the broader definitions NGOs are associations formed within civil society bringing together individuals who share common purpose (Turner and Hulme, 1997:200). According to GTZ (2001), in the Ethiopian context, an NGO is an organization that meets the following requirements: NGOs are voluntary in their genesis NGOs engage in relief, service delivery, advocacy or development activities NGOs are non-profit or self serving organizations working to serve the disadvantaged groups of the society NGOs are non-political NGOs have no permanent program interest or geographical context NGO refers to both indigenous and international non-governmental organizations (GTZ, 2001:89).

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The importance and visibility of NGOs is closely related to the Ethiopian famines. Ethiopia was hit with two devastating famines in 1973/74 and in 1984/85 causing involuntary mass migration and huge loss of lives and properties. These famines resulted in dramatic increase in the number of NGOs operating in the country (CRDA, 2004). The role of NGOs during these famines was very essential in saving the lives of famine victims when the governments capacities were completely eroded. These famines compelled the then governments to allow a large influx of western NGOs into the country. During the first famine, the total number of NGOs mostly operating on relief in the country was not more than twenty-five; of which the vast majority were church based and very few of local origin. This number increased to 70 at the later part of 1980s (Zewdie and Pausewang 2002).

In Ethiopia a dramatic increase in the number of NGOs has been observed between the years 1994 to 2000 (Table 1). In 1994 the total number of NGOs was only 70 but this number has surged to 368 in 2000. The increase in number of local NGOs leaped from 24 in 1994 to 246 in 2000. The growth in the number of NGOs resulted due to national and international situations. Internally, there was relative improvement in the political environment under which NGOs were operating and globally, associational life of civil society is considered as a key for development and democratisation in Africa. The increase in number of NGOs was not unique to Ethiopia. In a similar way tremendous increase was observed worldwide. Globally, the number of international NGOs increased by 345% in the last 20 years, from 13,232 in 1981 to 45,674 in 2000 (International Labour

LX

Organization, 2001: 11). In Bolivia in 1980 the total number of NGOs operating in the county was only 100. This number increased to 1000 in 1999 (ODI, 2005).

Tremendous increment in the number of NGOs has been recoded in Ethiopia since their first emergence during the first famine. However, NGOs in Ethiopia remained weak by all measurements and their roles was limited due to the governance history, which was based on, centralized states ruled by autocratic governments, which gave no or little space for associational structure (World Bank, 2000:2).

Chapter 4.2.2.2. Major contributions of NGOs in livelihood transformation in Ethiopia

Food security has become the greatest challenges to Ethiopia. The magnitude and complexity of the problems require partnership and collaboration of government with national and international development actors. One of such most potential partners is both local and international NGOs. According to DPPC and CRDA (2004), about 14% (6.5 million) of the total rural population was served by NGOs relief programs ever year with volume of food assistance ranging from 1.5 million quintals in 1984 to 5.1 million quintals in 1992. The development programs undertaken in 1990s was estimated to cost 2.3 billion Birr reaching more than 26 million people and NGOs programs created employment opportunity to 9,803 Ethiopians. About 77% (7,551) of the NGOs workforce is accounted by local NGOs of whom 36 %( see table 3 below) is female (DPPC and CRDA, 2004).

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Table 4. NGOs contributions by programs (1997-2001)

Food security 1. Tools 2. Draft animals 3. Irrigation 4. Agricultural inputs 5. Soil conservation 6. Soil conservation 7. Seedling production 8.Income generation 2 Health and Water 9. Health post 10. Clinics 11. Hospitals 12. Potable water 3 Education 13. Formal education 14. Formal education 4 Capacity building 15. Training 16. Empowerment 17. Saving and credit 18. Training centres 5 Physical infrastructure 19.Construction 20. Construction 21. Construction Source: DPPC and CRDA (2004)

S/ N 1

Program

Type of support provided

Measure ment number number hectare quintals hectare km number number number number number number number number number number number number number number number

Quantity

Farm tools Oxen All support for irrigation Fertilizer and seeds Biological conservation Physical soil conservation Seedling production & distribution Income generation schemes Construction of health post Construction of clinics Construction & rehabilitation Clean water sources developed School, construction School expansion Farmers trained in various skills Children empowered through several skills Saving & credit schemes Establishing training centres Road construction Bridge construction Residential house construction

522,455 1,764 4,174 2,374 27,858 644,144 50.7 ml 4,695 655 125 21 2,950 421 48 973,565 6,766 2,517 329 9,785 40 2,844

The NGOs and government partner have recorded credible achievement in the country since the first famine of 1973/74 in different sectors like food security, health, education, infrastructure development, microfinance and capacity building programs. All programs that NGOs have been involved have directly or indirectly contribute to food security. It is

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hardly possible to list all achievements recorded by NGOs, however; NGOs have recorded appreciable achievements from 1997 to 2001 in the different sectors and programs.

Food Security The major contributions made by NGOs with regard to food security programs include provision of farm tools, draft animals, fertilizers and seeds for farmers and; financial and technical assistance on physical and biological conservation measures (Table 4). Although NGOs have been contributed significantly in food security programs, the percent contribution made by NGOs in this sector has remained very small compared to its relatively long existence in the country (Table 5). In addition, the majority (3/4) of the beneficiaries in the food security programme provided by NGOs are men although women are more vulnerable to food shortage. Results from the semi-structured interview confirm that NGOs contribution with regard to food security programme has been significant particularly in rural areas (Annex 2).

Health Service The highest percent contribution of NGOs in the country has found in the provision of health services and developing clean water sources. NGOs have provided health services and clean water by constructing hospitals, clinics, health posts and by developing accessible water sources (Table 4). Although the highest percent contribution of NGOS has made in this sector, the coverage made by NGOs in the health sector in the country still has remained relatively small (Table 5). The percent share of beneficiaries in the health

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and water sector services provided by NGOs was relatively better for women compared to the food security programme. Both governmental and non-governmental respondents from the semi-structured interview further confirm that NGOs contribution with regard to the health service has been very high as NGOs reached less accessible areas in the country (Annex 2).

