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The second biennial WANGO Africa
conference, tagged ‘Kenya 2010’ took
place form July 1st to 4th
at the SENTRIM 680 Hotel & Boulevard,
Nairobi Kenya. It hosted on the theme:
Non-state Actors and Ethical
Re-orientation. Over 50 civil society
organizations, CSOs, business and
government representatives drawn from
Uganda, Nigeria, Burundi, Zambia, Rwanda
and six (6) other African states were in
attendance. Others participants outside
Africa include United Arab Emirates (UAE),
Belgium, United States of America, USA,
and Europe.
Preamble
The deplorable
decline in morality, values and
standards in the society can be
attributed to failures by the various
institutions in performing their desired
roles. The repercussions of this neglect
of duty are under-developments with
their accompanying symbols such as
poverty, crises and social vices. It is
believed that Non State Actors, as the
voice of the common man, can vocally
contribute to this ethical
re-orientation to safeguard the society,
even when other segments like the
business and the government fail to do
so. These observations make the
conference a pertinent gathering to
brainstorm on the way forward.
In his welcome remarks, Mohammed Bougei
Attah, WANGO Africa Co-ordinator, noted
the need for ethical re-orientation as
corruption, poverty and bad governance
are the basic problems limiting the
African continent and most societies
from achieving greatness despite their
pronounced numerous potentials and
abundant resources. He identified Non
State Actors as veritable force for this
struggle and urged participants to bring
their experiences to bear in order to
realize this noble objective.
The Chair of the opening ceremony, Prof.
Alvan Quamina, Director of the AIDS
project of the East bay California, USA,
commended the participants for finding
it worthy to be part of the momentous
gathering where issues bothering
humanity would be thrashed. He expressed
optimism that with the calibre of
participants drawn from across the
globe, there was no doubt that the
objectives of the conference would be
realized. He urged actors to remain
steadfast, consistent and focused as
nothing transcends sincere service to
humanity.
Delivering the Keynote Address on
the theme: ‘Non State Actors and
Ethical Re-orientation’, the Guest
Speaker, Mr. Leonard N. Kimani,
Director, Economic Sector, National
Economic and Social Council (NESC),
Nairobi, Kenya, identified many NGOs as
playing important roles in addressing
many development priorities which
contribute to achievement of Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs). He observed
that poor ethical values have also
permeated the staf of some organizations
who have appeared to fight hard against
upgrading societies to a higher security
status despite the gains that have been
achieved – so that they do not miss out
on hardship perks. He noted the dire
need to enhance ethical considerations
and to target ethical re-orientation
programmes. Such programmes embedded on
all development activities of Non State
Actors would ensure that stakeholders
understand ethical values, believe them,
sing them; and hold themselves and their
leaders accountable to them.
The plenary session, workshops and
symposia
witnessed plethora of paper
presentations, discussions,
interactions, questions and answers.
Jean-Jacques Schul
of IDAY International, Belgium spoke on
the topic “Education as Fundamental
Parameter for Socio-Economic Growth”.
He saw education as a veritable tool in
eradicating poverty and facilitating
development. He traced the problems of
education to poor governance by most
leaders especially in Africa. Africa has
about 14% of the world average of 40% of
illiteracy. He laid emphasis on poverty,
gender and lack of access to education
at the rural level as the major causes
of illiteracy on the African soil,
adding that foreign aids have failed the
continents in their quest to build the
educational sector. He advocated for a
human right approach and empowerment, to
bring accountability and prudent
management of resources in the
educational sector. He noted the urgent
need to invest and build the capacity of
non state actors to facilitate the
development of the sector.
In his paper titled ‘NGO
Accountability and Transparency: The
Current Debate’, Prof. Jerry Kolo
of American University of Sharjah, UAE,
drew the attention of the participants
to the current focus on NGOs’
accountability and transparency as the
government and other stakeholders are
beaming their search light on their
activities. He proffered the way forward
for NGOs’ sustainable development on the
pentagon principle of enlightenment,
equity, environment, and economy.
His second paper titled ‘Human Rights
and Democracy: The Challenges Ahead for
Africa’ compared the declarations on
the United Nations, the African Charters
and the Cairo’s declaration on human and
people’s rights. He succeeded in
bringing to the forefront the
conflicting and the unifying values
present in them. He emphasized on the
need for NGOs in Africa to take up the
challenges of teaching and educating
stakeholders/constituencies (social
capital) by progressive measures as they
are seen to be more reliable in these
regards by the general populace. They
can achieve these thorough lobbying for
policies formulation and legislation,
building institutional structures,
development of action plan, generation
of programme resources and formation of
meaningful partnership with other
sectors in achieving a proper framework
for human rights and democracy. He
challenged Non State Actors in Africa to
be at the forefront to help the
continent in achieving sustainable
democracy and human rights through
proper education and outreaches to
relevant stakeholders.
