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Mozambican Civil Society Within: Evaluation, Challenges, Opportunities and Action
Resorting to non partisan forms of struggle such as strikes, demonstrations and petitions is
still virtually unknown. Almost 44% of the population has never participated in a strike or a
demonstration and 25% would participate in such actions if they had the opportunity to do so.
Afrobarometer 2005 shows that 87% of the population has never contacted a government official,
a representative of the Assembly of the Republic, or the representative of any public entity. Also
according to Afrobarometer about 54% of the citizens surveyed go to religious leaders for help
in resolving their problems while 24% regularly contact community leaders.
The commnunity survey carried out by this project shows that a minority of citizens (28% of
respondents) has taken part in some kind of non partisan political action, for example:
participation in a public demonstration, writing a letter to the newspaper or signing a petition.
3.1.1.2 Charitable Giving
Secondary literature has little to say on this subject, one of the reasons for the Community
Sample Research (INC07). According to the INC07, in the 12 months prior to the survey about
43% of respondents provided some kind of voluntary support to the community over and above
the support given to members of his/her household. Most of the stated support was in the form
of food (87%), or also in money (57%) and clothing (55%).
3.1.1.3 CSO Membership
The INE census of non-profit organizations (CINSFLU, 2006) showed that in 2003 about 140
thousand people were members of a CSO. 5 This is less than 1% of the total Mozambican
population. 6
/The 5000 CSOs surveyed by INE in 2003 have virtually the same number of workers as the
public sector. About 75% said they were volunteers while 20-25% were earning a salary,
consultants or civil servants. In other words, at least 30,000 CSO workers can be considered
to have a regular salary. After the state no other entity employs as many people as CSOs.
As the CINSFLU2006 only covered formal organizations with at least a physical address and
evidence of a regular organizational structure, it must be recognised that this perspective excludes
a group of socially relevant but functionally informal community organizations.
It is well known that a only a small proportion of citizens participate in formally established
CSOs. Nevertheless, from the viewpoint of the dynamics of civil society, it is important to
recognize that the logic behind the work of socially relevant CSOs in everyday life in Mozambican
society is not based on formal and legal criteria.
5
For the purposes of this research on CSOs, Non-Profit Organisations (NPOs)are considered civil society organizations (CSOs)
6
This figure depends on the operational definition used by INE. With more realistic criteria that are not limited to the notion of organizations with a physical address, it is
possible that the participation in organizational forms of civil society is much higher than suggested by the INE data.
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Civil Society Index, Mozambique 2007