New Support to Civil Society working on Open Governance
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Civil society is at the heart of open governance. Civil society can push to make government more open, can be a user of newly released government information, can work with government to implement reforms, and can hold governments to account when they don’t keep their promises.
This is central to the theories of change outlined in the Open Government Partnership’s 4 year strategy and by Making All Voices Count. Making All Voices Count was in part designed to support civil society organizations to play their full role in national OGP processes.
That’s why we are excited to announce a joint initiative to support civil society in their open governance work.
Countries of focus
We encourage civil society leaders in the following countries to apply for Making All Voices Count support:
Countries producing new OGP plans in 2016: |
Countries currently implementing OGP plans: |
Countries where civil society is campaigning for the government to join OGP: |
Indonesia |
Ghana |
Nigeria |
Kenya |
Liberia |
|
South Africa |
Philippines |
|
Tanzania |
What are we looking for?
Civil society organizations interested in applying should design proposals strongly rooted in the national context and the opportunities that the prevailing context offers. Proposals should include realistic assessments of the local political appetite for open governance reform and OGP, and projects should be designed based on that analysis. Making All Voices Count is open to considering a wide range of different activities, such as the following civil society activities:
- Campaign for OGP participation of your country;
- Strategically organize yourselves for effective OGP participation (playing a coordination role), including involving other organisations (e.g. women or youthRecognizing that investing in youth means investing in a better future, OGP participating governments are creating meaningful opportunities for youth to participate in government processes. Technical ... focused organisations) that would ordinarily not participate;
- Advocate for, set up and/or play a leadership role in OGP permanent dialogue mechanisms;
- Draft of shadow action plans with civil society priorities
- Organize campaigning activities to influence new OGP action plans;
- Support the implementation of commitments;
- Monitor the process and/or the quality and impact of the commitments (for example through participating in the NAP review tool project).
How to Apply
Interested organisations should send their concept notes/ideas to the respective Making All Voices Count team:
Indonesia – Ria Ernunsari on rernunsari@hivos.org
Kenya – Varyanne Sika on vsika@hivos.org
South Africa – Deborah Byrne on dbyrne@hivos.org
Ghana – Sachibu Mohammed on smohammed@hivos.org
Tanzania – Sanne van den Berg on svandenberg@hivos.org
Liberia – Sachibu Mohammed on smohammed@hivos.org
Philippines – Vivien Suerte-Cortez on vsuerte@hivos.org
Nigeria – Sachibu Mohammed on smohammed@hivos.org
Deadlines
Submitted ideas will be discussed with applicants over a 2 month period, and Country Engagement Developers will support applicants to turn their concepts into full proposals.
Applicants who put in their ideas before April 2016 will have a greater chance of being funded.
Applications that come beyond May 2016 will not be accepted.