sustainability

This past year has been a tough one for all in South Africa but we have survived albeit battered and bruised. The 2010 Soccer World Cup is only a few months away and there are signs that the economy is picking up and a positive spirit is responding to this stimulus.

CSI will stay flat

1. The Political Environment

1.1. Grace before the meal
The very essence of “politics” is the human intercourse about how we are governed, where we are going, what our context is, where we find ourselves among broader humanity, and the essential and ever-changing debate about how best to divvy up limited resources.

South African NGOs are currently facing a crisis of financial sustainability. The combined result of diminishing international funding, ineffective delivery by state funding institutions, and the current economic recession, has placed many organisations in financial crisis.

What better time than now for NGOs and the institutions that support their work to be thinking together about more sustainable financial models.

With South Africa being the only African country with a seat on the Group of 20 (G20), while serving as co-chair of the working group on reforming the International Monetary Fund, it has "a moral obligation towards the continent to call for more responsible management of the global financial system".

Southern Africa is easily the region most profoundly impacted by HIV and AIDS. It is for this reason, according to Dr Norbert Foster, Namibia’s Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health and Social Services that it was fitting that his country should host this year’s HIV and AIDS Implementers Meeting. The gathering took place in Windhoek from 10-14 June and was themed ‘Optimising the Response: Partnerships for Sustainability’.

Because the old 10(1)(f) exemption prohibited trading, and the new 2000 laws restricted it severely, NGO’s which wished to generate revenue to sustain their activities were forced into setting up dual structures: one organisation which was tax exempt and received donor funding, and another which did the income-generating work, and then donated the funds to the tax exempt organisation.

Much is being discussed and written about regarding the global recession. We will only be able to see the full effect of this on funding when we look back in a year or two and can calculate the actual impact. Anecdotally though, there are many stories of reduced funding from foreign donors hardest hit by the crisis, and corporate donors whose profits are down and whose giving is often based on a percentage of net profits after tax.

Press Release

8 June 2009

Media statement by Inyathelo – The South African Institute for Advancement
At a recent event hosted by Inyathelo-The South African Institute for Advancement, participants were captivated by guest speaker, Writer, Columnist & Researcher Working in Civil Society; Glen Ashton’s expansion on his  article, The New Colonists Scramble for Africa.