UNNGOF participates at the GfC Annual Reflection and Learning Meeting
From 13th – 18th August 2023, UNNGOF participated in the Giving for Change (GfC) annual reflection and learning meeting held in Kisumu City, Kenya. This year’s meeting brought together global partners from 8 nations, marking two and a half years since the GfC programme began.
The learning and reflection meeting not only provided us an opportunity to share our major milestones under our Philanthropy for Development Programme but also learning from other countries implementing the Giving for Change Programme.
The Civil Society Strengthening team had a hands-on experience with the KCDF’s community work that has enhanced citizens’ participation in development of their communities.
The team was inspired by the fascinating stories of the Okute Community Library initiative (local fundraising initiative), Ending SGBV Initiative by Nyalenda Young Turks CBO, Nyalenda Ward (Mobilising Support Initiative), and the Kisumu County Community of Practice (Community Philanthropy Initiative)
The field visits offered remarkable experience and insights into how to make locally-led development work, i.e CSOs ought to invest in practices and behaviors that earn them community trust, CSOs need to intentionally play a facilitative role while ensuring that communities are able to initiate and drive the change they want, CSOs need to intentionally build and strengthen a horizontal relationship between them and the community – this facilitates regular interaction and joint reflections.
The field visits also affirmed the power of community philanthropy in shifting the power because the communities are inspired to take charge of their own development.
As key takeaways from the week’s long learning and reflection meeting, UNNGOF will encourage communities of practice (CoPs) to widely share community philanthropy success stories, strengthen relations/synergies with community philanthropy enablers at community level to ignite local and national-level conversations on the value of community philanthropy on national development, and increase visibility of UNNGOF work around the Re-Imagining International NGOs (RINGO) prototype on language and lexicon.
“We need to encourage community-based storytelling for people to appreciate the value of community philanthropy to our country’s development. We will reflect with our Communities of Practice on how to make this a reality,” said Ms Sarah Pacutho, Team Leader Civil Society Strengthening – UNNGOF.
