• Civil society
• Civil society development activities
• Participation in policy processes
• Strengthening civil society

Civil society

This text attempts to propose a few ideas on the stakes involved in, and on ways to build, civil society partnerships and symbols of a genuine co-operation.

It argues that in order to support civil society in developing countries, all stakeholders involved must define new long-term alliances and partnership strategies. Their development has to be funded on mutual respect, complementary interests and skills and shared responsibilities. These kinds of partnerships are proof of an effort to develop and implement development projects. They allow for collective activities, in the North and in the South in order to defend "globalisation on a human level".

Four main elements of changes in context include:

• partnerships are very "fashionable" with backers who want alliances and tend to make them compulsory via the conditions that are now imposed on gaining access to funding
• many partners in the South and on all continents are increasingly independent and professional, and thus more demanding of European structures in terms of ways of co-operating
• there is a major risk today of having to compete for access to funding, particularly with bilateral and multilateral backers who are opening their funds up to NGOs and other civil society organisations in the South, who often have lower overheads while still being very effective
• the current globalisation of economies and exchanges makes it necessary for North-South collective action to call for and promote globalisation with a human face and in that context, promote local and traditional farming and the rights of rural populations.

The paper highlights that partnerships often run into difficulties associated with sensitive issues, and the North must improve practices, which include:

• funding: specifying the agreements and reciprocal commitments before starting any collective action
• make constraints and financial situation known to partners and to propose in some cases support and an administrative and financial monitoring mechanism to help anticipate and therefore manage potential conflicts
• interference in the institutional politics of partners: northern institutions should improve their ability to respect the independence and differences of all parties
• insufficient information given to partners on northern institutions and differentiated access to informationimproving circulation of information regarding northern associations
• accepting to reveal weaknesses as well as promote strengths
• difficulty building in a context of diversity: partnership requires a reciprocal capacity to listen and to call oneself into question.

• Full text of document
• Publisher details
• Send to a friend