Community Based Organizations and Their Role in Empowering Their Members: Experiences from

Abstract

Ethiopians are familiar with their own version of civil society organizations that are part of their life since time of immortal. However, in its modern form, CSOs are a recent phenomenon that did not exceed half a century. In this brief period, looking at their operation demonstrates that they faced pitfalls that bring their survival into question. All the successive regimes of the country tried their best to abort the very objectives of CSOs and manipulate them to serve as one wing of their administration. In this study it is showed that the CSOs serve as a public realm and made to mobilize their members to materialize their interest and aspiration. This paper tried to investigate the role of selected CSOs in consolidating sound governance in their endeavour by employing mixed research methods. The findings reveal that the selected CSOs are alternative channels of communication, participation, mobilization and ways of socialization/schools of democracy that are conventionally taken as bed rock to practice sound governance at grass root level. Furthermore, all the selected CSOs are instrumental to empower their members. They also serve as a push factor in lobbying and setting agenda to advance their members’ interests. However, there are many challenges that stifled them to strengthen governance within the society. The natures of most challenges that hamper their performance are at times specific to their duties and responsibilities. However, there are instances of problems that transcend boundaries across the CSOs that are investigated in this study. Internal administrative malpractice and inefficiency; legal framework hurdles; alleged government interference; narrow membership base; lack of trust and confidence in the eyes of their members and the public; and the paucity of philanthropic culture to mobilize and organize around CSOs are the few of the many. However, some challenges are specific to each selected cases. For instance, EWLA has faced particular challenges partly emanated from the Charities and Societies proclamation 621/2009 on EWLA; ETA is struck by the confusion of leadership following the emergence of other competing Association as well as the nomination of school administrators by the Education Bureau of the City based on political affiliation of the candidate; and chaotic relations among employees, employers and government in CETU. The paper concluded by pinpointing some exit strategy from the current dire conditions of CSOs that are the focus of this study.

Keywords: Governance       Sound Governance     Civil Society Organizations    EWLA    ETA    CETU