Report by Bernard K DADZIE
The Executive Director of Star Ghana Foundation Dr. Ibrahim Tanko Amidu, has disclosed that Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) have played an immense role in Ghana’s Development right from the struggle for independence.
“If you talk about the origins, rights protection society, for example, pre-independence, this was a civil society organization, right through to the struggle for democratic governance in the 80s and 90s. Through the service providers and others. Civil society has been an integral part of Ghana’s development process and has achieved very significant resources should be yes.”
He stressed that civil society organizations differ according to where they work, what issues they focus on, and the types of civil society organizations.
“We are quite different. We think that across these differences, there are areas where of common interest, how we can enhance our accountability to the citizens of this country, how we can strengthen our capacity to be more effective, and also how to ensure that we are legitimate and will comply with the regulatory requirements.”
Dr. Ibrahim Tanko Amidu was speaking at the National Civil Society Organisations Forum with the theme “Reflections on the Conceptual and Developmental issues of CSOs in Ghana and the Sustainability Challenge”. It was held at the University of Professional Studies Ohene Konadu auditorium at East Lagon in Accra.
The National Civil Society Forum (CSF) seeks to set up an NGO/CSOs Forum, to promote knowledge sharing, discourse on protecting and consolidating civil society and civic space in Ghana.
This is in the light of a renewed enthusiasm to enact a law to enhance the governance of the sector in recent times. In 2020 the nonprofit organization policy was approved as an enhanced step toward regulating the NGO/CSO sector.
According to Dr. Ibrahim Tanko Amidu, Star Ghana Foundation Executive Director, the purpose of the forum is to create space for civil society actors to consolidate ideas on how to sustain the sector.
He said that the civil society Organizations forum will also serve as a platform that brings actors in the sector together for reflections and brainstorming on matters of mutual interest, discussing developments with sector-wide implications.
The Executive Director of ASEPA Mensah Thompson revealed that CSOs need to create a space where they can come together as civil society organizations to ensure that they do have the freedom to operate as guaranteed by the Constitution of this country.
“We are not asking for anything beyond what the Constitution guarantees, but how do we collectively defend the rights that the Constitution has given us to enable some psychoanalysis as to what each specific organization is doing? I think that is the business we are not setting upon,” he said.
Mr. Thompson entreated the various societies should be able to generate the funding to support their development in some ways, that selfless rights, that they need to own their development processes. And that means also raising the funding to support those processes.
For his part, the Chief Executive Officer of IMANI Ghana, Mr. Franklin Cudjoe, explained that Civil Society Organisations deal with a lot of national policy issues that benefit the country.
He hinted that the donors have started cutting back on the money they gave Ghana.
Governments typically no longer listen to critical civil society actors because they feel they are not bound by them. There were times when donors who contributed to the CSO space also had a relationship with the government and that was a tripartite relationship.
“Government donors were the ones that changed as a result of the change in the terms of the tax base, because of Ghana’s peculiar growth prospects but it now means that they no longer pay much attention to what we do, which is why we need to look within and make sure that our work is more relevant,” he said.
He said that many internationally funded projects and programs delivered in Africa from an arm’s length had to pause or retreated during the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic’s early days, but locally based civil society organizations had no choice but to remain.
At times, these CSOs were the only safety net available to communities in need of the most basic amenities, filling the gap as the economic and social fallout of the crisis wracking the continent.
He said that the pandemic has emphasized many societal inequities, and philanthropic global giving has not been exempt. In many ways, COVID-19 has proved that existing models of philanthropic giving in global development and aid do not necessarily live up to its lofty ideals and that they do not lead to the changes often touted, he said.
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