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Fungi Kwaramba-Political Editor
SINCE Zimbabwe’s Independence in 1980, and even before, non-governmental organisations have played a key role in supporting the country, especially in humanitarian terms.
They provided succour to the poor and complemented Government’s efforts in mitigating the effects of natural disasters.
Indeed, the names of NGOs that have left an indelible footprint on the country’s landscape are too many to mention. They have often risen to occasion when the country was in the clutches of droughts, and in some cases building schools and providing healthcare amenities.
However, at the turn of the millennium, many more NGOs sprouted, cloaked in human rights, democracy, and constitutionalism apparel, or rather under their guise.
As of now, the United States has set aside US$5 million to influence the 2023 elections; inviting NGOs to apply for grants, ostensibly to entrench democracy and constitutionalism, but in reality, to remove the ZANU PF-led Government.
There is a method to this interference.
Since the turn of the millennium, organisations like the US Institute for Peace have bankrolled Zimbabwe’s politically inclined NGOs. Most of them are conduits through which opposition parties are financed; at times to violently remove a democratically elected Government; sometimes through riots, as was witnessed in 2018 after the harmonised elections and in January of the following year.
Therefore, it is clear that the same NGOs still exist with their nefarious anti-Zimbabwe agenda. Like the puppets that there are, these NGOs are still pandering to the whims and caprices of their master puppeteers in Western capitals to force a change of Government.
It is clear that NGOs have emerged as Trojan horses for global neo-liberalism and promoters of Western hegemony in the developing world.
Usually their approach and agenda are consistent with the foreign policy of their handlers; be it in influencing regime change, or in preserving the status quo as long as it suits the Western agenda. Thus, governments in developing countries must never underestimate that danger.
The goal is ultimately to preserve and perpetuate their dominance on developing nations, and again with notions alien to these countries’ norms, values and beliefs.
In slightly over half a century since the advent and proliferation of the NGOs, and post-colonialism, then the dogged determination by erstwhile colonisers to counter their Cold War rivals through sponsoring civic society, it remains clear that these so-called NGOs can be used as vehicles for regime change, or flag posts of neo-liberal domination.
No doubt, the emergency of countries like China, with its China’s International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA), established in 2018, presents an alternative to the often strings-attached Western form of aid, which is largely prescriptive.
According to the Centre for Global Development in 2014, China’s aid flows were officially estimated at over US$4 billion per year — similar in volume to Canada or Norway’s, and about a third the size of the UK’s aid budget.
Through China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) which was announced in 2013, the Asian economic powerhouse has made hundreds of pledges to support different countries and regions around the world in different ways.
As Chinese President Xi Jinping said: China’s aid to Africa will not “come with any political conditions attached”.
This bold statement contrasts with the Western world’s notion of aid, which places preconditions on changes in the governance structure, and adherence to so-called human rights, defined in their narrow and usually parochial lenses.
Therefore, as was the case during the Cold War, when the US and the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) were competing to outfox each other in the duel for global domination, developed countries found themselves with no room to manoeuvre. It is always difficult to enforce conditions once there is an alternative. This is a healthy scenario that will ultimately give governments in developing countries the freedom to choose development partners, guided foremost by national interests.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with NGOs responding to natural disasters such as the Cyclone Idai, which affected the Eastern parts of Zimbabwe and neighbouring countries.
Back then the region needed immediate relief and assistance from non-governmental organisations which came in handy. However, there is always a latent danger that when NGOs are involved in long term services, their areas of influence beyond set mandate could be used by foreign forces to undermine a nation’s sovereignty.
Scholars believe that NGOs have the power and capacity to erode state power by, among other things, providing services that the Government should provide, and also by directly interacting with their handlers, mostly ensconced in Western capitals. Also, they may end up relying on information channelled through undiplomatic conduits.
A case in point is when a motley of Western-sponsored Civic Society Organisations (CSOs), under the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, handed over a damning report to the United Nations Special Rapporteur, Ms Alena Douhan, which sought to have illegal sanctions imposed on the country maintained.
Sounding more like political commissars of the Western world, the so-called human rights defenders insisted in their dossier that the sanctions, which have cost Zimbabwe no less than US$100 billion, should remain in place, even as all progressive forces agree that they have caused untold suffering to ordinary Zimbabweans.
Admitting to calling and supporting the maintenance of sanctions on Zimbabwe, the so-called human rights guardians said in January 2002 the country’s civic society backed the imposition of sanctions on the country alongside the opposition MDC.
“This shows that the imposition of restrictive measures against Zimbabwean government officials and associated persons and entities cannot be conceived as unilateral in any narrow sense, and have the support of Zimbabweans, even though they are not endorsed by either Security Council of the United Nations nor the General Assembly of the UN.
“Several attempts have in fact been made, with the support of Zimbabweans, to have the Zimbabwe crisis addressed by the UN Security Council, but these have been vetoed”.
There is, therefore, little wonder that such NGOs do not stand for the interests of Zimbabweans. Rather, they represent their Western handlers, who unilaterally imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe as punishment for embarking on the land reform programme aimed at redressing colonial inequities on land ownership.
The problem posed by NGOs is not only unique to Zimbabwe as it is also rife in other African countries such as Nigeria.
In Kenya, under the NGO Act, it is an offence for any person to operate an NGO for welfare, research, health relief, agriculture, education, industry, the supply of amenities, or any other similar purposes without being duly registered as an NGO.
This brings us to the case of Zimbabwe where the Private Voluntary Organisation Amendment Bill has been gazetted with a view to regulate activities of NGOs.
Principally, the Bill, gazetted a fortnight ago, seeks to amend Section 10 of the principal by the insertion of the following paragraph after paragraph (e) as follows— “(e1) when any private voluntary organisation that supports or opposes any political party or candidate in a presidential, parliamentary or local government election or is a party to any breach of section 7 under Part III of the Political Parties (Finance) Act (Chapter 2:12) as a contributor of funds to a political party or candidate or otherwise shall be guilty of an offense and liable to a fine of level twelve or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding one year, or both such fine or such imprisonment.”
Apart from barring NGOs from pursuing political lobbying, the Bill’s Memorandum says the amendments are also being made in order to comply with the Financial Action Taskforce (FATF) recommendations made to Zimbabwe.
Further to this, it has also become necessary to streamline administrative procedures for private voluntary organisations to allow for efficient regulation and registration.
The FATF, to which Zimbabwe is a member, is an intergovernmental organisation founded in 1989 on the initiative of the G7 countries, whose main objective is to develop policies to combat money laundering. Each member country is assessed periodically for compliance with the policies and legislation on money laundering and financing of terrorism.
Countries are assessed on two major criteria, which are technical compliance and effectiveness.
Technical compliance is concerned with deficiencies related to a country’s anti money laundering and financing of terrorism legislation, while effectiveness is concerned with deficiencies which highlight practical implementation challenges.
“This Bill seeks to comply with recommendations under technical compliance raised under Zimbabwe’s Mutual Evaluation Report,” reads part of the Memorandum.
“As a result of the said deficiencies, Zimbabwe was placed under a monitoring programme in October 2018 by FATF in order to ensure the country aligns its laws on private voluntary organisations to recommendation 8 whose objective is to ensure that non-profit organisations are not misused by terrorist organisations, whether as a way for such terrorist organisations to pose as legitimate entities; or to exploit legitimate entities as conduits for terrorist financing, including for the purpose of escaping asset freezing measures; or to conceal or obscure the clandestine diversion of funds intended for legitimate purposes, but diverted for terrorist purposes. As such, there is need to have clear laws that set out a framework that allows to prevent any potential abuse in key sectors.”
Online Reporter