Promoting domestic resource mobilization for social development: Reflections on our experiences and lessons on what works

Overview

There is a general failure to tap into domestic resources, which is deemed an indispensable contributor to the resilience of civil society and sustainable development in Africa.

Freedom of association, as recognized in some international and regional treaties, provide a legal basis for the protection of civil society organizations (CSOs). In 2021, STAR-Ghana Foundation partnered the African Philanthropy Network (APN) under the Giving for Change project to undertake a multi-country assessment of the legal environment for giving in eight (8) countries across Africa, Asia, and North America.

The assessment revealed that legal frameworks at the national level have failed to protect this right and/or do not provide an enabling environment for domestic resource mobilization and community philanthropy to thrive.

People are willing to donate for good causes, but CSOs in many countries face serious barriers that prevent them from accessing these resources. Despite this, there is evidence of communities mobilizing resources for developmental initiatives.

This article explores the context of domestic resource mobilization in Ghana. The reflections captured were in contribution of STAR-Ghana Foundation, to a panel discussion at the 2022 APN Assembly in Uganda.

 

Eunice R. Agbenyadzi, Head of Programmes, STAR-Ghana Foundation at the APN Assembly in 2022 

 

What are the advantages of DRM to growing philanthropy in Africa?

Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in the Global South have come from a history and do live in the reality, where their work is largely supported/financed by external donors. This is also true for southern governments.

Structured and professional CSOs are highly dependent on foreign donors, even in the context of declines in donor support to southern countries.

The discussion of domestic resources mobilization is not new. In 2006, more than three quarters of Ghanaians were reported as donors or donating resources to others (CIVICUS, 2006) including sending money to their families, engaged in community labour, and responded to public appeal to address communal challenges.

There is already a context where people will give to support a common cause. However, it is important to delink the way of living of Ghanaians and Africans (we provide care giving, take care of family members through school, among others) from philanthropy, and for clarity, social justice philanthropy, which transcends addressing practical individual needs to fostering public good and addressing systemic barriers that keep people poor and excluded.

CSOs have faced criticisms about their legitimacy and whose interest they serve. The common saying, that whoever funds you owns you, has been used by governments to accuse CSOs of doing the biddings of external donors.

Communities have also used this to make demands of CSOs, for example asking for ‘payment’ fees for participating in events and activities that are intended for community development. Again, whilst accountability can be balanced, oftentimes, CSOs have tended to prioritise upwards accountability to donors, at the expense of the communities they serve. Local philanthropy can become a tool for addressing these legitimacy challenges of CSOs.

By adopting local philanthropy as a key implementation strategy, CSOs can better engage their communities and constituents to support the work of CSOs through the 3Ts- talents, treasures, and time. With these, communities shift from merely being ‘recipients’ to becoming ‘investors’ or change agents, which gives them more power to own their development and transformation.

Furthermore, if CSOs are funded by their constituents there is flexibility in determining the priorities of their constituents, allowing communities to set the agendas and priorities for their development.

Ibrahim-Tanko Amidu, Executive Director, STAR-Ghana Foundation 

Why do some initiatives receive more support than others? What drives giving in Africans and communities.

The STAR-Ghana Foundation experiences reveals the sense that people are moved to give for ‘tangible’ things. Philanthropists, including individuals and institutions are motivated to give to things they can see, feel, or touch. The Foundation’s partnership with Community Development Alliance (CDA), in 10 communities in the Sisala West and Daffiema/Bulssie/Issa districts of the Upper West region of Ghana witnessed indescribable enthusiasm of community members towards the call for mobilizing to fill basic infrastructural gaps. Over months, community members came together to provide labour, resources (building materials) to put up a Community Health-based Planning Services (CHPS), compound and to rehabilitate deplorable roads within their communities.

Secondly, trust is a currency in giving. Simply, communities give to organisations or facilitators they trust. And locally rooted organizations tend to receive more trust from communities, probably because of relationships and networks established.

Another partner of the Foundation, Songtaba, works on a culturally sensitive issue (witchcraft accusations). However, when the Foundation piloted local giving in some selected communities, it received an overwhelming response of community members to be engaged as community volunteer educators, as well as donations to support inmates of alleged witches’ camps. Community members openly narrated that they responded because ‘Songtaba’ is one of their own.

Furthermore, when there are incentives associated with giving, such as tax rebates and branding, for example, philanthropists, especially those with business interests are motivated to give for public good.

