Civil-Society Development & Governance

Civic education. (USAID photo/L. Lartigue)

Over the past 45 years, forms of governance and the role of civil society have undergone tremendous change in Sub-Saharan Africa.

• The 1960s was the decade in which most African nations gained independence from colonial rule. Exceptions included Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe: all independent today.
• During the 1970s and 1980s, governments by and for Africans took different forms, most embracing centralized, single-party political systems and economies run by the state.
• It was in the 1990s that democratization began sweeping the continent.

And democratization — a lengthy and many-faceted process of change, affecting all actors from national governments to civil-society groups — continues in the majority of African countries today.

Most African countries have been independent for just 45 years. In the United States, independent for 230 years, full freedom and equality still elude some segments of society. Democracy is a process.

 

(Updated, Dec. 19, 2007)