Ghana Hosts CSO Conference on Alternative Funding Models
The existence and viability of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) are being threatened by the reduction in donor funding, Mr Charles Vandyck, Head, Capacity Development Unit, West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI), has observed.
Mr Vandyck, who was addressing participants at the opening of a meeting on alternative funding for CSOs in Accra on Monday, November 26, 2018, therefore, stressed the need for CSOs to position themselves to respond to the threat through adaptation, experimentation and the exploitation of alternative funding approaches and models.
He noted that CSOs depended heavily on external funding from the Global North to fund their activities in fighting poverty and to intervene in issues related to human rights, gender empowerment and youth development, education, health, good governance and social change, among others.
The threat posed by the reduction in donor funding, he said, had, therefore, called for a renewed interest in the discourse around the resourcing and financial sustainability of CSOs on the African continent.
About 40 participants from 25 CSOs from Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia are attending the three-day conference which is being organised by the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI) in partnership with Innovation for Change (I4C) Network.
The conference is being organised on the theme: Shared Learning Convening on Alternative Funding Models for Civil Society Organisations with the overall objective of sharing experiences on the non-traditional responses to resourcing their initiatives and organisations.
Specifically, the conference aimed to create a space for CSOs to learn and share best practices of mobilizing funding through non-traditional approaches; provide an opportunity for CSOs to strengthen their knowledge in financial sustainability and alternative funding mechanisms; strengthen the capacity of CSOs to apply various innovative tools to enhance their resourcing efforts, and to develop a guidebook on perspectives and best practices regarding alternative funding models.
Thirty-seven target beneficiaries from Tunisia, Algeria, Ethiopia South Africa, Burkina Faso, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Burundi, Namibia and Zambia are participating.
The others are Botswana, Morocco, Mauritania Nigeria Zimbabwe and Chad. And the others are Gabon, Togo, Ivory Coast, Uganda and Mozambique.
Source: G.D. Zaney, Esq. Government of Ghana, Information Services Department
