The publication of the Financial Action Taskforce (FATF) recommendations on combating the abuse of non-profit organisations is widely believed to have given wings to Zimbabwe’s long-stand desire to muzzle NGOs.
The two versions of the Private Voluntary Organisation (PVO) Amendment Bill gazetted on 5 November 2021 and on 1 March 2024, have been condemned for going beyond the remit of FATF compliance to restricting the work of civil society.
Zimbabwe is not the only country, among the world’s undemocratic governments, accused of instrumentalising the FATF to restrict the work of civil society.
Others include Uganda, Tanzania, Serbia, India, and Nigeria – raising FATF’s concern about misapplication of its recommendations.
Before the developments, the government of Zimbabwe exhibited long-standing inclinations towards restricting NGOs.
On 30 July 2003, the government published the NGO policy, tightening NGO monitoring and regulations.
On August 20, 2004, the Zimbabwean government under former President Robert Mugabe gazetted the Zimbabwean Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO Bill).
This Bill was innocuously couched as endeavouring to “repeal” the PVO Act and “provide for an enabling environment for operations, monitoring and regulations of non-governmental organisations…”
There was not much reference to the FATF recommendations made in 2002.
The NGO Bill was condemned, including in an analysis by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) legal unit, as threatening international human rights standards in Zimbabwe, expressed through the International Bill of Rights and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights.
“…Government of Zimbabwe will be in breach of its international human rights obligations that bind it as of custom and treaty,” the UNDP said, echoing the concerns of four high-level UN experts in February 2023 with the PVO Amendment Bill.
While the NGO Bill was not assented to by former President Mugabe, the government has maintained a hostile narrative and administrative stance against NGOs as “agents of regime change.”
This included raiding of NGO offices, harassment, and arrests of NGO staff, threats of suspension of and requiring restrictive compliance for operations, including mandatory memoranda of understanding.
Because of this background, the current efforts to enact the PVO Amendment Bill have received scrutiny and criticism from local and international human rights and democracy advocates as sustaining this hostile attitude towards voluntary organisations.