NGO sector fetches K600 billion

While some non-government organisations (NGOs) are shutting down due to economic challenges, the sector is proving valuable as in 2021/22 financial year it injected almost K590 billion into the economy.

The figure represents about 30 percent of that year’s approved K2 trillion national budget.

The 2023 NGO Sector Report, a summary of key indicators extracted from annual reports of 432 local and international NGOs, shows that the sector’s annual income increased by 47 percent.

The report, the fourth issued by the NGO Regulatory Authority (Ngora), also reveals that at least K473 billion of the total NGOs’ income came in foreign currency, with K200 billion in US dollars.

In the year under review, Ngora had 941 NGOs comprising 736 local and 205 international.

In total, there were 706 active local and international NGOs but only 432 conformed and submitted their annual reports, representing 61 percent compliance-rate.

During the 2023/24 financial year, Ngora registered 77 new NGOs as compared to 44 in 2022/23, representing an increase of 64 percent.

The authority also recorded 43 NGOs that ceased to operate due to different reasons, including lack of funding while one merged with another NGO.

The regulator also deregistered two NGOs, one for malpractice and another for merging, so 44 NGOs were removed from Ngora’s database while the merged one requested to be maintained until this year.

On what happens to deregistered NGOs—the programmes they were implementing as well as the number of jobs lost—Ngora chief executive officer Edward Chileka Banda said in an interview that a follow-up assessment would be conducted to investigate further and appreciate the issues.

He said there could be multiple factors, including global and domestic shocks that could have led to closure of the NGOs.

“Closing of NGOs have huge implications to the communities they serve. It means service provision is largely left to government and that there are fewer hands to help our communities. It also implies lack of sustainability of interventions resulting in minimal impact,” said Chileka Banda.

He added: “We should not forget that the role of NGOs is to complement government efforts in providing essential services in many sectors including health, education and agriculture. So as Ngora we will be engaging the affected NGOs to understand factors that have led to the closures so that government deals with that comprehensively.”

However, this is happening when international NGOs signed a Charter for Change in 2016 not only as a commitment towards localisation of international NGOs’ development work through supporting the local NGOs with at least a quarter of their aid, but also to ensure their sustainability.

Besides the charter, there is also a Network for Empowered Aid Response (Near) and the recently amended NGO Act 2022 which, also, aims at the localisation process.

Chileka Banda said the Ministry of Gender, as a policy holder on matters affecting NGOs, was developing regulations for the amended NGO Act 2022 to guide a framework for partnerships between international and local NGOs.

“The major interest being to ensure that partnerships are effective, trigger capacity-building for lapels actions and that sustainability is guaranteed. So, Ngora and the ministry will be finalising the regulations and we hope to see a new era of partnerships among NGOs operating in the country,” he said.

Chileka Banda assured that the amended NGO Act and the regulations being deliberated would foster the partnerships.

But MacBain Mkandawire, one of the key leaders for both the charter as well as the network, said in an interview that the issue of localisation was complex “because of lack of proper and systematic way of implementation”.

He said: “We have been looking at how best this can be supported, but it has not been easy. There are several hitches including how international NGOs view capacity issues of local NGOs that end up frustrating the whole process.”

According to the Ngora report, accountability for the sector, which last year had over 16 000 employees, has also increased to 61 percent, from 43 last year.

Based audited financial reports Ngora received from the NGOs, the top 20 highest funded NGOs, six of which were local, received a total of K342 billion.

On the other hand, the 20 least-funded NGOs, two of which were international, received a total of K54 million.