Event Date: Oct 21, 2015
Time: 12:00 PM to 01:00 PM (GMT -5)
Location: United States
Online: Online Event
Event Links:
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Partnerships can be vital for development success, particularly when they are married with local design and ownership. But many practitioners still find themselves asking: "How do we best engage civil society?" and "what are the most successful practices for engaging civil society?"
In October's Ask Ag discussion, we will explore these often murky relationships by discussing "top actionable tips for engaging civil society" at pivotal points in the project cycle.
Questions for consideration:
- What are the top 3 action steps/tips for engaging civil society during project design?
- What are the top 3 action steps/tips for engaging civil society at the start of a new project?
- What are the top 3 action steps/tips for engaging civil society throughout implementation?
Ask Ag About... Engaging Civil Society
Walter is a seasoned agriculture economist with over 30 years of experience in the public and private sectors, working in rural and private sector development, agriculture policy, SMEs development, business environment... more competitiveness, managerial and labor training, trade, investment promotion and institutional strengthening. A former Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development in Bolivia and General Manager of Bolivia’s largest agriculture producers association, Walter has been working with Chemonics International since 2002. Since January 2014, he has worked in Accra, as the Chief of Party of the USAID/Ghana Feed the Future Agriculture Policy Support Project. Walter holds an M.Sc. in Agricultural Economics from Purdue University, a B.A from The George Washington University in Economics, and a post-graduate Diploma from Bolivia’s War College in Defense and National Security (1995). less
Sharon is a senior governance expert with 27 years of experience strengthening the capacity of civil society organizations, networks, and coalitions, as well as national and sub-national governments to engage in successful policy... more advocacy, dialogue, and development. Sharon has extensive experience working in post-conflict and transitional countries, liaising between donors, governments, and beneficiaries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe. This experience includes posts as Director of the Office of Democratic Initiatives for USAID; principal governance advisor for USAID, the US Embassy, GIZ, UNDP and others; Chief of Party for an MCC-funded civil society and media project in Moldova; and director positions for FHI360’s governance programs. Sharon currently serves as Director of the Democracy and Governance Practice at Chemonics, providing leadership and technical expertise throughout the company as well as on specific governance and civic engagement program. less
Ms. Njoroge has seven years of experience in capacity building and strengthening with expertise in network building &sustainability, advocacy, conducting organizational capacity assessments, resource mobilization, health system... more strengthening and program management for global projects. Works with civil societies in 13 countries through on-site and virtual technical assistance to set up platforms/networks and strengthens them to coordinate consistent engagement of CSOs in national health sector planning and policy processes, with a focus on resolving constraints to delivering immunization less
Ms. Anyona is an International Development professional with over eight years of experience designing and managing health projects in Africa. She has vast experience in project management and capacity building of local and... more national implementing partners to establish sound structures that facilitate accountability, good governance and program quality. She has led over 30 national implementing organizations strengthen their governance systems and project cycle management. Judith was part of the implementation team of the $40M worth PEPFAR funded AIDSRelief Project in Kenya that was successfully transitioned to the local Kenyan partners (Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops-KCCB and Christian Health Association of Kenya-CHAK). She is currently a Program Manager with Catholic Relief Services’ Gavi CSO Project, coordinating support to 24 CSO platforms globally to work together with various stakeholders including, donors and ministries of health in improving immunization coverage. Judith holds a Master’s Degree in Development and International Cooperation from University of Jyväskylä, Finland and is certified as a project leader by Cornell University, USA. less
Mr. Greenberg's experience in rural development extends from sustainable agriculture and natural resource management to capacity building for NGOs and communities. The interface between climate change and agriculture has been an... more area of increasing focus for Dr. Greenberg over the past 10 years. His field experience includes work in Egypt, India, Jamaica, Nepal, Philippines, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Dr. Greenberg has experience in field survey methods, participatory rural appraisal, agricultural development, monitoring and evaluation, conflict assessment and mitigation, gender issues, natural resource management, strategic planning and organizational capacity assessment and strengthening. Dr. Greenberg has a B.S. in Biochemistry from Dickinson College, a M.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Brown University, and a Ph.D in Anthropology from the University of Chicago. less
Comments
