“Building on Solid Ground: Primer on Resilience and Sustainability of CSOs in Africa” is an outstanding and highly significant contribution to discourse on the African civil society. Through a combination of practical wisdom, institutional experience, reflective analysis, and contextual understanding, Udo Jude Ilo provides a compelling roadmap for building resilient, accountable, and sustainable civil society institutions in Africa.
Introduction
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The contemporary African development landscape presents profound challenges for civil society organisations (CSOs). Across the continent, organisations working on democracy, governance, accountability, gender justice, public finance management, human rights, poverty reduction, and citizen participation are confronted by a shrinking civic space, declining donor support, weak institutional systems, rising authoritarian tendencies, and increasing public distrust. In many African countries, including Nigeria, CSOs remain indispensable actors in deepening democracy, advocating for social justice, providing humanitarian services, and amplifying the voices of the poor and excluded. Yet, paradoxically, many of these organisations struggle with sustainability, governance weaknesses, poor succession planning, donor dependency, institutional fragility, and leadership crises.
It is within this broader context that Building on Solid Ground: Primer on Resilience and Sustainability of CSOs in Africa by Udo Jude Ilo emerges as a timely and significant intervention. The book is a practical, reflective, and analytically rich contribution to the discourse on the resilience of civil society and institutional sustainability in Africa. Published in 2026 by Premium Times Books, the work, made up of 234 pages, draws from extensive practitioner experience, research, and institutional engagement across the African civic space.
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In my own work, I have consistently emphasised leadership, institution-building, governance reform, strategic thinking, accountability, and transformational development. This is why the subject matter of this book is for me both urgent and foundational. I have repeatedly argued that Africa’s development crisis is fundamentally linked to crises of leadership, poor strategies, weak institutions, and failure of governance systems. This aligns closely with the central thesis of Udo Jude Ilo’s book, namely that CSOs must move from personality-driven activism to systems-driven institutional sustainability.
Background to the Subject of the Book
The issue of sustainability of CSOs in Africa has become increasingly critical in the last three decades. Historically, many African CSOs emerged in response to governance failures, military authoritarianism, economic crises, human rights abuses, social injustice, and developmental deficits. Particularly in Nigeria, civil society played a central role in resisting military dictatorship, promoting democratic transition, advocating constitutional and electoral reforms, defending human rights, and deepening citizen participation. In addition, there are many issues which are necessary for peace, order, harmony and development of society championed by CSOs in Nigeria, to the exclusion of government and the private sector, such as gender equality, rights of persons with disability, environmental conservation, respect for human rights and dignity of the human person, harmful traditional practices, gender based violence, etc.
However, despite their historic contributions, many African CSOs remain structurally weak. A significant number depend excessively on foreign donor funding, operate with fragile governance systems, lack succession plans, and are often centred around founders rather than institutions. Udo Jude Ilo recognises these challenges clearly when he notes that many organisations struggle once donor funding ends and that sustainability must go beyond financial resources to include strategic planning, governance integrity, organisational health, networks, and operational credibility.
The broader African context further reinforces the relevance of this subject. Across many countries, the civic space is shrinking due to restrictive laws, harassment of activists, state surveillance, and political intolerance. Simultaneously, international donor priorities are shifting, creating severe financial uncertainty for CSOs. These realities have exposed the fragility of many civil society institutions.
It is therefore significant that Udo Jude Ilo does not treat sustainability merely as a financial issue. Rather, he frames it as an institutional challenge involving governance systems, strategic vision, leadership culture, accountability mechanisms, innovation, talent development, and community legitimacy. This multidimensional understanding of sustainability represents one of the greatest strengths of the book.
Overview and Structure of the Book
The book is organised into five thematic sections dealing with strategy development, institutional governance, talent management, fundraising, and visibility/networking. Through these themes, the author presents a compelling roadmap for building enduring institutions capable of surviving beyond donor cycles, charismatic founders, and changing political contexts.
This structure reflects a holistic understanding of organisational sustainability. Rather than isolating fundraising as the sole determinant of survival, Ilo presents sustainability as multidimensional, encompassing strategic direction, institutional culture, leadership systems, governance frameworks, organisational learning, and public legitimacy.
The major sections include:
- Designing and Following Your North Star: Strategy Development and Implementation
- A Rule-Based Order: Institutional Governance
- Tending the Plants: Talent Management and Leadership Development
- Hatching Your Chicks: Fundraising and Resource Mobilisation
- Standing Out in the Pack: Visibility and Networking
This sequencing is deliberate and analytically significant. The author places strategy and governance before fundraising, thereby rejecting the common misconception that donor funding alone guarantees organisational sustainability.
