Analysing Micro-Assistance to Democracy: EU Support for Grassroots Organisations in South Africa
Development in Practice, Volume 14, Number 6, November 2004
12 Pages Posted: 4 Jul 2012 Last revised: 29 Oct 2012
Date Written: November 11, 2004
Abstract
Aiding democracy has often been a top-down process. Not only has democracy assistance been overwhelmingly characterised by macro policies, but also when bottom-up policies have been attempted they have often addressed professionalised NGOs, with scarce grassroots membership and contact. Only more recently, some programmes have been implemented by foreign donors with the aim of developing what can be called micro-assistance to democracy, defined as democracy assistance directed to small, often community-based, organisations in the field. This article describes the European Community micro-assistance to democracy in South Africa after 1994. The data gathered comes from interviews conducted with project officials and semi-structured interviews with all directors of Community-Based Organisations that have been receiving funds from the European Union. Some preliminary findings suggest that micro-assistance to democracy in South Africa responds to specific problems affecting local civil society, even though most of these organisations remain scarcely sustainable and their skills to influence local policies are nevertheless limited.
Keywords: Democracy aid, democratization, European Union, South Africa, community-based organisations
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