My name is Monica Njoroge. I am happy to join the team that will be engaging in the civil society discussion and look forward to great learning. I have 7 years of experience in capacity building and strengthening with expertise in network building, advocacy, conducting organizational capacity assessments, resource mobilization, health system strengthening and program management for global projects. I currently work with civil society organizations in 13 countries through on-site and virtual technical assistance to set up platforms/networks and strengthen them to coordinate consistent engagement of CSOs in national health sector planning and policy processes, with a focus on resolving constraints to delivering immunization
My experience from Uganda (where 77% of the population depends on agriculture for their livelihoods and 73% are employed in the agric sector) is that without leverage the majority of the subsistent farmer will not be able to make the jump to farming as a business and as a sustainable livelihood base. The civil society (who have a good platform and stronger voice) can be helpful in negotiating for favourable agricultural financing terms and subsidies along the various value chains and ensuring that the farmers are actors as high up the value chain near the consumers as possible. For example, only 2 commercial banks in Uganda offer agricultural loans (the rest are still figuring out how to do it) and their terms are as flat as you "will pay at the end of the farming season from proceeds from your harvest, if you fail we will recover our money from your collaterals like your house or land". Yet right now there is no certainty that a season will be successful due to the unpredictable climatic patterns (thanks to global warming). Farmers are now more scared to borrow from banks and yet they need the financial capital inorder to grow. Can civil society negotiate with governments to provide guarantees for such financing?
Hi Francis:
Thank you for your question. Yes, civil society organizations can and must negotiate better access of farmers to credit, extension services, access to improved inputs and so on, since this corresponds to their basic role as advocators for policy reform.What civil society organizations cannot do is provide by themselves the collateral or the guarantees on behalf of farmers, unless they transform themselves into chartered companies or cooperatives. In general, the role of civil society organizations is to support thegeneral interest of their specific stakeholders and this role should be kept apart from anydirect participation in economic or financial pursuits. I hope this sheds light into your question
Just to add on to what Walter has shared, CSO influence can be strengthened by identifying and soliciting support from actors within Government that are in positions to influence financing decision. I agree that CSOs may not be sufficiently equipped to participate in economic and/or financial pursuits, but they can use champions to push the farmers agenda and secure financing.
This looks like a very interesting discussion and i hope to be able to attend next week. For many years i have been very concerned with the use of local partnership particularly farmer organizations. This leads be to wonder:
1. What is the sustainable overhead costs of operating via farmer organization? The sustainable overhead costs being what it takes to maintian an organization once the facilitation and external support ends.
2. How often are such organization totally dependent on external facilitation and collaspe once the external support ends?
3. If relying on members particularly organization officers volunteering thier time, what is the impostion time and how will that impact on thier on farming activities.
4. In developing partnerships do you include the local service providers as will as the producers? Isn't the relationship between them more symbiotic than preditor and prey?
Please visit the www.smallholderagriculture.com website for more details on the ideas present above.
Thank you,
Dick Tinsley
These are great questions that I know we are struggle with. We need to really look at what we mean by sustainablity, as this is often equated singularly with having a consistent flow of funding, but we need to look deeper. As another person commented, CSOs can get off mission in trying to secure funds. That is why we need to consider building the capacity (inward looking and outward looking) of the CSO to sustain its work, per it's stated mission, beyond the life of project or when the outside money dries up. If it is a membership organization clearly you want to expand membership to garner additional funds, but the CSO really must be capable or providing a good service or they will lose members. If the organization is volunteer based or includes volunteers then they need a long term plan and dedicated staff to manage the volunteers so they also need to have that organizational capacity.
In sum, you need to build capacity to sustain and grow farmers collectives/organizations, or any other type of organization that looks more holistically at the group then simply piecemealing support only to raise funds for next year, or get more volunteers for this year. I do not think that assisting an organization to grow with external funding is bad, but you do need a clear plan to wean them off the single funding source through increased capacity to deliver services, represent constituent interests, etc.
The amount of overhead costs varies so much given the loca context that it is hard to estimate a number, but your underlying point, I beleive, is that we need to build their capacity to become more sustainble without external (I assume you mean donor) suppport. As I noted in a comment below, evidence shows that successful organizations have (among other points) solid technical expertise in their area of interest and a network of relationships -- so to your point on partnerships, I think there is always room to engage perhaps seemingly disparate groups, as long as they share a clear common goal.
