Finally, the NGO Bill is now a Law: The faceless NGO should now get over it and comply (Part 3)
By Malith Alier, Juba, South Sudan
March 8, 2016 (SSB) — The problem of South is not aid, humanitarian or otherwise. We have lived through aid for decades on end. Aid has well been known to under develop regions mostly in Africa. A part from that, aid comes from rich individuals or groups mainly in the west and we know how it is collected there. The aid collectors used demeaning tools in order to get more of it from donors.
No donor is willing to donate without adequate information from the target groups. So, the Samaritans would use “worst” case scenarios for maximum impact and quick action from donors. Horrors of war, disease, malnutrition which are leading causes of death are frequently overemphasised and displayed there. This is to say that unless you show people and situations in terribly bad light, you won’t to get much in return. People are sold cheaply for aid to flow.
Sometimes Africans in general and South Sudanese in particular wonder why they aren’t “respected and valued” around the globe. This is because you’re already “sold” cheaply for a bag of maize and a 5 litre gallon of vegetable oil.
South Sudan nowadays is known for fighting, famine, refugees and Internally Displaced persons. This is a very hard to shake off image. Talk to someone who doesn’t know this country well and he/she will be asking you of war, famine and death. That is what they know about this country as seen on television.
This country needs education as a priority number one. The second or the by-product of education is development. Education obviously is a precursor of development. Aid is a stabilising tool meant to address immediate needs. It is not a long term thing but rather should be harnessed to spur other areas back to live. And it should be done in consultation with the beneficiaries and above all in conformity with the local laws.
The NGOs and their lobby should be reminded that law is an ass. There is neither a good nor bad law. Laws are enacted to regulate certain situations like the one area of NGO operations. To some of us the just passed NGO bill does not go far enough. It has missed out many other aspects such as the kind of relief food to be imported into South Sudan.
The food industry across the globe has accepted the used of Genetically Modified Crops (GMCs) which is alien to many African countries. The law silent about that however, it should have been included so that NGOs and UN should purchase food in South Sudan or neighbouring countries which are not known for practicing GMCs agriculture.
The way forward is that the NGOs should appreciate the enactment of the NGO law and comply with it in full. The tendency to question or resist the law per se brings to doubt the sincerity of NGOs in this country. We are quite sure that the NGOs have their internal organisational laws to regulate their operations. What about the bigger country where the NGOs operation? Should it have no laws to regulate all the NGOs operations?
Laws of a particular country are not negotiable. This is what is known as sovereignty. A sovereign nation passes, amends or repeals laws without consulting other nations. The noisy NGOs are aware of this. The fact that NGOs bring relief to the war affected in the country is not an excuse to operation in a lawless environment.
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