Public Voice and Accountability: The Growing Influence of Civil Society In Africa

African Development Forum: "Governance for a Progressing Africa"

By Kumi Naidoo, Secretary General and CEO, CIVICUS, South Africa

11-15 October 2004
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, colleagues and friends, my dear brothers and sisters. Africa, which I am privileged to call home, is often regarded as a desperately poor continent. The reality though is that history has been particularly unkind to Africa. The legacy of slavery, colonialism, apartheid, and the fact that Africa was kicked around as football by the competing blocs during the cold war and the betrayal by some of our political leaders has impoverished a fantastically rich continent. Africa's cultural diversity, the amazing capability of its people to persevere against tremendous odds, its natural wealth, all combine to confirm our richness. As a young student in exile, I was often asked, why is it that whenever we see South Africans protesting against apartheid, even at funerals of activists murdered by the apartheid regime, people are singing and dancing. The answer is simple, despite the odds we refuse to accept that this is the best humanity can be. We refuse to accept that we cannot rise beyond the degradation of injustice and the violence of poverty. This spirit is shared particularly with countries in the global south, and those enlightened voices in the developed world who refuse to accept the idea that their prosperity should be at the expense of their fellow brothers and sisters in the developing world. This spirit also informs the activism in rich countries which seeks to reverse the social exclusion of a growing number of citizens, or if you want the south in the north.

It is against this backdrop, that this important conference takes place. Some of us work at the local level, others at a provincial or state-wide level, yet others at the national, regional or international level. Some of us are primarily focused on providing services to communities in need. Others are more focused on influencing the policies adopted by governing institutions at the local, national, regional and global level. Yet, others are focused on the improvement of the governance of our public institutions, recognizing that policy is made within particular parameters determined by political arrangements that require not only reform but in many cases substantive and fundamental change. Of course, many civil society groups are involved in more than one level of intervention as well.

While a few of us come from civil society organizations, there are colleagues from intergovernmental organizations, such as the United Nations and the World Bank, we have counterparts from the business community and we have representatives from national governments. Notwithstanding this diversity, we are united by a common concern. Recognising that the basic building block of civil society is the citizen, we are committed to ensure that the voice and aspirations of ordinary citizens is respected and valued. We are committed to the ideal that every human being on this planet and our continent has the right and capability to shape the form of governance institutions that make the policies that lead to the delivery of services and the maintenance of the rule of law which we hope will one day be based genuinely on social, economic, social and civic justice.

When the cold war ended in the early 1990s, there was much optimism that a "peace dividend" would reduce wasteful military expenditure, would ensure that we address the real issues that humanity faces and that democracy will deliver just social and economic outcomes. Unfortunately, that optimism has not fulfilled its promise and rather than moving towards a more united global community we see many lines of division that keep us apart.

Perhaps more than anything that unites us here today is the desire to work for a more equitable and just world and continent that will ensure that future generations will not judge us harshly. They should not say, why did you not prevent the environmental degradation of the continent when collectively you had the power to do so. They should not ask, why did you not act with courage when the gap between the rich and poor, both within countries as well as between rich and poor nations was growing at an unsustainable pace? They should not ask why did you bequeath to us a continent where injustice, intolerance, fragmentation, inequality and cynicism reigns supreme.

When we look at the role of African civil society today we find that citizens and the organizations they have formed are involved in every aspect of human existence. Let me reflect on four, amongst others, of the key themes that African civil society is concerned about.

Gender equality, still unfortunately remains an elusive dream and even though there has been progress in a few places on the continent, the pace and depth of progress leaves much to be desired. What does it say about the quality of our democracy if still less than 10 percent of women occupy leadership roles in political life? What does it say about our social cohesion if violence against women and children is on the rise? These are some of the issues African civil society organizations are tackling across the continent.

Youth empowerment, another theme, is critically important, perhaps today more so than ever before. It is simply not good enough to say that young people are the leaders of tomorrow. In poor countries around the world young people's sheer numbers make them potentially powerful social actors. In Africa, for example, with the passive genocide being caused by HIV/AIDS, we have seen such an impact on our demography, and the rise of teenage headed households, that young people are very much the leaders of today. The failure to create opportunities for young people to have voice and presence in public life will ensure their further marginalization. This not only creates further social problems that need to be addressed but also ensures that humanity is robbed of the vast talents of young people.