Education Services

The contribution of NGOs in the education sector was significant although the percent contribution made by NGOs in this sector remained very small compared to its relatively long existence in the country (Table 5). NGOs have involved in the education sector by constructing new formal schools and expansion of existing schools mainly in rural areas (Table 4). The balance percent share between beneficiaries categorized according to gender found similar to the percent share reported in the food security sector. Analyses from the semi-structured interview also confirm that contribution of NGOs in the education sector was good although there is a need to involve more in this sector as the majority of the society resides in the rural areas (Annex 2). Capacity Building NGOs have provided skill accusation trainings for rural farmers and have established training centres in different parts of the country (Table 4). However, the contribution of NGOs in this sector was very low relative to the importance of capacity building to

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achieve goals set by the NGOs and government (Table 5). The percent share for beneficiaries was also biased to men and less number of women had participated in the capacity building trainings. Results from the semi-structured interview confirm that NGOs contribution with regard to capacity building programme has been less significant (Annex 2).

Infrastructure Development

The contribution of NGOs in infrastructure development was significant and equivalent to the health sector (Table 5). However, the percent contribution made by NGOs in this sector remained very small relative to the importance of infrastructures for day to day activities of all sectors involved in the development programmes. Infrastructure developments made by NGOs include construction of new roads, bridges and residential houses and; also rehabilitation of existing roads that commonly used to access remote areas (Table 4). The majority of the beneficiaries in the infrastructure development programme are men as they get paid more during the construction of roads, bridges and houses. Analyses from the semi-structured interview also confirm that contribution of NGOs in this sector was significant and valuable in achieving the development goals.

Microfinance

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The contribution of NGOs in the microfinance programme was significant particularly in the rural areas (Table 4). NGOs had contributed greatly in empowering of women through providing finance for establishing small enterprises. The major activities of NGOs in the microfinance programme are establishing and made operational the saving and credit schemes in different rural areas.

Table 5. Share of sectors intervened by NGOs in the period 1997 2001

S/N

Major sectors of interventions Health and Water Food security Infrastructure Education Capacity building HIV/AIDS

Percentage share of the sector (%) 51 17 15 11 5 1

Gender aggregated beneficiaries (%) Male Female 65 75 66 73 77 58 35 25 34 27 23 42

1 2 3 4 5 6

Source: CRDA & DPPC (2004)

In summary, more than half (51%) of the total budget was invested on health and water sector, 17% to food security program, 15% for physical infrastructure development, 11% for education 5% for capacity building and the rest 1% is invested on HIV/AIDS program (Table 4). The focus on health and water sector and food security is encouraging, while investment of HIV/AIDs is insignificant since HIV/AIDS endemic is one of the greatest

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development challenges to the country. With regard to NGOs contributions, both governmental and non-governmental respondents have demonstrated that NGOs have recorded remarkable achievements in food security, health, education, capacity building and infrastructure development programs. Majority (60%) of the government interviewees responded that NGOs programs have contributed towards positive change among the beneficiary community by creating facilities such as, hospital, schools, infrastructure development, and training centres. The rural community has been able to easily access to better health, education and transportation services. The government interviewees traced and stated that the NGOs contribution in the times of disasters is remarkable, reminding the credibility of NGOs contribution in relation to the famine of 1984/85 (see annex 2).

Chapter 4.2.2.3. Roles and Contributions of NGOs in democratisation process in Ethiopia.

In the liberal democracy, civil society is expected to play two categories of roles. Diamond (1994) states that in democratic transition, civil society and NGOs in particular, mobilize groups to pressure the government for political changes. Organized social groups such as students, womens groups, farmer organizations, NGOs, grassroots organizations, trade unions, and religious groups are crucial sources of democratic changes. Secondly, in consolidating democracy, checking abuse of state power, prevention of the resumption of power by authoritarian governments and encouraging wider citizen participation and public scrutiny of states (Diamond, 1994:5-7).

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In Ethiopia democracy is not a matter of luxury but it is a necessary condition to link economic and social development with social justice and other basic human rights issues (Sisay, 2002). Ethiopia has become politically unstable since the overthrown of imperial regime in 1974. During the time of dictator communist regime democratic way of governance was unthinkable. Milkias (2006) states that, much was expected from the present government when it came to power in 1991, that the new system would encourage democratic system of governance in the country. The attitudes and approaches of western governments in general the state department in particular was encouraging and appeared as if democracy was once and for all in Ethiopia. The state department took the first initiative to say No democracy, no cooperation following the coming of EPRDF to power. EPRDF soon followed an innovative approach to catch the attention of the western governments and state department in particular. The strategic approach that EPRDF followed was declaring freedom of expression, associational life and respect of human rights in its transitional charter (Milikias, 2006). The international situation together with internal pressures encouraged the mushrooming of civil society groups; especially NGOs. It is not deniable that relative improvement was observed following the power shift in 1991 in the operational environment for civil society groups, however; the start could not continue for unclear reasons (Zewdie and Pausewang, 2002).

Overwhelming majority of NGOs respondents (80%) has revealed that government-NGOs relationship has been deteriorated since 10 years. Further, 100% of NGOs respondents said that the relationships has progressed negatively since 2000 until it has turned hostile

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after the election crisis of may 2005 where by NGOs are categorized as opposition parties. The following CRDA and European Union election observations mission reports can clearly demonstrate the status of democracy and operational environment for NGOs in Ethiopia. CRDA is the first biggest and oldest umbrella organization of more than 150 local and international non-governmental organizations in Ethiopia. It has been operating since the first famine of 1974. It has been acting on behalf of civil society groups for last couple of decades in the country. The following report of CRDA is clear indication of how the operating environment is becoming hostile for the civil society group in general and to the NGOs sector in particular.

