It is not possible today to imagine a vibrant, democratic, and modern society in which the state is not policed by an active, independent, and effective civil society.¹ While this appears to be a universal truth, the rise of civil society in much of Africa seems to directly correspond to the dysfunction and despotism of the postcolonial state.² Nowhere has this conclusion been truer than in East Africa, a region whose misfortunes have included misrule by maniacal dictators, autocratic states, and irresponsible political elites. In its roughly two decades of existence, civil society in East Africa has played significant, and...

Long before the Economist published the famous September 2000 article questioning the credibility of nongovernmental organizations, the Kenyan ruling political elite had already challenged the legitimacy of civil society in direct attacks.¹ The Kenyan state, which was corrupt, inept, and undemocratic, was suffering a severe crisis of confidence. Opposition parties and groups that worked closely with civil society organizations and social movements had established themselves as important and influential actors in the political arena. As a result, disillusioned citizens placed their trust in civil society organizations. In response, the state responded by raising questions about the legitimacy and accountability of...

Women’s movements on the African continent have been the most organized and vibrant sectors of civil society.¹ Women’s rights groups have made impressive gains in their quest to obtain political, legal, economic, and social equality between African men and women. The women’s movements in the East African nations of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania have many formidable activists that have consistently stood up to challenge all forms of patriarchal dominance. No doubt, significant successes have been recorded. Despite this, the majority of women in the subregion are yet to enjoy the substance of equality, citizenship, and human rights. One significant issue...

Confusion and conflict over the recognition, implementation, and enforcement of economic, social, and cultural rights (ESCRs) is an issue of historic dimensions that engaged scholars and activists even before the two principal international human rights covenants were adopted in 1966. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is well known for the articulation of rights governing the protection of speech, freedom of association, the prohibition of slavery and forced labor, and freedom from torture. Although adopted at the same time, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) for many years remained on the back burner...

This chapter seeks to introduce gender, women’s human rights, and the social justice movement—questions that have not received much analytical attention in East Africa—into the human rights debate in East Africa. Feminist masculinity¹ is invariably described as men for gender equality, men for the equality of women and men, masculine partisans of women’s liberation, male friends of the women’s human rights and social justice movement, women’s rights men, male friends of feminist movements, male feminists, pro-feminist men, and self-proclaimed feminists. Some of these categorizations are cynical, skeptical, and hostile in a struggle in which women insist on taking...

The December 2002 general election in Kenya was driven by an enormous desire for a democratic state. These aspirations led to initiatives aimed at the structural transformation of political life. One such initiative was the drafting of a new constitution for Kenya, a process that was intended to fundamentally reorder the state to advance social justice, equality, and democracy. A feature of constitution making, especially in a period of political transition, is the transformative potential to create new institutional practices and societal structures. The opportunity can be seized to convey new meanings about the nature of gender relations. National constitutions...

This chapter scrutinizes the relationship between donors and human rights organizations in East Africa, with a special focus on Kenya. It pays special attention to what motivates funders and analyzes several elements of donor-donee relationships. It explores how those complex relationships affect the nature of human rights organizations. The chapter acknowledges that the state, donors, and the market contest access to civil society space in Africa. It contends that donors have a far greater influence on human rights organizations than should be the case. This makes African civil society too dependent on donors. This influence extends to how NGOs network,...

For over a century, the state has been the main variable of analysis of society in Africa. The state-centric view looks at events from the perspective of the center. It is predicated on the assumption that the state is responsible for social-political relations in society. Whatever takes place at the local level unfolds in a process of passive reflection of events at the national level. In the 1980s, the deepening of structural adjustment reforms led to a rapid “withering” of the state in studies of the practice of politics. With the increased contestation of state authority by different groups, commentators...

The human rights movement in Africa has come under intense scrutiny in recent years, due largely to the slow pace of democratic reforms. Even countries that were viewed as having made some progress, such as Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Ivory Coast, and Kenya, have registered significant setbacks in recent years. Human rights NGOs, which are part of civil society, have been viewed as an important actor in the democratic reform process. However, critics argue that not enough has been done by this specialized sector to advance reforms in the region. One key challenge to the functioning and success of human rights...

Since the late 1980s, democracy, governance, and human rights organizations¹ have greatly influenced the democratization process in Kenya after the failure of the postcolonial state to bring about development.² At a time of scarce resources, the KANU state adopted a development culture that rewarded ethnic groups that supported it, but punished those that opposed it.³ These exclusionary and vengeful practices led to the emergence of an organized civil society to challenge the legitimacy of the state. The emergent groups rejected the notion that mass despondency and apathy were chronic conditions. They mobilized large sections of Kenyan society to oppose the...

The African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET) is a Pan-African network that was set up by African national women’s networks in 1988 to coordinate African women’s participation in the Fourth World Conference on Women held in 1995 in Beijing, China. FEMNET, based in Nairobi, Kenya, has substantially evolved since its formation. Its advocacy mandate—to provide strategic information on regional and international policy processes relevant to African women—was meant to ensure that African women effectively participate in the negotiating processes on women’s rights. In addition; FEMNET has worked with the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women...

This chapter looks at how several grassroots organizations in northeastern Uganda worked with pastoral and agricultural communities to enhance human rights, encourage peace building, and foster adult learning. The organizations broadened their collaborative activities to include the rights of women and the youth to enhance self-empowerment. The goal was to improve their lives and survival while at the same time raising awareness about their communal roles. In so doing, they established new grassroots organizations to empower the communities to solve local problems and secure basic human rights.

It is through these activities that the networks acquired skills to deal with...

Once widespread in Africa, the death penalty is rapidly disappearing from the continent as more states either abolish it or abstain from its use. East Africa is on the cusp of this continent-wide trend. Although the penalty remains lawful in all three countries, the presidents of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda have refrained from signing death warrants since 2002, and hundreds of prisoners have had their death sentences commuted in Kenya and Tanzania. However, although the international campaign to abolish the death penalty has won major victories in the last decade, entrenched and important holdouts remain. China, where 80 percent of...

In 1986, against the backdrop of apartheid South Africa, Fredrick Van Zyl Slabbert and Alex Boraine resigned their positions as members of the South African Parliament. Their departure was a protest to the bankruptcy of government and the politics of exclusion, repression, and resistance fostered by the apartheid state. For Slabbert, the last straw was the betrayal he felt in 1985 when Foreign Minister Pik Botha assured him that South African military forces were no longer involved in the “destabilization effort” against the antiapartheid government of neighboring Mozambique. The frustration of Slabbert and his colleague Boraine, then chair of the...