Donor Coordination

Recognizing the growing role of civil society in the development agenda, the donor community has increasingly shifted its aid modalities towards more active support for CSOs and the development of civil society in general. Both the bilateral and multilateral intergovernmental donor agencies have engaged in programs that directly support CSOs or help create the enabling environment needed for the development of the CSO sector in the region.

In April 2004, a number of donor organisations attended a roundtable discussion on coordination of work and current trends in civil society development. The meeting, jointly convened by the UNDP and the World Bank and hosted by the European Commission and the King Baudouin Foundation in Brussels, was an important step in bringing together donor agencies and recognising their respective comparative advantages in supporting civic initiatives and strengthening social capital across the region.

In mid-2005, the European Commission pledged initial resources, as core funding, for a 3-year multi-donor information exchange mechanism and light coordination process to strengthen CSO sustainability across the region. In October 2005, a second roundtable meeting was held during which the representatives of private foundations, multilateral and bilateral donors as well as region-based think-tanks, apart from the substantive discussions on the role of CSOs in public advocacy and policy dialogue, continued earlier discussions on the mechanism and its implementation. At the meeting, consensus emerged on the need to launch a “donor exchange, coordination & information mechanism” (DECIM), to enhance the effectiveness of the concerned agencies in attaining their goals in the area of civil society development.

DECIM is a process aiming at including the CSO sustainability dimension in the donors’ programs. It informally associates, on a voluntary basis, private and public actors who hold financial resources, and/or expertise and analytical capacity, and actively support the development of civil society in the region, by working with civil society organizations and/or public sector entities that have an impact on civic space. The purpose of this process is fourfold:

• To share information on operational programs of the respective DECIM participants;
• To identify synergies and joint initiatives at country and sub regional level involving other actors of development including such partners as described above;
• To engage other agencies and development partners in policy discussion on civil society development across the region; and
• To embark on and support joint initiatives to accelerate civil society development where opportunities arise.