Introduction
The post-colonial review of three countries, Nigeria, Jamaica, and Congo, shows that there is a great deal of progress made towards self-governance. The governments in the various countries set up institutions for governance, and they appear to have matured in the democratic representation of the people. Thus, in all three countries, the ruling is by the people. Nevertheless, the main argument here is that there is insufficient support within and outside the government to recover fully from colonial effects.
In fact, these countries continue to face significant difficulties in people’s empowerment similar to colonialism even as they claim to be self-government. Many of their public service programs are weak. Their national budgets depend on donor support, and their productive industries are pegged on the whims of international corporations keen to extract as much profit as possible from the natural resources and agriculture. While progress is happening, it will take time before the countries are actually outside the confines of colonial dependence with appears today in the form of international non-governmental organizations NGOs and donor agencies or global non-governmental bodies.
Nigeria
In Nigeria, after independence, the country experienced military and civilian rule. After more than five decades of independence, it has civilian multi-party democracy (Jauhari 53). Nigerian citizens have to participate in building their democracy to help in the overall development of their country. Part of the task is to help develop an inclusive national identity that takes care of existing tribal and ethnic divisions that have been the source of tension and fighting within the country after independence. Governments have done little to address the challenges facing the country’s cohesion. Most political parties have focused on winning key positions in government and going on to reward their trusted supporters with little concern for building cohesion with the opposing sides.
Thus, by failure to consider the lack of cohesion in the country, the new powers for governing the country are continuing with the colonial oppression. The continued violations of human rights are a testament to the on-going oppression that had been initiated during the colonial rule when Nigeria was a British colony. An agrarian economy in the pre-colonial period in Nigeria boosted the development of medicine. Midwives, magicians, bone-setters, and healers are some of the medical professions that existed. In the post-colonial period, women practicing medicine in the traditional way have continued to be valued in the health sector.
However, they continue to face class and gender discrimination. Many of them exist in the low cadre of the health sector. The biggest hindrance to full participation has been education and poverty. The government has been reluctant to set up support systems for women to gain education and to have affordable daycare services so that they can pursue economic activities that allow them to move out of poverty. The health sector facing problems of insufficient distribution of facilities, poor referral systems, and limited focus on rural areas.
Despite challenges, the government of Nigeria has helped with the establishment and maintenance of traditional ways. As a federal republic, the country follows both common laws and customary laws. The current government is overseeing the enactment of laws that will hamper the ability of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to operate independently. They will also face restrictions on the number of sources where they can receive funds. NGOs are allowed to operate currently to deliver services to society. They face challenges from ministry, departments, or agencies of the government that may see them as undermining their authority. Some NGOs that are promoting causes not supported by the government can be banned. Besides, the president holds the power to prohibit groups in the country. At the moment, individuals can come together to form a civil society organization (CSO) that is lawfully recognized. The CSOs can be Nigerian or foreign and must abide by existing registration laws (Yecho 262).
Undermining of CSO activities in Nigeria has mainly been in the civil rights movement with many of the NGOs losing their ability to challenge the government in court. They remain free to compete for government funding for causes that they support including the handling of public health challenges and control of diseases (ICNL Par. 10-15). NGOs play a major role in achieving health outcomes and millennium development goals. In Nigeria, they were at the forefront in the supporting international community to reach all parts of the country, have sufficient information about the disease, and sensitize the population. They filled the gap left by the government health sector in both outreach and financial resources.
However, many problems in health care, in general, continue because of uneven utilization of capacity for treatment and the inherent cultural practices of Nigerian people. Global aid bodies like USAID have been instrumental in bridging financing and capacity building gaps for healthcare and other social programs in Nigeria and Congo (Simpson 19). The Ebola epidemic ensured that coordination of government and NGO health activities were improved with the leadership of the world health organization and the international community. The aim of new partnerships with the agencies and their operations in African countries including Nigeria and Congo has been to minimize the damage of disease outbreaks to societies and economies (Simpson 29).
Jamaica
Jamaica enjoys a stable democracy in its post-colonial period. It started with the emergence of labor movements that enhanced political voices post-World War II. There has been partisan violence in Jamaica since attaining independence with most political parties exploiting the poverty status of slum dwellers to use violence against their rivals. Jamaica also faces external pressure at regional and global levels to embrace political and social reforms. It has been a victim of supremacy wars. The wars are between the United States and Britain, which all aim to become the dominant powers that govern industrial relations and trade with Jamaica. A mercantile elite and a black majority in society dominate the country’s population.
The economic output of Jamaica dropped even as the country continued to attract foreign investment in its extractive industries. The decrease in the profitability of the sugarcane industry negatively affected many of its citizens. The country also continues to suffer from a wide disparity in income distribution that has been a major cause of social-related violence. A high unemployment rate and high employment levels in menial jobs are the most challenges facing the government. The continued export of raw products continues to serve a colonial formula that does not support Jamaica’s growth.
