Sam Musa
By Zainab Joaque
A development Consultant has said that the Public Order Act of 1965 and related laws that criminalise free speechin Sierra Leone will continue to impede the work of civil society organisations, CSOs.
“The Act impinges on freedom of association while the official secrecy provisions in the Civil Service General Orders make it very difficult to obtain information from public officials and institutions”, Samuel Musaclaimed.
Hetold a Network Movement for Justice and Development (NMJD) national stakeholders’ conference in Kenema that those were the challenges civil society organizations face in the country and that severely limited their contributions.
He,however, observed that many such advocacy groups lacked organizational autonomies, as most of them hardly had core programmes.
“They run after any institution that provides funding for projects even where they lack the expertise or their mandate is not consistent with proposed project designs”, he said, adding that with the lack of core fundingdonors were reluctant to support management and administrative costs.
“CSOs have problems in attracting and retaining qualified and competent staff because ofthe lack of core funding to support organizational development and the staff turnover is very high in many civil society organizations”, he said.
He highlighted the issue of civil society dilemma, whereas some of them dependedto a large extent on funding from projects managed by government institutions.
“Others are fully funded by government.Should CSOs go for these funds or not? Should they be implementers or monitors of the projects and services?”, he asked, noting that the space for influencing policy was expanding with government attempting to open institutional spaces for state/civil society interaction on selected public policy processes.
He disclosed that the criteria for inviting CSOs to policy debates were not clear. “Inclusion in policy processes is unpredictable.Sometimes some civil society organisations are invited because of their prominent role in the sector”, he said and added that given the challenges above, CSOs must look for possible available opportunities to make a difference in Sierra Leone.
He said the increased awareness and claiming of rights and the potential for building a massive sympathetic constituency, with emphasis on youths and women,were key opportunities offered by diversity, with the potential for mobilising the activism of community members, social and religious organizations in providing political, social and economic protection.
(C) Politico 10/04/14
