Democracy Without Votes II: NGOs, Governments and the Outside World

Abstract

There is no lack of literature on the shortcomings of NGOs in Tanzania and Uganda. It is said that they are, for the most part, non-political and concentrate mainly on service provision (Chachage in Bujra and Adejumobi 2002: 145; Mercer 2002: 5–22). The urban-based NGOs which might be expected to have broader horizons are inadequately organised to have any great impact in rural areas (Kelsall in Barrow and Jennings 2001: 140; Michael 2004: 73). NGOs are heavily dependent on donor funds, which amount to 80–86 per cent of their income (Barr et al. 2005: 675; Bazaara in Ghimire 2005: 132–61; Dicklitch and Lwanga 2003: 482–509; Oloka-Onyango et al. 1996: 194). Dicklitch and Lwanga spell out a detailed argument that the activities of human rights NGOs in Uganda are distorted by donor dependence, so that the focus is more on innocuous activities such as conferences on the virtues of fair elections, than on getting to grips with the reality of human rights abuses.