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2020-01-17
GivingTuesday;
Giving Tuesday's 2019 Impact Report shares the results of GivingTuesday 2019; but also offers a glimpse into the implications of the generosity that occurred on the day, challenging us to imagine a world where radical generosity is unleashed every single day.
2020-05-01
Donors and Foundations Networks in Europe (DAFNE);
This handbook provides practical guidance for Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to advocate and litigate using EU law to protect their rights and civic space in the EU.It aims to be a user-friendly guide for CSOs who want to know::What EU law is and how it affects individuals and organisations;When and how CSOs can challenge national provisions or measures that impact their mission, activities and operations on the basis of EU law, including the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (CFR);Which legal avenues and resources are available for CSOs to defend their civic space within the EU law frameworkA list of resources as well as practical tools can be found in the last part the document.
2020-01-30
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace;
In the past two years, the Russian public's appetite for change has increased considerably. A small but growing group of Russians blame President Vladimir Putin for the country's problems, and his capacity to deliver change is now being questioned. Yet the demands for change are taking very different forms, not only in open protests but also through latent discontent, and the public has not identified a specific alternative leader as a potential agent of change.In July 2019, the Carnegie Moscow Center and the Levada Center, Russia's main independent polling agency, conducted a third poll in two years asking 1,600 Russians about their readiness for change. The results show some striking new trends. A total of 59 percent of respondents—17 percent more than two years before—said that the country needed "decisive comprehensive change" (see Figure 1). The Russian publication of this research in November 2019 attracted a lot of attention from the media and political class. An answer came in January 2020 in a form of constitutional changes and the resignation of the government. In his annual address on January 15, Vladimir Putin said: "Our society is clearly calling for change. People want development. . . . The pace of change must be expedited every year and produce tangible results in attaining worthy living standards that would be clearly perceived by the people. And, I repeat, they must be actively involved in this process."
2020-04-20
Center for American Progress;
the COVID-19 outbreak has laid bare the need for a more proactive and integrated approach to fight infectious disease epidemics, which are becoming more common in many regions around the world. Specifically, alongside investments in epidemiological research and healthcare, we need to address the problem at its root: the destruction of nature.
2020-02-01
Open Society Foundations;
Civil Society Organizations and General Data Protection Regulation Compliance: Challenges, Opportunities and Best Practices, a new report from the Open Society Information Program, looks specifically at the ways that the world's most comprehensive data privacy law impacts nongovernmental organizations.It examines, in practical terms, what these kind of organizations have done to comply with the law. It also presents research showing ways that governments, businesses, and some powerful individuals have tried—so far unsuccessfully—to use the law to prevent these organizations from pursuing public interest research and reporting.Finally, the report provides a best practices guide that can be used to ensure compliance and limit risk.
2020-03-04
West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI);
Social accountability is an approach towards building accountability that relies on civic engagement in which citizens participate directly or indirectly in demanding accountability from service providers and public officials. It usually combines information on rights and service delivery with collective action for change. It has become a tool for direct engagement with service providers to ensure that citizens get adequate services or adequate explanation when those services are not available. When social accountability mechanisms are weak, the context becomes more challenging for communities or individual citizens to play a powerful role. Also, social accountability is fundamentally and ultimately a question of power as it requires both social and political pressure to ensure that duty bearers are kept on their toes. This piece will therefore explore the tools and approaches that some African social movements used to effectively drive the social accountability agenda. The tools we are exploring here are respectively social media and creative arts, while the approaches will be based on their ways of mobilising and organising. We conclude by making some recommendations for donors, government, citizens and other stakeholders.
2020-03-10
Center for Economic and Policy Research;
This study focuses primarily on the 'Final Report' of the OAS audit of the election results and shows how the authors of that report misrepresent the data and evidence found in the audit in an attempt to further bolster their claims of intentional manipulation on the part of Bolivia's former electoral authorities. The OAS Final Report identifies many real problems with the management of the elections that should be addressed. However, despite claims to the contrary, it does not provide any evidence that those irregularities altered the outcome of the election, or were part of an actual attempt to do so.
2020-01-28
West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI);
The effective implementation of WACSI's interventions is dependent on civil society's contributions and feedback on the Institute's work in promoting an open, safe and prosperous West Africa. WACSI's interventions are guided and inspired by the critical voices from key stakeholders and engagement by different communities and groups across West Africa. At WACSI, we are conscious that civic space affects everything civil society does and everything civil society does affects civic space. A safe, open, free and enabling space for all to form and voice opinions, debate, be heard and peacefully protest, is also an essential prerequisite for achieving the ECOWAS Vision 2020. Civic freedoms including the freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly, safe environments and effective participation are therefore essential. This Op-Ed critically assesses the civic space environment in 2019, predictions for 2020 and issues that need more introspection and collective action.
