The ACT Southern Africa Regional Forum (SARF) is a shared platform for ACT Alliance members in Southern Africa, whose objective is to increase the effectiveness and impact of development, humanitarian and advocacy work in the region. The 2019 meeting took place on 3-4 September in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, where delegates from faith-based organisations and churches in Mozambique, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia and Malawi looked deeply at how to increase their preparedness for a coordinated regional response to disasters. Discussions were deepened with input from the SDG Center for Africa based in Rwanda, the National University for Science and Technology in Zimbabwe, and the ACT Alliance teams from Nairobi and Geneva.

The delegates spent some time updating internal matters, and the leadership of Ashmeer Joseph was appreciated as he was returned as the Regional Chair. For more information, you can reach him on director@elcsads.org.za.

“Power concedes nothing without a demand; speaking truth to power is a necessary demand for justice and equality.”  Frederick Douglass

Who holds trust into the future? Have we drifted too close to development ‘orthodoxy’ and too far from the communities we claim to represent? Is it too late to reclaim civil society’s essential role as watchdog and accountability monitor?

In any well-established democracy, civil society’s fundamental purpose isn’t to blindly support the State, but rather to hold it accountable for its shortcomings, to push it toward improvement, and to amplify the voices of those who live and work in the country the State serves.

A broad social compact that includes civil society cannot come at the expense of civil society’s independence or its watchdog function. To engage effectively with the State, civil society organizations must enter such agreements with a clear, shared position on accountability and distinct understanding of their role. Without this differentiation, it risks being co-opted under the banner of patriotic action or merely substituting for services the State or private sector is unwilling to provide.

Civil society, apart from social formations like sport, art, and religious groups perhaps, has a singular function – creating conditions under which power holders can be held accountable.

Current Challenges

As South Africa approaches a proposed National Dialogue, we must acknowledge some uncomfortable truths: formal civil society institutions have weakened, are increasingly co-opted as service delivery partners, and often display a remarkable lack of internal democracy. Despite the rhetoric of “movement building,” collective organizing has diminished. Consequently, the gap between civil society organizations and their source of power – the broader population, what some might call ‘a mass base’ – continues to widen, potentially reaching a point where reconciliation becomes impossible.

Organizing practices have deteriorated. Instead of listening and actively engaging with people, practitioners – convinced of their superior intellect, access, or learning – increasingly impose their worldview on others. Many refuse to engage in genuine debate or collaborative solution-building unless those solutions align with their predetermined agendas. Participatory practice has devolved into box-ticking exercises with little more integrity than corporate “consultations.”

Trapped in notions of expertise and ill-fitting ideas imported from the private sector – like “unique selling propositions” and obsessions with “scale” – civil society inadvertently perpetuates the status quo. We remain comfortable in this familiar world where we can maintain our relevance and power.

Trust from ordinary citizens is essential for civil society to fulfil its mission. Without an investment into building and maintaining this trust, the mandate of civil society becomes impossible to fulfil.

Time for Reflection

This moment demands deep reflection on our practices to address the growing dissonance we all experience in our change-making work: Are we fit for the future that is already upon us? Are we sufficiently accountable to our constituencies? Are we agile, responsive, and connected enough?

The answer to these questions may determine whether civil society can reclaim its vital role as an antagonist to the State – not in opposition for opposition’s sake, but as a necessary counterbalance ensuring power remains accountable to the people it serves.

By building new models of engagement that prioritize genuine participation, independence, and accountability, civil society can make obsolete the existing models that have allowed power to go unchecked. This isn’t merely about criticizing what exists, but about demonstrating through action what could and should be.

The threat of a good example remains our most powerful tool. When we model the accountability we demand from others, we create ripples that can transform entire systems. This is civil society’s highest calling – not as service provider or silent partner, but as the conscience of democracy itself.