If we are genuinely committed to justice we should be saying now that in the coming decades humanity must not judge itself on the progress and prosperity of those that are most privileged, advantaged and are in the mainstream of their societies. Rather, humanity should judge itself on the basis of the progress of those that are most marginalized and socially excluded. Often when we talk about social exclusion and marginalization, we might be tempted into thinking that we are talking only about minority constituencies of citizens. To be sure, we need to make a special effort with regard to for example racial, religious, ethnic and linguistic minorities, or people living with disabilities, or indigenous peoples, or people with alternative sexual orientations. However, given that in many societies, older persons, women and young people are socially marginalized we have a frightening situation where in actual fact the majority of citizens on the continent do not have full and effective voice to advance their concerns and aspirations.

While civil society organizations at the local, national and continental levels have considerable skills, talents and often take the lead in innovations, given the tremendous changes that have been brought about by globalization many capacity development challenges need to be tackled. In effect, what we are talking about is really releasing capacity rather than building it up from scratch. During the course of their day to day work, African civil society organizations are focused on learning and capacity development as a central focus of our efforts. It is therefore not surprising that so many new civil servants in societies on the continent that are undergoing democratization have received their bulk of their training from their work in a variety of civil society organizations.

The fourth theme is one that is devastating our planet and particularly our continent. The HIV/AIDS pandemic has already caused such deep devastation and has had human, social, economic and other consequences that call for a special effort of all of civil society. It is no longer good enough to say that there are HIV/AIDS NGOs who will take care of this tragedy. To place this in context: Every day on the African continent alone we suffer the equivalent loss of human life that was tragically witnessed on 11 September 2001 in the United States. Every day, some 4000 people lose their lives as a result of HIV/AIDS related illnesses, in my country, South Africa, some 600 human beings die every day as a result of the HIV/AIDS. Civil society organizations are doing important work to reverse the march of the pandemic but we want to consider during this Assembly strategies for how we might improve our impact.

Civil society organizations in Africa are fundamentally concerned about Economic Justice, Political Justice, Social Justice and Civic Justice. While each of these areas are interconnected civil society organizations are increasingly framing their demands on the basis of a rights based approach and using various human rights instruments as the basis of their advocacy both with their own governments as well as with an increasingly powerful international order where many decisions are made about Africa's future.

In the current global context where real power around issues such as the environment, trade, debt and other fundamental economic issues, terrorism and security, are unable to be addressed solely at the national level, more attention needs to be given to the workings of supranational institutions. Unfortunately, there are no direct channels for democratic representation to global decision-making forums such as the UN General Assembly, the Security Council, the World Bank, the WTO or any of the 300 other intergovernmental organisations affecting the lives of individuals and communities the world over. All of these institutions use a framework rooted in the nation state system that might have made sense to some half a century ago, but appears to be increasingly inappropriate.

Given the shift of power from national to global levels, it has become a critical priority for southern governments and socially excluded groups, to be engaging at a trans-national level, yet it is here that the "global governance deficit" is felt most strongly. Supranational governance structures wield great power over the lives of ordinary people around the world and should, in some way, seek to be participatory and accountable to those people. Herein is the crux of the global governance deficit: decisions affecting the lives and well-being of people around the world increasingly lie with supranational institutions that are not directly accountable to those people and which are not accessible to citizen voices.

Decisions about trade rules, intellectual property rights, macro-economic restructuring policies, privatization of vital services, and debt relief are perceived to be made behind closed doors in ways that are largely perceived to be undemocratic, lacking in coherence, legitimacy and ultimately, even the more acceptable policies that are embraced globally is burdened by the lack of compliance in implementation terms. Many of the global institutions that have become increasingly powerful in our current age such as the World Bank, the IMF, and key structures of the UN, such as the Security Council - were constructed at a particular moment in world history that is a far cry from the context in which we currently find ourselves. The geopolitics of 1945 continues to dominate the governance structures of key institutions, even at this point well into the post-colonial era on the eve of these institutions 60^th anniversary. We need to concede that many of these global public institutions appear to be operating under rules and logics that are not in keeping with the realities that citizens confront around the world today.

Democracy suggests, among other things, a system wherein a community of people exercises collective self-determination. Members of a given public take decisions that shape their destiny jointly, with equal rights and opportunities of participation, and without arbitrarily imposed constraints on debate. Democratic governance strives to be participatory, consultative, transparent and publicly accountable. By one mechanism or another, democratic governance rests on the consent of the governed. Given the present configuration of global governance, how are we to ensure the consent of the affected publics?

