9 Ghanaian CBOs Set to Benefit from Local Fundraising and Advocacy Support
[Accra – 7 October 2022] – It is a new dawn for some nine civil society organisations in Ghana. The organisations will benefit from a three-year long capacity strengthening programme designed to harness their local fundraising and advocacy skills.
The programme is dubbed Strengthening the Roots and its interventions would involve capacity development, funding opportunities, organisational development, coaching, networking and credibility building.
The West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI) has presented a strategic roadmap for implementing the initiative to empower community-based organisations (CBOs) living in and around threatened areas in Ghana to effectively respond to the development needs of their communities.
Presenting the framework at an induction meeting for leaders of the CBOs and the programme partners in Accra, Charles Kojo Vandyck, Head of Capacity Development at WACSI underscored the Institute’s capacity strengthening approach in the areas of local fundraising and advocacy.
He explained that WACSI, which had over 15 years of experience in capacity strenthening in the civic space, would focus on enhancing the skills of CBOs to mobilise resources locally and influence policies at the national and sub-regional levels through the programme.
This, the capacity development expert said will be administered through the Change the Game Academy (CtGA) courses which is being supported by Wilde Ganzen Foundation.
Vandyck explained that the courses “are practical in approach and use hands-on methodologies to make it easy to learn and practise.”
He emphasised the impact the training had made on beneficiaries since it commenced in 2018. He noted many organisations who had participated in the courses had significantly improved their local fundraising efforts and were better positioned to drive development in their communities through local resource mobilisation.
It may be recalled that, recently, the Institute published a video on its Youtube channel where one of the beneficiaries, Mandela Adadjasah, a programmes coordinator for Women Integrated Development Organisation (WIDO) in the Upper West Region of Ghana, reported that through the course he had been able to help the organisation develop a local fundraising plan.
Adadjasah who particpated in the local fundraising training last year, said the plan would help raise GHC 12,000 for the acquisition of two processing plants to support the work of women groups involved in shea butter business in the region.
“ The training was practical and it helped us to develop local funding strategy which has been very benficial to our work,” he added.
The WACSI Head of Capacity Development said the Institute which is one of the lead implementing partners in Ghana along side A Rocha Ghana, is poised to drive the objectives of the programme.
On their part, Daryl Bosu, Deputy Director of Operations at A Rocha Ghana, said the organisation would primarily focus on enhancing the skills of CBOs in the areas of project management, media and video advocacy as well as monitoring, evaluation and learning.
He also noted that the programme would ceate an opportunity for civil society organisations to collaborate and tackle climate issues in the country adding that “climate issues require a collective action.”
“ The role of civil society in climate issues is such an important one. And that is why we deem it a great opportunity to lead this project with our strong counterpart, WACSI.
“Through this programme, we will be able to connect our skills and champion a grassroot movement that will help tackle climate issues,” Bosu added.
Nine leaders from CBOs drawn from the Northern, Eastern and Central regions of Ghana who live around the country’s forest reserves including the Atewa and Mole Landscapes attended the meeting which was held on Thursday 29 September 2022.
Some of the participants expressed excitement about the learning opportunities the programme would offer them.
Gloria Agyare, Programmes Officer for the Ghana Youth Environmental Movement (GYEM), noted that the three-year programme will create a learning opportunity for young people to improve their advocay skills and to better tackle climate issues.
She believes that, GYEM, being a youth-led environmental group in Ghana with focus on addressing climate issues through advocacy would benefit from this support and apply the learning in their work.
“This programme will be very helpful to us as young people who have interest in climate issues. We will be able to enhance our advocacy skills and also build our capacity in local fundraising through the trainings we will be receiving from WACSI and A Rocha Ghana,” she added.
The Strenghthening the Roots programme is supported by Wilde Ganzen Foundation, International Union for Conservation of Nature, Indonesian Conservation Community Warsi (KKI Warsi) and Fundacion Natura Bolivia.
For more information about this programme, contact info@wacsi.org