Sharon, Thank you for reviewing my earlier post. I am still left wondering if organizing farmers is really necessary, particularly if getting involved with bussiness activities, perhaps for some overall community coordinations. But as the discussion has shown it takes considerable time and effort from the project implementers and usually collaspe once the external funding ends. Thus would we be better off trying to work to improve the effectiveness of the indiginous private service providers and not spend so much time on civil organizations.
Thank you
Hi Laura.
From my experience, most of the civil society organizations are particularly passionate about the work they do and the cause they represent. Most of them do not however have the organizational systems that would give them the competitive advantage they would need to attract and retain donors. To address this, CRS has invested heavily on Institutional Capacity Strengthening through various tools that have over time strengthened the organizations capacity.
CSOs sometimes don't give great importance to Corporate Governance and the impact this has on an organizations operations. Roles are often mixed up, procedures overlooked because they think they are small organizations. Working with them to create Stratgeic plans creates a forward looking mindset that shift their mindset from day to day operations.
My last addition is that CSOs face funding constraints that affects the going concern of their organizations. CRS has built their capacity in resource mobilization and linked with funding opportunities, besides supporting them to develop competitive proposals.
Some of the barriers include:
- Organizational structures of the CSOs are not fully developed to manage direct funding. They would need capacity strengthening in financial and organizational management. In my current project how CRS countered this is by identifying a strong CSO organization to act as a facilitator for the engagement process. This FCSO acts as the representative of other CSOs in the region of focus such and the stakeholders would have more confidence in this organization. The FCSO coordinates the thoughts of the network members and ensures they are well articulated. All the network members are however involved in the implementation of the activities as they have their various areas of influence.
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Sustainability of the project activities beyond the project period; Donors focus on the project period and need to do more in ensuring financial sustainability is built in at the beginning of the project.
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CSO divest from their day to day mission and focus on donor objectives; instead, they should integrate and donors should be able to respect that.
Hello Laura,
Some of the staff at the SPRING Project have had experience working with civil society over the course of their careers, and I passed this question along to them. One obstacle is the way organizations attempt to relate to each other sometimes--an organization trying to turn a CSO into a 'mini-version' of itself for example, or attempting to repeat processes in contexts where they don't work. It's valuable to engage CSOs in what they are already good at, or perhaps in areas in which they take a unique approach; in other words playing to CSOs' strengths and building their capacity in these strengths rather than trying to move them into processes that don't work for them.
Abhi Goyal
SPRING Project
Thanks Monica, Judy, and Abhi! I see a theme emerging, perhaps: Meet organizations (and people) where they are at. Leverage their strengths and understand systems and processes that can be enhanced to strengthen them. If its financial or management, focus there first. I'm also wondering, from a civil society perspective, what types of mechanisms need to be in place from the donor side to make engagement more accessible?
From the donor perspective, it is very important to conduct a capacity assessment before engaging the CS organization. The assessment should be conducted in a way that promotes partnership rather than fault finding. this way the organization will critically think of their needs of which the donor should be open to addressing. Many times donors come in with perceived needs which becomes very repulsive to the organization. They will oblige just because they need funding. In promoting advocacy what the donor can do is also to support in opening the engagement doors. This may also include using their influence to get the CS organizations invited for meetings....or even accompanying them to those meetings.
Yes this is an important component of the USAID Forward initiative. However, we out here in the field find more often than not, that the vast majority of CSOs in developing countries lack the technical and instituional capacity to became self-sustainable, so the objective of direct funding is actually a major challenge. Our work in this regard is trying to provide the best of capacity building to enhance basic governance capacities so accountability is built in and then management training to enhance the capacity to manage resources.
That makes sense to me, and matches what I always heard while I was working in West Africa. Some of the burden can perhaps be taken off through streamlined reporting, perhaps. I think Feed the Future was going in that direction through an online platform, which of course depends on a steady supply of electricity, which can get expensive if a generator is a major source of power for CSOs. When I was in Ghana, despite being a part of a large NGO it was still a hefty issue.
What types of infrastructure do you hear CSOs needing more or better of from within their own countries that would help build their work up? I think this is another piece of the puzzle?