A. The Democratic Deficit at the National Level

We have to take account of the deepening lack of faith in national political and business leaders among citizens across the globe. While each national context has its own distinctive features, the declining passion for electoral politics is troubling for the future of democracy. The reality is that democracy at the local and national level is in trouble, even in many long established democracies. In many democratic systems 'form' has largely overtaken the 'substance' of democracy: elections may be held, but fewer and fewer people are choosing to vote and the meaningful interface between citizens and the elected are minimal between election periods. Elections run the risk of becoming pre-ordained, elite legitimating processes and are, in some cases, not delivering genuine democracy. Affiliation with traditional political parties is on the decline as the parties themselves are characterized by a growing lack of internal democracy or fail to address issues that citizens believe are important.

The influence of moneyed interests in many political systems is making it prohibitively expensive to run for political office. This coupled with a lack of transparency and involvement in the budget making exercises of some parliaments is making citizens turn away from traditional engagement in favour of new forms of participation. Also, apart from the optimism presented by the internet for greater transparency and alternative sources of analysis and information, broadcast and print media independence and critique is also diminishing and, in an age of aggressive spin doctoring, citizens are often separated from the full story about public concerns. Last and certainly not the least, is the lack of gender parity in national governments worldwide. While there has been some movement in the positive direction, the rules of the formal political game is largely framed by a distinctive masculine approach to dealing with conflict and compromise.

We run the risk today of having democracy diminished to little more than a liberal oligarchy or the rule of the view, including in some countries who see themselves as promoters of democracy. It is in this context that the role of civil society is critically important at several levels.

Firstly, civil society has an important role in breathing new life into democracy. This can be witnessed in several countries as civil society organisations are playing a big role in non-partisan voter education efforts or for that matter voter registration itself has is the case in the United States right now.

Secondly, civil society organisations are able to offer several options in addition to voting for ordinary citizens to take part in public life. It is important therefore to recognize that civil society organisations are involved at the macro (governance), meso (policy) and micro (operational/delivery) levels in public life. While most of civil society's efforts are at the operational level, increasingly civil society organisations are offering citizens an opportunity to reflect on policy and try to shape it, in between election periods (where electoral democracy is in place) as well as trying to improve our very governance systems. The idea that democracy should be reduced to the singular act of voting is clearly flawed, as is the idea that all energy should be put into non-electoral politics.

Thirdly, civil society is an important protector of democratic space when governments move in the direction of authoritarianism. In Zimbabwe at the moment, it is a severely battered civil society that is struggling against tremendous odds against the erosion of human rights and the devastation of democratic politics.

Fourthly, as we have seen repeatedly at world summits, civil society actors from different national contexts are better able to find common global approaches to various challenges that humanity faces than their national political leaderships who are constrained by election cycles, various national political expediencies, and often an exaggerated national parochialism. Let us now turn then to the democratic deficits at the global level.

B. Deficits at the Global Level

The situation becomes more serious in a context of a new global political and economic order, where power is located increasingly at the supranational levels. Only a small minority of the world's some 190 states have the mixture of wealth, capacity and influence (unfortunately still largely determined by military capability) to be core players in the current international order. Control over the policy of the major international organizations and over the direction of trade negotiations is really confined to the G7, with some influence of the smaller members of the OECD.

As such, a sense of disempowerment is felt on the part of southern governments, civil society in the north and south and also the business community in the south due to existing international organizations and decision-making institutions that lack, in particular, an equitable North - South representation with respect to development policies. A serious effort to improve southern country voices at global institutions would require going far beyond capacity-building to change the composition, voting shares and transparency of these organizations. Unless this is done, we are only going to see more donor exercises of throwing money at a problem rather than tackling the underlying issues.

In the ever-changing global context, new rules for global governance tend to be driven by and protect the interests of the most powerful countries and private actors, to the detriment of the powerless ones; to avoid democratic processes, transparency and accountability; to follow a top-down, rather than a bottom-up approach, and to neglect the protection and promotion of human rights, social and environmental goals. Needless to say, much of the rhetoric is positive but the gap between rhetoric and reality is huge, also contributing to skepticism on the part of ordinary people.

