CI Guide on Civil Society Collaboration

Why a guide?

• CI strategy talks about working in partnership with civil society and an aim to be a ”partner of choice”

• Vision 2020 and two pager on Local to Global Partnerships, recognize that CARE has to play new roles in a context where southern civil society is growing stronger and more vibrant, and north-south and south-south relationships are changing. Shift from its traditional roles as community workers, project managers and implementers to more indirect and supportive roles as action researchers, facilitators, networkers, alliance builders and capacity developers

• Human rights commitment entails empowering excluded groups to participate in governance and claim their rights from village level to the global policy level – also linked to the CI ‘inclusive governance’ commitment

• ‘Ownership’ principle (Aid Effectiveness, Paris Declaration, Accra Agenda) supporting people in developing countries and their organisations to set the agenda and take responsibility for their own development. Support the owners of the agenda.

So how do we do it?

Process

Context analysis (CS, think tanks, INGOs, donors, research)Consultation within and outside of CARE (+20 COs consulted, external

stakeholders)Some CSO/partner inputReview of country presence reviewsDrawing on CARE experiences with CS collaboration and partnershipsDraft shared for commenting (72 CARE colleagues, feedback from 15)Presentation at the POC in July 2015

Trends

• Multi-polar world • Poor people in middle income countries• Inequality on the rise• Poverty is a political rather than a technical issue• Role of foreign aid is reducing (foreign investments, remittances)• Global North-South boundaries blurred (global CS alliances emerging)• Social movements/mass protests using social media for mass mobilization• Third wave of women’s liberation, youth movements • Stronger and more diverse civil society • Civil society space contracting

Trends in donor support to CS

• Increased recognition of CS as development actors in their own right(CS involvement in SDGs), Accra Agenda for Action, Busan, Istanbul• More donor strategies for support to CS • More power and funding to strategic CSO partners in the south• More South funding/INGOs pushed to prove value addition• Not necessarily more funding to INGOs – recent cuts in support to CS

in Europe• Two narratives co-exist (instruments for service delivery (support

through) vs. change agents (support to)

Roles for CARE *NB: Context analysis!*Opening spaces/creating enabling environmentAdvocate for civil society (influencing government legislation, donor processes)Political protector (when the situation calls for it)Fellow advocate (side by side – North and South)Convenor of meeting spaces for CS and between CS and gov. Conflict mediator (when well placed, do no harm)

Roles for CARE

Relationship builderConnector (join networks and alliances, link partners to networks, align CS around change agendas horizontally and vertically) Door opener (government, donors, private sector, south-south, south-north)Public support mobilizer (not just fundraising, but activism, links to social movements)

Roles for CARE

Investor in organisational capacitiesCapacity builder (when we have something to offer that is in demand, training, mentoring, facilitate capacity development)Knowledge broker/learning facilitator (learn, share, facilitate learning)Civil society grant manager (on behalf of donors, channel resources to grassroots, women’s organisations, invest on org. dev.) danger of reducing CARE’s role to an administrator or donor

Taking partnerships to the next level

Start with ourselves

• Show leadership (senior managers)• Make it personal (demonstrate the values,

stories matter)• Be more flexible (harmonise, aligning,

explore space within compliance)

Select the right partners for the right purpose• Clarify our theory of change for support to civil society partners• Continuously analyse civil society context (who are the drivers of

change)• Find the balance between selecting organisations who have high

capacity and limited capacity (but score high on integrity, values, and legitimacy) – representative of rather than working for the impact groups• Invest in depth (fewer partners, longer commitments, ‘program

approach’)

Continue to listen

• Listen to what our partners are actually asking for in terms of capacity building and support (demand driven)• Learn from partners (be humble, don’t need to have all the answers,

complementaries)• Demonstrate accountability and ask for opinions (partnership surveys,

social audits, etc.)

Increase the power and influence of partners• Cultivate trust (let go of more funds and decision-making power)• Promote genuine joint decision-making (involve partners in design,

budgeting, decisions, advisory boards)

Cultivate leadership and capacity

• Invest in partners to be effective, autonomous development organisations who can bring change - beyond what we need for compliance • Understand what drives organisational change (we cannot build

capacity, cultivate leadership and incentives for change)• Tailor capacity-building support to diverse forms of organisations (no

one size fits all)

Community of Practise: Minerva space• Click on: ”100 CARE International” -> CARE International Programs ->

Civil society (0600 Civil society folder)

Questions

• Is there an interest in a “community of practice” (around CS collaboration and partnerships?)

• Can we merge this thinking into the inclusive governance stream of work?