During the year under review (2005), due to the political situation in the country, a few training programs on Resource Mobilization, Leadership, etc., which were planned to be conducted within the fourth quarter had to be postponed to the next year (2006). All programs of CRDA have felt the impact of this situation since it created misunderstanding between CRDA and the Government. CRDAs involvement in election related activities posed both opportunities and challenges. While CRDA was able to show its shift towards and/or accommodating lobby and advocacy issues on top of its conventional service delivery mission, it faced serious challenges in the regions as authorities questioned at every communication the role of CRDA in politics instead of continuing its development partnership. This challenge has exacerbated since CRDA voiced its position regarding the situation in the country following the May 15 National Elections. Cases in point are; different offices in Oromia did not show interest in inviting CRDA on issues dealing with

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NGO category, despite CRDA's recognition as a CSO partner in the region. CRDA has also been unable to form partnership with existing authorities of Addis Ababa due to the pending administration hand-over of ruling party to the opposition (CRDA, 2005:33).

Fair and free election is one of the major indicators of democratic governments. The election that was undertaken on May 2005 was ended up with a very tragic bloody shed. The European Union Election Observations Mission expressed the situation in the following way. The European Union Election Observation Mission regrets the way in which the counting of the votes at the constituency level is being conducted as well as the way in which the release of results is being handled by the electoral authorities, the government and the political parties, especially the EPRDF(European election conservation mission, cited in Abbink, 2006:184).

Variety of cases can be mentioned to demonstrate the ever increasing repression and controlling nature of the government in Ethiopia. A good case in point to mention is the charity and society draft law. Many international human-right groups expressed their concern on the draft law. Some of the human right-groups considered the draft proclamation as a deliberate act of the government to undermine the roles of civil society in Ethiopia. Amnesty international on its June 2008 report states the repressive Draft Charities and societies proclamation, which clearly aims not only to undermine and frustrate the work of independent civil society organizations in Ethiopia but also bar

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foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as Amnesty international from operating in the country. The proclamation is a clear demonstration of the governments intolerance of the work of human rights defenders and civil society organizations, and would seem to be a ploy by the government to conceal human rights violation and prevent public protest and criticism of its actions (AI, 2008:1).

On the other hand interviews with NGOs staff illustrate that the relation between government and NGOs is becoming too weak and the operating environment is challenging. Overwhelming majority of the interviewees (80%) has indicated that the present NGO-government relation is too weak and 87% of the respondents stated that the environment under which NGOs are operating is challenging (see annex 2). An interview made with Rahamato, pointed out that the draft laws severely frustrated the civil society working in Ethiopia. He further expressed his fear in that there are many civil society organizations that may cease to operate in the country if the draft law becomes operational. According to Sub Article 2(2) of the new draft law, civil society groups those who have been running their programs with funds from foreign sources, will have no chance to continue their program with 10% of external support. There is no possibility to solicit funds locally either. The only chance such organizations have is to cease operating. Rahamato further indicated that, so far the civil society representatives were able to make two around discussion with Prime Minister Zenawi, however; the opportunity for the law to be amended is slim and there is expectation that the draft law will be endorsed by the parliament at the beginning of October 2008.

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It is the governments responsibility to ratify laws that facilitate condition for national development. The attempt to draft separate laws that govern the operation of civil society in the country is encouraging. However, the most important point is not only ratifying laws, but also ratifying and enacting laws, design policies and programs that enable to address the problems of those 45% of the population who live under absolute poverty. Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world ranking 169th from 177 countries in human development indicators (UN human development report, 200/2008). It is therefore, inferable that the path to be food secured without democratic system of governances is challenging if not impossible. To overcome such complex problems and to become food self-sufficient, the government of Ethiopia needs to make partnership and collaborations with civil society groups (Rahamato, 2008). Murunga and Shadrack (2007:19) state the development roles of civil society as the missing key to sustain political reform, legitimate state, improved governance, viable state-society and state-economy relationships, and insurance of political renewal.

The global recognition of the potentials and contributions of civil society for Africas development does not seem the case in Ethiopia from the point of view of the increasing hostility in policy environment and the government attitudes towards NGOs. The opportunity for partnership and collaboration between government and NGOs is getting slimmer through time. It is questionable whether the government is drafting laws, design

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policies and programs with genuine and keen interest to partnership and collaborate with NGOs to achieve food security in Ethiopia.

The speculation that, the governments aspiration and plan is to replace international NGOs with pro-government and government established NGOs appears to happen. Zewdie and Pausewang (2002) supporting this idea stressed that EPRDF after coming to power, was of the opinion that NGOs, especially international ones were not really needed in the country and that they could be replaced with local, party-controlled organizations which would be safe and friendly (Zewdie and Pausewang, 2002).

There may be some aspiration in theory to replace international NGOs by local NGOs. Ethiopia is food insecure for the last couple of decades and about half of its population is living under absolute poverty and more than 5 million people require emergence relief every year from foreign sources. Therefore, it is highly debatable issue, those countries like Ethiopia that is engulfed with complex food security and political instability challenges, to replace international NGOs with local NGOs.

Chapter 4.2.3.

Challenges of NGOs

The challenges that NGOs encounter in their involvement in developmental and democratisation process in Ethiopia can be divided into external and internal.

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Chapter 4.2.3.1.

External challenges

The external challenges are related to the policy environment under which they are operating in the country. The following major challenges are the most common among both indigenous and international NGOs in Ethiopia.

