Advocacy, Lobbying, Research and Consultancy Outfits

In post 1991 Ethiopia, CSOs who are active in the areas of advocacy and lobbying emerged. These types of organizations barely existed in Ethiopia prior to 1991. They have been prioritized by donors as instrumental in the furthering of "democracy and good governance". This emphasis is demonstrated in a funding scenario in which generous resources have been provided for this type of organization.

Advocacy organizations consist of rights-based institutions and institutions committed to the protection of the environment, wildlife, human right, debt relief, increased external assistance, export price levels for items such as coffee, globalization, gender issues, HIV/AIDS, conflict resolution and so on. (Tafesse 2005: 11) The Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO), Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association (EWLA), Action Professionals Association for the People (APAP), LEM Ethiopia, Forum for Social Studies (FSS), and others may fall into this category. (Rahmato 2004) A number of other human rights monitoring organizations have briefly operated and dissolved for example, an organization that was based in the Law Faculty at Addis Ababa University and the pro-government and Anti- Red Terror Committees established to defend the rights of alleged victims of the previous regime (Vaughan & Tronvoll 2002:62).

APAP is a local non-partisan, non governmental organization established in 1993 with the main objective of providing legal and professional services to the poor, women, and children. It also aims at accessing human rights and legal information for these groups to enable them to use the law and human rights in bringing about an attitudinal change in the development process (APAP 2006). APAP works under three programs including the human rights education and training program, the community-level voluntary institutions support program and the research, and the lobbying and publication program. (APAP 2004:i- ii) During the years 2000-2004 more than 50,000 individuals drawn from law enforcement agencies, the judiciary, the administration and community level institutions obtained useful human rights training from its human right education and training program (APAP 2004: ii). In its program supporting community-level voluntary associations the organization has succeeded in persuading and initiating community-level voluntary institutions to work on human rights issues. Accordingly, thirty-three human rights projects involving 20,049 beneficiaries were designed and implemented through the technical and financial support extended to the community-level institutions.

Provision of legal aid is also one of the components of Community-Level Voluntary Institutions Support Program. In this area, the organization mainly supports the poor, women and children (APAP 2004: ii-iii).

The two advocacy organizations which have attracted considerable public support, are EHRCO and EWLA. Established in 1991, EHRCO was the first human rights organization in the country. The organization stresses that it is a non-political organization with the objective of defending the rule of law and the democratic process. Its areas of intervention includes research, documenting and publicizing human rights abuses, and conducting public debates on democracy and human rights. Its major activity is the monitoring of human rights violations in the country.

(Rahmato 2004). It is through the strength of its reports and documentation that EHRCO aims to achieve its main objectives; it does not provide legal assistance, legal advice or support to those who may seek. It aims at making the rule of law and the democratic process a concern of all citizens that need their active participation in order to bring about the development of culture of governance and a tradition that is public centred. It is a membership association consisting of academics, professionals and businessmen living in the country and it has support groups in Western Europe and North America. It is affiliated with Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch. Despite appearing small in terms of size of membership, it has

succeeded in carefully monitoring the government’s democratic credentials. This has created tense relations with the government as a result of which its activity has until recently been confined to Addis Ababa and its range of functions fairly limited (Rahmato 2002:110-111).

EWLA was established in the mid-1990s by a group of women lawyers to defend women's rights through the legal system, to raise public awareness about the plight of women, and to push for reforms promoting gender equality. Its main activities consist of legal aid to women, public education and advocacy for legal reforms and research and documentation. The legal aid program, which is probably one of the most central of EWLA's activities, provides a wide variety of legal advice and counselling to women, including court representations by EWLA lawyers. The service is offered free of charge to all that come seeking help. While the overwhelming majority of EWLA clients are women, a few men have also sought legal aid, not for themselves but on behalf of their female relatives. About 85% of the cases brought to EWLA involve marital conflict, and the rest consist of rape, abduction, robbery and theft, and assault and battery (Rahmato 2002:111). By the year 2000, EWLA had given free legal aid to 30,000 women through its national office in Addis Ababa and a dozen branch offices located in remote places like Asosa in the Beni Shangul Zone. Most who have benefited from this generous service were from poor and downtrodden urban and peasant households (Wolde Giorgis 2002).

