WATCH | The role of NGOs: filling the gap where state fails

Dr Mbongiseni Buthelezi speaks about civil society's efforts to fight poverty, inequality

The new Nelson Mandela Foudation CEO Dr Mbongiseni Buthelezi during an interview with the Sowetan as he reflects on the task ahead and how he is going to steer the foundation forward.
The new Nelson Mandela Foudation CEO Dr Mbongiseni Buthelezi during an interview with the Sowetan as he reflects on the task ahead and how he is going to steer the foundation forward.
Image: Thulani Mbele

Why did it take SA so long to understand state capture?

With this vexing question in mind, Dr Mbongiseni Buthelezi’s contribution to a book by academics, published last year, sought to articulate how weak analysis by civil society played a part in this.

“So, we were missing things that were just in front of us,” said Buthelezi, a civil society activist and academic who is set to take the reins as CEO of Nelson Mandela Foundation in October.

“The other part of it was there was a very effective communications campaign, it got exposed later when it became really brazen by Guptas to obfuscate what was happening and to create a different narrative.”

But Buthelezi said when the analysis was finally cracked, the positions of organisations like the foundation needed to shift to become the voice of conscience in society.

This is how Buthelezi believes the position of the foundation ought to be understood by society. This position, he says, changes at different times depending on what the circumstances call for.

He is no stranger to the work of civil society and the foundation having worked with it for the past 15 years. He was part of the Mandela international dialogues on the state of transitional justice, and he says he was interested in questions of violence in KwaZulu-Natal for a long time.

For the last five years, Buthelezi has been serving on a sub-committee of the foundation’s board on dialogue in Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture.

He says if the foundation is going to be part of calling for change in society, what this requires is that it must be informed by proper analysis of what is happening.

“At certain moments it [the foundation] will lean to working with people in our political power in state institutions to do something constructive when spaces are being created and openness to work in collaboration,” he said. “Currently, the foundation has been doing some phenomenal work in Early Childhood Development, helping to register ECDs train people in communities who have been running centres without registration.”

The civil society activist and academic is set to take the reins as CEO of Nelson Mandela Foundation in October.

This work, Buthelezi says, is important to address the question of poverty and inequality. But, he says, society must hold open the possibility that if down the line people who are leading the state are being destructive, it’s the role of the foundation to speak up. 

“It’s the role that Madiba wanted us to play to say, ‘you will be the voice that calls out injustice, that calls for change,” he added.

Civil society in SA faces growing pressure ranging from limited resources due to diminished funding as well as detractors who use funding sources to deligitimise their work on social justice.

In SA civil society, according to Buthelezi, plays a two-fold role. On the one hand they fill capacity gaps when the state has failed to do what is meant to do. On the other hand, such organisations play the role of holding the state to account but also of helping to build the kind of state that people want.

“In both those roles of civil society, that’s where the Nelson Mandela Foundation has played and can play even a stronger role. I don’t think in filling capacity gaps the foundation needs to be front and centre,” he said.

He added that the foundation had done some admirable work of holding the state to account during the Zuma administration by being vocal about the extent of corruption in the country.  

It’s the role that Madiba wanted us to play to say, ‘you will be the voice that calls out injustice, that calls for change
Dr Mbongiseni Buthelezi - Nelson Mandela Foundation

He says while the foundation can play a role in elevating collective work of civil society to achieve bigger impact, it’s been difficult in the past partly because of who has been in leadership and the kinds of questions that certain people in the state (ask).  

“The most vocal of them has been minister Gwede Mantashe, asking the questions 'who are you as civil society? Who elected you? and Who funds you?', trying to delegitimise the attempts by civil society to call on people in the state to account,” he recalls.

Buthelezi said while questioning who funds NGOs may be fair and a call for transparency, the nature of that discourse in SA has been very much impoverished. This was especially so when certain people in power feel that their backs are up against the wall, or their own legitimacy is under question because of decisions they take, he said.

“But also think the accountability question goes hand-in-hand for me with helping build the state, and that’s where I think we have not done as much as we could as civil society in working with people within the state – elected leaders – to say what we can do collectively.”

When it was first established, Buthelezi says, Madiba wanted the foundation to do some of the democracy building work of holding the state accountable. But he laments that in 30 years of democracy, the state has not been able to lead in developing a coherent response in how to bring people out of poverty.

“We have to admit that there is something we are not getting right if there have been all these initiatives and inequality continues to increase in the country. Part of the problem there I think lies in our education system."

The new Nelson Mandela Foundation CEO Dr Mbongiseni Buthelezi
The new Nelson Mandela Foundation CEO Dr Mbongiseni Buthelezi
Image: Thulani Mbele

Buthelezi warns that populists will always find opportunity, particularly when levels of poverty and inequality are high. But he says the way to counter that is for the state to work.

He further cautions that people who want to urinate on the constitution would always find space to articulate that under constitutional democracy, their lives have not improved.

“They blame the constitution falsely because what has brought us where we are is what has been done to that constitution by people who have been entrusted with power,” he says.

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