Enabling citizens to organise themselves

David Sogge

April 2007

These pages report on one organisation’s efforts to promote public action through community associations in Cape Verde’s capital city, Praia, and in villages nearby.

Like people elsewhere in Africa, Cape Verdeans have long relied on their own resources – labour, money, ingenuity and social bonds – to build their communities and their livelihoods. Unlike some political leaderships elsewhere in Africa, public authorities in independent Cape Verde have paid attention to citizens and their needs. Yet a challenge for Cape Verdeans remains: How can they catalyse more effective public action by the authorities, and among themselves? These pages report on one organisation’s efforts to promote public action through community associations in Cape Verde’s capital city, Praia, and in villages nearby.

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David Sogge

Independent Consultant

Transnational Institute Board member, David works as an independent advisor for grant-making agencies, specialising in civil society. Research and other professional activities in Africa provided a basis for books and articles on Angola and Mozambique and many unpublished reports on South Africa. More recently, evaluative research assignments have taken him to Eastern Europe and countries of the former Soviet Union. Trained at Harvard, David earned his graduate degrees from Princeton and the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague.