[THREAD IN REPLY] 1. Thank you for engaging so thoughtfully right at the start of #CSOWeek2019 #WikiYaAzaki2019. Your important questions rippled through the gathering. They invite not a rushed rejoinder but considered engagement at the end of the week's deliberations. Here I go:
2. #CSOWeek2019 cost several hundred million shillings to hold. But the financial value of its real effects, impact & outcomes - new insights, new connections, renewed resolve – is impossible to quantify. Reductionist accounting misses the value of engaging, exchanging & learning
3. No! On the contrary, #CSOWeek2019 #WikiYaAzaki2019 is highlighting the power of collective action mobilised, amplified & channeled by a dynamic ecosystem of diverse organizations. We value both the whole rainforest as well as its individual trees.
4. CSOs participate in the messy endeavour of ‘social engineering’. Where their impact is demonstrably negative, they must be held to account by society. But in the ‘failure’ to achieve intended outcomes lie valuable lessons & insights for society #CSOWeek2019 #WikiYaAzaki2019
5. The ‘local-ness’ of a CSO is a combination of funding sources, staff composition & worldview. While legitimacy should not rest in the 'colour' of the money, it should not be dismissed out of hand as useless, irrelevant & illegitimate. #CSOWeek2019 #WikiYaAzaki2019
6. Great question! To what extent should CSOs make moral and/or material compromises? Should CSOs work with or against the 'grain'? This link is a useful reference: blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/20… #CSOWeek2019 #WikiYaAzaki2019
7. Yes there should be CSO professionals, just as there are medical or legal professionals, all of which started as vocations. There are limits to organic self-organization.
A diverse CSO agenda produces a resilient society. Monocultures are inherently vulnerable #CSOWeek2019
A diverse CSO agenda produces a resilient society. Monocultures are inherently vulnerable #CSOWeek2019
8. Social progress is an elite project. Truly transformational political, social & economic mobilization is almost invariably elite-led (Nyerere & Mandela were both 'princes'). That's an unashamedly elitist thing to say, but it does not make it any less true. #CSOWeek2019
9. CSOs cant (or shouldnt) coerce or compel, only convince. The lack of political will is not a permanent condition. Yes, advocacy can help generate political incentives for action. They're good at it too (Anti-Slavery, Suffragettes, Civil Rights, death of Apartheid) #CSOWeek2019
10. It would have been nice to substantiate assertion that CSOs’ ‘sometimes’ fights are ‘rarely about ideas.’
Just as one swallow does not a spring make, the CSO community’s moral authority does not evaporate when some forfeit their portion through unsavoury acts. #CSOWeek2019
Just as one swallow does not a spring make, the CSO community’s moral authority does not evaporate when some forfeit their portion through unsavoury acts. #CSOWeek2019
