Home #StopThePVOBill Retrogressive PVO Bill, A Deadlock For CSOs

Retrogressive PVO Bill, A Deadlock For CSOs

by Bustop TV News

By Bustop TV

Regional citizens body, Citizen in Action Southern Africa (CIASA) has said the Private Voluntary Organisations Amendment Bill is a retrogressive move by government which will create more challenges than solutions for civil society organisations (CSOs).

CSOs in Zimbabwe assist with humanitarian aid, environmental protection, advocacy, progressive policies or legislations and serve as a watchdog on government. Civic society and public policy experts have expressed concerns that if the PVO bill is enacted, CSOs operations will be restricted and many vulnerable communities will be exposed.

CIASA said the CSOs play a ‘complimentary role’ to government and as such it is important that the government creates a viable environment for them to operate.

“Government regulations should facilitate an enabling operating environment for effective and efficient programme implementation. Zimbabwe’s CSOs, as key actors in the civic space, have evidently been subjected to a plethora of legal, policy and administrative instruments by Government seeking to enhance regulatory control of the civic space.”

The rights lobby group added the government’s perception that CSOs are ‘antigovernmental’ is why it continued to hinder their work.

It added: “CSOs are subjected to a multiplicity of gatekeepers (state and non-state) demanding reports and accountability for CSOs on various aspects of their work. This has caused unnecessary bottlenecks on CSOs operations.

“It has emerged from various sources that the hostile reception of CSOs by some state actors is due to the perception that the sector is active in anti-government political lobbying.

“The hostile reception by a number of state actors has been seen through imprisonment of a number of CSO leaders, threats to close a number of NGOs and the freezing of accounts belonging to NGO’s in the country under the pretense of financial audits.”

This article was produced with financial support of the Content Creators Network ZW.

Related Articles