By Helen Namyalo Kimbugwe and Noelyn Tracy Nassuuna
As Uganda heads toward a pivotal election season, the release of sensitive financial statements for Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) like Chapter Four Uganda has sparked intense debate. These disclosures carry significant implications for donors, NGOs, and the public, shaping trust, transparency, and operational stability.
What does this mean for NGOs operating in Uganda, their donors, and the communities they serve? How can transparency be balanced with protection in such politically charged times?
To delve deeper into these issues, download the full article now and stay informed about the future of civil society in Uganda.
The significance of partnerships and collaborative efforts in advancing the goals and activities of civil society has become more evident than ever before. This month, we take a moment to reflect on the profound impact of collaboration and partnership in advancing our mandate.
Fostering Knowledge Exchange In collaboration with the Civic Advisory Hub and the NPO Coalition on FATF – East and Southern Africa Chapter, we took a significant step forward in advocacy efforts for the adoption of a risk-based approach to the monitoring and legislation of NPOs in the context of countering terrorism financing.
During a successful webinar titled “Understanding NPO Risk Assessment on Terrorism Financing,” NPO leaders from the region shared their experiences, lessons learned, and criteria for NPO risk assessment working groups. Together, we explored the critical role that NGOs play in these assessments and discussed the essential qualities required for effective participation.
Empowering Communities through Digital Security: Our #RoadToFIFAfrica Journey We embarked on an exhilarating regional campaign known as #RoadToFIFAfrica, spanning from Kampala to Nairobi, Mombasa, and culminating in Dar es Salaam. Throughout this journey, we actively connected with local communities, students, CBOs, and NGOs to address the vital topic of digital security. Our mission was clear: to equip individuals and organizations with essential digital security skills, provide them with valuable tools and knowledge, and empower them to navigate the digital world safely and confidently.
Championing Internet Freedom at FIFAfrica23 With support from CIPESA Uganda and in collaboration with Encrypt Uganda, and HRD Andrew Gole, our commitment to digital security extended to Africa’s largest gathering on Internet freedom, the Forum for Internet Freedom in Africa (#FIFAfrica23). Through the Digital Security Alliance, we extended digital security support to some of the brightest minds in Africa and worldwide, fueling their tireless efforts to safeguard internet freedom both on the continent and globally.
Multi-Sector Support and Collaboration In addition to these dynamic initiatives, we maintain active engagement with key government ministries and agencies including the Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA) and the National Information Technology Authority (NITA-U) among others.
Our objective is to provide valuable sector insights and foster collaboration to create an enabling and supportive environment for Human Rights Defenders(HRDs) and activists. Through our regional “Talk To Your Regulator” sessions, we aim to strike a delicate balance between fostering compliance and preventing excessive regulation. We achieve this by creating awareness among NGOs about their legal compliance requirements and responsibilities while also engaging regulators on the unintended consequences that overly restrictive regulations can have on the sector. Our ultimate goal is to ensure that members of civil society can effectively fulfill their missions. This month’s engagement took place in Hoima, marking another milestone in this ongoing effort.
Suffice it to say that our journey this month underscores the power of collaboration and partnerships in driving transformative change and fostering social impact. Here’s to more partnerships and collaborations ahead.
We dwell a lot on “CyberSecurity” forgetting about the physical security for organizations. We just thought we could throw in a few tips for you to secure your office space.
Security risks are trending amongest HRDs and it is so unfortunate that many organisations do not have the necessary office security measures in place to help protect their premises & assets from possible threats.
Trending risks to organizations include but are not limited to:
A security policy is a formal, detailed and easily understandable document that addresses general beliefs, goals, acceptable procedures and security controls that governs an organization or other entity. It addresses the constraints on behavior of its members as well as constraints imposed on adversaries by mechanisms such as doors, locks, keys and walls, computer security threats, and how to handle situations when they do occur. A security policy must identify all of a company’s assets as well as all the potential threats to those assets. And lastly, it should be subject to amendment as threats have a dynamic.
Why a security policy?
A security policy should be one of the first documents in place for a corporate organization or entity to function flexibly. It should address all security concerns, the likelihood that they will actually occur, ways forward and speculation clearly so that the employees and employers feel at ease implementing their mandate. So you need a security policy so as to:
Establish the rules for user behavior on use of organizational assets. This ensures proper compliance of the staff.
To define and authorize consequences of violation of certain guidelines.
Establish baseline stance on security to minimize the risk of occurrences in the organization.
Builds a sense of carefulness among staff therefore reduces risk of data loss or leak.
Protects the organization from external and internal “malicious” users.
Guides staff on acceptable and unacceptable behavior.
Carries with itself how information is disseminated (private, internal & public information).
A Good Security Policy
A good security policy should be readily available for its intended audience. It shouldn’t be hard to get.
It should be understandable and not confusing. Avoid using words that are beyond the understanding of your audience. It should clearly indicate how violations are handled.
A security policy should be applicable to the organization and only reveal information relevant to the functionality of the organization. It should cover use of organization assets, specify minimum security standards used in protection of assets, prohibitions against malicious actions, home use of organization equipment, use of personal equipment for carrying out official duties, procedures deemed as accepted or best practices, etc.
Work to develop a policy that balances both current practices of the organization and practices the organization wants to see in future. And most importantly make sure to have a policy that protects and organization against multiple types of threats.
And lastly, It should be accepted, put into use and reviewed frequently, at least once a year upcoming concerns should be updated in it. This is because breaches will always keep evolving and therefore new measures have to come in place.
5 steps to compile a good security policy
Identify issues
Conduct a context analysis on issues identified. (vulnerabilities, fix/ways forward, influence of behavior). Set of rules
Make a draft policy covering all the above.
Have a review of the document internally and or hire an external entity to review too.
Deploy the policy to the rest of the organization.
As Human Rights Defenders, we are exposed to a lot of risks during our public or field engagements and most of these tend to hit us by surprise since we do not adequately prepare to overcome these emergencies. It could be a kidnap and being stranded in the middle of nowhere, could be an accident, name it.
Field engagement in this case is conducting work in the natural environment other than in office. During field engagements, we tend to be with the general public, known or unknown and new to us because it is our first time to engage with them. Even when the environment is known to us, we can never guarantee the dynamics of people who have been working with and there for, we need to have a number of things ready just in case things happen to go side ways:
Make sure your phone is charged before going out.
Be sure to have some cash on you just in case you might need to use some quickly.
Make your you have an ID on you to easily identify with legal authorities.
Make sure your phone security is something that only you know (Don’t use fingerprint or face ID) when going for vital field work.
Have a contact of someone to call in case of emergencies. You can write such contacts somewhere and carry with you.
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