Difference between revisions of "South Africa NGO Sector"
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Civil society’s exclusion from the policy making arena both exacerbates and has resulted from these tensions. In May-June 2006, more than 180 delegates met in New York for the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS), where South Africa submitted a progress report to be used by the UN to determine the effectiveness of the country’s programs to combat and treat the disease. Although the UN had instructed governments to include civil society groups in preparing the report, the South African Joint Civil Society Monitoring Forum (JCSMF) complained that they had not been part of the process, and were generally excluded from national policy making. Yet the South African government gave itself eight points out of a possible ten for involving NGOs in the planning and budgeting of HIV/AIDS programs. | Civil society’s exclusion from the policy making arena both exacerbates and has resulted from these tensions. In May-June 2006, more than 180 delegates met in New York for the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS), where South Africa submitted a progress report to be used by the UN to determine the effectiveness of the country’s programs to combat and treat the disease. Although the UN had instructed governments to include civil society groups in preparing the report, the South African Joint Civil Society Monitoring Forum (JCSMF) complained that they had not been part of the process, and were generally excluded from national policy making. Yet the South African government gave itself eight points out of a possible ten for involving NGOs in the planning and budgeting of HIV/AIDS programs. | ||
| − | Clearly, many challenges exist with respect to state-NGO relations. Yet it is a testament to the robustness of South African civil society that these challenges are confronted openly by the NGO community. It is truly remarkable that less than fifteen years after the end of | + | Clearly, many challenges exist with respect to state-NGO relations. Yet it is a testament to the robustness of South African civil society that these challenges are confronted openly by the NGO community. It is truly remarkable that less than fifteen years after the end of Apartheid, nearly 100,000 NGOs exist in South Africa today, working to reduce poverty and ensure equality for all citizens. |
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==External Links== | ==External Links== | ||
Revision as of 11:55, 13 August 2008
Contents
- 1 History of the Nonprofit Sector in South Africa
- 2 Size and Scope of the Nonprofit Sector
- 3 Definitions and Legal Classifications
- 4 Legal Issues and Regulations on the Formation and Operation of Nonprofits
- 5 State-NGO Relations and the Future of Civil Society in South Africa
- 6 External Links
- 7 References
History of the Nonprofit Sector in South Africa
The nonprofit sector in South Africa has a long history. The beginnings of civil society arose during the colonial period with various religious, cultural, and welfarist community-based groups. In addition, the European colonial powers brought their own organizations with them from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries (Swilling and Russell 67). During the twentieth century, the nonprofit sector developed further through a corporatist pact between the British elite and Afrikaner middle class (Swilling and Russell 68). Large, formalized non-governmental organizations (NGOs) dealing with health and social services emerged for the exclusive care of the white community. At the same time, grassroots community-based organizations arose in the black community in order to provide basic services. These groups were often survivalist and stood in opposition to segregation and later Apartheid. For the most part, the white-run government tolerated these organizations, except during periods of active political repression like the 1960s.
In the early 1980s, anti-Apartheid civil society organizations grew as a result of President P.W. Botha’s liberalization of the political system. Nonetheless, his reform movement retained repressive elements, and the state-civil society relationship throughout the 1980s remained adversarial, with a hostile legal and financial environment for NGOs (Habib 675-77). Oppositional social movements spawned by community-based organizations were integral in bringing about the end of Apartheid in 1994.
