18 Jan 2017

Botswana has been ranked third position in the seventh edition of the Civil Society Organisations (CSO) Sustainability Index (CSOSI) for Sub-Saharan Africa.

According to a report produced by United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and other experts, the index focused on advances and setbacks in seven key dimensions of sustainability in the civil society sector in 2015 being the legal environment; organizational capacity; financial viability; advocacy; service provision; infrastructure and public image.

The panel assessed each dimension of CSO sustainability according to key indicators and agreed on a score, which ranged from 1 (most developed) to 7 (most challenged). According to the summary of the report, Botswana comes third after Angola and Benin which were ranked position one and two respectively.

In most of the sectors that were assessed, Botswana showed a lot of improvement in most areas  compared to other countries. It scored between 3.8 and 4.3 which showed that CSOs in the country are most developed and achieved a lot in most of the sectors.

For example under service provision category, the report states that in all the assessed countries, CSOs worked with governments or international partners to deliver essential services to people in need.

The report states that in Botswana, most CSOs worked as service providers in health, social services, education, and community natural resource management while a few work on human rights and good governance.

It further states that in service-providing CSOs take diverse forms, ranging from farmers’ and women’s groups, cultural associations, and professional associations to burial associations and groups that support people living with HIV/AIDS. The report also highlights that in 2015 CSOs’ service delivery was compromised by a lack of funding, inadequate human resources, and an inability to keep up with new technological requirements.

New service-delivery models and technologies were changing the role of CSOs in service provision, and CSOs were increasingly expected to demonstrate efficiency and measurable results in their work. In addition, more funding was going to biomedical interventions to stem the HIV/AIDS epidemic and less was available for community mobilization and social change, the areas in which Botswana CSOs are most active.

However, the country did not score well under financial viability as the report indicates that CSOs’ financial viability deteriorated in 2015 as the classification of Botswana as an upper-middle-income country resulted in the departure of most external donors and development partners.

As in previous years, it was noted that funding was still the most serious challenge facing CSOs throughout the region. Nearly all country reports indicated that foreign donors continued to withdraw or cut back their assistance, while local support, whether from the government, private sources, or CSOs’ own income-generating activities, was far from sufficient to fill in the gap.
 

It reveals that those that remain have scaled down their financial support, and, in some cases, changed their priorities for Botswana. As a result of financial challenges, it has been indicated that many CSOs cut back their operations or stopped working altogether in 2015.

With the departure of most donors, it has been reported that in Botswana the government remained the major source of funding for CSOs and that most organisations that continued to receive some degree of government funding were engaged in social- and health-sector issues such as HIV/AIDS, support to orphans and vulnerable children, community-based natural resource management, and sports. ENDS