Government attitude and perception Marked improvement was observed in the relation between NGOs and the state immediately 1991 after EPRDF come to power. The fact was that the government aspire to win the support of the civil society following; nevertheless; the government has no interest and appetite to consider the NGOs and other civil society sector as real partners for development (CRDA, 2006; Milkias, 2006). In Ethiopia, strong, vibrant and independent institutions have been considered by the government as a threat so that categorized as part of opposition working to undermine its power bases (Zewdie and Pausewang, 2002). Bureaucracy Lengthy and bureaucratic requirements for registration, demanding reporting

requirements, and continued lack of transparency on the part of government executive bodies weakens government-NGO relations (GTZ, 2001). Pro-government NGOs The state is deliberately promoting its own party controlled parallel civil society groups, such as local indigenous NGOs, women organizations, youth associations and trade

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unions. This highly reinforces the suspicion that is held in the voluntary sector that the state does not have confidence in independent civil society groups and may be planning to replace them at some time in the future (Zewdie and Pausewang, 2002). About 70% of NGOs interviewees indicated the existence of pro-government NGOs who work against independent civil society in Ethiopia. On top of this, inter NGOs collaboration and information sharing is extremely limited among NGOs themselves, which has made them more vulnerable to government attack.

Participation Major decisions that concern the civil society themselves are passed at regional and federal levels without the participation of civil society representatives (GTZ, 2001). A good case in point is that officials in the ministry of justice responsible for drafting new laws that govern NGOs operations have been unwilling to involve the NGOs sector in the preparatory efforts (CRDA, 2006). The study of Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) on capacity building program in Ethiopia (2005) complained that the Ethiopian government is considerably more restrictive with respect to the space it allows international and national NGOs (Norad, 2005: 1).

Rules and regulations It is the state that sets the rules, regulations that govern civil society engagements and that the rules are vague, ambitious, and subject to arbitrary interpretation by the regulating organizations (Zewdie and Pausewang, 2002, CRDA, 1997). The deliberate provision of

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regulation contrary to provision of their parent law restricted freedom of association, violated essential provision of the constitutions and international human right agreements ratified by Ethiopia (CRDA, 2006: 13).

The New Charity and Society Draft law It very important to take some time and discuss on the charity and society draft law, which recently has become the concern and frustration of stakeholders including human-right groups such Amnesty International.

Drafting separate law for civil society organization is a good start. The proclamation may have long-term merit by encouraging local fund raising practice in the country. However, it is questionable whether the draft law has considered the reality of Ethiopian civil society. Concerning the genesis of NGO/CSO, article 1, sub article 2(2) of the draft proclamation states that charities and societies established by Ethiopians under Ethiopian law are deemed to be foreign institutions solely for receiving more than 10% of their annual income from external sources (Ministry of Justice, 2008:1). The draft

proclamation is debatable at least from two angles. World Bank, (2000) states that, civil society is young, emerging and with extremely limited capacity in Ethiopia (World Bank, 2000). On the other side, unlike other countries, fund raising for charity works, with exception for burial ceremony, is not a developed practice in Ethiopia (Rahamato, 2008). Therefore, this research argues that the draft law has not considered the capacity limitation of civil society and the viability of fund raising in Ethiopian where majority of civil society

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groups, including NGOs mainly depend on external fund sources. The charity and society draft law, article 2 sub-article 4(J-N) prohibit the engagement of international NGOs on development policy advocacy, promotion of human rights, the democratisation process, conflict resolution, citizenship and social development (MOJ, 2008:6). In short International NGOs are not allowed to involve on advocacy of policy and good governance. It is the belief of this research that these articles is harmful to the democratisation and development processes and is contrary to the interest of beneficiaries.

In Ethiopia the current operational environment is not only scary but also frustrating. More than 87% of NGOs respondents (see annex 2) indicated that the environment for NGOs operation is challenging. The worries and concern of human right groups and international community justifies this reality following the draft of charity and society proclamation in the country. One of such organization that expressed its worry and concern is Amnesty international. Amnesty in its June 2008 report expressed it deep concern as Draft Charities and societies proclamation, which clearly aims undermine and frustrate the work of independent Ethiopian civil society and ban on foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as Amnesty international from operating in the country. The proclamation is a clear demonstration of the governments intolerance on the work of human rights defenders and civil society organizations, and would seem to be a ploy by the government to conceal human rights violation and prevent public protest and criticism of its actions (AI, 2008:1). Amnesty international and other human right activists have frequently accused the Ethiopian government for human-right abuse since 1991.

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It is not clear as why the then guerrilla fighters, the present leaders became unfriendly to their former supporters and sympathizer. It is only the leaders who can answer this question with certainty, however; the speculation is that EPRDF (government) has suspicions on some international NGOs based on the previous experience it had with during the time of guerrilla fighting and cleaning ones own house is better than suffering from the consequences.

Chapter 4.2.3.2.

Internal challenges

NGOs are expected to initiate, design and implement projects that can be scaled up by governments and donors. They are also considered as innovators and models of good practice. However, in addition to external challenges, NGOs also have major internal challenges. Some of the main internal challenges are listed below. Capacity limitation

There is significant capacity limitation among indigenous NGOs. Limitation in human resource and budget constraints are the prominent features of local NGOs. GTZ (2001) stated that, local NGOs lack access to funds, physical assets and competent human capital.

Weak private sector

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Unlike in other countries, in Ethiopia the private sector is too weak and fragile as to become internal funding sources for NGOs. The weakness is due to unfriendly policy environment and government control of major economic sectors (Zewdie and Pausewang, 2002).

Dependence

The overwhelming majority of both international and local NGOs depend on external funding sources to run their programs. Government and donors play major roles in supporting NGOs programs, which usually has compromised the independence and effectiveness of NGOs (Hellinger, 1987:137). The NGOs who based their funding source on governments end up with negative bearing against the poor by failing to distance themselves and compromising their impendence with the government (Weston, 1994). Interview with Rahamato has indicated that NGOs operating in Ethiopia are mainly based on external funding sources. Thus, the problem with article 1 sub article 2(2) will mainly affect those NGOs that secure funds externally. If overwhelming majority of NGOs are depending on foreign funding source, it is clear that indigenous NGOs should either change themselves into international NGOs which is extremely challenging to achieve or should depend their program only on 10% of funding support from external sources, which is also impossible to run a program after cut off 90% budget due to article 2 sub article 2(2). It does not matter it does not rain in Ethiopia, if it does in Canada (No 11)

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The above idea is taken from government interviewee No 11. There was some understanding similar to interviewee No 11 in 1990s. In 1990s, emergence support in the form of wheat and edible oil was coming from Canada for the famine victims every year. Through time the then beneficiaries developed much expectation for the wheat and oil that was coming from Canada. To indicate higher expectation of the community (farmers), a statement more or less similar to what was mentioned by interviewee No 11 was frequently used in Ethiopia. What worth mentioning this quote here is?; that NGOs should be where they are to bring change not to develop dependency.

