Walid Hijazi and Jubie Matlou
Two research study results were presented at this year’s NGO Week detailing the profile and socio-economic role of non-profit organisations in South Africa.
The one study by the Graduate School of Public and Development Management (University of Witwatersrand), which forms part of the Comparative Non-profit Sector Project coordinated by the Centre for Civil Society of the Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, United States) sought to determine the size, scope and socio-economic significance of the non-profit sector.
In her presentation of the study’s findings Bev Russell says the non-profit sector is an important job provider and a powerful player in the national economy whose role has been underestimated.
“What we came up with was an estimate of close to 100 000 non-profit organisations in South Africa. Before the study, the most horrifying estimate anybody came up with was 40 000. The sector is considerably larger than we ever imagined.”
The data assembled indicates that in 1998 South African non-profit organisations accounted for R9,3-billion in expenditures, which amounts to 1,2% of the nation’s gross domestic product.
The sector employs a workforce of 645 317 full-time staff, greater than the country’s mining industry with 534 000 workers or the public service with 436 187.
Volunteer involvement is also very significant in South Africa. In 1998 alone nearly 1,5-million volunteers actively contributed their time and energy to non-profit organisations. Their contribution equals 316 991 full-time equivalent jobs, and accounts for 43% of the non-profit workforce.
Many NGOs are concentrated in the culture and recreation sector, followed by social services and development or housing sectors.
On the other hand, a study conducted by the Institute for Democracy in South Africa, the South African National NGO Coalition and the Cooperative for Research and Education profiles the structure, space, values and impact of NGOs, and benchmarks this with other civil societies in the developing world.
Despite the gradual withdrawal of overseas funding since the inception of a democratic dispensation in South Africa, total overseas development assistance from 1994 to 1999 has remained fairly stable, ranging from R2,5-million to R3,9-million.
Local assistance to institutional recipients during the same period ranged between R7-million from the private sector, R3,6-million from the government and R150 000 from parastatals.
With regard to the distribution of lottery funds in July, the first 54 organisations received R7,8-million, and later another 468 organisations received a total of R78-million. The provinces that benefited the most are the Eastern Cape, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape partly because of the large number of community-based organisations in those provinces.
In terms of financial sustainability only 2% of NGOs are permanently sustainable, 22% have long-term sustainability, 20% medium-term sustainability, 27% short-term and 22% exist from hand to mouth. The annual budgets of NGOs range from R99 000 to R10-million.
The legal composition of these organisations also varies according to their structures. Twenty-two per cent are trusts; 28% Section 21 entities; 22% voluntary organisations; 41% non-profit under the NPO Act; and 8% other. Very few organisations give priority to values such as community participation and empowerment. More than half of the organisations have a cooperative relationship with the government.
The study tallies with findings from the United Nations Development and Programme Report 2000 on South Africa which puts poverty at the top of the development agenda, and argues ” that while the poor themselves have a voice at community level in choosing, designing and implementing anti-poverty activities, stronger mechanisms are needed to enable them to have a voice in policy-making at national level”.
Cited in the study are research findings by Vivienne Taylor (1997) from the University of the Western Cape indicating that the “there was a considerable decline in social mobilisation in South Africa after the 1994 general election some groups perceived to have wrong tendencies have been marginalised from the centre of power more public education is needed to help people make their claims to full citizenship”. In the same vein Edgar Pieterse wrote in Development Update (Vol 2, No 1 1998) that “local communities and their representative organisations are often led and dominated by relatively vocal and ambitious people who try to align participatory imperatives with their strategic agendas to lead and control local development processes, especially resources”.
In terms of their role and activities from the broader society, community based organisations and non-profit community organisations are perceived relatively positively: from the general public (40%), less from the private sector, local and international donors (16% to 30%) and least from the government, the media and political parties (5% to 10%).
In contrast, many organisations think the government’s handling of democracy and human rights issues is good, as opposed to its handling of health and land matters, which they find wanting.
In comparison with other developing countries such as Mexico, Pakistan, Uruguay, Ghana and Belarus, South Africa comes top in terms of having a very large and diverse civil society structure operating within the country’s progressive constitutional and legal framework. However, the effect of the organisations on government policy varies from issue to issue.
ENDS