As South Africa celebrates the 30th anniversary of its democracy this year, its recent elections are a testament to how democratic values have become the bedrock of South African society. Although the leading party lost its outright majority for the first time since the first elections in 1994, the country’s democratic experiment continued in May with the formation of a government of national unity (GNU) with the African National Congress (ANC) and other political parties. It was a crucial test of South Africa’s democratic rule, demonstrating the strength of these institutions after only three decades of existence. Despite disillusionment with the former liberation movement and economic concerns, South Africans rose to the challenge with high levels of voter engagement and civic participation.
The South African people deserve overwhelming credit for what they accomplished in building their democracy after the fall of the Apartheid regime. But there was also an international component to South Africa’s transition, from solidarity demonstrations, protests and sanctions to the array of private and public programs providing financial support, training, expertise, and advice. While relatively modest, the National Endowment for Democracy’s (NED) support of South African civil society groups made an enduring contribution to South African democracy which, despite some difficulties, has demonstrated its staying power.
NED first began its support of South African civil society during the decade that preceded the country’s first democratic election in 1994. In those early years, about $2 million USD was budgeted to support programs within South Africa, with the first grants made in 1984. These efforts were further bolstered with an additional $2.7 million provided by the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act (CAAA) enacted by the U.S. Congress that same year. Over a ten-year period, to 1995, NED’s grantmaking focused on providing the resources and support to allow South Africans to move towards their own vision of democracy.
Viewed from the vantage point of today, we can observe that NED’s efforts successfully demonstrated how local groups can access international funding to support their own democratic goals. The legacy of NED’s support continues to today, pointing towards lessons that can be learned and applied to the global challenges that remain.
South Africa has long been a source of inspiration to democracy advocates worldwide, and particularly for those of us at NED. For example, NED co-sponsored the World Movement for Democracy in Durban in 2004, bringing together hundreds of democracy advocates from more than 100 countries. At the gathering, over 120 African civil society organizations formalized the African Democracy Forum, which later spearheaded advocacy for the 2012 ratification of the African Union’s African Charter on Democracy, Elections, and Governance. This November, the World Movement for Democracy holds its 12th Global Assembly in Johannesburg, an even bigger gathering with participants from nearly 100 countries to reflect on South Africa’s democratic progress and inspire political and civic innovation. After 30 years of multiracial democracy, South Africa’s democracy advocates stand ready not only to reflect on their own progress but also to offer crucial support—both moral and practical—to democratic movements across the continent and the world.
After 30 years of multiracial democracy, South Africa’s democracy advocates stand ready not only to reflect on their own progress but also to offer crucial support—both moral and practical—to democratic movements across the continent and the world.
Fostering South Africa’s Democratic Culture
In the years leading up to South Africa’s first election, NED focused its grantmaking efforts on supporting civil society, business, labor, and political parties in South Africa. In the aftermath of the 1976 Soweto uprising, civic movements played a crucial role in providing much of the early leadership and ethos of South Africa’s emerging democracy. In 1985 NED got started with a $15,000 grant for Project South Africa, a pioneering initiative led by the civil rights activist Bayard Rustin that connected South African civil society organizations to American partners. Bayard Rustin tapped into the rich civil society for which South Africa would become famous to identify and support South African organizations committed to a nonviolent strategy to dismantle apartheid and achieve democracy. Rustin’s extensive political network and convening power enabled him to involve prominent South Africans such as George Bizos, who had been Nelson Mandela’s lawyer; Allan Boesak, a founder of the United Democratic Front (UDF); Rev. Frank Chikane, general secretary of the Institute for Contextual Theology and later the South African Council of Churches; and Helen Suzman, a liberal dissident member of parliament.
In 1987, NED made a grant of $25,000 for a conference to launch IDASA, the Institute for a Democratic Alternative in South Africa, the first in a series of grants that would total $1,272,000. While IDASA has carried out hundreds of projects that have made an enormous contribution to South Africa’s democratic culture, for which it is widely recognized, it is best known for organizing the breakthrough conference between the ANC and Afrikaner intellectuals in Senegal in July 1987. By bringing together for the first time a group of 61 Afrikaner leaders and a large group of the ANC leadership on Goree Island in Dakar, IDASA helped create a climate of respect and foster relationships that would bear much fruit, culminating in the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990 and the 1994 elections that brought the ANC to power.
NED grants enabled other new initiatives to get off the ground that are still in operation, including $200,000 to the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD), which has trained much of South Africa’s diplomatic corps and conflict resolution activists around the world; and three grants totaling $136,000 to the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism that now describes itself as “South Africa’s oldest media training organization,” by many accounts fortifying South Africa’s renowned independent press. ACCORD’s founder, Vasu Gounden, rightly claimed that the South African miracle was ultimately a negotiated agreement, and ACCORD’s conflict interventions and training gained widespread respect and demand from Burundi to China.