 

How supportive and conducive is the legal environment for CSOs to operate and mobilise more and better domestic resources to solve Africa’s systematic issues?

STAR-Ghana Foundation and the APN collaborated to undertake a study theme ‘Enabling Environment for Local Philanthropy in Ghana’. Among some of the findings was the need to have legal regimes for tax rebate for CSOs. CSOs in Ghana are generally registered as companies limited by guarantee and hence, different from corporate institutions. Although CSOs are recognized as charity organizations and are entitled to tax exemptions, such as value added tax (VAT) on goods and services, most often, they are not able to access this relief due to administrative and bureaucratic barriers. For their own sustainability, in addition to influencing social policies, CSOs must get more and more involved in economic and tax policies as well.

Despites several attempts, there exists no framework for governing the civil society sector, in its uniqueness. There is neither code for self-regulation that CSOs can sign onto. The Not-for-Profit Policy, however, responds to gaps, such as fostering coordination and relationships between CSOs and government. The absence of legal framework and self-regulation compounds the challenges of accountability and legitimacy of the sector.

 

What are the key lessons learnt over the years? What are some of the best practices in this space that can be scaled and supported? Examples of the policy change, influence on Government.

In terms of best practices, STAR-Ghana Foundation is creating partnerships with civil society to learn and practice local philanthropy as one of the tools for transforming and sustaining the civic space. The Foundation has contributed to the emergence of Communities of Practice in local philanthropy which serve as hubs for knowledge exchange and knowledge development among community groups and CSOs. Learning should be nurtured to help ground and upscale local giving for public good.

Whilst CSOs draw its dynamism from its diversity, it can also lead to fragmentation of efforts towards achieving social change. There is currently no professional CSOs body for purposes of self-regulation and broad mobilization of CSOs in Ghana on social and economic policies. Specifically on economic policies, there are only few CSOs involved in conversations around taxation, compared with the business sector represented by its professional bodies, lobbying for their interests. For its own sustainability, CSOs presence and influence in tax policies must be intensified. Tax policies impact operations of CSOs. They impact their ability to raise local resources, including through crowdfunding sources. For CSO to be able to do this, it needs new skills set to analyse and engage in debates on taxation.

Conclusion

This paper has discussed STAR Ghana Foundation’s experiences in promoting local philanthropy. It has suggested that local philanthropy thrives on trust and whilst in the short term it meets practical needs- ‘tangible outputs’ for communities, it can also be developed as a tool, in the long term to promote social justice. Supportive legal and policy environment is pre-requisite for developing capacities of local philanthropy as a tool for development, and this would require that CSOs voice and influence in economic policies is leveraged, so policies facilitate and not inhibit potentials for local philanthropy to thrive.

 

