Civil
Society Strengthening
Program Overview
UNNGOF deliberately works with a solution-focused approach that is informed by an analysis of the future that citizens want. UNNGOF aims to create solutions in two intervention areas, a) Civil Society Strengthening and b) Influencing Development Policy and Practice. Two support functions of Results, Learning and Communication and Finance and Corporate Services complement these key intervention areas.
Towards the end of 2021, UNNGOF embarked on an HR Review whose processes and outcomes among other things culminated into the development of a new staff structure as well as the reconfiguration of the existing programme components and appointment of new component leads. These changes required a re-configuration within the new components and a re-arrangement of the key result areas, based on the Strategic Plan 2021 – 2025 aspirations and the individual work plans for the merged components.
Civil Society Strengthening and Philanthropy for Development were merged, and activities for both components, both in the work plans and the strategic plan were included, as well as the activities under different donor budgets that are resident under the two components.
Therefore, the new Component of Civil Society strengthening is a merger of all these activities and aspirations in line with our strategic direction. It is a representation of all endeavours for the new configuration, planned, funded or otherwise and incorporates the aspirations of the two founding components as laid out in the UNNGOF Strategic Plan 2021 – 2025.
Core Objective:
To strengthen NGO sector coordination and capacity to deliver on their mandate and to harness the power of local philanthropy and domestic resource mobilisation in fulfilling the development aspirations and interests of citizens and their organisations.
The Brief
The context within which NGOs operate today is quite dynamic and calls for agile and more adaptive institutions that can respond to the diverse needs of the constituencies they serve. This demand is however met with several institutional, programmatic, leadership and governance deficits. These deficits dissuade the health, legitimacy and relevance of the NGO sector.
Our new strategic outlook, therefore, aspires to build a healthy, legitimate, competent and sustainable NGO sector with the requisite skills and capacity to influence development and governance processes and safeguard citizens’ rights.
Our work will build on previous milestones and lessons to generate new knowledge and models of work and inspire innovation and shared learning.