Africa Program Highlights 2010

Likewise, the elections in Côte d’Ivoire should have been a positive development, but the incumbent Laurent Gbagbo’s unwillingness to concede defeat, despite near-universal international opprobrium, left the conclusion uncertain. If ECOWAS, the AU and the international community hold together with the Ivoirian majority to remove Gbagbo from power peacefully, Côte d’Ivoire could still represent democratic progress. NED’s grantees and NDI provided major support to the election process and human rights defense. Two unorthodox grants by NED to a coalition of ten NED grantees supported a last-minute voter education campaign throughout the country and a similarly broad domestic election observation effort.

Notable on the negative side of the democracy ledger was Burundi’s electoral fiasco, growing from an opposition boycott of the elections and leading to a dramatic closing of political space and human rights abuses. NED’s Burundi grantees educated citizens and monitored human rights, and NDI conducted leadership training and an enlightening series of focus groups. Both Rwanda and Ethiopia’s elections were a charade, as expected. Nevertheless, NED grantees in those two countries found creative ways to preserve and expand democratic space, as CIPE did by fostering a vigorous public-private dialogue in Ethiopia.

The ongoing devastation and anarchy of south-central Somalia seems interminable, but NED’s many grantees in the human rights movement, such as the Elman Peace and Human Rights Center, and the independent media are defending pockets of hope. In Zimbabwe, the constitutional reform process seems to have stalled, and President Mugabe’s power seems to be entrenched. Yet the modest opportunities presented by the Inclusive Government have provided civil society, including many NED grantees, more space to organize and promote democratic reform. The Solidarity Center’s support to the Zimbabwe Confederation of Trade Unions continued to be vital, and the ZCTU’s newspaper, The Worker, was finally legally registered.

Undoubtedly the greatest blow to NED’s program in Africa, and a severe setback for the democratic movement in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was the murder by police agents of Floribert Chebeya Bahazire, president of Voice of the Voiceless, a NED grantee for 18 years. NED held a memorial for him in Washington with a panel of distinguished speakers. The DRC’s slow spiral downward since the landmark 2006 elections seemed to be accelerating as attacks on civil society, the political opposition, and the independent media mounted. The violence, rape and looting of natural resources continued in the east. But Floribert’s death, as tragic as it was, has galvanized DRC’s brave, but beleaguered, human rights community.

The DRC remained NED’s number one priority in Africa because of the legacy of five million dead in the last war, and the deep threat that the country’s collapse would spell for the entire continent. NED thus reinforced its program of support to 37 groups promoting human rights, the rule of law, and democratic engagement.

These highlights were written for the 2010 Annual Report, published in August 2011.