Open Forum Bodies

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Global Facilitation Group

The Global Facilitation Group (GFG) is an international body composed of providing overview, coordination, political leadership and visibility to the Open Forum for CSO Development Effectiveness. Its concrete tasks are set out in its terms of reference.

The GFG is comprised of 25 member organisations that were nominated and accepted by more than 70 representatives of CSO platforms and networks from around the world, and it facilitates the process, monitors and evaluates the Open Forum’s consultation and multi-stakeholder dialogue process, engages in dialogues with official donors and governments on the issue of enabling environments, and mobilises CSOs from around the world for the Open Forum.

At their meeting in Mexico in January 2010, the GFG elected two co-chairs: Daniel Svoboda from the Czech national platform of development NGOs and Susana Eróstegui from the Bolivian national platform UNITAS.

Africa

Asia

Europe

Latin America and the Caribbean

Middle East and Northern Africa

North America

Pacific

International CSO Networks

Women’s Organisations

The Open Forum Consortium

A Consortium of six CSOs was mandated by the Global Facilitation Group at their meeting in Kuala Lumpur on 20 and 21 January 2009 to implement and manage the Open Forum work programme, including fund raising, fund management, outreach and the provision of administrative, technical and logistical support to the GFG. The Consortium includes the following organisations:

Except for All Africa Conference of Churches, these organisations are also members of the GFG. The Consortium is fully accountable to the GFG and its co-chairs, through a combination of periodic progress reports and joint GFG-Consortium meetings.

Relations and responsibilities within the Consortium are guided by a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that was adopted at a meeting among Consortium members on 16 April 2009 in Washington, D.C. This MOU sets out principles, reporting obligations as well as guidelines for financial and programmatic management.

Together, the six Consortium members cover outreach activities to all types of CSOs working in development around the globe. Each Consortium member, with the exception of CIVICUS, is responsible for a specific world region. CIVICUS, being an international network, will take responsibility for reaching out to the international headquarters of global CSO networks.

Consortium members will work on the following areas within their respective region:

  • support for the consultation processes
  • outreach to all types of CSOs in development
  • communication
  • support of political dialogue efforts
  • fund raising and fund management
  • monitoring and evaluation.

CONCORD acts as the lead organisation of the Consortium and in this capacity houses the Open Forum Secretariat and oversees all activities of the Consortium. CONCORD is also responsible for facilitating the full involvement of the GFG co-chairs in the meetings and operations of the Consortium. In addition, CONCORD coordinates fund raising and fund management. Furthermore, CONCORD will be the contracting organisation for CSOs and official donors. When channelling funds to Consortium partners, CONCORD will enter into bilateral agreements with these partners that will set out the purpose of the transfer and reporting requirements.

Partners

Better Aid

Coming out of Accra, there are two inter-related global and inclusive CSO processes. This site is dedicated to the Open Forum for CSO Development Effectiveness, led by the GFG, to define and promote a global CSO development effectiveness framework, including a set of principles, indicators, implementation guidelines, good practices for accountability mechanisms and minimum standards for enabling conditions.

However, parallel to this is the continuation of the policy and advocacy work of the Better Aid Platform, led by the Better Aid Coordinating Group (BACG), working closely with the Reality of Aid country-level consultations on implementing the AAA, and with the other specific international social movement networks, with a focus on policies and reforms that strengthen the links between aid and development effectiveness for the HLF-4.

The Better Aid Platform and the Open Forum are two distinct, yet complementary global CSO-led processes.

  • The Open Forum focuses on how CSOs can improve their own effectiveness as development actors (including by improving the environment that is provided by official donors, governments and other development stakeholders for CSOs).
  • The goal of the Better Aid Platform is to monitor and influence the implementation of the AAA (with specific focus on democratic ownership), while broadening the agenda to development effectiveness and addressing this within reform of the international aid architecture.

While both processes are closely linked to the aid and development effectiveness agenda, their mandates, objectives and working methods are distinct and complementary to each other. To reach their goals, both processes will build upon CSO-led consultation processes, at different levels with distinct objectives, and including a coordinated dialogue with official donors, governments and possibly other development stakeholders. Because of the diversity of CSOs and the distinct mandates, the two processes will often include different sets of CSOs in their work. For example:

  • The consultations related to the Better Aid agenda, following an advocacy logic, will gather policy-oriented CSOs to monitor and influence implementation of the AAA and contribute to policy directions for the HLF-4.
  • The Open Forum will build on the expertise of a much wider mix of CSOs as development practitioners, policy interveners, social mobilisers and constituency-based organisations, and focus on the enabling conditions within and between CSOs and in official donor and government policies that are determinants in CSOs’ development effectiveness.

You are invited to visit the Better Aid website for more information on their work and contributions to the ongoing CSO development effectiveness process

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