The importance of engaging with
CSOs
1.The Government has recognised the important role
which CSOs can play in development. There are many CSOs worldwide,
ranging from large charities based in developed countries to small
and informal bodies based in developing countries. CSOs can provide
a variety of roles, including delivering basic services to the
poor, challenging country governments about their services, or
advocating policy change. In 2005-06 DFID provided £328 million
to these organisations, or 8.5% of its total funding (Figure
1).[2] This is a similar
percentage to countries such as Denmark and Canada (8 and 9% respectively),
higher than France (2%) but much lower than some of the Scandinavian
countries where the average is approximately 25%.[3]
The proportion of DFID's funding channelled through CSOs has remained
stable despite DFID's increasing use of budget support to developing
country governments.[4]
The most recent White Paper published in 2006 signals that this
trend will continue.[5]
2. DFID sees funding of CSOs as a means to pursue
development objectives, not an end in itself.[6]
Country teams decide how best to use this route to pursue poverty
reduction targets. In most countries DFID teams consider civil
society as part of the overall country planning process. But the
depth of analysis in country planning documents is varied, even
taking into account different country circumstances.[7]
Only three countries have specific strategies for engaging with
CSOs. DFID reported that country teams had developed strategies
where CSOs were critical to their approach to achieving development
benefits.[8] For example,
in Nigeria country staff wrote a separate strategy in response
to difficulties in providing services to poor people there.
3. DFID use CSOs to deliver important development
benefits in a number of different ways according to country context.
First, CSOs can give voice to the poor and improve accountability,
by holding public officials to account. Encouraging citizens to
challenge their governments on issues such as service delivery
provides DFID with some assurance that governments are acting
to reduce poverty. CSOs can deliver services to poor people, by
activities such as building schools or digging wells. They can
often respond quickly to humanitarian emergencies, providing vital
supplies. Some CSOs also engage in lobbying and advocacy to raise
key development issues and influence policy.[9]
DFID tailors its assistance according to country circumstances.
Figure 1. DFID total expenditure 2004-05 and a
breakdown of funding to CSOs.
£328 million funding to CSOs is broken down as follows:
Note: Shaded rows indicate the main funding
agreements covered in this report.
Source: Ev 13 and C&AG's Report
4. DFID country teams need a sound understanding
of the strengths and weaknesses of civil society, whether or not
DFID chooses to provide significant funding to CSOs in-country.
How effective national CSOs are in challenging the policies and
services of their governments, for example, can highlight risks
or provide a degree of assurance if DFID decides to provide assistance
through support to the government budget. But in practice the
mapping of the strengths, position or skills of CSOs is limited.[10]
A "drivers of change" analysis has now been used
in 20 countries.[11]
While these studies have confirmed the importance of civil
society to poverty reduction, the analysis was often narrow in
scope and did not assess the strength or capacity of CSOs beyond
the broadest qualitative terms.[12]
DFID acknowledged that it did not always have a detailed knowledge
of CSO activity in-country, although it highlighted their desire
for assessments to be proportionate to DFID's engagement.[13]
This lack of awareness may lead to missed opportunities,
with some good CSOs or projects potentially falling through the
net and not able to attract DFID funding.[14]
5. There is no generally accepted way of rating CSO
activity used by DFID or the wider development community—in
contrast to joint ratings of other areas such as governance and
financial management. This means that DFID and others have not
established a baseline for monitoring of progress in developing
civil society.[15] DFID
mentioned a number of organisations which are seeking to measure
the strength, participation and impact of civil society, including
Civicus, the Overseas Development Institute's World Governance
Survey, and the World Values Survey (Figure 2 - see overleaf).[16]
DFID had not yet systematically used these indicators in its analysis,
and in any case the indicators available do not cover all the
issues or countries of interest.
Figure 2: Measures for rating civil society are
partial
