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Commissions Planning Meetings |
Lesotho Council of NGOs (LCN)
is holding Commissions planning meeting for its different
Commissions. LCN is organised into sectoral commissions for
effective co-ordination and management of member programmes. The
main objective of establishing the commissions is to group NGO's
with similar programmes/objectives together in order to share
experiences and so to facilitate the work of co-ordination by LCN
Secretariat.
The meetings are aimed at ensuring that commissions build and
sustain networks and relationships that enable them to successfully
address common issues for the purposes of advocacy. To ensure that
commissions have adequate resources to enable them to engage in
policy debates and formulation, implementation and monitoring of the
policy framework, to develop the culture of dialogue amongst the
various commissions and to encourage joint advocacy work on matters
of national and regional importance such as democracy, human rights,
transparency, good governance, electoral issues, peace building and
issues of corruption in society.
LCN have the following the commissions, women and children,
Democracy and Human Rights, Disaster and Humanitarian Relief,
Agriculture, Natural Resources, Business Development and Human
Resource and Training commission. The commissions meet once in a
month to discuss their common areas of engagement and to map the way
forward with regard to civil society participation in national
issues. To date there are only two commissions that have programmes,
AENRC and DHRC. It is against this background that it is important
to draw lessons from the two commissions in order to build
programmes for other remaining commissions.
Therefore, there will be planning processes that will be supported
to identify roles that different commissions can play in influencing
policies and expenditure, and in this regard it is crucial that all
the commission members assume a lead role in advocacy for change.
Meetings will be held per commission in order to assess individual
organizations’ progress and also in identifying common constraints
and challenge facing commissions.
Challenges facing the commissions
Civil Society solidarity and cooperation has become an integral part
of development work given the magnitude of challenges and issues
concerning the Civil Society Organisations in Lesotho. Some of these
challenges facing NGOs in the commissions include; declining levels
of funding both nationally and internationally, low levels of
operating capacity of individual NGOs, commissions being exposed to
structural complexcities especially with regard to reporting
mechanisms, organizations no longer attending commission meetings
due to the fact that there are no issues for discussion within the
commissions and there is also lack of idea generation that could
result into fundable programmes.
It is evident that the above mentioned challenges will result into
problems with regard to the collective role of civil society
organizations that would affect their participation in finding
solutions to the problems in the country, particularly the
increasing levels of poverty, deprivation and hunger, unemployment,
HIV/AIDS, governance and democracy and gender disparities.
Towards this end it is increasingly becoming imperative for Civil
Society Organisations in the Lesotho to build and sustain networks
and relationships that will enable them to successfully address
common issues together in order to make an impact and to engage in
policy and poverty alleviation issues for the benefit of the
poverty-stricken communities in Lesotho. In light of this, a lot of
work still has to been done to ensure active and vibrant involvement
of NGOs in the commissions so as to develop a culture of teaming on
critical issues. LCN provides a platform that plays an important
liaison role between NGOs in Lesotho with other development partners
in and outside Lesotho. However, as indicated the commissions are
faced with multiple challenges that need immediate attention.
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