TICAD Civil Society Forum Home Page

■□　Advocacy
January.30th.2008
Letter to Mr. Mori
Dear Mr. Prime Minister, The Ethiopian civil society would like to express its sincere appreciation to the Japanese Government and its people for their considerable contribution to the people of Ethiopia. The appreciation goes not only to financial and material support but also to the solidarity and moral support, which are the basis of peoples-to-peoples relationships and encouragement for us to overcome difficulties. The civil society in general and NGO in particular is one of the important stakeholder in development and relief arena in Ethiopia. There are nearly three thousand civil society organisations in Ethiopia having wider roles in supporting grassroots people in their development endeavor complemented with dialogue engagement with the government with the view to facilitate the formulation and implementation of pro-poor policies accompanied with transparent and credible implementation procedures. Representatives of the Ethiopian civil society, who gathered at the Ethiopia-Japan Partnership Seminar, discussed the Japanese Official Development Assistance; and the role of the civil society in Ethiopian development in the area of: 1. Accelerating economic development 2. Millennium Development Goals, 3. Peace consolidation and democratisation, and 4. Environmental degradation and climate changes. The outcome of the discussion has been compiles as Voices of Ethiopian and Japanese civil society, which is attached herewith. During the discussion, we have shared the followings as major issues for enabling the Japanese Official Development Assistance to be more beneficial to grassroots people in Africa at large and Ethiopia in particular 1. Give focus to pro-poor, people centred development efforts 2. Make the assistance programme to be more flexible to needs of the grassroots 3. Create a TICAD follow-up mechanism where all the stakeholder including the African and Japanese civil societies participate in the development assistance including budget monitoring/social accountability 4. Recognize civil society organisations as full-fledged development partners and develop their capacity in order to impact at grassroots level 5. Exercise the leadership and encourage the international community to increase their development assistance for poverty alleviation in general and for the realization of the MDGs Yours respectfully, On behave of the Ethiopian civil society who took part in the Ethiopia-Japan Partnership Seminar Mrs. Semira, Acting Director, CRDA
Summary of the "Voices of Ethiopian and Japanese Civil Society towards TICAD IV"
January 22nd, 2008
Representatives of Ethiopian Civil Society gathered at the Ethiopia-Japan Partnership Seminar which was held in Addis Ababa on 22nd of January, 2008 discussed issues around development in Ethiopian context with particular emphasis on their impacts on grassroots people and the role of civil society and Japanese assistance to the effort rendered by the Ethiopian civil society. Based on the outputs from the seminar, this document has been compiled as recommendations to Japanese government for its better policy and assistance programme to Africa in closer collaboration with the civil society. 1. Accelerating Economic Growth - Support to create forum between the government and the civil society. - Establish forum that will help to make networking between Japanese ODA and Ethiopian Civil Society. - Develop flexibility in the ODA schemes such as extended project period, amount ceiling and more responsiveness to changes of situation. - Include technical cooperation in the support to civil society - Understand the local reality and to be flexible accordingly in their grant policies, procedures, funding and monitoring development programs/projects. - Closer collaboration with the civil society in ODA programme. 2. Human Security 2-1. Millennium Development Goals - Empower people and community to be more assertive. - Support community to monitor the government's programme towards MDGs. - Support capacity building of the government. - Promote sustainable development using local knowledge. - Be more accountable to the community. - Create awareness on gender, marginalised and disabled among the community. - Integrate the issue of gender, marginalised and disabled in its own intervention. - Ensure right based approach to development 2-2. Peace Consolidation and Democratisation - Recognise that MDGs are the issue of grassroots people. - Assist capacity development of the government and civil society through financial and technical support, infrastructure development and provision of human resource. - Work in line with the interest of the community. Grant shouldn't make people for slavery but serve for the solidarity of humans and partners. - The existing good experiences, best practices and trends, such as donors' pre grant approval visits, on going monitoring, willing to work in remote/inaccessible areas and trying to reach the unreachable ones, one time grant release should continue. - All the grants, loans and other foreign aids should be related directly to the attainment of MDGs. - Assist the nature of the government to be popular and democratically elected that works with zero bureaucracy and without corruption. 3. Environment Degradation and Climate Changes - Provide technical and financial assistance for integrated watershed management that address environmental and community problems simultaneously, - Strengthening institutional capacity at grassroots level both for community based and government institutions, - Popularize problems of environment and their solutions at international level, - Assist Ethiopian Government to ratify/implement national environmental regulations and international conventions, - Promote further inter - agency collaboration (e.g. JICA) and working in close collaboration with the Ethiopian Civil Society