Could the wrong perception about civil society cause misleading decisions?

The government of Uganda led by Parliament has focused on rationalizing government agencies in recent times. The core aim is to minimise public expenditure and enhance governance efficacy.  

In most of this process, parliament has used more of a political lens rather than a technical reasoning. My government should have been guided by an informed thesis like a technical survey not just a report of a Committee of Parliament. 

As a result, in April, the Ugandan Parliament passed a series of Bills related to the rationalisation process. These included the Warehouse Receipt System (Amendment) Bill 2024, the Free Zones (Amendment) Bill 2024, the Uganda Exports Promotions Board Act (Repeal) Bill 2024, the Uganda Wildlife Conservation Education Centre (Repeal) Bill 2024 and the Uganda Wildlife (Amendment) Bill 2024. 

When it came to amending pieces of legislation relating to NGOs, focus was put on their narrow definition of Civil Society. The Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO Amendment) Bill 2024 did not just return the Bureau to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. but legislators also described NGOs as vessels through which money laundering and homosexuality passes.  

There was limited appreciation of the fact that civil society serves and contributes to 20 percent of the poor people’s most poor.  Even after this too much regulation and monitoring of the civil society by the Uganda state, the civil society where the majority of citizens fall is naïve.

The amendment didn’t just transfer the Bureau but replaced it with a Board. For this reason, I realised that the citizens have a narrow definition of civil society like their leaders.

When actors talk of civil society, they narrow it to NGOs. Actually, the civil society is a community of citizens linked by common interests and collective activity. 

It is very common to associate the civil society to us the civil society leaders implying that whatever we do represents the civil society. The WhatsApp groups and other digital spaces all form part of civil society. The media is a primary civil society but it sometimes deludes when it is defining the role the civil society plays or must play. 

The NGO sector has played a critical role in mobilizing the wider civil society but it is not the civil society entirely that we conclude that NGOs are civil society.

However, citizens and our leaders have over narrowed the notion of civil society to imply organisations that seek funding and engage in civic advocacy. When citizens are calling for the cramping of civil society, it is like a monkey calling for the cutting of the entire forest. 

One day, they will starve and have no household or community. As a result, citizens have even abused and ridiculed civil society as if it means bad for the country.

Civility and the type of citizens of any country is determined by the nature and level of organisation of the civil society. A weak civil society will imply few or weak platforms of citizen organizing and state citizen engagements. 

Therefore, citizens fail to engage in a more none orthodox manner and resort to non-peaceful means of engagement. The civil society aligns to the needs of time. 

Unfortunately, when the state or government is deriding civil society, citizens chant the state for doing great work. A weak civil society may mean weak citizenship. This may also mean that citizens’ organising is left as a monopoly of the state.

All governments world over want a citizenry so weak and dumb to only pay taxes and cast their votes. It is civil society that has always gone an extra mile to awaken the snoozing citizens from civic lethargic mood. 

The relationship between civil society and government or their state is therefore to the extent the state looks at or perceives the civil society awakening citizens from siesta. For example, citizens under the weak Ugandan civil society have joined the state in branding the civil society as malevolent against our dear beautiful country interests, labeling the civil society as anti-development and trading extraneous interests. 

Therefore, for Uganda to develop, there should be new energies aimed at redefining civil society. Could the wrong perception about Civil Society cause misleading country decisions? Would we redefine civil society such that our operational, strategic and policy decisions are rational and well intentioned for the country. 

Once this wider and comprehensive definition of civil society is embraced, every stakeholder will look at the civil society as an intersection stakeholder group contributing to the broader development trajectory of the country such as our budgets, development plans, the country’s Vision 20240, Strategic Development Goals and the country’s ruling manifesto implementation.

Bbiira Kiwanuka Nassa, Recreation for Development and Peace Uganda.  
[email protected]