Let's get a basic but important question out of the way - how exactly do you define "civil society" in an international development context? What are the key sub-divisions or types of civil society organizations (CSOs) to consider when you are creating an engagement plan?
My thought would be that local understandings and legal frameworks as to who qualifies officially as 'civil society' vary considerably, and that local context should determine who relevant the stakeholders may be. I wouldn't be too concerned with precise definitions of civil society, especially if those might exclude citizens, stakeholders and organizations who may not fit that definition. Aid effectiveness principles call for engaging and including a much wider range of stakeholders than just civil society, though of course their participation is often vital.
A good way to get started in identifying stakeholders is to ask local citizens, community organizations, government representatives, NGOs, the private sector and other development service providers who they are. This sort of preliminary survey assessment can help in organizing, convening and engaging a wide range of development actors.
My basic definition of Civil society, would include a non-state actor that is "owned" by the community and aims to serve the needs of the community. This organization is trusted by the society around it as it understands their needs and works together with the community to provide solutions.
Thank you for these helpful definitions and clarifications!
I also see civil society as the "public" part of "public and political will (PPW)." If civil society organizations are not similarly aligned towards a particular policy change, then the government will have little incentive to address the issue.
We define civil society broadly. The definition in the USAID Civil Society Organization (CSO) Sustainability Index serves us well and enables us to work with a wide variety of stakeholders. "Civil society organizations are defined “broadly as any organizations, whether formal or informal, that are not part of the apparatus of government, that do not distribute profits to their directors or operators, that are self-governing, and in which participation is a matter of free choice. Both member-serving and public-serving organizations are included. Embraced within this definition, therefore, are private, not-for-profit health providers, schools, advocacy groups, social service agencies, anti-poverty groups, development agencies, professional associations, community-based organizations, unions, religious bodies, recreation organizations, cultural institutions, and many more.”
To simplify and breakdown this definition, civil society includes:
Formal or informal organizations
non-governmental
Do not distribute profits
Are self governing
In which people participate by choice
Can serve set members such as an association or the greater public.
Some FTF examples include non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that train and support farming cooperatives and associations, community-based organizations that provide education on improved nutrition practices, advocacy groups working to improve agricultural policy or laws, etc.
The most important of all: Be clear and transparent on the type of support that you can provide and at the same time avoid at all costs being condescending with CSOs since nowadays development work should be approached as a process of mutual cooperation where both the development partner and the local participating organization are both working towards the same objectives
Ill share some Do's
- Adopt a rigorous and prudent approach in the selection of CSOs. Adopt a prudent and rigorous approach for the selection of CSOs in order to ensure their objectivity and their independence with regards to all economic and political powers and other lobbies. This can be achieved through defining neutral criteria of objectivity and competency.
- Work with umbrella or apex bodiessuch as business federations, labor confederations, NGO forums, and interfaith councils. These help to ensure you have a wider reach.
- Clearly define the criteria and establish formal guidelines for selecting and involving CSOs.
- Create a documentation culture by ensuring they are putting to paper the great work they are involved in
- CSO's often seek after qualitaive side of things that are emotive in nature. If you can encourage them to participate in scientific research that would enable them to present the numbers and the narratives, it gives their input more credibility.
- Provide systemic rather than transactional solutions like investing in setting up organizational systems.
I agree with Walter, having a common understaning on the project mission and vision is very important at the beginning of the engagement. This should start from the design stage and should be viewed as a partnership each party being able to come up with their scope of work and what they bring on the table.
Yes! Agreed- at the World Food Prize last week this was one of the big messages to international donors and NGOs. Practitioners, including donors, need to understand and focus on the field-level before making any assumptions. It is good to be reminded from time to time in order to "keep it real"!
Monitoring and close technical supervision is tantamount to successful engagement with civil society organizations. This way, projects will identify “winners” and stick with them for the long run, thus contributing to establish a limited albeit effective and relatively more sustainable “cadre” of civil society organizations in the country.
In my experience CSOs would digress from their mission in order to get the funding. the down side of this is that their commitment to the mission is only as long as the funding continues to flow. Getting the CSOs to co-fund or provide in kind contribution during the project period caould be one way of countering this and ensuring commitment. I have seen this when starting up the CSO networks, there is initial momentum in members joining the network but once they discover the funding limitation, the momentum dies down.
