From: Afrique en Linge, Jan. 11, 2014.
Civil society Zambia – The Johannesburg-based global civil society alliance, CIVICUS, and the Zambian Council for Social Development (ZCSD), have urged the Zambian government and its international development partners to support and to work in tandem to create a safe and enabling environment for civil society organizations (CSOs) to operate and not undermine the country’s “harassed NGOs”.
The two organisations on Friday expressed concern that Zambian NGOs resisting government deadlines to register under the controversial restrictive NGO Act are concerned about the actions of a number of donor governments.
CIVICUS and ZCSD have called for retraction of the decision by donors to deny funding to NGOs which do not register under the 2009 NGO Act; encourage moves to amend the NGO Act to ensure its compliance with international human rights norms, and cessation of harassment of civil society activists and journalists…