NANGO was founded in 1962 as a welfare organisation under the name of Southern Rhodesia Council of social services predominantly for social welfare organisations. NANGO was then formerly registered in 1968 following the promulgation of the Welfare Organisations Act in 1967 later transformed into PVO Act in 2001. Post-independence, there was a gradual increase in the number of NGOs operating in Zimbabwe, particularly in the rural areas thus the organisation was renamed Voluntary Organisations in Community Enterprise (VOICE). The organisation was renamed, 10 years later, the National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (NANGO) due to geographical expansion and wider membership base.
As of June 2022, NANGO has a total membership base of 1 246 NGO affiliates.
NANGO has taken on board the strategic objective of Strengthening the Voice of NGOs which speaks to the organisation’s role as the representative institution of the sector to the government, development partners, the private sector, and other state and non-state actors. In this leadership/coordination conjecture, the onus on NANGO is not only to represent the interests of the NGO Sector but also to catalyse the sector to influence various development policies and aspirations; and to formulate pro-people responses to emerging issues.
