CSO Law in Ethiopia: Considering its Constraints and Consequences

Abstract

In Ethiopia, like in many African states, civil society organizations (CSOs) have played a role in addressing and promoting issues of public interest, especially since the beginning of the 1990s. They have been involved in service delivery and increasingly in advocacy on various issues, including in the areas of human rights and development. The work of CSOs particularly in governance and rights advocacy has often placed them at odds with governments, especially those with questionable democratic credentials. However, CSOs have also had problems of poor governance structure and lack of local constituency. The tension with governments and the accountability deficit of CSOs formed part of the reasons that justified the introduction of some restrictive CSO laws in a number of countries including Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Charities and Societies Proclamation of 2009 is believed to have entailed organizational, operational, and regulatory limitations against CSO work in the country. It has especially affected CSOs that work on human rights and governance and those which advocate for rights-based development. After laying out the effects of the law, this article weighs its justifications that extend from the restriction of the enjoyment of the freedom of association to Ethiopian nationals to the accusation of CSOs as promoters of a neo-liberal agenda. Underlining the need to address the accountability deficits in the CSO sector in the country, the piece finds that the restrictive elements of the law and their justifications exceed this purpose.

Keywords:

• CSOs
• law
• Ethiopia
• human rights
• development
• nationality
• funding

Acknowledgements

I thank Henri Onodera, Tiina Kontinen, and the other two anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier version. The field research for this paper was conducted within the project ‘Integrating Human Rights and Development (Academy of Finland 2010–2013)’ at the Institute for Human Rights of Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland. The article was written while the author was a researcher at the Center for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra, Portugal.

Notes

The legal bases for the registration and operation of CSOs in the country were the 1960 Civil Code of Ethiopia (arts 404–482) and Regulation 321/1960 that provided for the registration of associations.

While the Directive on public fundraising (no. 5/2003) provides for a lengthy list of preconditions and broad discretion to the Agency, the one on income generating activities (Directive no. 07/2004) says basically that they should be ‘directly related to the objectives’ of a CSO and treats such activities as any other private business venture.

For example, E/HRCO had to reduce its staff from over 70 to 10, its branch offices from 12 to 3, and its budget from about 7 million ETB in 2007 to a little less than 1 million ETB in the 2009/2010 budget year, and limit itself to ad hoc interventions (Beze, interview on 22 December 2010; compare recent and earlier reports at <http://www.ehrco.org>).

In his address to the House of Peoples' Representatives (televised on ETV on 19 December 2010), the Prime Minister of Ethiopia clarified that the prohibitions of the legislation relate to ‘political activities’, that is, NGOs may not do ‘political work’ with foreign funding (translation mine).

In a keynote speech in a government-CSOs dialogue forum held on 28 December 2010 (CCRDA, Addis Ababa), the Minister of Federal Affairs of Ethiopia, Dr Shiferaw Teklemariam observed that ‘the Proclamation averted the new form of colonization through funding NGOs’.

The informant requested anonymity. He provided the example that the creation of awareness on women's rights may result in claims to a local government which may be incapable to address the problems and the ensuing frustration may lead the women to vote for the opposition.

The two NGOs are Prison Fellowship/Justice For All and National Coalition of Women Against HIV/AIDS. Note that the Proclamation provides for possibilities of non-application of the law, by virtue of an agreement with the Government of Ethiopia, only to international or foreign NGOs operating in the country – see Proclamation 621/2009, art 3(2)(b).