Breaking the Silence on NGOs in Africa - Paperback

by Lewis Maghanga (Author), Nicholas Mwangi (Author), Issa G. Shivji (Foreword by)

Members of the Organic Intellectuals Network are active organizers in the struggle to achieve social justice. They have experienced the contradictions of the NGO discourse and, just like others before them, have found themselves in the struggle versus survival dilemma. To get a clear picture of our contemporary struggles and the despair of NGOs operating in the proletarian movement, comrades decided to reflect, study, and analyze Prof. Issa Shivji's book Silences in NGO Discourse: The Role and Future of NGOs in Africa. For the authors, these analyses and reflections are based on personal experiences in their day-to-day organizing. In summarizing the authors' observations regarding the impacts of NGOs in organizing, this book calls into question the fundamental question, 'why do NGOs exist?' To answer this question, the authors provide a historical chronology of the resistance in Kenya, Zimbabwe and the rest of Africa, relating those to the subjective factors in existence at every period. Through this, a scientific relationship can be drawn between social movements and NGOs in our current epoch. From their experiences with NGOs, the authors, representing grassroots social movements, highlight the dangers associated with donor funding. Often, donor funding ends abruptly after making people dependent on them, creating severe strain on grassroots organizations. The more one engages with NGOs, the softer one becomes to critique NGOs, particularly in highlighting their relationship to imperialism. Further, NGOs usually help in driving reforms. However, they play no part in revolutionary work. As a result, they merely preserve the present order and help exacerbate the frustrations arising from massive inequality in our society. In the long run, NGOs play a critical role in stifling the development and independence of grassroots social movements. This publication also includes two previously published essays by Prof Issa G Shivji, Silences in NGO Discourse: The Role and Future of NGOs in Africa, &, Reflections on NGOs in Tanzania: What We Are, What We Are Not and What We Ought To Be.

Author Biography

Lewis Maghanga is a member of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Socialist League, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He is an activist and organizer, and an active participant in the Pan African Movement. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Economics from the University of Nairobi. He is co-editor of Kenyan Organic Intellectuals Reflect on the Legacy of Pio Gama Pinto, Daraja Press (2021)

Nicholas Mwangi is a member of the Ukombozi library, the Revolutionary socialist league, the Rastafarian community in Kenya, and co-founder of Dagoretti Social Justice Centre. He is co-editor of Kenyan Organic Intellectuals Reflect on the Legacy of Pio Gama Pinto, Daraja Press (2021)

Issa Shivji was born in central Tanzania and grew up in Kilosa and Dar es Salaam. He graduated from the University of East Africa in 1970 and immediately joined the Faculty of Law, University of Dar es Salaam where he was professor of law until his retirement in 2006. From 2008 to 2013 he was the first Mwalimu Nyerere Professor of Pan-African Studies at the University. He has published over a dozen books and numerous articles. His first book was Class Struggles in Tanzania (1976) followed by Law State and the Working Class in Tanzania (1986) and The Concept of Human Rights in Africa (1989). Drawing on Amilcar Cabral, Walter Rodney and Antonio Gramsci, his more recent work has focused on developing the concept of working people as the motive force of revolutionary transformation in Africa and building of counter-hegemonies to face times of political crisis.

Selected other books: Where is Uhuru? Reflections on the Struggle for Democracy in Africa (FAHAMU Books, Pambazuka Press) (2009); Silences in NGO Discourse: The role and future of NGOs in Africa (Fahamu Books, Pambazuka Press) (2007)Pan Africanism in Nyerere's Thoughts (Fahamu Books, Pambazuka Press) (2009) Pan-Africanism or Pragmatism. Lessons of the Tanganyika-Zanzibar Union (Mkuki na Nyota Publishers) (2008); The Concept of Human Rights in Africa (Codesria) (1989)

Professor Emeritus of Public Law & First Julius Nyerere Professor of Pan-African Studies, University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania