Addis Abeba - Civil society organizations (CSOs) are indispensable to Ethiopia's humanitarian and development landscape, serving as vital bridges between citizens, communities, and government while promoting accountability and public participation. Yet the sector is in deep crisis--not only due to restrictive laws and political pressures, but also because of internal weaknesses in governance, leadership, and accountability.
Founder capture, weak oversight, corruption, and financial fragility coexist alongside mounting regulatory and political pressures. Despite millions invested by donors in capacity building, critical gaps--such as succession planning, robust governance standards, and financial sustainability--remain largely unaddressed. The 2024 mass license revocations by Ethiopia's Authority for Civil Society Organizations (ACSO) underscore the tangible costs of inaction.
Moreover, the government is advancing a draft amendment to the Civil Society Organizations Proclamation--one that threatens to reimpose severe restrictions on civic space. The proposed legislation would grant the state sweeping authority over civil society organizations, extending into their governance, operations, and funding, while simultaneously dismantling key legal safeguards that protect their autonomy. Should this law be enacted, it would represent not merely a regression, but a step backward even beyond the repressive reach of the 2009 Charities and Societies Proclamation--a statute whose stifling legacy muffled civic expression and crippled independent activism for nearly a decade.
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What drives these persistent failures, and how can they be mitigated? Drawing on more than a decade of sector experience and an extensive review of available evidence, this analysis explores how Ethiopian CSOs can undertake internal reform--strengthening leadership, accountability, and community trust to survive and drive meaningful change.
Concentrated leadership, weak governance structures
Ethiopian CSOs are frequently constrained by concentrated leadership and underdeveloped governance structures, which collectively undermine organizational vitality, accountability, and long-term sustainability. A pervasive challenge is the so-called "founders' syndrome," where many organizations remain under the control of their founders for decades, often until death. Leadership transitions are frequently disrupted by succession crises or familial handovers, including siblings, children, spouses, or close associates connected through personal or religious ties. Some founders retain authority even when physically or cognitively unable to perform effectively. This concentration of power stifles innovation, discourages young professionals, and leaves organizations stagnant. Research by the International NGO Training and Research Centre (INTRAC) and the Oak Foundation documented how such monopolies hollow out organizational effectiveness, and sector experience confirms similar patterns across multiple CSOs.
Compounding this issue is Ethiopia's lack of governance standards and retirement norms. Unlike contexts with term limits and mandatory retirement policies, there is no framework to ensure leadership renewal. Retirees can establish CSOs and lead them indefinitely, often turning organizations into personal retirement shelters rather than community-serving institutions. Upon the death of such leaders, organizations frequently collapse. The research emphasizes that leadership succession remains a critical blind spot in most donor-funded capacity-building initiatives, leaving CSOs vulnerable to stagnation, founder capture, and weakened impact.
Boards, which are legally mandated under CSO Proclamation No. 1113/2019 to exercise oversight, approve budgets, and ensure compliance, often fail to counterbalance executive dominance. Many boards function merely as ceremonial signatories to documents prepared by executive directors, rarely challenging leadership or engaging in meaningful deliberation. While board members are formally limited to two terms of four years each, there is little monitoring of their fulfillment of responsibilities such as resource mobilization, independent oversight, or stakeholder accountability. Meeting minutes are sometimes drafted by the executive director and circulated for signature without discussion, cementing executive control. Research by the Oak Foundation confirms that such passive boards significantly weaken institutional integrity. Without clear accountability mechanisms, boards risk becoming symbolic structures rather than functional guardians of the organization's mission. Effective governance therefore requires that boards not only convene regularly but also contribute tangibly to oversight and resource mobilization, with non-performing boards replaced as needed.
Financial fragility, donor dependence
A major vulnerability of Ethiopian CSOs is their heavy reliance on foreign donor funding. Many organizations struggle to function independently without external grants, rarely mobilizing local resources or developing sustainable operational models. As a result, rather than becoming deeply rooted community institutions, they often operate primarily as project implementers for international NGOs.
A major vulnerability of Ethiopian CSOs is their heavy reliance on foreign donor funding."
This dependency not only limits organizational resilience but also reinforces donor-driven agendas, reducing flexibility to respond to local needs. The extent of this fragility has been highlighted in reports such as the Civil Society Organization Sustainability Index and the Norwegian Directorate for Development Cooperation (Norad), underscoring the urgent need for CSOs to diversify funding and build long-term financial sustainability.
Politicization, nepotism
An insider who commented on my recent article, "Ethiopia's Humanitarian Reset: Will new initiative deliver on localization promises or recycle old pledges?," revealed that some of Ethiopia's largest civil society organizations risk becoming personal fiefdoms, undermining the credibility of the localization agenda. One organization, for example, was led by a single individual for nearly 50 years, during which governance was heavily influenced by family members and political patronage networks. This concentration of power has raised serious concerns regarding transparency and accountability.
The absence of leadership rotation and formal succession planning exacerbates these challenges, leaving organizations ill-equipped to adapt to changing needs or maintain public trust. Nepotism and politicization--where positions and resources are allocated based on personal connections rather than merit--have been observed across multiple CSOs. Such practices weaken institutional effectiveness, compromise service delivery, and highlight the urgent need for governance reform and ethical leadership.
Donors' Missed Opportunities: Capacity-building paradox
For decades, donors and other stakeholders have invested millions of dollars in "capacity building" for Ethiopian civil society organizations (CSOs). Thousands of trainings, manuals, and toolkits have been produced, covering areas such as proposal writing, financial reporting, and monitoring and evaluation.
Yet, despite this substantial investment, many structural weaknesses remain unaddressed. The paradox lies in the fact that most donor-funded capacity-building initiatives have focused narrowly on compliance and technical skills, while overlooking the deeper governance and power dynamics that undermine CSOs from within.
Key gaps include leadership renewal and governance reform. Few programs confront the monopolies of founders or address the absence of term limits. Succession planning is another critical shortfall; leadership transitions remain largely ad hoc, leaving many CSOs vulnerable when founders depart.
Additionally, issues of values and ethics persist. While workshops emphasize donor compliance, they rarely foster cultures of integrity and transparency. Financial independence is also insufficiently addressed, as local resource mobilization is often neglected, reinforcing dependency on external donors.
Finally, community accountability is frequently overlooked. CSOs are trained to report upward to donors, but rarely downward to the communities they serve.
Unless capacity-building efforts directly address these blind spots, donor investments risk perpetuating a cycle of recurring problems--enhancing documentation and technical compliance without transforming leadership, power structures, or long-term sustainability.
Accountability or shrinking civic space?
In mid-2024, Ethiopia's Authority for Civil Society Organizations (ACSO) revoked the licenses of more than 1,500 CSOs for failing to file annual reports. ACSO's framing is enforcement of the law after repeated reminders, public announcements through multiple channels, and direct calls to the affected organizations. Yet, many of these CSOs could not be traced, and their whereabouts remained unknown. On the other hand, the rights groups portray this as an unprecedented attack on civic space, claiming that many of the closed CSOs lacked the necessary resources to meet the regulatory requirements.
Both narratives capture part of the truth. While compliance rules are necessary for transparency, the wholesale revocation risks shrinking civic space. At the same time, CSOs cannot escape their legal obligations. Even those without donor funding could have safeguarded themselves by submitting minimal reports--documenting voluntary initiatives, community meetings, awareness activities, or even formally reporting "no activity due to lack of funds."
Ethiopia's CSO Proclamation (No. 1113/2019) does not exempt organizations without external grants from annual reporting requirements. By failing to respond to ACSO's repeated calls and ignoring widely publicized deadlines, many CSOs effectively provided regulators with grounds to revoke their licenses.
The survival--and credibility--of Ethiopian CSOs depends less on resisting regulation and more on reforming themselves from within."
