THE CHALLENGES OF THE ETHIOPIAN CHARITY AND SOCIETIES 70/30 GUIDELINES IN CSO OPERATIONS: THE CASE OF REDEEM THE GENERATION AND HIWOT INTEGRATED DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION IN ADDIS ABABA

Abstract

Civil Society Organizations have been playing an important role in the overall development effort of the country and their intervention has a significant impact on the lives of the poor and the disadvantaged. During each regime that ruled the country there was a law, which was enacted to guide Civil Society organizations on how to register and what is expected from them for operation. The recent proclamation is the “The Charities and Societies Proclamation No.621/2009” proclamation, in short called the CSO proclamation that was enacted in 2009 by the current government. The Objectives of the study is to assess the effect of the 70/30 guideline of the Charities and Societies Agency on the operational activities of the two selected Ethiopian Resident Charities named Redeem the Generation Ethiopia and Hiwot Integrated Development Organization. The two organizations have been implementing different project since 1999. RTG works for the empowerment of youth and orphan and vulnerable children to release their potential for a better life. HIDO works on four targeted program interventions namely child care and development, community based health care, livelihood and capacity building .In order to achieve the objective of the study, the research method used was descriptive case study approach. The research has gathered the necessary information through the use of primary and secondary data source. The finding shows that the 70/30 guideline issued in 2009 by the Charities and Societies Agency is found not to be as such comprehensive and it is generally considered less clear. In addition to this the participants responded that there are differences between the ChSA and the donor cost allocation. The respondents also mentioned that there are some costs which are considered as administrative like program coordinator and officers’ salary and benefit has not been included in the operation rather considered as admin cost; travel cost related to monitoring and evaluation considered as admin cost. Thus, the ChSA should work together with the charity organization and revisit the cost allocation. In addition, the donor community needs to reconsider their budget allocation in order to help the CSOs to meet the ChSA’s requirement