Democratic culture and values

Democratic culture and values are very important if NGOs need to involve in the democratisation process in Ethiopia. NGOs involvement in programs, such as advocacy on human rights with out proper knowledge and skill lead to conflict and hostility instead of bringing constructive democratic norms and values. Many of the NGOs, especially indigenous ones have not internalised democratic cultures. Gebre-egzibiaher and Sisay, (2002), GTZ (2001) stated that NGOs lack the culture of tolerance and constructive debate and have no media to inform the general public about their activities. The NGOs interviewees support the need for democratic knowledge and skill. Majority of NGOs respondents (75%) said that NGOs have no matured democratic culture, such as tolerance and constructive debate in Ethiopia (see annex 2).

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Accountability

There is always the issue of accountability. There is no clear-cut understanding as to whom NGOs are accountable. This is very challenging question to answer, however; it is rational that this question needs to be answered by the NGOs themselves. One of the government interviewees (No 11) indicated that it is doubtable if NGOs know that they are accountable to the beneficiary community. They assume that they are accountable only to their donors. This notion is problematic. My understanding is such that NGOs are accountable to three bodies, to the community, to the government and to donors (No 11).

Phase-out and sustainability Phase-out and sustainability are two most important terms, which frequently are mentioned in development programs. NGOs should be where they are to bring change among the needy people. Change will be possible if only NGOs are able to sustain their programs. Sustainability becomes possible when NGOs start their programs with good phase-out strategy. There are evidences that indicate that NGOs programs have the problems of phase-out and sustainability. Interview made with both governmental and non-governmental organization confirmed this fact. Majority of NGOs respondents (83%) and vast majority of government (93%) stated that NGOs programs/projects have phase-out and sustainability problems (see annex 2).

Networking and communication

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Networking and communication is a common tern frequently used by NGOs sector in Ethiopia, but rarely practiced. In Ethiopia NGOs are seen competing for resources than working towards common interest and integrity. This has given opportunity to the government to undermine the sector by using its carrot-and stick policy. GTZ (2001) stated that, inter NGOs collaboration, public relation, and participation in public issues is rather limited. There is lack of clear understanding of democratic culture and government polices and programs among NGOs (GTZ, 2001).

Failure to use opportunities There were windows of opportunities that NGOs had not exploited in democratisation process in the country that might be due to integrity and networking problems or negligence or both. Zewdie and Pausewang, (2002) state that as soon as the present government came to power in 1991, conditions were fertile for associational life and image building which could bring civil society into visibility, however; opportunities were not properly utilised.

Chapter 5.

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CONCLUSION
This study has investigated variety of issues related to NGOs roles and operation in Ethiopia. Basic terms applied in the research such as, civil society, NGOs, democratisation and livelihood are defined for better understanding and clarity in the Ethiopian context by taking into account both global and regional situations. The status and place of NGOs sector at global, regional and national levels are demonstrated in the research. The operational environment for NGOs is considered from different angles. Livelihood situation in the country is explored. The roles and contribution of NGOs in livelihood transformation and democratisation is discussed. Major problems that NGOs have encountered during their involvement are explored.

Chapter 5.1.

Civil society in Ethiopia

During a democratic transition, civil society is expected to play major roles by mobilizing pressure groups for political change. Organized social groups such as students, women, farmer organizations; NGOs, grassroots organizations, trade unions, and religious groups are crucial elements for democratic changes. Civil society also play countervailing and watchdog roles to check and balance the abuse of state power, prevention of the resumption of power by authoritarian governments and encouraging wider citizen participation and public scrutiny of states. In Ethiopia, eexcept for few human-right advocacy groups (such as Ethiopian human rights council and Ethiopian professional

LXXXIV

women layers associations), the contribution of civil society in the process of democratic change is not found significant. This was due to the repressive nature of governments that highly restricted the participation of civil society in democratic processes. The relative improvements observed in the political environment during the power shift in 1991 had increased the numbers of civil society groups in the country, especially local NGOs, however; the observed improvements could not continue at the pace it started and expected. After few years of EPRDF on power, the relations between government and civil society have been reported deteriorating until it got collapsed after the crisis of May 2005 election. In Ethiopia, civil society in general and NGOs in particular, have limitations in human, financial and material capacity to play countervailing and watchdog roles in the democratic process.

Chapter 5.2.

NGOs in Ethiopia

The history of NGOs in Ethiopia in many circumstances is related to famine of 1973/74. Ethiopia was hit with two devastating famine in almost in a decade. The first famine occurred in 1973/74 and the second most devastating one in 1984/85. These famines contributed for the influx of international NGOs and for the emergence of indigenous ones in the country. The second famine relatively magnified the NGOs significance and widened the roles of NGOs in Ethiopia. After the famine situation subsided in the country NGOs started involving in rehabilitation and development works. The first groups that started operating in Ethiopia as NGOs in 1930s were faith-based organizations.

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Chapter 5.2.1.

Identified Contributions of NGOs

Due to the restrictive nature of the government that limited the space for NGOs, the roles and contributions made by NGOs are limited in Ethiopia. However, after the occurrences of the two devastating famines in the country, the roles and contributions of NGOs significantly increased in different sectors. Identified major contributions made by NGOs since their establishment in Ethiopia are listed below. Food Security: credible roles in saving the life of famine victims in food insecure parts of the country through emergency relief support of NGOs. NGOs involvements in the area of food security are increasing through times because of the recorded achievements in last couple of decades. Health and Education: remarkable contributions in improving the health and education of the society through constructing and made operational health centers and schools. Capacity Building: considerable achievements in uplifting the capacity and skill of the rural people through constructing training centers and intensive trainings on skill acquisition capacity building. Infrastructure Development: improved infrastructures developed by NGOs enabled millions of people to have access to health, education and market services. Microfinance: remarkable achievements in increasing the income of the rural poor through creating local credit and saving institutions.