Review of the Book
One of the strongest features of Building on Solid Ground is its practical orientation. Unlike many academic texts that remain highly theoretical, the book combines conceptual clarity with practical insights drawn from lived experience within the African civic space. The author’s experience in organisations such as the Open Society Foundations (OSF), Forum of Federations, and other civic institutions gives the work unusual depth and authenticity.
The book opens with a powerful reflection on why organisations should exist in the first place. Ilo strongly criticises the tendency of some individuals to establish NGOs primarily for financial gain, rather than service to humanity. He insists that the legitimate basis for founding a CSO must be commitment to a cause bigger than oneself. This moral framing is extremely important in the Nigerian context where the proliferation of “briefcase NGOs”, “political NGOs” and the phenomenon of “NGIs” have undermined public trust in civil society.
One of the strongest arguments advanced in the book is the indispensable role of CSOs in Africa’s development and democratic governance. Ilo describes CSOs as “the conscience of nations” and often “the only independent voices calling governments to order.”
The book correctly identifies strategy as fundamentally about making choices. Many African NGOs, driven by funding pressures, often attempt to work on every issue simultaneously, thereby weakening their effectiveness and institutional identity. Ilo warns against this tendency and emphasises the importance of niche development, contextual analysis, clarity of mission, and innovation.
This framing situates civil society within democratic theory as an intermediary institution that bridges citizens and the state. The book aligns with the works of Alexis de Tocqueville, Robert Putnam, and contemporary African governance scholars who see civic associations as essential for democratic participation, accountability, and social capital formation.
The author further argues that organisations should emerge to fill genuine gaps within society, rather than merely duplicate existing interventions. The examples of Invictus Africa, Deaf Zimbabwe Trust, and CFK Africa effectively demonstrate how impactful organisations are often born from clear problem identification and community-centred innovation.
The section on strategy development is one of the most intellectually robust parts of the book. Ilo conceptualises strategy as an organisation’s “North Star,” providing direction, focus, and coherence. This conceptualisation resonates strongly with my own perspective on strategic leadership and organisational transformation. I have consistently argued that organisations without clear vision and strategic direction become reactive, inconsistent, and unsustainable.
The book correctly identifies strategy as fundamentally about making choices. Many African NGOs, driven by funding pressures, often attempt to work on every issue simultaneously, thereby weakening their effectiveness and institutional identity. Ilo warns against this tendency and emphasises the importance of niche development, contextual analysis, clarity of mission, and innovation.
Particularly insightful is the discussion on “mission creep,” where organisations abandon their core mandate simply to follow funding opportunities. This observation is highly relevant within the Nigerian civic space where many organisations drift from governance work to climate change, health, HIV/AIDs, Malaria, Leprosy, agriculture, or entrepreneurship, solely because donor priorities have shifted.
The book’s treatment of institutional governance is exceptionally important. Ilo rightly argues that organisations cannot achieve sustainability if they are built solely around charismatic founders. This reflects a major weakness within many African institutions, where founders personalise leadership and resist accountability structures.
The discussion on boards is particularly valuable. The author identifies boards as essential mechanisms for oversight, accountability, strategic direction, risk management, fundraising support, and institutional continuity.
Equally commendable is the author’s discussion of succession planning, institutional memory, conflict of interest management, and evaluation systems. These issues are often neglected in African nonprofit literature, despite their importance for sustainability.
The section on talent management reflects a sophisticated understanding of institutional sustainability. Ilo recognises that people remain the most valuable asset of any organisation. His emphasis on staff welfare, certainty of systems, objective appraisals, and leadership development is particularly relevant in the nonprofit sector, where staff burnout, poor remuneration, and toxic work cultures are widespread.
Another major strength of the book is its nuanced treatment of fundraising. Rather than reducing sustainability to donor acquisition, the author situates fundraising within broader questions of institutional credibility, storytelling, trust-building, and relationship management. This is an important corrective to simplistic fundraising narratives that dominate much nonprofit training literature.
The final section on visibility and networking appropriately recognises the growing importance of branding, communication, coalition-building, and public legitimacy in modern civic work.
Methodologically, the book benefits immensely from the use of practical case studies and real-life organisational experiences. The examples of Yiaga Africa, OSIWA, Human Rights Radio, Deaf Zimbabwe Trust, and CFK Africa provide empirical grounding that enhances the book’s credibility and accessibility.