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” – R. Buckminster Fuller

Allan Moolman is a Director at dala! Consulting and works extensively with ACT Ubumbano

We are saddened by Zanele Makombe’s resignation from ACT Ubumbano. In 2017 Zanele joined what was then consultative processes that would lead to the formation of ACT Ubumbano. We weren’t certain of the outcome then, but European and African partners committed to making the path as we go, and accepting whatever this shared journey would bring. It takes courage and imagination to venture into uncertainty, to try something quite radical in our quest for a meaningful practice of solidarity. Zanele embraced this challenge completely. She was a co-designer and architect of this quite amazing organisation, and has become a true representative of what solidarity can look like. We wish Zanele well in her new venture, and trust that she will carry the spirit of Ubumbano wherever she is.

The next weeks will be about handing over and reflecting on how we adjust our own practice. We will keep you posted on new developments.

We received almost 400 grant applications for the call for proposals, and our commitment remains to supporting as many localised actions as possible in the region. Unfortunately our budget limits how much we can do. We are asking for your patience right now to get through all the applications, and we commit to respond by end of April.

The breakdown of applications received:

We visited a number of partners in March, reinforcing connections and deepening collaborations across the region. These visits provided a valuable platform for meaningful engagement with a diverse range of stakeholders, including organizations focused on women and girls’ empowerment, men and boys’ engagement, LGBTI communities, sex worker groups, and youth groups. We shared insights and explored innovative approaches to strengthening community-led action, and hopefully contributed to advancing social justice and solidarity initiatives.

Find out more about the work of partner organisations here.

Applications are open for the Harvard South Africa Fellowship Program (HSAFP) 2025. The Harvard South Africa Fellowship Program (HSAFP) was established in 1979 by Harvard President Derek Bok to address the needs of South Africans denied access to advanced education under Apartheid. The program was a direct response to the strong movement by Harvard students and faculty during the transnational divestment campaigns of the 1970s.

The Harvard South Africa Fellowship Program (HSAFP) continues to serve as a powerful bridge-builder and opportunity facilitator for talented South Africans, with the goal of providing a “transformational experience” at Harvard University during recipients’ fellowship year and beyond.

Click here to apply.

The new reality of coalition politics in South Africa, what we have come to term a Government of National Unity (GNU), raises the challenge of how ready civil society organisations are to hold government accountable. The formation of the GNU and the call for a national dialogue (the Dialogue) has suggested that:

1. Civil society as a whole (notwithstanding a few specialised institutions) is ill-prepared to engage this emergent form of government;
2. There is no unified civil society position/perspectives on a range of critical socio-economic and political issues;
3. Civil society needed to engage the State proactively and not wait to be invited to ‘someone else’s table’, and
4. The Dialogue as proposed is seemingly viewed as a consultation point (and event) rather than a robust, participatory  process to negotiate a unified vision for the country.

In response to this and following conversations with others in the field, ACT Ubumbano convened space to explore how civil society organisations could come together to ‘…support the development and rollout of a civil society-led and managed accountability mechanism or platform focused on the performance of the South African Government (irrespective of form) in addressing the needs of the population…’

This process is experimental and adaptive – there is no pre-conceived design of a mechanism. While some initial design was necessary to begin dialogue, it is expected that the mechanism will be shaped by both contextual needs and the insights provided by participants. Three ‘reference’ groups were convened in February 2025 to gauge CSO interest in the project and to outline a potential project path.  These were convened separately to focus on appropriate community engagement processes that foreground local voice and participation, to look at the viability of an aggregated  data platform and ‘report’, and to explore approaches and tactics to building government accountability in the new political reality.

To some extent the initial convenings were ‘starting from scratch’. While they were limited to a few organisations in order to catalyse a process, more CSOs are expected to participate in the project over time.

A report on the initial convenings will be shared, and new developments as the process unfolds will be communicated via the newsletter and other mediums.

By Ashley Green-Thompson

Colonialism continues to find expression in the big political issues of our world. It is apparent every day in the skewed power distribution of multi-lateral institutions where former colonial powers enjoy sway over policy and priority setting, and the former colonies fight for their place at the table. Colonialism is essentially extractive, and its legacy is found in imbalances and inequalities of trade – Africa notably remains primarily an exporter of natural resources upon which the global economy is dependent. The benefits from this trade do little to address the historic deficit created in Africa by colonialism and slavery. These phenomena dealt severe blows to Africa’s development path when they removed the continent’s prime asset, its people, and when they arbitrarily created borders that shattered the viable social infrastructures that existed before.