EWLA has also invested considerable effort in legislative reform. While the goal is to bring about the amendment of laws discriminating women, the main focus so far has been on the reform of the Family Law which was enacted in 1960 and which EWLA found especially discriminatory to women and a cause of much suffering for women whose marriage had broken up. Partly due to EWLA’s persistent campaign, the law was finally reformed by Parliament in mid-2000. Many women are now aware that they will get EWLA legal aid if they feel they have been victims of gender-based injustice. In this respect, EWLA is providing invaluable service and have been enjoying tremendous public support (Rahmato 2002: 111).

National and Addis Ababa Chambers of Commerce, the Women Entrepreneurs’

Association, and the Ethiopian Economics Association are membership organizations who are actively involved in advocacy, lobbying and research

activities in Ethiopia. NGOs dealing with civic education and information-sharing include DKT-Social Marketing (focusing on AIDS/HIV), AD-NET E95, ENCONEL and Adhoc Civic Education Forum (ACEF) an ad-hoc group of indigenous NGOs all with interests in the sphere of voter and electoral education and regulation for nationwide elections in the year 1995, 2000 and 2005 respectively, Poverty Action Network Ethiopia (PANE), Waag Communications and Press Digest (media information, translation and training services), African Initiative for Democratic World Order (AIDWO) (civic education) and Inter Africa Group. They work on information dissemination and dialogue, research projects and NGO networking, operating at an elevated political level (Vaughan & Tronvoll 2003:62).

The new development in post-1991 Ethiopia is the emergence of research-focused institutions. These professional based associations, forums, societies and NGOs undertake numerous research and studies that continue to generate useful mostly grassroots level information which have influenced and continue to influence development thinking in the country.(Tafesse2005: 11) Primary actors in this sphere are the Forum for Social Studies and the Ethiopian Economics Association (and Institute), which have emerged from the Institute of Development Research, and Economics Department of AAU respectively. Both organizations have engaged in independent and critical research on core issues of socio-economic development.

Both have been major contributors to (and beneficiaries of) the recent PRSP consultation exercise.

FSS was legally registered in 1998. Over the past years it has held numerous public policy debates, produced many publications including the quarterly newsletter and several specialized studies and monographs. FSS considers policy analysis as an important input to policy-making and implementation, and works towards building up a policy-analysis infrastructure. FSS believes dialogue between policy planners on the one hand, and civil society and the public on the other will promote a better policy-making environment, and more sustainable development policies. The organization is keen to promote transparency and accountability in policy-making and implementation (FES 2007).

Established in 1992 by a group of distinguished Ethiopian economists, the Ethiopian Economic Association (EEA) is amongst the most active professional association in the county. In addition to the advancement of the professional interest of its

members, the organization also seeks to improve the quality of education in institutions of higher learning, and to influence the process of economic policy-making. Its monthly roundtable debates and discussion on topical economic issues and government policies bring together policy-makers, academics, businessmen and interested professionals. The forum regularly attracts both economists and non-economists and is becoming an important fixture of the Addis Ababa intellectual environment. Its bimonthly bulletin and most of the articles in publications and the annual conference proceedings are critical of the government's economic policy.

The poverty and hardship aggravated by increasing numbers of the population, the marginalization of the country in the global market and the general lack of significant economic improvement is a strong concern among contributors and active members of the organization. Despite this fact, the activities of the organization are limited in Addis Ababa, and economists and others living in the other parts of the country have no opportunity of participating in its programs.

According to Rahmato, the organization does not promote a particular school of economic thought and there is a strong tendency to rely on quantitative methods with limited theoretical debate on broad developmental issues. In 1999, the president of the Association stated that there is no way of knowing for certain whether EEA efforts have made any impression on economic policy and at present, these efforts appear to have had very little impact on decision-makers (Rahmato 2002:113).

Ethiopia is a severely underdeveloped country, with lower levels of urbanization;

hence, there are fewer professional organizations in Ethiopia than in many African countries. In addition, the repressive former regimes have contributed to the low level development of associational life in the country.