I read with interest the article “The End of the Age of NGOs?How Civil Society Lost Its Post–Cold War Power by Professors Sarah Bush and Jennifer Hadden and the critique by Florian Irminger’s provocation “End NGOs: Only Authoritarians Win”. The two write ups,  incisive in unpacking the form of many NGOs, and the political economy they operate in and how they have become vulnerable to authoritarian capture but on the other hand can be an opportunity to build resistance.

Under restrictive regimes, NGOs often become service delivery agents or legitimacy props. Short-term donor cycles, compliance-heavy grants, and agendas set thousands of kilometres away pull them away from their communities. Authoritarians don’t have to shut civic spaces down, they simply reshape them into harmless, apolitical extensions of the state.

It’s a sobering truth. But the lesson isn’t to end NGOs altogether. The lesson is to end their dependency in a fleeting geopolitical context we find ourselves in today.

The Dependency Problem

The NGO model as it stands has deep structural flaws:

• Funding volatility: Year-to-year grants that keep organisations scrambling.
• Donor-driven priorities: Communities adjusting their struggles to fit donor frameworks.
• Competitive fragmentation: Civic actors competing against each other for shrinking pots.

Dependency makes civic space brittle. It makes it easier for states to control which organisations survive and which fade away. With the exhaustion that comes with protracted struggles, the authoritarian rule can continue to capitalise on that lifeline.

The African Philanthropy Proposition

As we experience the defunding of civil society, shrinking civic space and the crowding out of the civic agenda; what if deeply explored another way? Across the continent, African philanthropy both formal and informal has always sustained communities. It is vast, under-documented, and under-valued. From village mutual aid systems to diaspora remittances, from traditional rotating savings groups to emerging African foundations, we already have the DNA for a different kind of civic resourcing.

What makes African philanthropy different is where its legitimacy comes from:

• It’s rooted in reciprocity, not compliance.
• It is not about money but more about building community.
• It answers to kinship, community, and shared histories, not external programs.
• It can take longer-term risks, backing movement building, political education, and narrative change because it knows change takes time.

From Idea to Infrastructure

If we are serious about breaking dependency and sustaining our civics work, African philanthropy needs to move from an idea we celebrate to an infrastructure we build:

1. Pan-African Solidarity Funds – Pooled resources from African philanthropists and diaspora networks to finance civic organising across borders, beyond the reach of national repression.
2. Endowment Building, movements can pay staff, sustain campaigns, and fight long legal battles without waiting for the next grant approval.
3. Movement Infrastructure, Not Just Projects but funding organising, digital security, political education, and cross-movement alliances.
4. Accountability to Communities. This is not just financial reporting, but governance rooted in community assemblies, grassroots councils, and lived experience.
5. Targeting the Margins, we name if; women, youth, indigenous peoples, informal workers, LGBTQIA+ communities resourced as political actors, not “”

Why This Is Political Economy, Not Charity

This isn’t about swapping one funding source for another. It’s about shifting who controls the terms of civic action and hold their legitimacy.

Foreign funding in fragile democracies can unintentionally reinforce authoritarian stability by keeping civil society busy delivering services instead of challenging power. African-led, African-funded civic action changes the political equation. It moves us from substitution, filling in for the state to autonomy, holding the state to account and building alternative futures.

Beyond the NGO Debate

The debate shouldn’t be about whether NGOs live or die. It should be about whether our civic infrastructure is truly ours, funded by us, accountable to us, and resilient against capture and exhaustion.

African philanthropy, if we build it strategically and inclusively, can be the anchor for that home-grown legitimacy. It’s not charity it is political infrastructure. It’s the resource base for movements that will outlast repression, survive funding shifts, and keep alive the vision of people-centred, justice-driven development.

Ending dependency is the first step. Reclaiming civic power is the destination.