Civil Society Feels the Squeeze as Reform Era Unravels

Jul 5 , 2025.

Six years ago, Ethiopia was the darling of international liberal commentators. A year earlier, crowds filled Mesqel Square, chanting slogans celebrating the dawning of an era away from what was an authoritarian state and towards political openness and market-friendly reforms.

That widespread optimism has been on a retreat as civic space contracts as quickly as it once expanded. A new set of draft laws governing democratic institutions, from electoral and political parties to civil society, threatens to stifle the same civic freedoms that politicians once praised, revealing how easily a bold experiment in openness can slide back toward control.

Ironically, the arc appears to be familiar. In 2009, a law introduced by the EPRDFites to regulate charities and societies throttled watchdog groups by capping foreign funds at 10pc. Amnesty International reckoned that 85pc of human rights organisations fell silent or folded. Much like the Charities & Societies Proclamation then, the new draft laws threaten to revive a repressive status quo cloaked in legalese. Parliament repealed the hated cap, stripped away red tape, and reignited the non-government sector. In the 18 months that followed, more than 2,000 new civil society organisations (CSOs) emerged. Foreign contributions leapt from 45 million dollars in 2018 to 112 million dollars in 2022, a surge of 149pc.

With money flowing, activists addressed a range of issues, from voter education to maternal health.

Now the mood is again turning grim. Between January and June 2024, the authorities closed 1,504 CSOs for alleged paperwork lapses. Veterans such as the Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRC) and the Ethiopian Human Rights Defenders Centre were summarily suspended, jolting the sector.

Observers suspected bureaucratic convenience, not legal necessity. New registrations, which had increased from 412 in 2018 to 1,372 in 2020, slowed to 460 last year.

Three bills now before Parliament would tighten the screws.

The oversight board that registers CSOs would shrink from 11 seats to seven, five of them reserved for government appointees, demolishing any illusion of independence. Vague security clauses would let officials deny registration or dissolve groups on the grounds of “national security”, with no right to appeal in court.

Organisations receiving foreign money would have to file granular transaction reports every fortnight, a tall order for units operating in remote areas. Another clause lurks in the fine print, forbidding any foreign-funded body from voter education or election monitoring. The package mimics, and in places outdoes, the 2009 repression.

The damage cannot be confined only to the political front. Thousands of projects run by CSOs, such as watershed management and vocational training, amount to an estimated 0.4pc of GDP. Crimping them could risk undermining public health gains, school enrolment, and agricultural extension.

Understandably, defenders of the amendments cite real concerns. In a country scarred by conflicts, foreign cash can conceal political meddling. Officials complain that some NGOs stray into partisanship or feign charity while funding rebels.

They also note the global trend. Uganda’s 2016 NGO Act obliges groups to sign district-level memoranda; Tanzania’s 2019 rules enforce stricter reporting; Kenya’s long-debated Public Benefits Organisations Bill may soon curb foreign grants.

Only two percent of the world’s people live in countries labelled “open”. The international watchdog CIVICUS now classifies Ethiopia as “obstructed”, bracketed with India, Turkey, and Burundi. Ethiopia’s tumble is therefore depressingly common, but no less harmful. Each suspension discourages civic engagement; each opaque audit erodes trust.

The drafts before Parliament, they argue, merely align with neighbours and protect national security and interests.

Yet, successful states show that national security and civil society can coexist. In the Nordics, NGOs integrate into national resilience plans without compromising their autonomy. Britain’s Charity Commission supervises finances but stops short of daily meddling, and its decisions are reviewable in court.

The proposed fortnightly reporting rule, coupled with the threat of registration revocation, would hobble exactly the groups that most depend on outside support, such as rural clinics, legal-aid desks, and corruption monitors. Ethiopia risks reverting to the bad old days when only state-friendly associations could operate, snugly protected under official auspices, while independent voices withered.

Ethiopian authorities could achieve a similar balance by defining “national security” narrowly, sharing board seats equally with civil-society nominees, tailoring oversight to risk, and guaranteeing judicial appeal.

Granted, there are bad apples in the civic society midst, having their existence for rent-seeking.

However, grassroots and genuine civic groups nurture social cohesion by filling gaps that the state cannot. They mediate local conflicts, document abuses, and advise policymakers and legislators. During the darkest hours of the pandemic, they dispersed masks and soap in slums that the Health Ministry dispatches could not have reached. There are several organisations that provide water, education, and health services in remote locations, braving the hardships that come with it.

The bureaucratic shackling will leave them weaker, not effective.

Donors weigh transparency when allocating grants. Citizens, from pastoralists to micro-entrepreneurs, judge the legitimacy of the state by how it treats dissenting voices. Contemporary political leaders, who once prided themselves on breaking from their heavy-handed predecessors, should recall that legacy before enshrining a new arsenal of controls.

History’s lesson is blunt, showing that every democratic opening carries the seeds of closure if laws lack safeguards. The rush to tighten supervision proves that rights won once can be lost twice as fast. A decade from now, pundits will ask whether the present Parliament saved or squandered the “promise” glimpsed in 2018.

Federal lawmakers have the opportunity to steer clear of overreach. They can choose transparency over opacity, partnership over paternalism, and due process over fiat. They could set explicit benchmarks for what constitutes a security threat, violent incitement, money laundering, and material aid to proscribed groups. Anything short of that should fall outside the state’s veto.

A credible oversight regime demands pluralism, proportionality, and judicial recourse. Reporting rules could be tiered by making international charities, which move millions, submit quarterly audits, while small community outfits file a simple annual return. Most importantly, any decision by the CSO agency should be open to swift and independent judicial review. Without these, the authorities court reputational damage and a credibility deficit at home and abroad.

The hardest part of reform is not launching it, but defending its spirit when the temptations of control return. Ethiopia stands at that fork again.

PUBLISHED ON Jul 05,2025 [ VOL 26 , NO 1314]