The determining factor is that such international organizations are only operationally important on particular aspects of governance since they are mainly country focused, and at the same time they often lack transparent and democratic procedures in developing policy actions.

II. Legitimacy Deficit

It is rapidly becoming a truism that this old notion of governance is breaking down in an era of globalisation and with the emergence of a devastating "democracy deficit" in several local and national contexts, and certainly at the global level. Surveys reveal declining levels of citizen trust in political institutions at both the national and increasingly global levels as well.

Although faith in traditional political institutions is waning, this should not be taken as a sign of citizen apathy. On the contrary, people are finding new and more direct ways to get involved in public life and decision-making - marking a shift from representative democracy to what is often called participatory democracy. Citizens are arguing for a new notion of governance that requires political leadership to engage with citizenry in ways that allow for on-going input into decision making and policy formation.

These new models take many forms, ranging from concerted attempts to build public-private partnerships to the establishment of transparency and oversight mechanisms which allow civil society groups to play quasi-regulatory or watchdog functions. The Social Watch network based in Uruguay is an excellent example of how civil society groups have taken the initiative to monitor progress on international commitments and to report publicly on findings. This type of public accountability mechanism is now widely regarded as an essential part of good governance.

Finally, civil society groups are slowly carving out a more active role in actual decision-making processes, as witnessed in their direct participation over the last decade in UN conferences with some national governments including civil society participants in their delegations. Certain innovative international commissions involve civil society groups as equal stakeholders in policymaking, rather than in an after-the-fact consultative role.

Legitimacy cannot be taken for granted and must continuously be earned. And civil society groups are taking up this challenge head on. Self-regulation mechanisms such as codes of ethics and standards of excellence have been adopted at the national level by civil society in several countries; a culture of transparency in governance structures is also gaining strength across the sector. Civil society groups work to derive mandates and legitimacy for their activities through extensive consultative processes.

There is also a powerful accountability factor in play with the functioning of CSOs, which I call the principle of "perform or perish." Not a single cent secured to undertake CSO activities is secured on the basis of obligation. Whether funding is derived from a government department, individual, foundation, business organisation or multi-lateral institution, resources will not continue to be available if civic organisations are not performing on the basis of their vision, mission and objectives. Most governments and inter-governmental organisations, to a lesser extent, are guaranteed a revenue flow from taxation or from countries' annual member contributions, even if performance is mediocre or substandard.

I would like to underscore, therefore, that the issue of civil society legitimacy is a valid one - particularly when it is voiced with an eye to building up the long-term credibility and effectiveness of civil society as an actor. All too frequently, however, the critique is lodged by those who would dismiss the right of civil society groups to give voice to citizen concerns and to engage in decision-making processes.

There is also growing concern about the increasing influence of big business in determining national and global policy. Business entities on the other hand are growing increasingly impatient about attempts to regulate their activities and the "irritation" caused by civil society advocacy efforts. When we find that, in fact, there is more public trust in civil society organisations than in business and government, we clearly have a legitimacy deficit to address at the national and global levels.

III. Compliance Deficit

There is growing criticism of the failure of national and global institutions to implement decisions that have been taken after costly exercises of consultation, negotiation and debate. It is at the global level that this problem is seen as most acute. Most UN Summits have delivered consensual policy positions that often fall short of civil society's aspirations. Yet, even the watered down commitments that are secured at these global policy making fora remain largely unimplemented. There are insufficient accountability mechanisms built into the system that encourages national governments to implement global commitments that they have signed up to. The need to develop a strategy and appropriate mechanisms to increase the propensity towards compliance is now an urgent task, which is hampered by convoluted debates about sovereignity and short term political expediencies at the national level.

IV. Coherence Deficit

Global governance institutions, itself a contested notion, such as the UN, the IFIs and others, have evolved over time in a largely incoherent manner. The current reality is that we have national ministers of education focusing their efforts at UNESCO, Trade Ministers focusing on the WTO, finance ministers focusing their energies at the World Bank and IMF, foreign ministers focusing their attention on the UN and so on. The line ministry approach at the national level, which itself often creates unhelpful cultures of territorialism and parochialism, is now replicated at the global level in largely unhelpful ways. Perhaps of all the factors that collectively constitute the global governance deficit, this is one area where, with the appropriate courage and conviction can be addressed with significant positive outcomes over the next two decades. However, the question is whether, we see the current institutional arrangements has being one with minor deficiencies that require incremental tinkering or whether in fact we conclude that the global system in place is so badly broken that what is needed is fundamental and substantive institutional change. Should we embrace the latter view, which is one that I would encourage, then this raises questions about whether what is urgently needed now is an attempt to create a more consistent and coherent system of institutional arrangements. While various subjective issues come into play with the current leadership's that are in place in some of these institutions, we should not be shy to say the following:

