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Mozambican Civil Society Within: Evaluation, Challenges, Opportunities and Action
4.2.2.1 Recommendations on the Structure Dimension
The structure of civil society measured the citizen’s involvement in the country’s social and
political affairs, and also how CSOs are organized. As the final score was 1.1, a relatively weak
structure, the following is recommended:
• Civil society organisations should try to encourage and challenge citizens to exercise
their citizenship more by getting involved in social and political affairs such as, for
example, supporting poor and/or vulnerable communities, exercising their constitutional
and human rights but also by fulfilling their civic duties;
• Organizations that are large in terms of financial and human capacity as well as
geographical coverage should seek ways of providing funds, resources and assistance
to less able ones. This could be done in two complementary ways: i) establishing a
coordination mechanism for building capacity in specific areas that improve their social
and political interventions: ii) using the same mechanism to coordinate the
deconcentration of funds, human resources and knowledge among the organizations.
• Established CSO fora and networks should try to implement their mission of coordinating
actions, actively and effectively sharing information relevant to interventions and also
space for peer review within civil society;
• Civil Society Organisations should become increasingly political (in the sense of getting
involved in promoting the citizen’s political participation) and at the same time less
“partisan” (they should avoid being exposed to political manipulation by political parties);
• Organisations that manage big grants should demystify and simplify the rules for grantees
that acquire and manage their funds. The system and regulations for grants for small
organisations should be improved using the experience of micro-credit grants;
• There is an urgent need for organisations with large programmes and large geographical
spread to specialise in specific subjects in order to maximise the use of human and
financial resources, but in particular to guarantee that interventions are efficient and
effective;
4.2.2.2 Recommendations on the Environment Dimension
The environment dimension measured the political, social, economic, cultural and legal
environment in which civil society and its members act and function as well as attitudes and
behaviour. The score for this dimension was 1.2 showing that civil society exists in a relatively
weak environment but with the prospect of becoming moderate. The following is thus
recommended:
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Civil Society Index, Mozambique 2007