Jamaica remains ensured in debt and has to meet austerity measures initiated by the IMF and other global donors to keep up with its dependence on foreign assistance. The country’s political system has been unable to address increased levels of inequality, and many politicians take advantage of the situation for self-enrichment instead of addressing a social problem. Institutions like the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank are the ones that support the Jamaican economy by offering huge loans. At the same time, they make the country depends on them and their conditions. As such, there is little room for the government to make changes to the economic conditions of the country other than to follow the rules and regulations of receiving aid. As a result, Jamaica’s post-colonial era has little difference with its colonial-era concerning government funding.
The major political parties, the Jamaican Labor Party, and the People’s National Party have supported the integration of Jamaica to the global economy. They seek to develop the service sector of the country, and they are therefore helping to break from the colonial past. Their respective governments have led to the development of free trade zones and special economic zones to boost local production and stimulate more investment that will help create jobs.
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been instrumental in advocacy for social and health problems in Jamaica. They have been the main channels for receiving and administering donor aid directly to projects to help alleviate poverty and improve the health conditions of the people of Jamaica. They have played a major role in coordinating global health bodies’ activities in Jamaica to ensure there are an enhanced scale and quality of key HIV prevention strategies. They empower people living with HIV to advocate on stigma and discrimination (ICASO 18). NGOs have shaped the development issues of the country, and they have been the main voice for advocacy campaigns on women issues and environmental issues. They are organized through an umbrella organization that coordinates activities through the Jamaica NGO Council. The government has left operations of the Jamaica NGO Council unhindered in many aspects, which has allowed the effective function of the various organizations under it. However, when the civil society takes up political positions, they are interpreted as partisan and as a favor to the opposition, which makes support of the government in such a case difficult to achieve.
Meanwhile, the NGOs together with the government have worked together to archive governance issues that include effective, complementary, and transparent government structures. The aim is to move decision making closer to people regarding development, political, and social issues (Witter 18).
Congo
In the post-colonial era, the Belgian rule was replaced by Congolese self-governance. Many scholars were beneficiaries of Belgian government support for higher education that reached thousands of students. Private Belgian NGOs also participate in active Congo after independence and the Catholic Church joined them. Towards the 1990s, Congo becomes more independent from Belgian NGO support because of failed programs that were supported by NGO aid. Many foreigners in Congo, mainly from Europe also left the country in the post-colonial period, leading to fewer ties with the former colonial masters (Vanthemsche 262-264).
Many NGOs operating in Congo seek to bridge the gap in public service left by the government. But they are minute in their scale and cannot fully cover the work of the government. They help in being last-mile agencies for delivering health and education and work together with churches and private firms to deliver development activities to rural and poor urban areas in the country. However, they cannot work effectively because the state is not very strong (Adebajo par. 4). Also, they lack the capacity to absorb large funds that would enable them to mimic the state in their duties. They also play to the tune of donor agencies like the World Bank that calls for less government involvement in the country. Based on this fact, most developments oriented NGOs work without government support apart from its regulatory oversight (Vanthemsche 262-264).
Congo has had armed political violence in its post-colonial period and even had a dictatorship government. Nevertheless, being a signatory to various international and regional legal frameworks for the specific protection of women and human rights, even that of young girls has provided NGOs and the government with sufficient backing for engaging inequality programs across the country. Despite the changes, Congolese women remain left out of the governance of the country by not being part of many of the political and electoral processes (Mbambi and Faray-Kele 4).
The results of post-colonial conflict also gave legitimacy to NGOs delivering peace negotiations and post-conflict restricting programs in Congo using an informal avenue. As such, the government is loosely involved in the activities concerning the prevention of sexual violence and gender-based violence. However, many international bodies continue to work directly with government agencies at the expense of the informal actors in societal development, health, and human rights (Freedman 33).
Congo has a poor record of implementing laws that it has passed to protect women or enshrine equality. It faces challenges of a weak judicial system that has many of its justice cases being determined informally. Thus, failure to fix the judiciary appears as a failure of the government to work towards the reversal of colonial oppression (Mbambi and Faray-Kele 20).
Works Cited
Adebajo, Adekeye. “The Last Thing Congo Needs Is These Neo-Colonial Remedies.” The Guardian 2008. Web.
Freedman, Jane. Gender, Violence, and Politics in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2015. Print.
ICASO. “Investing in Community Advocacy for HIV Prevention.” International Council of AIDS Service Organizations 2010. Web.
ICNL. “NGO Law Monitor: Nigeria.” The International Center for Not-for-Profit Law 2015. Web.
Jauhari, Alka. “Colonial and Post-Colonial Human Rights Violations in Nigeria.” International Journal of Humanities and Social Science 1.5 (2011): 53-57. Print.
Mbambi, Annie Matundu, and Marie-Claire Faray-Kele. “Gender Inequality and Social Institutions in the D. R. Congo.” Peace Women 2010. Web.
Simpson, David. “Making a Difference: The Global Ebola Response – Outlook 2015.” United Nations 2015. Web.
Vanthemsche, Guy. Belgium and The Congo 1885-1980. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Print.
Witter, Michael. Civil Society Participation in Governance in Jamaica and Belize. Kingston: CSEDNet, 2004. Web.
Yecho, Elizabeth Ihigh. “The Role of Nigerian Women in The Development of the Health Sector: The Case of Tiv Women in Benue State, Nigeria.” International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences 4.7 (2014): 254-264. Print.