An article on Social Protection mechanisms within A Covid-19 Pandemic

Forum on Social Protection under the theme ‘Social protection mechanisms in a covid-19 pandemic: understanding the intersection of impacts, response, and lessons’ Highlights of discussions The COVID-19 pandemic has had enormous negative socio-economic impacts and tested the resilience of people across all income levels. However, as with most crises, the poor disproportionately face the largest challenge in coping with economic shocks given their low asset base and social net worth. Under its Partnership Beyond Aid programme, funded by the UK Aid, STAR-Ghana Foundation collaborated with the Centre for Social Policy Studies (CSPS) of the University of Ghana to undertake an analysis of the State of Social Protection in Ghana, examining programs that were deployed in response to COVID-19 and identify new needs that have emerged as a result of the pandemic that has to be adequately addressed by existing interventions. On the 24th of February, STAR Ghana Foundation held a forum to disseminate the report and to build partnerships on taking forward the recommendations. The Forum was attended by stakeholders from Academia, International NGOs, Donor organizations, Ministries and Agencies, MMDAs, CSO, and professional bodies to Highlights from the Report Health • While the government has undertaken several and varied measures to contain the pandemic and control its impact, which include movement restrictions, PPE distributions, isolation, closure of places, there are gender and social inclusion dimensions which require some attention in the design and implementation of the measures. For instance, nose masks and facilities for hand washing were not customised to suit PWDs. The height and entire architecture of some veronica buckets for handwashing were beyond the reach of some PWDs due to the nature of their disabilities. Social distancing protocol was introduced without regard for PWDs such as the blind who needed regular assistants and human support in their daily movements. • The provision of the PPEs has helped in controlling the spread of the virus, the distribution was skewed towards schools and other formal institutions. People in the informal sectors such as traders at markets, commuters and operators of lorry stations were largely left to the benevolence of NGOs and philanthropist individuals. While children in schools were provided with PPE, their underprivileged counterparts in the streets and deprived communities were not. While there may currently be a lack of comprehensive data on COVID-19 vaccinations, there is every reason to expect that vaccines, as other COVID-19 related amenities and services are as unequal in distribution spatially and across income and social groups. • The shift of resources in the health sector to COVID-19 is one factor that has resulted in reduced access to other forms of health services for some vulnerable groups, including children. A UNICEF reports states that, a year into the pandemic, nearly one million children had not received routine health services during the pandemic (UNICEF, 2021). Recommendations • The health budget should be increased to the AU-recommended levels of 15% of annual public expenditure, with the increase going to address income and spatial inequities in health provisioning • In particular, resources can be directed to building and resourcing Community-Based Health and Planning Services (CHPS) compounds and other primary health care facilities whose models and physical facilities are more accessible to low-income and rural patients • Government to expand telemedicine and e-health in both lower and higher-level facilities across the country. Education • The government’s attempts at providing alternative methods of teaching and learning during the period of school closures to some extent widened the rural-urban, rich-poor, male-female, abled-disabled divides in accessing quality education because of the uneven distribution of the barriers to e-learning, including high cost, infrastructure, ICT skills, accessibility to quality internet connection and electricity. The major learning channels deployed for the e-learning (radio and TV) technically excluded persons with visual and hearing impairments. The learning gap was wider for girls because of gender division of labour which place on girls a disproportionate burden of domestic and care work. Finally, whereas employees in public schools were guaranteed their salaries and conditions of service the same cannot be said of teachers in private schools who are also tax payers. • The COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of schools has also had differential impacts on female and male learners. School closures have further deepened vulnerabilities associated with female learners in terms of increased engagement in domestic chores, teenage pregnancy, and child marriage, which pose risks to the education of girls. This has necessitated the strengthening of GES’s school re-entry policy to retain pregnant girls in schools, grant them maternity leave and readmit young school mothers to facilitate continuous education, and to prevent exclusion of pregnant school girls and young school mothers from education (STAR-Ghana Foundation and Bortei-Doku Aryeetey, 2021) Recommendations • Facilitate a regularization of GES collaborated Centre for National Distance Learning and Open Schooling (CENDLOS), Ghana Library Authority, and Scholastic for their services to become regular features GES service - to offer students access to the content on the iBox and iCampus, for online and self-guided learning, provide an online learning tool to students and online content at the KG and Lower Primary levels • Call for an increase in the budget allocation to the education and health sectors to meet the UNESCO threshold of 15% of the overall budget for education Livelihoods On a more positive note, the secretariat of the LEAP cash transfer improved payments in terms of promptness and regularity to beneficiaries • Ideally the social protection response to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic should have been, among other things, a scaling up of the levels of existing social assistance or the temporarily expansion of coverage to accommodate non-beneficiaries of existing social assistance, or both. However, due to the lack of nationwide household register for targeting, interventions have been fragmented and sporadic during the COVID-19 crisis, making it difficult to rely on existing social protection infrastructure to provide relief. The government has had to adopt multiple targeting schemes for the food distribution in the lock down areas as well as universal schemes to absorb the electricity and waters bills of the entire country because the shock affected almost the entire population. Key Recommendations • Government should invest resources to increase the number of households covered by LEAP, which would include existing beneficiaries’ households as well as those that may have fallen into poverty during the period of the pandemic. • As a matter of urgency, the Ghana Social Protection Bill must be passed to provide clear guidelines, resources, and legal backing for social protection measures in emergencies. Stakeholder Consensus on key action points to take forward • The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection has begun the development of a Shock Response & Emergency Strategy. Following issues raised around a coordinated response, and targeting of diverse needs, it is recommended that the Ministry builds consultations with civil society actors and relevant ministries for inputs into finalizing the strategy. • One thing to learn from the pandemic is prioritizing emergency preparedness. It is important that National Contingency Plan that profile risks, response, and responsibilities is put in place. From this plan, sector specific strategies can be developed. • The National Single Household Registry is a critical intervention to enable targeting for social protection intervention. It is recommended that household registry project is completed and used as reference for social protection support. • Government to see to the passage of the Ghana Social Protection Bill for effective targeting of the vulnerable during emergencies, and for better policy guidelines and resources to respond to the needs of the vulnerable during emergency