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Entrench immigration incentives for NGOs in Big Four Agenda

EURO

A glance at the NGO sector reveals a heavy reliance on foreign donor funding. FILE PHOTO | NMG

As the country seeks to actualise the Big Four Agenda, one of the less spoken of partners is the Non-Governmental Organisations. The need to partner strategically in the attainment of the agenda is a matter that government needs to foster.

The funding of activities in the NGO sector can comfortably sit within the food security and affordable healthcare pillars of the agenda. Yet tapping in the activities of NGOs to attain aspects of the Big Four Agenda requires a reciprocal treatment at the regulatory level. A good number of the instrumental staff of the NGOs face regulatory challenges when they seek work authorizations in Kenya.Estimates indicate that there are about 10,000 NGOs registered in Kenya.

The latest financial information available on the NGO Board website shows that NGOs spend about Sh90 billion annually. Not surprisingly, NGOs aligned to two of the Big Four Agenda’s pillars, food security and healthcare, take the lion’s share of that spending at over Sh60 billion annually. It therefore makes sense for the government to leverage the inroads that NGOs have already made in these sectors by enabling them to increase their impact.

One of these enabling factors to consider is immigration policy. A glance at the NGO sector reveals a heavy reliance on foreign donor funding. In fact, about 80 percent of NGOs depend on foreign financing and one consequence of this is that foreign staff are usually hired to safeguard the interests of the donors.

For example, expatriate staff (hired at the behest of the donors) play an oversight role on the identification and implementation of programmes, as well as carrying out monitoring and evaluation of processes and outcomes.

NGOs find it difficult to actualise this model given that every applicant for a work permit or special pass in the NGO sector requires the written support of the NGO Co-ordination Board. While it is certainly important to secure the endorsement of the regulator for a particular sector, NGOs are often unable to obtain a sufficient and timely number of endorsements to meet their needs.

If the government intends to apply immigration caps (quotas) to NGOs, these should be transparently documented in a legal notice so that the organisations can plan from an informed position.

It would also be advisable for such quota limits to be correlated to the quantum of foreign donor funds, in order to achieve parity.

From a policy perspective, it would also be helpful for the government to distinguish between NGOs which serve bona fide humanitarian initiatives around health care and feeding programs versus those which pursue more political objectives around ethics, freedoms and transparency.

While both categories of NGOs require scrutiny and regulation, it should not be to an equal degree since their risk profile is different. An enabling regulatory environment should be created to encourage NGOs performing genuine humanitarian work to partner with government in reaching more affected citizens/ areas in Kenya. Again, setting up a conducive and supportive regime does not stop checks or crack downs on rogue and phony NGOs. However, it should be done in a way that does not stop the ‘good guys’ from doing their good work.

Aswani is a Senior Manager at PwC Kenya. Muchiri is a Manager with PwC Kenya’s Tax practice, specializing in immigration.