NGO's encouraged to invest in the face of shrinking foreign aid

Janet Mawiyoo, the executive director of KCDF, gives a speech during the conference, held at Intercontinental Hotel in Nairobi [Gardy Chacha/Standard]

In the coming years, aid to Africa will reduce progressively, if the views of players in the civil society sector are anything to go by.

This emerged last week at a two-day conference attended by heads of civil society organisations as well as leaders of various corporate sectors locally and abroad.

As a result, non-profit organisations have been asked to think beyond foreign aid and come up with models that encourage local giving, leverage on investing and enhance local participation in community development activities.

The conference, titled 'Durable Development – Shifting the Power, Building Community Resilience', was hosted by the Kenya Community Development Foundation (KCDF).

"Organisations in Africa have to be bold enough to reject money that only brings bad development: money issued with guidelines that don't agree with our intentions and objectives," Janet Mawiyoo, the Executive Director of KCDF, said at the conference.

She added: "What we need is for communities themselves to have the power to drive their own development agenda; not solely depend on foreign aid."

United States president, Donald Trump, in his budget proposal made this year, seeks to cut foreign aid spending by 32 per cent. This development emerged as significant to the civil society community around the world as the United States is the most generous global aid donor in absolute terms.

"There is going to be less and less aid from rich countries. President Trump is only doing it dramatically. The fact is many countries that traditionally give aid are giving less as the years go by," said Jenny Hodgson, the Executive Director of Global Fund for community Foundations.[Gardy chacha]