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Democratization: contribution of NGOs in the democratic process is also remarkable although it is less significant compared to other contributions made by NGOs.

Chapter 5.2.2.

Identified Challenges for NGOs

NGOs, being the strongest part of civil society in Ethiopia, contributed much to the poverty reduction efforts in different ways. However, in their involvements NGOs faced various external and internal challenges. The major external challenges are associated to the government policies and laws enforced with regard to civil society. The major external challenges that limited the contribution of NGOs are listed below. Negative Attitudes and Perceptions: categorizing NGOs as an alliance to opposition parties that restrict roles of NGOs in the country. The NGOs roles in the area of advocacy on human-rights are highly scrutinize by the government. Emergence of Pro-Government NGOs: formation NGOs that only promote the policies of the ruling party rather than mobilizing the society to development. Bureaucracy: Lengthy and less transparent processes to establish and operate NGOs reduced the influx of NGOs in the country. The New Charity and Society Draft law: this law is expected to be enacted in the near future and may ban international NGOs from involving on advocacy programms, including on human-rights, conflict resolution and development advocacy. Under article 2 sub-article 4(J-N) international NGOs are prohibited to

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operate on any advocacy work. Local civil society groups will be considered if their annual financial supports exceed 10% from outside sources. There are many articles in the draft law that can scare NGOs operation in Ethiopia. The challenges mention here and elsewhere hint that rigorous tasks are ahead of NGOs in the democratisation process in Ethiopia. The ever increasing negative attitude of government towards NGOs and unfriendly relations that is being observed between government and NGOs demonstrates that government is resistant to recognise and accept the significance and contribution of NGOs for the countrys development. The objective of charity and society law is not clear whether to maintain public trust, promote compliance, enhance accountability, strengthen and provide autonomy for civil society involvement or to repress and scrutiny their involvements in Ethiopia.

The major internal challenges that encountered NGOs and limited their contribution towards development are listed below. Capacity Limitations: shortage of skilled power, financial and material resources has limited the roles and significance of NGOs in Ethiopia. Dependence on External Donors: the freedom to run activities and effectiveness of NGOs has limited by the interests of external donors. Accountability: lack of clear accountability by NGOs exposed for corruption and made less effective in their destined goals.

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Poor Networking and communication: lack of structured networking and communications among NGOs limited the available resources as they compete for resources to execute similar interests and projects.

Chapter 5.2.3.

Future direction

The challenges faced in the program implementation process can be made learning experience by NGOs. The challenges faced demonstrates that NGOs should work harder towards creation of autonomous home-grown civil society group actors that stand for the interest of wider citizens by playing countervailing and watchdog roles in spite of the challenges they are currently facing. NGOs are required to represent the interest of the marginalized groups within wider public arena, campaign on their behalf and seek to influence public policy and play countervailing and watchdog roles at both national and local scale.

In Ethiopia, NGOs are required to work towards image and constituency building up by promoting the role and programme of their organizations. Image and constituency build up of NGOs can only be possible when NGOs have programs that are sustainable and result oriented. NGOs should be accountable for their organization, government and the community whom they are working.

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There are some programs that need precaution of involvements of NGOs. It is well-known fact that NGOs do play pivotal roles in the democratisation process in any country. The effort will bring the intended outcomes if only if NGOs involve having the required knowledge and skill about democratic culture and practices. It is curial that NGOs should be knowledgeable about the rules, regulation and polices and programs of the country they working for.

NGOs are operating under highly resource competitive environment. The global situation requires that NGOs should exhibit democratic leadership in their operation, design their programs giving greater focus for sustainability and effectiveness. NGOs are always expected to be legitimate in their involvements and base their program on design programs on sustainable funding sources.

Chapter 5.2.4.
Opportunity

Opportunity and future challenges

The two around discussions held between civil society representatives and the Prime Minister of Ethiopia concerning the current draft law is an encouraging for NGOs future opportunity in the country. Discussions between government and civic society are instrumental to smooth the relationships in effect to develop partnership and collaborative mentality. Threats

XC

Ever declining resources-funding and the charity and society draft law expected to be enacted in the near future are main threats for NGOs to operate in the country.

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Annexes Annex 1
Semi-Structured Questions 1. Introduction of who I am and why I am completing this particular research: 2. Assurance of anonymity: 3. Provide my contact detail: Question to Government staffs 3.3 General 1. What do you understand by local and international NGOs? 1.2 ---------------------------------------------1.2 ---------------------------------------------1.3 ----------------------------------------------2. Please indicated at least three program areas that you consider have been more effective for NGOs involvement? 2.1 ---------------------------------------------2.2 ----------------------------------------------2.3 ---------------------------------------------3. Indicate at least three program areas that you consider have been less effective for NGOs involvement? 3.1 ---------------------------------------------C

3.2 ----------------------------------------------3.3 ---------------------------------------------1.2 Relationships and collaborations: 4. What are the program areas that your organization collaborates with NGO sector? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5. How strong your collaborations have been with the sector? (a) strong (b) weak 6. What do you think about the reasons for having strong/weak or no collaboration? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------7. What does the working environment look like for NGO operation in Ethiopia? (a) conducive (b) less conducive (c) not conducive 8. Why conducive/less conducive or not conducive? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------9. What do you feel about Government-NGOs working relationships? (a) strong (b) weak 10. why do you think, it is strong/weak? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------11. Are you satisfied with the present working relationships you have with the sector? (a) yes (b) no 12. If no, Why? And how can better relationships be (re) established? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------13. The election irregularity that occurred during May 20005 has worsened the working relationships between government and NGOs. Do you agree? yes (b) no 14. NGO involvement in the area of advocacy will rather weaken and hamper government NGOs-Relationships in the future. Do you agree? (a) yes I agree (b) no I disagree