2020-01-01
West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI);
Despite the recognition of the instrumentality of governance and leadership to the sustainability of nonprofit organisations by researchers and practitioners around the world, there is still very limited knowledge on the effectiveness or otherwise of governance in Ghana's civil society sector. This paper is based on an extensive research into governance systems institutionalisation and effectiveness in selected civil society organisations (CSOs) in Ghana which revealed among other things that governance systems and structures of many CSOs in the country are poorly instituted and largely ineffective. It also discovered ineffective management of executive transitions and abrupt departures of key staff and leaders which were due mainly to the absence of succession plans and roadmaps. The paper argues on the basis of the evidence that in the absence of sound governance systems and structures, a CSO cannot be properly described as sustainable irrespective of the amount of financial resources the organisation can mobilise.
2020-01-01
Global Fund for Community Foundations (GFCF);
Civil society organisations (CSOs) in Ghana are generally fragile and dependent on donor funding mechanisms for survival. Recent studies show that financial sustainability of CSOs is challenging, which has spurred conversations on new alternative funds mobilisation routes, innovative methods and strategies to ensure its sustainability. This scoping report highlights the opportunities and challenges associated with faith-based giving as a domestic resource mobilisation (DRM) strategy that CSOs could explore in Ghana. Specifically, the report highlights the experiences of funds mobilisation, the strategies, the opportunities and successes and the challenges. It draws on in-depth interviews from 6 faith-based organisations (FBOs), three CSOs that have funds mobilisation connections with FBOs and 2 key informants or experts working within the civil society space in Ghana. The report stresses four key messages.First, the key sources of domestic faith-based giving for Faith-based organisations are: (i) Special collections and offerings collected by affiliated religious bodies to support the FBOs; (ii) Individual contributions, appeals, pledges and gifts from members of religious affiliations (local and foreign); (iii) Allocations from headquarters or the 'root' organisations from which the faith-based organisations were formed and (iv) Volunteers and in-kind contributions from partners and stakeholders. However, faith-based domestic resource mobilisation has not been systematically integrated into the core strategy of domestic resource mobilisation efforts of some faith-based organisations as they draw their funding mainly from external sources.Second, religious organisations affiliated to Faith-based organisations use multiple strategies to encourage and mobilise funds and resources from givers. Four commonest approaches identified are: i) using education, doctrines and psychological preparation towards giving; b) instituting 'special days' for collection from givers; iii) being accountable and effectively communicating results and iv) effectively communicating mission to givers.Third, opportunities for mobilising funds and resources from faith-based sources exist because (i) large religious base of the country who are motivated by faith to give; (ii) indigenous systems and culture of giving in Ghana and (iii) growing technologies and digital infrastructure that provide convenience for givers. Strong connections to a 'base'/constituents is important for generation of funds.However, there are some challenges that constrain the prospect of domestic mobilisation of faith-based funds to boost financial sustainability of CSOs while also promoting socio-economic development in Ghana. Six key challenges have been articulated below: (i) general perceptions of CSOs and development actors ; (ii) culture of giving is skewed towards ad-hoc social welfare causes than long-term development actions that address systemic changes ; (iii) The difficulty of working with rising middle class and high-net worth personalities and (iv) weak transparent and accountable systems of CSOs. Some non-faith-based organisations also find it difficult mobilising domestic faith-based resources because of: (i) unfavourable perception and risk of associating with faith-based organisations and ii) clash of religious doctrines and some principles and values held by organisations.
2020-01-01
Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA);
The second edition of Social Accountability Guidebook for CSOs is a learning resource that is intended to support the building of a community of practice of social accountability practitioners, advocates, and champions in West Africa. This guidebook is an updated version of the first edition which was published in 2018. The Guidebook presents case studies of social accountability initiatives from the West African region, interspersed with definitions of terminologies related to the concept. It is intended to deepen understanding and foster appreciation of the concept of social accountability, its potential for strengthening accountability in the region, and the challenges that may be encountered in implementing social accountability initiatives in the West African Context. It is hoped that the Guidebook will serve as a catalyst for further development and tailoring of the concept of social accountability in West Africa, by CSOs, development practitioners, local and central government agencies, the donor community, and all others who are interested in advancing accountability in West Africa.
2020-08-03
Chatham House;
The intended goal of this paper is to help guide policymakers, international financial institutions and development agencies in their design and implementation of public sector reform programmes in Iraq. It is worth emphasizing that Iraq's predicament is by no means exceptional, and this paper uses specific and relevant experiences from other countries to illustrate how to overcome obstacles to reform.
