Dar es Salaam — Leaders of some civil society organizations (CSOs) in the country have been quoted in various reports voicing their frustrations about the unfriendly operating environment for their organisations.
Reports had it that some CSOs found themselves being barred from engaging in activities that were central to their missions, a move that scared away donors.
The leaders said this was done through the introduction of certain laws that only made things difficult for them to operate.
The result was stalling of key projects by some of these CSOs. Some even likened the situation to bullying, but still they continued cooperating with the government.
“In the last two or three years there have been challenges that have taken us into an environment where we as civil society failed to do our job properly,” says Onesmo Olengurumwa, the national coordinator of the Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition (THRDC).
Olengurumwa recalls that, towards the October 28, 2020 General Election, many organizations faced challenges, including bank accounts closure, making it difficult for the CSOs to fulfil their duties to society.
This comes at a time when reports indicate that most CSOs in developing countries are at a crossroads. They are buffeted on one side by questions about their relevance, legitimacy and accountability from governments and their beneficiaries, and on the other side they are having to adjust to a rapidly deteriorating operating environment.
Writings on civil society at a crossroads further highlights how many CSOs rely on donor support to enact the change they want, which has led to criticisms of their grant-driven business model, including making traditional CSOs fail to bring transformative change in society. A development expert based in Dar es Salaam, Dr Stephen Mbuya, says CSOs may be facing such questions from governments and beneficiaries because of a widening gap between the sector, governments and beneficiaries.
“Many traditional CSOs are dependent on short-term funding, which creates incentives to focus on achieving future funding rather than gaining community buy-in and ensuring the sustainability of projects,” he argues.
Dr Mbuya also notes that such a mindset, as well as some government officials’ misunderstanding or not bothering to understand the contribution of civil society, have led to a difficult environment for such development partners in developing countries, Tanzania included.
“They are the ‘watchdog’ that hold governments and institutions to account in issues such as human rights abuses and provide information to both domestic constituencies and international organisations/ other states and give a voice to the marginalised as well as advocating for change,” he tells The Citizen. This is what CSOs operating in the country associate their situation with, saying they have for years failed to effectively communicate their contribution to national development in order to eliminate negative misconceptions that may have developed against their functions.
“Our sector (CSOs) has been weakened because we could not show our importance as compared to constant engagements we witness between the private sector and the government. Instead we waited for invitations or calls to chart our contribution during occasions, making us look like people who have no input to the development of our nation,” regrets Olengurumwa.
For instance, one such hiccup was in 2019 where most CSOs were locked out of the civic electoral process after they were denied accreditation to monitor or observe the civic elections. According to reports, only four organisations were cleared to provide voter education ahead of the polls.
Some of the reported challenges included difficulties and cumbersome procedures for CSOs to secure accreditation from relevant authorities for provision of voter education, monitoring and observation of elections. This happened when in the area of employment, for example, they say, the country has more than 40,000 CSOs nationwide, all of which employ Tanzanians.
“In the country’s Education services, 25 percent comes from CSOs, while 50 percent of higher education services come from civil society organizations. About 40 percent of Health services are funded by the civil society,” he notes.
Change of tactics
In efforts to end the challenges that have cornered CSOs, the group is now set to showcase how they intend to contribute to the national five-year development plan after having seen light at the end of the tunnel in recent months. They base their argument with the sixth phase government that had shown recognition for the contribution of CSOs, saying they should use the opportunity to vividly communicate on how they would contribute to the national development plan.
“The motivation for wanting to show our contribution is due to us being mentioned as major contributors to the programme unlike in previous years where CSOs were often being sidelined when it comes to implementing national development plans,” says Olengurumwa.
He insists that CSOs are among three key sectors in the country that contribute to the achievement of development in various ways.
One of the strategies, THRDC and the more than 300 CSOs under it have developed an implementation plan for some of the areas identified in the recently unveiled national development plan 2021/22-2025/26 which will make the group more recognizable in the eyes of civil servants as well as the general public.
Their implementation of the government’s master plan, they say, will be unveiled and handed over to Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa during their Seventh Anniversary of the National Day of Human Rights Defenders to be held on July 2, 2021.
“In order to ensure that we participate effectively in the implementation of the government’s five-year plan or to demonstrate our relationship with the plan, we have developed our own plan that gives a plan on how we are going to devise the government’s development vision,” says Olengurumwa.
He pointed out those areas such as; provision of education services, health sector, private property, environment, human rights and access to those rights among other areas, which have been their venture for years but only that they did not have a good system to align them effectively.
“We did not have a good system in place to cooperate with the government, so we are grateful that the current government (six phase) has been able to identify stakeholders who can be part of the implementation of the plan and we are glad that we are among them,” he explains.
He adds that they dedicate this year’s celebration to be a good start to create a conducive environment for working with the government to avoid the occurrence of what was witnessed in the past years.
“We are grateful that we have now started working together and we have seen how we can restore the working environment in the right direction for our nation, than we were before,” says Olengurumwa.
As part of the strategy CSOs have engaged with the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) and have together developed a compliance tool kit that will among other things henceforth help the former to comply with all relevant laws, policies and regulation governing tax issues.
In this regard, towards July 2, 2021, THRDC in collaboration with TRA have organized a series of training for CSOs on how best to improve the area, including setting awareness of all vital taxes required to be paid by CSOs and the understanding of the mandate on how they can comply with all returns, including annual returns as well as available penalties.
“Taxpayers at times don’t have enough knowledge and information on how to pay taxes, so through the tax pay education unit under the TRA, we will be able to work together so as to improve CSOs capacity in tax compliances,” notes Olengurumwa.
But, Dr Mbuya insists that civil society groups should always be recognized as a partner in the development process and contributes to national governance processes rather than creating a difficult working environment for them, which could lead to the government losing important revenue and services from donors.