For those who are interested, you can download Feed the Future's Civil Society Action Plan here: http://www.feedthefuture.gov/sites/default/files/resource/files/ftf_civilsociety_actionplan_may2014.pdf
Also, ACVFA = USAID’s Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid.
One of the ideas of our grants program is to follow up on some of the activities implemented by the grantees, so whatever the recommendations are in terms of policy-making, we should make sure that those are implemented. This is as a matter of fact one of our main indicators. Eventually we will be working with a handful of organizations and hence, will be able to tailor and support additional needs.
We chose to make it an agenda by spelling out from the begining that gender is an issue our project would be focusing on. We enforced this by formulating data collection tools that requires them to dissaggregate data by sex, which in turm meant that they would carry out their activities in an inclusive manner as they knew that they would be required to report on it.
Hi Everyone,
I'd just like to introduce myself as one of today's presenters, and to welcome your thoughts and experiences in today's conversation. I work on stakeholder engagement at InterAction in Washington, DC, and had the chance to participate in the joint USAID/civil society working group that helped create the Feed the Future Civil Society Action Plan in May of 2014. Members of that working group have since been collaborating in drafting the civil society engagement handbook called for in the Action Plan, and I can share a couple of draft principles from the handbook if that would be of interest to participants.
I look forward to your thoughts and questions!
Hi, Veronica,
I can tell you a bit about the draft principles in the handbook, which are meant to help guide practical responses to aid effectiveness and country ownership agreements and frameworks. The principles are aimed at more inclusive, participatory and accountable development processes, and are meant to help provide a framework for 'engaging' and mobilizing development stakeholders at local, district and national levels. Each principle has a number of susidiary steps and recommendations to help accomplish it. It's important to emphasize that the handbook is in draft stage, and I'm afraid I can't offer a date when it will be finalized. But here's a flavor:
Draft principle #1: 'Base country ownership on a multi-stakeholder, whole-of-society approach to development.'
Draft principle #2: Base stakeholder engagement on consultations that meaningfully shape development priorities and strategies, and that deepen into stakeholder participation across the program cycle'.
Thank you for the interesting topic, my country, Georgia is ex-soviet republic, where local agriculture knowledge and practice is lost as a result of soviet governance policy in the field. Young population of rural areas tries to initiate new projects but very often is not successful due to week capacity. Can you suggest what could be good strategy/example to strengthen local capacity and support collaboration/networking?
First, we need to understand the needs of the organizations and there is the Organizational Capacity Assessment Tool that can be useful for identifying instituional and technical needs.
Second, organizations that have the will to be assisted, will respond to the OCAT, so one proxy to approach them, will be to initially work with the respondents.
Third, the OCA is not sufficient, so projects must engage with the leadership of the organizations to seek their committment and engagement. When visiting the organizations, if the leadership is there to greet you, then that is an indication of a good deal of political committment.
Fourth, be honest with them and do not ever promise more than what the project is able to deliver
Fifth, keep a close watch on their activities and be ready to provide them with additional technical support; this way you are making sure that common objectives will be met effectively and timely
Hi Kakhaber,
A tool you may find helpful in supporting collaboration and networking in Georgia and other countries is InterAction's 'NGO Aid Map' and 'Food Security Aid Map', which are online. These maps provide information from InterAction NGO members about many of the projects they currently implement, including information about the areas and local partners that are involved. The maps also provide points of contact, which can be very useful in expanding your contacts and collaboration with other organizations in Georgia.
Hello , my name is Judy O. Anyona currently working with Catholic Relief Services as a program manager for a global project that involves engagement of CSOs in immunization and Health Systems Strengthening. CRS creates country networks of CSOs working in immunization and HSS to engage directly with donors, stakeholders and Ministry of health to improve on immunization coverage within their context.CRS builds the capacity of this CSOs in organizational capacity, advocacy, documentation etc.
We are looking forward to Wednesday's AskAg discussion! Please feel free to post your questions ahead of the event to our esteemed panel. Also be ready to share your own experiences from desigining, implementing, evaluating and/or otherwise working with civil society in ag development.