Guidelines on Development Partners’ Support to Civil Society
PROGRESS REPORT TO DPG MAIN on 4 March 2008
The overall objective of the Guidelines isto improve co-ordination and transparency amongst development partners regarding their support to civil society.
DPG Main delegated the oversight of the implementation of the guidelines to the Accountable Governance Cluster on June 5th, 2007, and endorsed the EC as lead in the process.
The following four objectiveswere set as priorities for the first period of implementation:
→ establishing a network of interested partners
→ developing a database on DP’s support to CSOs in Tanzania
→ anchoring the process with the Accountable Governance Cluster Group
→ ensuring that civil society issues become, where relevant, part of the regular DPG sub-group discussions
The following progress has been madeto date[1]:
The Network and Database:
- 18 agencies have joined the network and met regularly to design the joint database in a way that it will serve as a useful planning tool for all concerned; the database comprises a brief introduction of participating DPs, information on support/grant facilities for CSOs, and the data on support provided to CSOs;
- 14 agencies are in the process of entering their support data; and are planning to launch the joint database on 4 April.
- Coordination meetings to avoid duplication and overlap: with ESRF who manage the Tanzania Development Gateway (January); planned for March with AMP[2] team, and with Private Sector/Trade DPG;
- CIDA is financing the database component.
Accountable Governance Cluster Group (AGC)– Host of the Process
The AGC has been an active host to the process and held several meetings[3] on the Guidelines (GL).
The AGC has shared experience of their respective agencies with regards to how the different components of the Guidelines applied to their day-to-day work. Whilst few DPs with larger GBS components have already started to work towards complementing, and creating operational linkages between their civil society support and their budget support components, others still keep their civil society portfolio separate from other programmes.
Further, the outcome of the meetings with the DPG chairs (see below) were discussed, and natural entries and responses to the individual groups to be taken forward by the AGC were established.
The AGC agreed to use their space to reflect on, and create a deeper and broader understanding of the role civil society can play in the context of increasing GBS. One of the outcomes has been a documentation on the role of civil society in the GBS Review 2007, which was shared with the GWG on 13 December.
Civil Society Issues in DPG Sub-group Discussions
Discussions were held with chairpersons of 17 DPG working groups. Though levels of awareness and understanding of civil society’s contribution to the respective areas of interest to the DPG groups were varied, the initial overall response to the GL initiative was positive with an interest for joint reflection on how civil society matters can be part of their regular discussions, and on how the AGC could support them in this. At second follow-up with individual DPG sub-groups that had requested presentations on the Guidelines in order to hold discussions with their members responses were more mellow.
Other Progress:
- The framework documents (Guidelinesand Position Paper) have been refined to produce a concise English version for the Internet (up-loaded on DPG website with material for 4 March meeting);
- There had been no formal reference to of the AGC and Guidelinesin either the GWG ToR or the latters workplan. In December an ‘action reference’ on the Implementation of the Guidelines for Civil Society Support was added to the workplan of the GWG under the ‘planned deliverable’ Increased Support for Accountability.
Governance Section, EC Delegation, Box 9514, Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, , T. 022 211 7473-6, F. 211 3277
[1] Drafted on 29 February 2008
[2] Aid Management Platform
[3] 23 August, 9 November, 12 December 2007, 28 February 2008