Over the years there has been collaboration, to some extent, among those concerned with building a more just world to address some of the most egregious systems that cause suffering. The global movement to end apartheid is perhaps one of the greatest mobilisations of people in the north and south, and people in former colonies have enjoyed support in dealing with a range of injustices and crises – from civil war and famine to environmental disaster, from LGBTI struggles to defending human rights.

The problem is that too often the motivation for much of this support is rooted in the notion of charity, or a sense of guilty obligation that those who have must help those who do not. This is important when there is the immediacy of hunger or danger – people need to eat if they are starving, or need to find shelter immediately if there is a storm or conflict. If the giver does not reflect on the place from which this impulse to help comes, the danger is that the relationship between them and the receiver will remain one shaped by colonial attitudes. The giving is done according to the terms set by the giver who will forever have the resources – they alone will determine how they wish to give those resources. The receiver has no say – the desperation of their situation leaves them vulnerable to the whims of the giver. There is a massive inequality of power and agency in that relationship, and while it might respond to the immediate crisis, it does not lead to a fundamental change in the situation.

This inequality of power and agency is replicated in the funding of development projects as well. Social upliftment projects are important, but they stop short of seeking the transformation of the system that created the need for the project in the first place.

This inability to challenge the structures and root causes of justice, of colonial relations, is one of the great indictments of the development aid system. Too often it serves to ameliorate the worst excesses of current global neo-colonial economic and political systems. Funders from the global north very seldom support work that seeks the genuine overhaul – overthrow? – of systems that perpetuate colonial patterns of extraction and marginalisation.

Neo-colonial structures and relations are built by political elites who are beholden to those with money. Political parties and the electrical systems that characterise the ‘democratic’ world are expensive to maintain. Parties and politicians are reliant on funding from wealthy individuals and their corporations, and the policy decisions they make are always going to favour action that maintains prevailing systems rather than what will bring genuine change in the lives of those at the margins. This political-economic elite pact is manifest in states sponsoring particular sides in civil conflicts, in the advancing protectionist policies for those within the original colonial fold that create barriers to entry by those outside, and in using their financial resources to limit / reduce the disaffection of those who suffer poverty and exclusion under a global system still defined by colonial patterns.

NGOs and those in the global south who rely on development assistance to support their struggle against injustice are often compromised by the need to ‘comply’ with the requirements and priorities set by those providing the funding. Funding proposals are written with the aim of convincing the decision makers – how the funds will be used must align with the interests or priorities of those who give the money. It is very much a relationship of inequality. The significance of this is that activists and community organisers spend too much time and resources trying to comply rather than in waging the struggle for change.

What is needed is an authentic solidarity to define relationships and behaviours, one that goes beyond simply ‘charity’. Authentic solidarity requires that the people living in those parts of the world that have benefited so fundamentally from colonialism, including Germany, walk with the people from the global south and start seeing their struggles as shared. When you walk together with someone, you approach obstacles together and must look for solutions together. This solidarity demands that agendas are informed by those who are the forefront of resisting their oppression, so priorities for compliance are not the preserve of those who have the resources.

There is not enough commitment to finding new ways of developing a shared agenda that will enable this shared journey. What we are seeing instead is a retreat to parochial responses to the political and economic crises of our time. Development partners talk of reduced funding, increased compliance requirements, and entrenching of conditional support for work that is aligned with priorities set in Europe, all of which make social justice work in the south that much more difficult. Instead there should be agitation for a deepened commitment to collaboration, to harmonisation of support to the global south, and to challenging the political elites to do better at breaking unjust neo-colonial arrangements.

Development funding is not about charity, but remains a historic debt owed for slavery and colonialism. It is a valuable resource to support resistance and agency by marginalised communities that seek to transform neo-colonial structures and attitudes. It can be an enabler of solidarity that speaks of a shared concern for the problems caused by colonialism and greed, and promotes a shared exploration of what solutions there may be.

As individuals we do not have the power to reform the United Nations and other institutions, nor to stop the atrocities in Palestine, Sudan and elsewhere. We are capable of changing ourselves and our own understandings of solidarity and justice, and then connecting with others who share a commitment to genuine decolonisation that will guide our search for new ways of doing things.