The Tanzania Election Monitoring Committee project coordinator, Dr Benson Bana, said ensuring there is civic and voter education is a core duty of the government in which other stakeholders may chip in; relying on donors to fund it amounts to abdication he noted.He sees the country paying due donor dependency tendencies.
By Katare Mbashiru and Henry Mwangonde,The Citizen Reporters
Dar es Salaam. With only six months to the General Election, fear is mounting that the country could go into the polls without adequate voter education.
Civil society groups and NGOs that usually play a major role in the dissemination of voter education ahead of the important national exercise are in the dark while the National Electoral Commission (NEC) is yet to give any indication as to when its own programme is likely to start.
With donors apparently changing tact on how to fund voter education programmes and NEC beset by a financial crisis as manifested in the problematic roll out of the biometric voter registration (BVR), some NGOs now fear 2015 General Election could go down history as one for which voters received least sensitisation.
“Based on experience of the four previous general elections, preparatory civic education activities for 2015 polls, including identification of CSOs to be contracted to provide civic education, would have been concluded by now,” said Mr Bubelwa Kaiza, executive director for Concern for Development Initiatives in Africa (Fordia).
In a document circulated last week to several civil society groups, Mr Kaiza questioned loudly what he perceived as “disquiet” among the donor community on the way forward regarding voter sensitisation ahead of the polls that are likely to be characterised by stiff competition.
He expressed fear that donor agencies may have locked out in their plans many local civil society organisations (CSOs) that provided elections-related civic education during 1995, 2000, 2005 and 2010 elections.
“Our efforts since 2013 in trying to contact donors, including UNDP, which co-ordinated civic education funding for 2005 and 2010 general elections, have not yet yielded encouraging response,’’ Mr Kaiza told The Citizen in an email communication.
In the 2005 General Election, Mr Kaiza co-ordinated the Civic and Voter Education Reference Group (CVERG) constituting the National Consortium for Civic Education in Tanzania (NACOCET), Bakwata, Christian Social Service Commission (CSSC), Zanzibar Legal Services Centre and the Federation of Disabilities in Tanzania (Shivyawata). The CVERG was nominated by Tanzania Civil Society Organisations to implement the UNDP-funded civic education programme.
According to Mr Kaiza, there were claims that UNDP had considered commissioning UN-Women to co-ordinate civic education for Tanzania in the 2015 elections, but nothing concrete had developed yet.
However, The Citizen understands that The UK based Department for International Development (DFID) is funding a civic education project to be implemented by a consortium constituted by BBC-Media Action, Restless and Oxfam—all UK organisations—partnering with the Legal and Human Rights Centre, a Tanzanian CSO.
Last week, however, the UNDP invited proposals in a bid to seek a competent company or institution to undertake capacity building and training for political parties ahead of the General Election.
Today, UNDP will hold a pre-proposal conference in Dar es Salaam where interested bidders have been encouraged to attend, according to the advert it issued last week. It was not clear whether this training differs from civic education.
In an interview with The Citizen, Sikika, a health advocacy lobby group’s executive director, Mr Irenei Kiria, said from his experience, civic and voter education are supposed to have started already, adding that it is the main task of the government through NEC.
Usually, NEC provides voter education a few months before elections. But up to this time, the electoral body is yet to provide any information regarding this exercise. Our efforts to get comments from NEC officials proved futile yesterday.
The Tanzania Election Monitoring Committee (Temco) project coordinator, Dr Benson Bana, said ensuring there is civic and voter education is a core duty of the government in which other stakeholders may chip in; relying on donors to fund it amounts to abdication he noted.
He said many organisations in the country have developed a tendency of begging, adding that donors could as well be focusing on other things this time and not civic education in Tanzania.
According to him, donors are withholding funds due to embezzlement concerns in some individuals in the civil society.
“Civic education is a continuous process but unfortunately even the government is not serious about it; for example, we went to Njombe where the voter registration process is taking place and realised that civic education had not been provided,’’ he said.
According to him, there haven’t been enough preparations aimed at making citizens well informed ahead of going to the polls.
Dr Hellen Kijo-Bisimba of the Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC) said her organisation understands that when it comes to election time, funding tends to be delayed. LHRC, however, started giving civic education two years ago years on the basis of its six-year plan which it started implementing last year.
CREDIT: THE CITIZEN
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