NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS in ETHIOPIA

• Currently there are 1,119 NGOs in Ethiopia
• Of these, 141 are international NGOs while the rest, 978 are local NGOs.
• More than 575 NGOs are engaged in development activities while more than 100 are engaged in specific fields.

Registration

• NGOs must apply to the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) for registration;
• Criteria:
  • Submit its request to the MOJ association registration division;
  • Fill registration application form which indicates name of the NGO, established date and place, permanent address, types and places of activity in Ethiopia, fund resource, estimated date of commencing activities;
  • The NGO should also submit with the registration application form
  • Official legislation of establishment document in the country of origin;
  • Official recommendation paper about its activities in other countries;
  • CV of the country representative;
  • Official delegation by the board of directors of the NGO to open an office in Ethiopia; and
    Project proposal;
  • The MOJ after receiving the application shall ask for opinions to relevant Ministries on the proposed activities of the NGO
  • The relevant ministries after carefully considering the project proposal shall give their reply to the MOJ
  • The MOJ after receiving the opinion of the relevant ministries shall decide whether to register the application of the NGO or not
  • The NGO if accepted then shall sign a working agreement with DPPC.

Law for NGOs

• Currently a revised draft law on the activities of NGOs in Ethiopia is finalized.
• The relevant provisions of the civil code of Ethiopia (1960) and the Association Registration Regulation 1966, as well as the code of conduct of associations 1966 governed the controlling activities of NGOs in Ethiopia.

Restrictions

• Providing financial and material support to political parties or groups;
• Involving in any commercial or any profit generating activities;
• Working with unregistered local or foreign NGOs;
• Receiving, holding and disposing of property, real or personal, given, granted, devised, or bequeathed to this corporation by any person or persons, investing or reinvesting managing and administrating the same and the proceeds there of in such manner as a donor may prescribe or as the directors may from time to time determine.

Major NGOs in Ethiopia

• Save the children of UK, USA and NORWAY
• Action Aid-UK
• Concern-Ireland
• Farm Africa-UK
• Norwegian church aid-Norway
• Oxfam GB-England
• World vision-USA
• Care-USA
• Catholic relief service-USA
• Compzanziono international-Italy
• Food for hungry international-central Europe
• German agro action-Germany
• Lutheran world federation-central Europe
• SOS children's village-central Europe

All the above mention NGOs

• Are participating in relief and development activities
• Jointly formulate partnership guidelines for cooperational relationships between NGOs and relative government bodies and regional governments.
• Establish national policy guideline for operation of NGOs taking into account the National Policy on Disaster preparedness and other relevant national directives on development into consideration
• Finalize the Legal Framework for NGOs
• NGOs when coming to Ethiopia have two agendas
• One is the promotion of the agenda of their country, which is the fundraiser for their activities in Ethiopia
• They provide every kind of information ranging from political to economic and others, which are required by their countries
• The other agenda is the provision of whatever aid assistance to Ethiopia. NGOs would sometimes try to use aid and assistance for political influence
• NGOs enter into working relationships especially in relief aid with Ethiopia since the early 1970s when the country was hit by drought. After that, they were active in 1984-85 and 1999-2000 droughts
• At present emergency relief is decreasing and NGOs are encouraged to participate in health, education, food security and water supply
  

INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE of THE RED CROSS

The ICRC and Ethiopia

• Ethiopia has been party to the Geneva conventions and their additional protocols since 1969 and 1994 respectively.
• Contact started during the Italo-Ethiopia war
• Next ICRC activity in Ethiopia was during 1974-75 when the delegation visited the ex-ministers of the Haile Sellassie Regime imprisoned by Derg.

Activities of ICRC in Ethiopia

• Visits of POWs and civilian internees;
• Safe passage for people expelled or repatriated;
  Forwarding family news;
• Assistance for displaced persons interned in the north;
  War-wounded and amputees;
• Resumption of visit to police stations in Addis Ababa;
• Assistance of various hands for drought victims;
• Agreements with the Ethiopian Red Cross;
• Steadying Knowledge of International humanitarian law.