Environmental change agents: EMiS Annual Report 2008

The Environmental Movement in the South (EMiS) vision is to contribute to sustainable development through strengthening southern environmental organisations’ position in the civil society. This report reflects the overall outputs of EMiS programmes, and reviews three detailed examples. The paper demonstrates that EMiS recently started collaboration with 22 environmental organisations and network in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

The paper describes the overall progress of EMiS in light of the indicators, thematic areas, geographic priorities and selection criteria, approach and methodology. Furthermore, cross-cutting topics such as gender and anticorruption are also considered.

The main findings of the paper are:

• EMiS have expanded their membership, or boosted its national impact and scope for advocacy
• EMiS is concentrating its effort on Official Development Assistance (ODA) countries that are facing large environmental challenges
• most of EMiS projects are working using several approached, focusing on several thematic areas and reaching results related to several indicators
• by supporting core functions in environmental NGOs, and not service delivery projects, partners are in the longer run strengthened both politically and organisationally
• gender equality has been identified in EMiS institutional assessments as an area that needs to be improved
• EMiS project in Malawi has initiated several activities to engage civil society organisations and create political space for local communities to engage with policy makers
• in this context, creating strategic partnerships with institutions working directly with relevant communities can ensure the policy is adequately informed
• regarding Malaysia, the regional and national workshops, organised by EMiS project, had a huge impact on the indigenous movement, who became moreunited than before
• by associating with a regional developmental organisation, an EMiS projectin Peru provides a good opportunity for synergies between a conservation NGO and the indigenous organisation of Amazon people.