What are the Open Forum Consultations?

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Knowing that governments are increasingly interested in CSO accountability and effectiveness, CSOs have come to realize that if they fail to gain control of the agenda on these issues, they will be forced to deal with an agenda determined by others. The Open Forum represents a unique opportunity to ensure that CSO accountability and effectiveness is measured by standards CSOs themselves identify and deem appropriate.

For the Open Forum to be legitimate, however, it is critical that a wide range of CSOs working in development participate to shape the outcomes of this process. How the consultations are structured will depend on the context of the country or region in which they take place. Nevertheless, the consistent elements in each consultation will be CSO recommendations on:

  • key principles of CSO development effectiveness;
  • guidelines for implementation of these principles; and
  • minimum standards for an enabling environment for CSOs.

Areas in which there is common understanding and where there are divergent views will also be noted. Where possible, a portion of the consultations should be expanded to include other stakeholders, such as representatives from government, foundations, multi-lateral organizations, and academia.

The Open Forum will finance and facilitate consultations in a minimum of 50 countries in the global South. This is considered to be a minimum number to enable the Open Forum to build a legitimate and relevant framework for CSO development effectiveness. It is, however, expected that there will be a significant number of countries, primarily in the North, in which CSOs can raise further financial resources to carry out additional country-level consultations in their own countries . Provided that these consultations respect the key principles of the Open Forum as defined at the Exploratory Meeting in Paris (June 2008), these consultations will build and inform consensus-building within the Open Forum.

Country-level consultations sponsored by the Open Forum will be implemented, where possible, by national CSO platforms and networks, under the guidance and facilitation of the GFG and the Consortium. Representativeness, capacity, prior work, and interest in CSO development effectiveness issues will inform the choice of the GFG/Consortium to entrust a CSO platform/network to carry out country consultations.

The set of countries for consultations sponsored by the Open Forum will reflect a number of criteria agreed upon by the GFG to ensure a diversity of country contexts and CSO experiences. These criteria include:

  • countries with weak and strong CSO communities
  • countries with enabling and disabling government-CSO relationships
  • countries with strong and weak presence of international NGOs
  • countries with a diversity of political and economic contexts.

Country-level consultations are expected to take place over two days each. Where appropriate, consultations will include a third day for engaging multi-stakeholders on CSO development effectiveness and enabling conditions. Participation in consultations should be as broad-based and participatory as possible.

To prepare country level consultations, capacity building and other support will be provided via three means: (1) an Outreach Toolkit which includes definitions and sets out basic concepts and issues, as well as background to the Open Forum process and recommendations; (2) regional preparatory workshops providing country organisers with relevant skills and tools; and (3) provision of further support by GFG/Consortium members as appropriate.

Thematic Consultations: The Open Forum will also finance four international thematic consultations that will significantly enrich consensus-building on CSO development effectiveness. It was agreed by the GFG that the priority themes/sectors for these consultations will be:

  • trade unions
  • gender equality and women’s rights
  • social movements of the most marginalised (rural and landless populations, urban poor)
  • CSOs in situations of conflict

These consultations will be happening throught 2010 and 2011, and will be fed into the final Global Report and framework for CSO Development Effectiveness.