1. The global system in place is anachronistic.

2. Incremental changes are insufficient to address the current and long term challenges that humanity faces.

3. That a far reaching review of the different elements of the global order needs to be undertaken.

4. That such a review should be empowered to make substantive recommendations for streamlining, cost efficiency and with more commitment to setting and reporting on agreed goals.

Given the increasing prominence of global civil society, sometimes now referred to as the potential second super power in the current global environment, it is important to recognize that ironically civil society also, to a large extent, mirrors these elements of incoherence that inflict governments. Any recommendation coming from Track One should also address not only the problem at the governmental level but also the problems that civil society fragmentation faces, without undermining the importance for diversity, difference and the need for flexibility which recognizes that we cannot have a one size fits all approach at the national level.

• Over the last fifteen years we have seen the increase in the number of countries that are now holding elections. It is important though that we recognize that elections on its own does not deliver democracy. The idea that democracy should be reduced to the singular act of voting once every four or five years must be discarded in the dust bin of history. The reality is that today more and more citizens around the world are embracing a rather troubling view that elections do not have the capacity to deliver the appropriate economic and social change that is needed. It is in this context that today increasingly we talk about a democratic deficit.

So the challenge when looking at political justice is how do we essentially democratize democracy. The War on Terrorism itself has become a problem. It is undermining some of the fundamental tenets of democracy and in fact feeding and fuelling terrorism.

The Economic Justice concern recognizes that while enthusiasts of economic globalization promised that this is will lead to the unhindered flow of ideas, technology, capital and so on and this will lead to unprecedented economic development the reality is that there are more loses than winners. We should remind ourselves of the words of Mahatma Gandhi who said that this planet has enough to meet all of humanity's need but certainly not all of humanity's greed. We are also concerned about the major impact on jobs. The stock market logics seem to reward unemployment and we are seeing a rise of the informal, part time, home based, employment which ends up heightening livelihood insecurity. These are some of the issues that CSOs in Africa are focused on.

Social Justice deals with the difficult issues such as the role of civil society in divided societies and ones experience in contexts of conflict and violence. We here are concerned with issues of tolerance, fundamentalism and so on. We live in a world where we see the rise of anti-semitism, islamophobia and the rise of anti-Americanism. With regard to anti-american sentiment we need to make a distinction between the policies and actions of a government in power and the American people as whole. Should we brand any people in its entirety an enemy we undermine the fundamental ethic of civil society. The African proverb which says: "I am because you are, I am because you are" is a valuable source of inspiration as CSOs on the continent push for greater coordination, unity and integration of the African continent.

Civil society organisations also work for greater economic justice at the local, provincial/state, national and global levels. Work around economic justice concerns tackle some of the deficiencies in global economic policy making. In particular, recognizing that in the wake of globalization more and more permanent employees, especially women, are becoming informal, casual, temporary, seasonal, or home-based workers with little security and little ability to sustain an acceptable standard of living. This sub-theme will seek to highlight the new forms of civic organizing that are emerging to address these insecurities. It will also discuss the institutional biases that prevent the achievement of these alternative livelihood security solutions.

Conclusion

Civil Society Organisations stand ready to work in a constructive partnership with our governments who genuinely respect the principles of good governance and participatory democracy. We encourage African governments to look at the roles of civil society at the macro (governance), meso (policy development) and micro (delivery and implementation). Africans need to determine with clarity those areas of development that are genuinely within our own domain of control and to act assertively to address those areas such as around governance, corruption, gender equality and so on. On the other hand we need to recognize much more clearly those issues that we can only win through movement at the global level, such as around trade, aid and debt. However, irrespective of whether we are tackling those issues at the national and local level that are within our domain of control or whether we are tackling issues that require struggle at the international level, CSOs and governments on the continent need to develop a framework of engagement and partnership that will ensure that the comparative advantages of civil society can be harnessed for Africa's development.