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Lesotho
Council of NGOs celebrate its 16th AGM and 6th NGO Week. |
Recently Lesotho Council
of NGOs held their 16th Annual General Meeting and 6th NGO Week at
the Lesotho Cooperative College from the 28th November to the 2nd
December 2005, and proved to be a meeting with a difference. The
meeting attracted more than 132 individuals from the NGOs alone, the
media, as well as top class facilitators. There was also a record of
more than four press releases read on a daily basis on the
proceedings of the NGO Week.
The meeting had over 10 thematic sessions, this year’s theme was
“Getting to Good Governance: Overcoming hurdles of Poverty, HIV/AIDS
and Weak Governance”.
It saw government officials together with the members of the NGOs
discussing a wide range of issues. Notably, they realised the need
to work together to in order to capacitate each other to carry out
development effectively. It was also noted that there are still many
challenges for both the government and NGOs in as far as
developmental activities are concerned. They also observed there is
a need for strong concerted efforts of the government and NGOs to
undertake reforms. There was a realisation that there is a need to
work with the government in adopting a more participatory approach
and to assist NGOs with small projects.
The official opening of the NGO Week was carried out by His
Excellency Ambassador, Peter Christiansen of the European Union
Commission delegation to Lesotho. The Ambassador said the EU is
working around the clock to get up to disperse a M96 million
programme aimed at taking care of the HIV/AIDS orphans in the
country.
The EU is working towards providing a better future for children so
that they can have a decent living as the next generation of Basotho.
The following thematic topics were dealt with in depth; Getting to
Good Governance overcoming hurdles of poverty HIV/AIDS and weak
governance,
HIV/AIDS; a discriminatory factor in our society, Environment
Justice and Enhancing Youth Development. Other issues discussed
were; issues facing food security in Lesotho, issues facing
community empowerment, challenges facing CBO’s and NGOs, promoting
womens participation in politics, enhancing CSOs participation in
the public budget expenditure and management.
Added to this other subjects on the agenda were enhancing the
Governments capacity in development AID coordination, towards
building a culture of human rights and towards a corruption free
society
The LCN Vice President, Mr. Booi Mohapi said LCN is fully committed
to working with other networks to ensure that poverty; HIV/AIDS and
Weak Governance are a thing of the past. “Our engagement in this
regard will assist the government of Lesotho to allocate its scarce
resources for the development to areas of high need.
Invited guests consisted of member NGOs, government officials and
Council of NGOs in Botswana. During the NGO Week on the evening of
….. , the Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs and also Minister of
Local Government, Dr. Matumelo Ponts’o Sekatle launched a booklet
called “Engaging the New Pan Africanism Strategies for Civil
Society”. She urged NGOs to come up with constructive solutions
instead of criticising the government on its shortcomings. She added
that NGOs and the government should join hands together in fighting
the development challenges to improve the lives of the people.
Speaking at the same occasion, LCN President Ms. Motseoa Senyane
said the booklet that was launched is a tool to help NGOs in
engaging interstate institutions and their structures and NGOs
should look for channels in influencing those structures for
development of work.
On another occasion, the Principal Secretary of the Ministry of
Finance and Development, Dr. Moeketsi Majoro said Lesotho’s economy
has been transformed considerably, from an economy dominated by
agriculture and migrant incomes to one today that depends more on
manufacturing and construction and less on agriculture.
The Principal Secretary made a presentation on his Ministry’s new
look: opportunities for effective
socio-economic growth for the country held at Lehakoe Recreation
Centre on the 30th/11/05. He said that Lesotho’s long term economic
growth of around 3 percent since 2001 is significantly better than
that of many African Countries, but is far smaller than the growth
rate needed to achieve Lesotho’s long-term development goals, as
expressed in the National Vision 2020 and Millennium Development
Goals.
The Principal Secretary said the organisational restructuring
involves reorganizing the ministry down from 21 to 6 core
departments and 3 semi – autonomous departments including the
Lesotho Revenue Authority, the National Manpower Development
Secretariat, and the Bureau of Statistics, as well as improved
delegation and accountability among management.
LCN and IDM also launched a new programme called “NGO Institute
Capacity Building Programme” which is aimed at improving project
management skills for NGO directors and senior managers and
encourage a people centred approach. It introduced capacity for
social research, which will come out with a training programme. The
NGO Week is a gathering where Lesotho Council of NGOs reflects on
its own progress during 2005 and looking forward to the future.
The LCN President reported that the work of the Board to report the
progress and challenges back to the member NGOs on what was
implemented after a term of a year. It was noted that the Government
is opening doors for CSOs to negotiate Also LCN have some programmes
that are aimed at the Leadership of NGOs that would keep us learning
to live up to the current global situations. Another issue is that
the committee members for the NGOs are community members that need
to be trained accordingly. Some of the programmes include Civil
Society Support Programme that enables NGOs to monitor the Poverty
Reduction Policy and National Budget analysis through the engagement
of the Government in policy issues.
The challenge is the hesitation of NGOs, to intervene when the
problems arise. There is no clear indication in either constitution
of LCN or member NGOs to collaborate in solving problems. The board
is working on the code of conduct, it is compiled but not ready to
be presented to the AGM. It was also mentioned that LCN is expanding
through new programmes. The British Council have engaged LCN to be
manage its small grants scheme and this will enable NGOs to apply
for small grants to work on projects concerning HIV/AIDS, good
governance and human rights and poverty alleviation.
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