Multi-donor support to civil society and engaging with ‘non-traditional’ civil society
Source: ODI
Drawing on DFID’s third White Paper (2006) (WP3), the DFID Effective States Team (EST), in January 2007, commissioned ODI to conduct a ‘light touch’ review of: (i) multi-donor models for supporting civil society; and (ii) efforts to reach out to ‘nontraditional’ civil society. The study tests the assumption that multi-donor support mechanisms scale up and enhance the effectiveness of civil society engagement with the state for improved governance and poverty reduction
The study identifies and analyses:
(a) Existing multi-donor programmes for support to civil society as well as on-going transitions to harmonised ways of working.
(b) How particular multi-donor funds are positioned within the broader aid architecture in any one country.
(c) Experience of engaging with different non-traditional civil society organisations, and related challenges, strengths and weaknesses.
The multi-donor civil-society support models examined by this review in many cases build on existing bilateral efforts to broker relations between citizens and the state. Most multi-donor civil-society support programmes are now managed by intermediaries. This includes INGOs, local CSOs, multilaterals, local foundations and community funds. Donors’ choice of intermediaries for civil society support reflects a combination of policy objectives, credibility with the state, management capacity, and ability to provide capacity building support to smaller CSOs.International NGOs (INGOs) tend to be favoured in less stable environments because of their already established programmes and relationships with the state. This transition to local foundations needs to be carefully managed, especially in fragile state contexts where the legal framework is opaque and is often applied differently to donors, international NGOs and local civil society. In some cases, donors have committed core funding to CSOs with a track record in research and advocacy. As DFID withdraws from directly facilitating civic engagement with the state it potentially transfers risk to local civil-society grantees. Local ownership of multi-donor funds can be problematic. Although intermediary and core funding models seek to facilitate ‘arms-length’ engagement with civil society, donors may continue to ‘pull the strings’ over priorities and management. Holding government to account is a process that emerges slowly and unevenly. Most of the programmes examined focus on citizen voice, including coalition building and access to information. A sector focus may make it easier to align support for civil society with specific policy outcomes and to respond to CSOs evolving capacity-building needs. Harmonisation with other donors on support to civil society allows DFID to influence the aid agenda while also securing long-term funding for civil-society.
In a few cases, DFID has worked to structure a range of multi-donor basket funds for civil society support within the country. A range of multi-donor funds for civil society support may be especially important in countries where DFID is withdrawing in favour of the IFIs, but where IFIs are also not as well equipped to work with CSOs. Efforts to reach out to the ‘non traditional CSOs’ are often underpinned by very different processes and motives. Certain non-traditional CSOs, such as grassroots movements, may be very effective agents of citizen voice and accountability. However they are often weakly institutionalised, and may not be formally registered. Different programmes have worked in different ways to enhance reach to nontraditional’ civil society.
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