Mr. Oluwatosin Quadri,
Executive Director, Development and
Leadership Institute (DLI), Nigeria,
spoke on ‘Perspectives in Governance
and Leadership’. He identified
faulty leadership and governance as the
basic problems of African continent. He
called on non state actors to intensify
the campaign for good governance,
accountability and transparency in the
continent. He emphasized the desire to
groom leaders to prepare them adequately
for the challenges ahead.
Bishop Zebedee Maseraka,
Bishop Maseraka Christian Foundation,
Uganda, in his paper on “Education
and Human Development” noted the two
variables as depending on the other for
their survival. He identified education
as a strong force for human development,
adding that an educated mind is not only
a path to development but contributes
largely to the development of the
environment. He urged Non State Actors
to serve as vanguards of educational
development in order to produce the
desired manpower for the promotion of
ethics and values.
The paper on “Ethical Re-orientation
and Millennium Development Goals”
was presented by Ambassador Raphael
Ogar Okoh, Regional Coordinator of
Teachers Without Borders. He indentified
the need for African governments to take
ownership of the project to enhance
global development and reduce poverty,
especially in Africa.
Dr. Fredrick Swarts,
Assistant Secretary-General WANGO, USA
spoke on “Toward NGO
Self-Certification Process” during
the interactive plenary session. He
traced the history of WANGO’s Code of
Ethics and elaborated on the models of
NGO as defined by Alan Fowler. He
further gave the criteria needed for NGO
certification in different African
countries. A conclusion was reached that
WANGO should research on the variations
and come up with one that will be
suitable and more encompassing for the
region.
Prof. Alvan Quamina
talked on NGOs Law and Corporate
Social Responsibility. He analyzed
the Nigerian Federal Law as it applies
to the Non State Actors, bringing out
the strengths and weaknesses. He
observed that despite the prevalence of
the laws on paper, implementation and
enforcement of the laws are far from
being achieved. He cited that NGOs and
State relationship varies from
monitoring, co-operation, co-optation
and dissolution (Burton) tot hat of
regression, rivalry, competition, third
party government, etc (Coston).
Questions were raised on the roles of
NGOs in developing these laws.
Variations of NGO laws from countries to
countries were observed. WANGO was
assigned the responsibility of
researching into NGO laws in Africa in
order to harmonize them. There were
calls for NGOs to use their social
capital to help influence NGO laws.
Prof. Quamina went on to highlight the
approaches to Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR) to include
philanthropy, community based
development, re-orientation of business
strategies and creation of shared
values. He encouraged participants to
explore the CSR in their NGO fundraising
plan by forming strong allies and
linkages with the private sector.
Participants highlighted on the
phenomenon of values in assessing the
CSR opportunities, calling for care in
order not to fall into traps when
partnering with corporations.
The plenary session featured a
presentation by Dr. Balogun Adekunle
of Challenge Your Disability Initiative,
Bauchi Nigeria on “Making Development
Inclusive as Non State Actors”. He
analysed the problems being faced by
persons with disabilities in most
African countries, citing relevant
statistics on poverty, deprivation,
neglect stigma and marginalization of
the disabled. He called on NGOs to
mainstream persons with disabilities
into their thematic foci as they
constitute the ‘poorest of the poor’;
and the most excluded from development
programmes in African continent and the
world as a whole.
CONCLUSIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS
After a thorough deliberation on the
theme “Non State Actors and Ethical
Revolution” and other presentations by
professionals from relevant fields, the
participants recommended as follows:-
§
That ZIP/IDAY projects should be
endorsed and replicated in all countries
as a model to foster education;
§
That NGO best practices should be
documented by WANGO in the region;
§
That WANGO should facilitate the
sensitization and training of more women
for leadership positions;
§
That education should be given top
priority in the continent as it will
facilitate development.
The participants were glad that the
conference achieved its set objectives
and pledged to apply the dividends of
the conference to enhance ethical
re-orientation. Dr. Alvan Quamina and
Prof. Jerry Kolo announced their
willingness to be part of the planning
committee for the next WANGO conference
in Africa or beyond.
WANGO was commended for the conference
in Africa. The need for similar
gathering in the sub-region in the near
future was emphasized.
This
report was written
by Dr. Israel Balogun, Challenge Your
Disability Initiative with editing
by Casmiar Obialom, Assistant Country
Director, WANGO Nigeria Chapter
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