Nevertheless, there are some suggestions for improvement in future editions of the book. Although rich in practical insights, it engages less extensively with broader theoretical literature on institutionalism, nonprofit governance, social capital, and organisational resilience. Greater integration of academic theory would have strengthened its scholarly depth. In addition, the book could have explored more extensively the implications of digital transformation, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and digital advocacy for CSO sustainability in Africa. In any case, it is my considered view that this work remains one of the most important recent contributions to African civil society literature.
This book should therefore be widely read by civil society leaders, development practitioners, donor agencies, governance scholars, universities, leadership institutes, and public policy actors across Africa. It deserves to become a foundational text for conversations on civic resilience, institutional sustainability, and democratic transformation in Nigeria and beyond.
Implications for Nigeria
The implications of this book for Nigeria are profound. Nigeria faces multiple governance and development challenges including corruption, weak institutions, poverty, insecurity, unemployment, social fragmentation, declining public trust, and democratic fragility. In this environment, civil society remains essential for accountability, citizen mobilisation, policy advocacy, and democratic deepening. In a recent study that I was part of, the majority of respondents opined that CSOs are the only saviour of Nigeria, with that caveat that only ten per cent of CSOs in Nigeria can play this transformative role.
However, Nigerian civil society itself suffers from many structural weaknesses identified in the book. These include donor dependency, weak governance systems, leadership crises, inadequate succession planning, poor financial accountability, limited innovation, and weak institutional culture.
The book therefore offers several important lessons for Nigeria.
First, Nigerian CSOs must move from personality-driven activism to institution-driven sustainability. Many organisations collapse once founders leave because systems, structures, and institutional culture were never developed.
Second, Nigerian civil society must prioritise strategic clarity and avoid mission drift. Organisations should focus on their comparative advantage and build expertise, rather than chasing every funding opportunity.
Third, governance systems within CSOs must be strengthened. Boards should function effectively, financial management systems must be transparent, and accountability mechanisms should be institutionalised. You cannot be fighting against corruption and forging receipts to retire funds.
Fourth, leadership development and succession planning should become central priorities. Nigerian NGOs must intentionally nurture younger leaders and build intergenerational institutional continuity.
Fifth, innovation and adaptation are critical. Nigerian CSOs must embrace technology, digital organising, evidence-based advocacy, and data-driven interventions.
Finally, there is an urgent need to develop local philanthropy and domestic resource mobilisation. Excessive dependence on foreign funding undermines sustainability and weakens institutional autonomy.
Conclusion
Building on Solid Ground: Primer on Resilience and Sustainability of CSOs in Africa is an outstanding and highly significant contribution to discourse on the African civil society. Through a combination of practical wisdom, institutional experience, reflective analysis, and contextual understanding, Udo Jude Ilo provides a compelling roadmap for building resilient, accountable, and sustainable civil society institutions in Africa.
The book successfully demonstrates that sustainability is not merely about money. Rather, it is about values, systems, governance, leadership, strategy, innovation, organisational culture, credibility, and accountability. Its central message — that institutions must outlive personalities — is especially relevant for Nigeria and the broader African continent.
In my view, the book reinforces the critical importance of institution-building, strategic leadership, governance reform, and transformational civic engagement. It aligns closely with the long-standing argument that Africa’s future depends on building strong institutions rooted in integrity, accountability, and citizen-centred leadership.
This book should therefore be widely read by civil society leaders, development practitioners, donor agencies, governance scholars, universities, leadership institutes, and public policy actors across Africa. It deserves to become a foundational text for conversations on civic resilience, institutional sustainability, and democratic transformation in Nigeria and beyond.
References
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Carver, J. (2011). Boards that make a difference: A new design for leadership in nonprofit and public organizations (3rd ed.). Wiley.
Dang, C. T., & Owens, T. (2024). Non-governmental organizations’ motivation to diversify: Self-interest or operation-related? Evidence from Uganda. Oxford Economic Papers, 76(2), 561–584. https://doi.org/10.1093/oep/gpad005
Grono, N. (2024). How to lead nonprofits.
Ilo, U. J. (2026). Building on solid ground: Primer on resilience and sustainability of CSOs in Africa. Premium Times Books.
Putnam, R. D. (1993). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton University Press.
Tocqueville, A. de. (2000). Democracy in America (H. C. Mansfield & D. Winthrop, Trans.). University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1835)
Otive Igbuzor is a Nigerian development expert, pharmacist, seasoned human rights advocate and founding executive director of African Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development (Centre LSD).
This is the text of the review of Building on Solid Ground: Primer on Resilience and Sustainability of CSOs in Africa written by Udo Jude Ilo at the public presentation of the book on 14th May in Abuja.
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