CI

15. NGOs have critical role in the democratisation process in Ethiopia. Do you agree (a) yes I do agree (b) no I disagree? 1.3 Program efficiency and effectiveness 17. NGOs programs are sustainable and are credible. (a) yes they are (b) no they are not 17. The contributions of NGO sector in May 2005 election were significant. (a)yes (b) no 18. NGOs have critical roles in the democratisation process in Ethiopia. Do you agree on this? (a) yes (b) no

19. Please list three areas of involvements that you encourage for NGOs to focus on in their future involvements? 1. --------------------------------------------2. --------------------------------------------3. --------------------------------------------20. List three program area(s), which you consider may be ineffective for NGOs involvement taking the present Ethiopian situation in account 1. --------------------------------------------2. --------------------------------------------3. --------------------------------------------21. NGOs have made contributed for positive changes in the lives of beneficiary communities in Ethiopia. Do you agree? (a) yes (b) not at all 22. If you consider NGOs have contributed for positive changes, please specify at least three major indicators that justify NGOs contribution? 1. ----------------------------------------------------2. ----------------------------------------------------3. ---------------------------------------------------1.4 Constraints and measures 23. Please indicate three major weaknesses of NGOs that need improvement for better collaboration and partnership: 1. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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2. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------24. NGO programs have sustainability problems. (a) Yes (b) No 25. If yes, what remedial measures are required? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

26. NGO programs have no phase-out strategy. Do you agree (a) Yes (b) No

27. If yes, what measures you recommend for better phase-out strategy?

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Annex 2
Semi-Structured Questions for NGOs 1. Introduction of who I am and why I am completing this particular: 2. Assurance of anonymity: 3. Provide my contact detail: 2.1. General 1. What is the purpose of your organization? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2. What activities does your organization engage with? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2.2 Democratisation: 3. Which of the government policy/constitution/ documents you have under your organization as a reference material? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4. How do you perceive the Ethiopian constitution in relation to the rights of civil society to association and freedom of expression? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5. The Ethiopia civil society is considered at its nascent stage and has limited democratic culture, such as tolerance, constructive debate. Therefore, the civil society involvement in advocacy and human rights issues is neither timely nor advantageous. Do you agree on this statement? (a) yes (b) not at all 6. Do you consider the NGOs those involve on advocacy and human rights issues are equipped with the required knowledge and skill to challenge the government for change? (a) yes (b) not at all 7. There are some who fiercely complain that advocacy is not the priority area that NGOs are expected to involve relating to the present Ethiopian situation. Do you agree? (a) yes (b) partially yes (c) not at all 8. There are many, who speculate that the election crisis of May 2005 have worsened the ever-volatile government NGOs relationships. Do you agree?(a) yes (b) No 9. What implication does the election crisis of May 2005 have on NGO operation in E t h i o p i a ?

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---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2.3 Relationships: 10. How do you feel the present government NGOs relationships? (a) it was positive (b) it was negative 11. How could you perceive the relationships ten years back? (a) it was positive (b) it was negative 10. How could you perceive the relationships five years back? It was (a) positive (b) negative 11. There are some government created NGOs and government sympathizers working against independent civil society and against the NGOs sector in particular. Do agree on this statement? (a) yes (b) not at all 12. What are the program areas that your organization collaborates with Government sector? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------13. How strong your collaboration is with the sector? (b) strong (b) weak 14. What do you think about the reasons for having strong/weak or no collaboration? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------15. What does the working environment look like for NGO operation in Ethiopia? (a) conducive (b) less conducive (c) not conducive 16. Why conducive/less conducive or not conducive? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------17. What do you feel about Government-NGOs working relationships? (a) strong (b) weak 18. Why do you think, it is strong/weak? -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------19. Are you satisfied with the present working relationships you have with the sector? (a) yes (b) no
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20. If no, Why? And how can better relationships be (re) established? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------21. There are some who say that the election irregularity that occurred in May 20005 has worsened the working relationships between government and NGOs. Do you agree? (b) yes (b) no 22. There are some Ethiopians who complain that NGO involvement in advocacy will rather weaken and farther worsen Government-NGOs relationships in the future. Do you agree? (a) yes I agree (b) no I disagree 23 NGOs have critical role in the democratisation process in Ethiopia. Do you agree (a) yes I do agree (b) no I disagree? 2.4 Program related 24. Please indicate at least three program areas that you consider have been more effective for NGOs involvement? 1. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------25. Which three program areas do you consider NGOs have been less Effective? Please list them in their order of importance. 1. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2.5 Program efficiency and effectiveness 26. Many government officials consider that NGOs programs are not sustainable. Do you agree to this? (b) yes I do (b) yes I do to some extent (c) no I do not 27. The contributions of NGO sector in May 2005 election were very tremendous. (a) yes (b) no

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28. Many academia, professional and donor agencies are very keen to see vibrant civil society in Ethiopia, with special emphasis to NGO sector with the belief that they will play pivotal role in the democratisation process in the country. Do you agree on this? (b) yes (b) no 29. Please list three program areas that you encourage for NGOs to focus on in their future operation? 1. --------------------------------------------2. ----------------------------------------------3. ---------------------------------------------30. List three program area(s), which you consider ineffective for NGOs involvement taking the present Ethiopias situation in account 1. --------------------------------------------2. --------------------------------------------3. --------------------------------------------31. There is some understanding that NGOs have made some contributed for positive changes in the lives of beneficiary communities in Ethiopia. Do you agree? (a) yes (b) not at all 32. If you consider NGOs have contributed for positive changes among the beneficiary community, please specify at least five major aspects/indicators that justify NGOs contribution for the change in lives of the beneficiary. (Establishments, such as hospitals, schools when and where). 1. ---------------------------------------------2. -------------------------------------------3. --------------------------------------------4. --------------------------------------------5. -------------------------------------------2.6 Constraints and measures 33. Please indicate major policy bottlenecks that need improvement for better collaboration and partnership: 1. --------------------------------------------2. --------------------------------------------3. -------------------------------------------4. ------------------------------------------5. --------------------------------------------