My standpoint is clear: accountability is not optional. Even if inactive or unfunded, CSOs should demonstrate transparency and visibility. Reporting--however minimal--distinguishes genuine community-based organizations from "briefcase NGOs" and ensures they remain part of Ethiopia's civic fabric.
In short, while the closures can be read as harsh, they also highlight a deeper lesson: CSOs must treat reporting and visibility as survival tools, not mere donor-driven obligations.
Building resilient, responsible CSOs
The survival--and credibility--of Ethiopian CSOs depends less on resisting regulation and more on reforming themselves from within. This requires moving beyond compliance checklists to tackle entrenched governance and accountability failures head-on. Based on the challenges outlined above, several interconnected pathways for reform emerge.
First, leadership renewal and term limits are essential. CSOs should adopt internal bylaws that restrict the tenure of executive directors and senior leaders, even though the current legal framework does not demand it. Leadership should rotate on fixed terms so that no one individual monopolizes power, while mandatory succession planning must be institutionalized to prepare younger professionals for executive roles.
Second, boards must move beyond ceremonial functions and become genuine centers of accountability. Their performance should be judged not only on paper oversight but also on tangible contributions such as resource mobilization, regular meetings, and independent decision-making. Where boards fail to mobilize resources or provide meaningful oversight within two years, replacement should be the norm rather than the exception. Consortiums and networks such as these could play an important role in tracking and supporting board performance.
Third, financial diversification must be pursued with urgency. Donor dependence has left most CSOs fragile, but this can be countered by cultivating local philanthropy, membership contributions, and community-based income-generating initiatives. Social enterprises, solidarity funds, and savings groups can serve as viable alternatives that anchor organizations more firmly in their constituencies.
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Fourth, accountability must be redirected toward the communities CSOs claim to serve. Reporting should not be limited to donors; organizations ought to institutionalize annual "community accountability days" where they openly share results, budgets, and challenges with citizens. Similarly, participatory monitoring systems can empower communities to assess whether programs genuinely respond to local priorities.
Fifth, values and ethics must be taken more seriously. Internal codes of conduct that prohibit nepotism in leadership succession or staff recruitment are critical, and transparency portals publishing budgets, board lists, and project results can help rebuild public trust while distinguishing serious CSOs from briefcase NGOs.
Sixth, Ethiopian CSOs should not wait for regulatory crackdowns to demand compliance but instead commit to collective self-regulation. Peer-led accountability mechanisms, such as voluntary audits, peer reviews, and ethical certification systems, can create a culture of integrity from within. Consortiums and networks should actively monitor members, supporting those that struggle but also naming and shaming persistent violators.
Finally, CSOs need to shift their relationship with regulators from confrontation to constructive engagement. By working with ACSO to design lighter reporting requirements for small, under-resourced organizations, CSOs can demonstrate commitment to accountability while securing a regulatory environment that is both fair and feasible.
Open Challenge: Renewal or decline?
Ethiopian CSOs stand at a decisive crossroads. They are constrained not only by restrictive state regulations but also by their own governance failures, leadership monopolies, and financial fragility. The success of localization, humanitarian reform, and community empowerment depends on their ability to transform themselves into models of transparency, accountability, and democratic leadership.
The choice is clear: either embrace internal reform--renewing leadership, strengthening governance, and rebuilding trust with communities--or risk irrelevance, further closures, and externally imposed changes that may reshape the sector without their input. The urgent question is whether Ethiopian CSOs can act decisively before regulatory and political pressures close even more doors, determining the future of civil society in Ethiopia. AS
Editor's Note: Nigussie Tefera serves as the Humanitarian Forum Coordinator and HIV Project Coordinator at the Consortium of Christian Relief and Development Associations (CCRDA). He is also a humanitarian and governance specialist with extensive experience in social accountability, community engagement, and project coordination. Nigussie is also a postgraduate student in Coaching & Mentorship for Leaders in Organizations at Leeds Beckett University. He can be reached at [email protected]
