In March of this year, the government of Zimbabwe gazetted the Private Voluntary Organizations (PVO) Amendment Bill of 2024, a successor to a similar 2021 Bill debated and passed by Parliament but not enacted by President Emmerson Mnangagwa. Ostensibly, the PVO Bill seeks to comply with the recommendations of the Financial Action Taskforce to Zimbabwe in the area of abuse of charities for the financing of criminal and terrorist activity and effect the efficient regulation and registration of charities by streamlining the administrative procedures for private voluntary organizations. The PVO Bill has spurred polarizing debates on its merits and demerits. This opinion article argues that the PVO Bill will negatively affect civic innovation, which is necessary to spur development.

The contemporary world is characterized by complex challenges such as fake news and disinformation, dissatisfaction with governance models, wars, food insecurity, terrorism, and inequality, among others. Zimbabwe faces challenges with climate change-induced drought, poor management of natural resources, high levels of corruption, service delivery shortfalls, socioeconomic inequality, and poor adoption of technologies for sustainable development, among other challenges. In the face of these complex challenges, diverse stakeholders must be part of the process of making sense of the world and coming up with innovations to address common challenges and advance positive social change. The work of innovating to make the world a better place can no longer be left only to governments, local authorities, and corporations, with citizens relegated to the roles of provision of labor and consumers.

Griffith University, Australia, argues that “achieving massive goals such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will require an extraordinary unlocking of latent innovation potential within and across society, and especially among citizens and civic institutions.” This is civic innovation, which refers to the novel ways citizens, communities, and neighborhoods address challenges and transform their lives. Civic innovation elevates community-driven ideas and solutions to address inequality and other societal challenges.

Accountability Lab’s Accountability Incubator program is an engine for civic innovation. The Incubator supports ideas from young people for accountability, participation, and open government, helping young change-makers to build sustainable, effective tools for change. To date, the Zimbabwe Incubator has supported forty-three young people, called Accountapreneurs – Accountability Entrepreneurs – who have gone on to develop and implement innovative and creative initiatives that are positively impacting communities in different areas. Among these is Courteney Mukoyi who developed Astrea Justice, a mobile phone application that increases access to information about the justice ecosystem such as the location and contact details of courts, police stations, and lawyers. Another of Mukoyi’s innovations, VoteBot, provides election-related information, such as registration polling station information.

Nkosikhona Dibiti, a 2021 Accountapreneur, founded the Community Podium, a non-profit participatory media organization, which promotes access to information and freedom of expression in marginalized communities in Matabeleland. Dibiti has leveraged the Podium’s audience to crowdsource financial resources for development projects such as classroom blocks and the drilling of boreholes. The Podium plays a critical role in maintaining a connection between diasporans and their home communities in Matabeleland. Zimbabwean women bear the burden of the country’s complex challenges. Caroline Mutimbanyoka’s initiative, Sprout Women Empowerment Trust (SWET), undertakes novel work at the intersection of governance and socioeconomic rights, ensuring women can lead fulfilling lives. Earlier this year, Caroline Mutimbanyoka was selected to be part of the working group on Gender and Economic Empowerment under the Zimbabwe Gender Commission, scaling her contributions.

The PVO Bill threatens the existence of Astrea Justice, Community Podium, Sprout Women Empowerment Trust, as well as the Accountability Incubator by erecting barriers that will make it difficult for these initiatives to operate. If enacted, the Bill will expand the definition of Private Voluntary Organizations (PVOs) to include Trusts registered with the High Court and the Registrar of Deeds and organizations operating under the Common Law Universitas. This includes initiatives like those led by Courteney Mukoyi, Nkosikhona Dibiti, and Caroline Mutimbanyoka. If passed, the Bill would require all organizations registered as Trusts and those operating under the Common Law Universitas to register as PVOs within a strict 30-day timeframe. However, the Bill lacks a clear timeframe for the Registrar of PVOs to process applications. This, coupled with the already challenging environment for civil society organizations in Zimbabwe, creates significant uncertainty. Organizations may be unable to continue operating despite a provision allowing them to do so while awaiting a decision. This indefinite wait could severely hinder their vital work. The increased difficulty of setting up or rationalizing operations will simply lead to most initiatives ceasing their operations, severing an important lifeline for neglected communities and constituencies.

Second, the Bill stipulates that PVOs may not commence activities unless registered. Effectively, these provisions prevent the implementation of the innovation cycle, enforcing prodigious registration requirements before ideas to solve civic challenges may be tested and iterated. For many citizens, including young people who often lead civic innovations, the requirement to register as a PVO before implementing solutions is a major obstacle. Most young people do not know, nor have the resilience required (given an unwieldy and reluctant bureaucracy) to see the process through. Worse, given the huge number of organizations that must re-register, the Registrar of PVOs will be inundated with applications leading to bureaucratic bottlenecks and corruption in the process. For young people seeking to develop and implement solutions to social challenges, this will prove a serious disincentive. This could stifle citizen participation, particularly among young people. Without a space to come together and address local issues, civic innovation will likely stagnate.

The Bill’s provisions compelling PVOs to re-register if there is a “material change” are also problematic for innovation. Among other things, the Bill defines material change as change concerning the beneficial ownership of the PVO, variation of the territorial scope of the operation of the PVO, and any addition, diminution, or variation to the objects of the PVO. These provisions prevent PVOs from iterating, scaling, and growing. The provision requiring PVOs to re-register if there is “any variation of the territorial scope of the operation of the private voluntary organization concerned which may significantly impact the scope or nature of its operations in Zimbabwe” will stop the diffusion of civic innovations to other areas. The criteria for what may “significantly impact the scope or nature of the operations of the PVO” is not clear. It is possible that an organization registered to operate say in Matabeleland South may not lawfully replicate a successful approach or innovation in Matabeleland North or Masvingo Province. The provision requiring PVOs to re-register if there is any variation in their objectives will prevent them from adjusting their approaches and implementing new ideas, stifling innovation, weakening civic innovation, and costing the country’s development agenda.

The force of the PVO Bill will stifle civic innovation and sabotage the government’s efforts to rapidly develop the country into an upper-middle-income nation by 2030. This is worsened by the fact that the government has failed to perform on its mandate, evidenced by service delivery shortfalls and systemic collapse in critical areas such as healthcare and education. By making it difficult for civic innovators to commence operations or continue their activities, and by putting in place stringent conditions for the operations of PVOs, including extending the definition of PVOs, the PVO Bill heralds the death of civic innovation in the country. The biggest losers will be the people of Zimbabwe, who will suffer development deficits as a result.

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Zibusiso Dube is the Programs and Campaigns Officer at Accountability Incubator Zimbabwe and leads the Accountability Incubator Program to train, mentor, and resource young people with innovative ideas to promote accountability in their communities.