The Critical Role of Policy and Civil Society Leaders
Policy recommendations were an important component of early democracy in South Africa, helping the black-majority parties to develop their policy platforms. NED supported think tanks, including the Centre for Policy Studies, the Institute for Multi-Party Democracy, and the South Africa Institute of Race Relations, which continued to receive support from the International Republican Institute, a core organization of NED, until 2014. These policy advocates informed much of the debate and decision-making during South Africa’s transition, buttressing a culture of civil and thoughtful negotiation. Other notable grantees included the once-banned Soweto Civic Association, a precursor of South Africa’s local government; the Umtapo Centre, which became a founder of Civicus, which continues to support civil society around the world; and the Women’s National Coalition, which, although short-lived, elevated the status of women in South Africa’s constitution, and whose leader, Frene Ginwala, would become South Africa’s first speaker of the parliament in the new dispensation. By allowing all segments of society to participate, NED’s grantmaking focused on inclusive political participation to strengthen democracy. Faith-based organizations received support to mobilize youth, the religious community, and promote dialogue; these included the Martin Luther King-Albert Luthuli Transformation Centre, the Institute for Contextual Theology, and Empowering for Reconciliation with Justice.
Ensuring Free and Fair Elections
The National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and the National Republican Institute for International Affairs (later known as the International Republican Institute, or IRI) worked in South Africa during the transition on a variety of projects, including political party training and election administration. This help was in great demand at the time across the spectrum of South Africa’s political parties. The support culminated in a program in collaboration with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies called Project Vote, that educated millions of South African voters by conducting training workshops for thousands of community-based volunteers who then led voter education activities in churches, schools, bus terminals, sports arenas, pension centers, hospitals, prisons, and community centers, mostly in rural communities, and with messages in 10 languages. It has been credited in part with the low voter error rate of less than one percent for the 1994 elections, an extraordinary achievement given that the vast majority of the population had never voted before, and one that enhanced the legitimacy of this milestone.
Around this time, Amy Biehl, a Fulbright scholar and staff member working on this project, was tragically killed amid social unrest in Gugulethu, a township near Cape Town. In 1998, those responsible were granted amnesty through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a restorative justice body formed after the end of apartheid. In an extraordinary gesture of forgiveness, they later worked for a foundation established by Amy’s parents in her memory. This profound act reflects the spirit of reconciliation that has helped South Africa forge a new path as a nation.
As South Africa looks to the future, the lessons of this partnership offer a blueprint for supporting democratic resilience worldwide, particularly in many African countries where democracy remains fragile.
Strengthening Labor and Business
In helping reinforce South Africa’s democratic infrastructure, NED also provided grants with a focus on strengthening private enterprise and workers’ rights. The Center for International Private Enterprise, one of NED’s core organizations, bolstered a range of programs largely aimed at stimulating Black entrepreneurship, including the Get Ahead Foundation, the South Africa Black Taxi Association, Matchmaker Services, the African Council of Hawkers and Informal Business, the Media Business Training Trust, the Foundation for African Business and Consumer Service, the Sunnyside Group, and the Free Market Foundation. As the country transitioned from apartheid, support for Black entrepreneurship was a necessity to rebalance the economic system and lay the foundation for a Black middle class, key supporters of the new democratic regime.
Labor was also a critical component of NED’s grantmaking. The African-American Labor Center under the umbrella of the Free Trade Union Institute (FTUI), which became the Solidarity Center in 1997, received NED support for a training program conducted by the trade union movement Histadrut, as well as projects to strengthen the legislative departments of COSATU and NACTU, South Africa’s two leading trade union movements. A NED grant of $97,000 to FTUI enabled a delegation of 112 trade unionists to conduct the largest American observation mission to the 1994 elections. The Solidarity Center continues to collaborate with South Africa’s trade union movement to this day.
As South Africa celebrates 30 years of democracy, this overview of NED’s program in South Africa during the country’s democratic transition recounts the significant, if modest, contributions that have been made. The program, which spanned the pre-transition struggle against apartheid and the breakthrough and transitional phases of South Africa’s democratization, coincided with a rapid expansion of democracy assistance worldwide. As political funding for democratic development is increasingly resisted by authoritarian regimes today, it is important to reflect on the early experience of NED’s support—the legacy remains 30 years after most of the program ended, and not only did South Africa benefit, but the lessons learned by NED and others in those early years of democracy support continue to resonate. As South Africa looks to the future, the lessons of this partnership offer a blueprint for supporting democratic resilience worldwide, particularly in many African countries where democracy remains fragile.
For these reasons, the World Movement for Democracy, with support from NED and other like-minded sponsors, returns to South Africa this fall. The 12th Global Assembly in Johannesburg will bring together democrats from around the world to commemorate 30 years of democracy in South Africa and exchange ideas to revitalize global democracy. South African political and civic leaders, drawing from their own experiences, have much to offer democracy advocates across the continent and beyond—both in moral leadership and practical support. This fall, South Africa’s role as a vital source of democratic ideas and inspiration will be on full display.
Dave Peterson is the National Endowment for Democracy’s senior director of Africa.
