Mission
The Coordinating Assembly of NGOs (CANGO) is the coordinating body for Non-Governmental Organizations in Eswatini and was established in 1983 originally as a network of Primary Health Care for NGOs. CANGO’s long term Vision is “ImprovedQuality of life for the Swazi Population”and CANGO Mission is to “Coordinate, advocates, strengthen capacity and empower NGOs to effectively deliver on their mandates”. The following values have been identified as critical to the strategic success of CANGO: Justice and tolerance; integrity; transparency; accountability; people centred; fairness and equity; participation; support for all; and open communication. CANGO has a membership of over 90 NGOs fully operational in Eswatini. CANGO’s focus is on coordinating the NGO sector, building capacity of its members to fulfil their mandate and to influence policies through advocacy. In fulfilment of its mandate, CANGO has had a number of achievements during the 2011-2015 period.
CANGO is a conducive platform for joint advocacy. It ensures that CSOs voices are amplified, unified and disseminated to communities. Even at the international (UN) and regional levels (African Union and SADC), the consortia’s do influence and advocate on national and international issues. The consortia’s form their joint agenda for action which they have adopted into consortia strategic plan, renewed every five years for each consortia; as well as respond to emerging issues of national and global interests. Consortia operations are governed by an MoU and a leadership elected into office for a stipulated term. However, this arrangement does not in any way compromise individual organizational independence and mandate. Similarly with the other critical theme of capacity building, CANGO identifies membership knowledge gaps and tailor make capacity building sessions on programmatic issues; Additionally under the capacity building theme; CANGO also develops the institutional capacity of the NGO sector i.e. policies, leadership strengthening and finance management tools.
