By AUSTIN KALUBA –

RECENTLY China passed a contentious new law giving police wide-ranging powers over overseas charities and forbidding them from recruiting members or raising funds in the country, prompting an immediate outcry.
At least 1,000 foreign Non governmental organisations (NGOs) are thought to operate in China, including development charities such as Save the Children, advocacy groups including Greenpeace, chambers of commerce and university centres.
The law, which comes into force in January, gives police the right to endorse the registration of all foreign NGOs.
The Chinese case is a wakeup call for African countries many which have a myriad of such organisations championing all causes from human rights to building toilets.
Are NGOs relevant in African countries like Zambia?
I feel a number of them are irrelevant and just worsen the problems they are supposed to address, though there are a few that are genuine.
In Zambia, there is a range of local and foreign NGOs – from self-help associations to national societies and federations.
They may seek to address issues related to health, HIV/AIDS, gender, human rights or the environment working in partnerships and coalitions.
However, though it is difficult to pin point which ones are irrelevant, I would suggest that most NGOs especially those dealing with governance and culturally-related issues should be banned or reorganised to invest in research before they could be allowed to operate.
Several scholars have scrutinised NGOs to ascertain their relevance in relationship with the far-fetched claims they make in alleviating problems affecting societies where they operate.
To quote Issa G. Shivji’s,  who is one of Africa’s leading experts on law and development issues being an author and academic, many  NGO’s have lamentably failed to address the issues they claim to combat.
In his two essays: “Silences in NGO discourse: The role and future of NGOs in Africa” and “Reflections on NGOs in Tanzania: What we are, what we are not and what we ought to be” the scholar argues that despite the good intentions of NGO leaders and activists, much need to be done for them to be effective.
Shivji also argues that the sudden rise of NGOs is part of a neoliberal paradigm rather than pure humane motivations.
He is critical of the current manifestations of NGOs wanting to change the world without understanding it, and that in third world countries, the imperial relationship continues today.
It is this last point of imperial connections that explains why NGO’s in countries like Zambia have lamentably failed to offer solutions to issues like child labour, gender inequality, human rights and governance.
It is because many are entwined with invincible imperial programmes which are highly masked only showing a facade of humanitarian considerations.
Another scholar James Pfeiffer, in his case study of NGO involvement in Mozambique lashed out that NGO’s have had a negative impact in the health sector in that country largely because they are fragmented and undermine local control of health programs thus contributing  to growing local social inequality.
The accusation that NGOs are often imperialist in nature is not far from the truth since many are radicalised and serve a function similar to that of the clergy during the high colonial era.
Another criticism of NGOs is that they are being designed and used as extensions of the normal foreign-policy instruments of certain Western countries and groups of countries.
This explains why there is little difference between the intrusion of foreign envoys and NGO’s facilitators.
These and many other accusations, make the Chinese planned clampdown on NGOs ring a bell to other countries grappling with the same problem of having many players but few or no results.
China’s state-run media in recent years have accused foreign organisations of undermining national security and trying to foment “colour revolution” against the ruling party.
China in January arrested and deported a Swedish human rights activist who had trained Chinese lawyers, and foreign NGO staff working on legal issues report an increasingly restricted environment.
Foreign diplomats have previously written to China’s government to express fears over the law.
Is China wrong to take this action?
According to James Petra (1999), professor of Sociology at Binghamton University New York, NGOs are not “non-governmental” organisations as they receive funds from overseas governments, work as private sub-contractors of local governments and/or are subsidised by corporate funded private foundations that keep close working relations with the state.
Frequently NGO’s openly collaborate with governmental agencies at home or overseas.
These NGOs are not accountable to local people but to overseas donors who “review” and “oversee” their performance according to their own criteria and interests as the recent case of Ukraine and Turkey.
So what is an NGO in reality? How do they operate and function? What do they control and how effective they are?
Professor Petra further charges that regardless of their cause or modus operandi, all NGOs are top heavy with entrenched, well paid with perks and benefits and elite status bureaucracies.
He observes that NGOs evidence from  audited reports reveal large percentages of money spent on their administration and yet  the bulk of the income of most non-governmental organisations, even the largest ones, come from – foreign governments and foundations associated with some western think tanks.
One wonders then why many NGOs meddle in local issues they little understand when their pay masters are usually abroad.
In Zambian foreign diplomats working with some human rights NGOs have meddled in domestic policies of governance undermining the sovereignty of the country.
Some health NGO’s championing issues like circumcision in Zambia have disregarded tribes that circumcise boys as if the idea is new.
Even gender NGO’s are highly condescending in their approach ignoring tradition and norms that have stood the test of time concerning the relationship between men and women.
As things stand there is need to revisit the role of NGOs if they are to serve the purpose they claim to stand for.