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34. Indicate three major steps that you consider should be taken by the to make NGOs performance effective and efficient 1. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3. -----------------------------------------35. NGO programs have sustainability problems. (a) yes (b) no

government

36. If yes, what remedial measures are required? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

37. NGO programs have no phase-out strategy (a) yes (b) no 38. If yes, what measures you recommend for better phase-out strategy? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Annex 1
Summary of responses for Semi-structured interview (Government staff) S/N Questions Responses Positive 1 2 What do you understanding by local and International NGOs? Please indicate at least three program areas that you consider have been more effective for NGOs involvement Which three program areas do you consider NGOs have been less effective? What are the program areas that your organization collaborates with NGO sector? How strong your collaborations have been with the sector? What do you think about the reasons for having strong/weak or no collaboration? What does the working environment look like for NGO operation in Ethiopia? Why conducive/less conducive or not conducive What do you feel about Government-NGOs working relationships? Why do you think, it is strong/weak Are you satisfied with the present working relationships you have with the sector? If no, Why? And how can better relationships be (re) established? The election irregularity that occurred during May 20005 has worsened the working relationships between government and NGOs. Do you agree? NGO involvement in the area of advocacy will rather weaken and hamper government NGOs-relationships in the future. Do you agree? NGOs have critical role in the democratisation process in Ethiopia. Do you agree? NGOs programs are sustainable and are credible. Do you agree? The contributions of NGO sector in May 2005 election were significant. Do you agree? NGOs have critical roles in the democratisation
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Responses in % Positi ve Negativ e

Negativ e

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

12

80

20

13

87

13

12

87

13

53

47

10

20

80

14

60

40

15 16 17 18

2 1 2 7

13 14 13 8

13 7 13 47

87 93 87 53

29

process in the country. Do you agree? Please list three areas of involvements that you encourage for NGOs to focus on in their future involvements?

20

21

22

23

24

List three program area(s), which you consider may be ineffective for NGOs involvement taking the present Ethiopias situation in account NGOs have made some contributed for positive changes in the lives of beneficiary communities in Ethiopia. Do you agree? If you consider NGOs have contributed for positive changes, please specify at least three major indicators that justify NGOs contribution? Please indicate three major weaknesses of NGOs that need improvement for better collaboration and partnership NGO programs have sustainability problems. Do you agree? If yes, what remedial measures are required? NGO programs have no phase-out strategy. Do you agree? If yes, what measures you recommend for better phase-out strategy?

60

40

15

100

25 26 27

13

87

13

CX

Annex 2
Summary of responses for Semi-structured interview (NGOs Staff) S/N Questions Responses Positive Negativ e Responses in % Positive Negativ e

1 2 3

9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16

What is the purpose of your organization? What activities does your organization engage with? Which of the government policy/constitution/ documents you have under your organization as a reference material? How do you perceive the Ethiopian constitution in relation to the rights of civil society to association and freedom of expression? Civil society in Ethiopia is at its nascent stage with limited democratic culture, such as tolerance, constructive debate. Do you agree on this statement? Are NGOs those involve on advocacy and human rights issues are equipped with the required knowledge and skill to challenge the government for change? Advocacy is not the priority that NGOs are expected to involve under current Ethiopian situation. Do you agree? The election crisis of May 2005 has worsened the ever-volatile government NGOs relationships. Do you agree? Does the election crisis of May 2005 have an implication on NGO operation in Ethiopia? How do you feel the present government NGOs relationships? How could you perceive the relationships ten years back? How could you perceive the relationships five years back? Government created NGOs are operational in Ethiopia working against independent NGOs sector. Do agree on this statement? What are the program areas that your organization collaborates with Government sector How strong your collaboration is with the sector? What do you think about the reasons for having
CXI

12

100

25

75

10

17

83

11

92

10

83

5 1 8 5 4

7 11 4 7 8

41 8 67 41 33

59 92 33 59 67

33

67

17 18 19 20 21 22 23

24 25

26

27 28 29

strong/weak or no collaboration? What does the working environment look like for NGO operation in Ethiopia? Why conducive/less conducive or not conducive What do you feel about Government-NGOs working relationships Why do you think, it is strong/weak? Are you satisfied with the present working relationships you have with the sector? If no, why? and how can better relationships be (re) established? NGOs involvement on Advocacy will further weaken and worsen Government-NGOs relationships in the future. Do you agree? NGOs have critical role in the democratisation process in Ethiopia. Do you agree? Please indicate at least three program areas that you consider have been more effective for NGOs involvement? Which three program areas do you consider NGOs have been less effective? Please list them in their order of importance. Many government officials consider that NGOs programs are not sustainable. Do you agree to this? The contributions of NGO sector in May 2005 election were very tremendous. The NGOs will play pivotal role in the democratisation process in the country. Do you agree on this? Please list three program areas that you encourage for NGOs to focus on in their future operation? NGOs have made contributed for positive changes in the lives of beneficiary communities in Ethiopia. Do you agree? Please indicate major policy bottlenecks that need improvement for better collaboration and partnership: Indicate three major steps that you consider should be taken by the government to make NGOs performance effective and efficient NGO programs have sustainability problems If yes, what remedial measures are required NGO programs have no phase-out strategy If yes, what measures you recommend for better
CXII

12

100

11

92

12

100

25

75

12

100

10 5 12

2 7 0

83 41 100

17 59 0

30 31

12

100

32 33

34 35 36 37

10 8

2 4

83 67

17 33

phase-out strategy

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