“Let this be the year civil society was not simply heard, but heeded”, was the strong message captured in the civil society declaration, one of the engagement tracks of the G20.
Known as C20, the process involved up to 3,000 civil society organisations from across the world. The message talks to the core challenge civil society around the world faces — what strategy to adopt to ensure its views are heeded.
South Africa’s civil society has had a long and glorious history, having been part of the forces that defeated apartheid. Today it has continued to, on one hand keep the government on its toes and on the other to seek to play a constructive role in service delivery.
This is described by Mark Heywood and Brian Levy, writing in the recently released Mistra publication “State of the South African State”, as the adversarial and coalitional strategies.
Many of the delegates to the various G20 forums spoke of the “participation ”paradox” — the tension that arises from the coalition strategy where, despite formal inclusion in governance structures, there is a persistent lack of substantive power to effect structural change.
Activists argue that governments such as that of South Africa tend to co-opt dissent rather than redistribute power. On the other hand, some regimes react to civil society with strong-arm tactics — legal and illegal — to silence dissent and suppress democratic participation. They target journalists, human rights defenders, indigenous peoples and environmental activists.
The late Chilean activist Marta Harnecker pointed out that progressive civil society organisations face a triple crisis: not having clear analytical frameworks for understanding contemporary society, they do not present credible alternatives to the exploitative and oppressive systems. Furthermore, they have not adapted to grassroots social movements, which are different from formal NGOs.
She suggested that social movements are characterised by “horizontalism, diversity, and ICT-enabled, networked forms of organisation”. We saw this in the Arab Spring of 2011, last year’s student-led uprising in Bangladesh and more recently in Madagascar, Peru and Nepal, where activists used a social media app ironically called Discord.
In what could be seen as a critique of the coalition approach, she wrote that civil society organisations are willing to compromise and adapt to the art of the possible rather than the art of making the impossible possible. The latter requires “building a social and political force capable of changing” the reality of peoples’ conditions.
The business sector is also in the crosshairs of civil society. Firms see their actions as selfless approaches of well-meaning good corporate citizens, while activists see them as pushing programmes that serve their conservative political agenda.
For example, the billions spent by the private sector on HIV/Aids has been the subject of particular scrutiny, with US academic Amy Patterson arguing that public-private partnerships such as Gavi (the Vaccine Alliance) and the Global Fund (established with Gates Foundation support) “diminish the power of civil society groups and citizens” and reduce the state’s responsibility and accountability for health systems.
Other concerns include corporates trying to control civil society’s agenda by shaping what gets prioritised, shifting civil society from movement-based organising for fundamental change to reform-oriented, project-based work with metrics usually set by funders.
There is the potential for dependency relationships developing or civil society activists getting integrated into structures that legitimise corporate agendas.
The C20 political declaration conclusion that “the path ahead must be grounded in participation, redistribution and environmental justice” is an important starting point for civil society.
By mobilising social forces, shaping consciousness and creating alternatives, civil society can build counter-hegemonic projects that demonstrate viable alternatives for systemic transformation, which could be pushed through the forums they have access to — be it multilateral or local boardrooms.
Recommendations by Heywood and Levy, while located in South African realities, could be the basis for global civil society’s reconfigured approach. They argue for greater attention to coalitional approaches while appreciating that adversarial approaches continue to have their place.
They advise that engagements must be calibrated to global, national, provincial, district or individual school/clinic/police station realities, while being mindful of the transformation cause being pursued.
• Abba Omar is director of operations at the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection.
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