Regional Reports - the European External Action Service

in different Non-State institutions or are members of elective assemblies
(Regional Council) is very strong and these members play a charismatic role.
This condition is likely to heavily influence the electoral process;
• the difficulty to detach from very backward-minded practices such as the fact that
those who have not yet formed a family are not admitted as members of the
Afochas (and in some cases of the Iddirs). This practice doesn’t belong to a
modern conditions and cannot be passed of as a cultural heritage of the
traditional rules because it acts as a form of exclusion and undermines the
possibility for a new leadership to be nurtured and empowered in the organisation
by this way facilitating the co-optation of the organisational leadership,
• organisational transparency is very low and some of the leaders, in spite of the
asserted volunteer character of their service, appear to be full-time engaged in the
organisations having some personal (social or economic) gain from this activity.
B. International NGOs have different strategies:
• MFM at regional level has phased out from a rural development activity and is
focusing on Vocational Education and training adopting a very effective integrated
approach. Moreover the organisation is gradually strengthening the capacity to
network with public institutions ( e.g. Aramaya University) and to interact with the
Government on technical education issues;
• SOS Children is planning to extend the outreach of their education program in terms
of capacity to serve the children living in communities neighbouring the Children
Villages and to focus in the support and cooperation with the government on
education issues;
• IIRO is planning to scale-up the Clinical Services to establish a general Health Centre
in cooperation with the Government.
C. The associational life is very weak and shows all the characteristics of the “nascent
status” a moment in which a blurry mix of leadership, ideas engagement come up to
promote social movements with very strong limitations in terms of resources, capacities,
institutionalisation, transparency and reliability for implementation
Networking
In spite of the positive trends in the CBOs sector highlighted above, it has to be said that
networking is completely absent in Harar with the exception of the Iddirs and Afochas
network.
On paper two networks have been created:
• Youth Network;
• HIV-AIDS network.
None of these networks is able to produce any support to their members, they are not
institutionalised and registered and the membership is vague. Moreover they never meet.
40