[Imc-africa] World Social Forum winds-up in Nairobi | Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem

[terna gyuse]

*Title: * World Social Forum winds-up in Nairobi
*Author: * Pan-African Postcard, Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem
*Category: * Africa General
*Date: * 1/25/2007
*Source: * Pambazuka News
*Source Website: *
www.pambazuka.org<http://www.africafiles.org/database/www.pambazuka.org>

*Summary & Comment: * It should worry Africans that the African
participation in the Nairobi World Social Forum was more a gathering of NGOs
than of the real, social and political movements and peoples' organisations
who can make lasting change possible. Who do the NGOs at the WSF represent?
Who are they accountable to? To whom do they owe their loyalty? And why
should foreigners be helping Africans be independent of their own
governments when NGOs are so dependent on their own governments? NGOs are
not genuine Civil Society Organizations, the author insists. DN

------------------------------

*World Social Forum winds-up in Nairobi*

The *World Social Forum* (WSF) that took place in Nairobi was one of those
'once in a life time' events for many people; and 'once a year' events for
the veterans who continue to attend every one. It is an all-comers forum.
For instance, the gay and lesbian lobby in Africa are there along side the
Maoists, Anachists, peasant movements, trade unionists, radical scholars,
grassroots movements, all kinds of gender activists and more. The
reactionaries will say: all lunatics are in town.

It should be no surprise if there were many Africans since this is taking
place in Africa, but so marginalized are we in our own affairs that one is
always happy to see Africans at these meetings even when they are happening
here. Many of the usual suspects are around, from the veteran radicals to
the budding ones; and not only from Africa but from across the world. If you
want to gauge the state of global revolutionary consciousness, the
frustrations, the challenges and opportunities of the global forces for
change and transformation, the WSF is the place to be.

*But these gatherings always frustrate me for many reasons*.

*One*; they show up Africa's weaknesses whether they are held outside or
inside Africa. One of the critical areas is our level of participation and
preparedness. A majority of the African participants - even many from Kenya
itself - were brought by foreign paymasters or organisations funded by
outsiders. Often they become prisoners of their sponsors. They must attend
events organized or supported by their sponsors who need to put their
'partners' on display, and the 'partners' in turn need to show their loyalty
to their masters.

*Two*; even when these meetings happen in Africa, the participation of local
groups and citizens are constrained by the three factors of fees for
participation, language of discourse, and location. Local activists and
sympathizers in the WSF had to organize a protest and even a temporary
occupation before the fees for Kenyan participants were waived.

*Three*; we go to these events without adequate preparation about our own
agenda and line up behind other peoples' not-so-hidden agendas, although at
this WSF there were a number of attempts to forge a Pan- African agenda
before the summit consultations. One of them was the Pan-African Youth Forum
working closely with the Youth Commission of the WSF. But the truth remains
that many of the youth who came did so on the platform of one donor or the
other and were mostly not African.

This dependence on foreigners, both financially and ideologically, is so
pervasive that it cannot be ignored anymore. There are signs that an
increasing number of Africans are not only outraged by it but becoming
ashamed by it, and are looking for ways and means of freeing our activism
from the clutches of donor funding and donor-driven agendas. These issues
were frankly and honestly discussed at many forums before and during the
summit. This dependence on foreigners raises *a lot of disturbing
issues*about the state of Africa's NGOs and CSOs, and their capacity
to contribute
to lasting changes in the social, economic and political conditions of
Africans in favour of social justice.

*The first* is a question of legitimacy. Who do these NGOs represent? Who
are they accountable to? To whom do they owe their loyalty: to their donors
or to the African people they claim to speak for? *The second* is the
related question of the generally anti-government posture of these NGOs.
They take money from foreign governments/agencies like DFID, USAID, DANIDA,
SIDA, allegedly as independent CSOs.

But why should foreigners be helping us to be independent of our own
governments? How are their own citizens independent of them? The same
African NGOs that queue up to suck up to all kinds of foreign governments
and funders will raise their eye-brows and shout 'autonomy' and 'sell out'
if any of their members has close financial or political links with their
own governments.

In effect, the autonomy they are asserting is one of being sovereign against
their own government and subservience to any foreigner. Where governments
are illegitimate or have bad governance records this may hold for sometime,
but in the long run it delegitimises the NGOs concerned.

*The third issue* is the constant conflation of NGOs to mean CSOs which
should not be the case. *Genuine CSOs will include trade unions, guild and
professional associations, self-help groups, village or town associations,
faith-based charities or interest groups, etc. Their most distinctive
character is that they are voluntary, membership-based and generate their
funds from their members. *How many of our busy-body, noise-making NGOs
qualify in this sense? It is similar to our governments being dependent on
the aid of outsiders, and we demanding that they should be accountable to
us. We do not pay taxes but demand representation and wonder why the leaders
are more responsive to any noise that comes from outsiders?

The worst excesses of the dependence on foreign sponsors are the various
scams that have developed in many of these NGOs about *'creative accounting'
*, which does not mean accountability:
Per diem wrangles,
multiple claims,
bogus ticket refunds,
multiple accounting,
budgeting and reporting for similar proposals from the same organisation and

many other unsavoury practices that make these organisations not dissimilar
to
the governments we climb on holy mountains to attack for being corrupt,
inefficient and unaccountable.

And this issue of dependence on foreign donors is not just because there are
no resources. *How come the nationalists freed this continent from the yoke
of colonialism without writing proposals to any funder? Why are our peoples
not willing or able to support our activism?*
Could it be that the people do not associate themselves with the self-given
mandate of these largely middle-class led, elite focused, and urban-based
counter elite? Or worse still, people may be seeing that these self-declared
crusaders, whether foreign or local, are only there for their own interest.

The proliferation in the last decade of MONGOs (My Own NGO), GONGOs
(Governmental NGO) , BONGOs (Business NGO), PONGO (Private NGO), all over
Africa, may be an indication of democratic openings, or state collapse, or
of the irresponsive state, but are not good indicators of building
democratic, people-led, people-based organisations connected to and
organically linked to the wider social movements without whom social
progress, democracy and development is not possible.

If they truly belong to the masses, the masses will defend them. And, if
they are truly based on the interests of our peoples, their first allegiance
will be to those they serve. In that sense it should worry us that the
African participation in the first ever WSF in Africa in Nairobi is more of
a gathering of NGOs than that of the real social and political movements and
peoples' organisations who can make lasting change possible.

Many of our successful NGOs and INGOs, like their forebears, have become
gate- keepers - or to use a better term - commissioned agents between the
masses and their oppressors, occupying spaces for the poor and the
marginalized when most of them do not or no longer belong to that class or
share their vision of change.

**Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the Deputy Director for the UN Millennium
Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article in his
personal
capacity as a concerned Pan-Africanist.*
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