The shrinking civic space in the country has been pointed out as one of the threats to good governance and success of government programs.
Rita Aciro, a women’s rights defender blames this on the fact that civil society has tended to drift toward politics and ended up conflicting with government.
“The challenge that civil society faces broadly is the thin line between politics and partisan politics. Civil society in nature is political and ought to be because if you’re going to influence the process, there is no way you’re going to do it if you’re not political,” Rita Aciro noted.
It should be noted that in August 2021, the Uganda National NGO Forum halted operations of 54 NGOs, due to alleged noncompliance with the NGO Act.
Aciro said that citizens, among others, are part of the civil society, and therefore shrinking the civic space affects good governance.
“Active citizenship is important for governance. For any leadership to be effective, you need citizens. If citizens are not going to be active then governance is going to be very challenging,” she warned.
Recently, President Museveni launched the Parish Development Model, a strategy that seeks to help people from the parish level to increase their household incomes.
However, Aciro noted that such interventions can only be successful if there is active participation.
“The success of that Parish Development Model is going to be entirely on the active participation of the citizens. So if we’re not going to educate the citizens on how to access the resources, use the resources, then governance becomes difficult for the government.”
“So for anybody to challenge NGOs that are creating consciousness, building civic competence so people are able to effectively participate in the governance process of the country, I think they’re enemies of the government.”
However, Joseph Enyimu, a development economist challenged this concern, noting that there is a need to restructure the civic space.
“We’re modernizing as a country and we need to separate between the shrinking civic space and structuring our civic space.
It’s important that as we address informality in Uganda, that doesn’t stop in only businesses. The way we organize as a civil society should also transition from informality.
And so, that structuring of civil society is not limited to NGOs. We’re having conversations with the private sector, umbrella associations about the need for them to engage the government in a more structured way. And, I think we should welcome some of the reforms in that positive life,” he said.
