2013 07-cef-sustaining-civil-society-advocacy processed

Funding change:Sustaining civil society advocacy in education

Front cover image:

Pupils in front of the enrolment table at Kosia Primary school, KenyaLiba Taylor/ ActionAid

Funding Change: Sustaining Civil Society Advocacy in Education

Table of contents

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Acknowledgements 2

Abbreviations 3

Funding Change: Foreword 4

Executive summary 6

1 Looking to the future of funding for civil society advocacy in education 9

1.1 Aims of the research 101.2 Methodology 10

2 Changing agendas, agendas for change 12

2.1 A short history of education advocacy 12

2.2 The space for civil society 14

2.3 Challenges for civil society 17

2.4 What is ‘good’ advocacy? 19

2.5 Capacity building: deficit, definition and determination 20

3 Global funding for education 22

3.1 The international framework 22

3.2 The changing nature of donor aid 23

3.3 Local Funds: from the shadows into the spotlight 26

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4 Learning from CEF and Local Funds 30

4.1 The Commonwealth Education Fund (CEF) 30

4.2 Local Funds 36

5 Is a national Civil Society Education Fund a good idea? 50

5.1 To fund (internationally) or not to fund? 50

5.2 Inter/national? 53

5.3 Fuelling the CSEF: sources of funds 54

5.4 Obtaining money 58

6 Establishing new Civil Society Education Funds 60

6.1 A standard model 60

6.2 Setting the agenda 61

6.3 The structure 63

6.4 A fair and open fund 68

6.5 Supporting the change 70

6.6 The road ahead 71

References 72

Interviewees 74

Questions to help in establishing national CSEFs 85

www.commonwealtheducationfund.org

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Acknowledgements

This report was written by Kathryn Tomlinsonand Ian Macpherson for the CommonwealthEducation Fund (CEF).

The research would not have been possiblewithout the assistance of a huge number ofpeople. Thanks of course are due to thehundreds of interviewees and focus-groupparticipants who gave of their time willingly,and gave of their thoughts candidly. Most arelisted at the end of this report; gratitude isdue to them and their anonymouscolleagues.

The UK research team particularly wishes to thank research colleagues across theCommonwealth globe: Sabbir Bin Shams,Malamin Ousman Sonko, William Ahadzie,Kiran Bhatty, Catherine Agg, Pulane Lefokaand Lipalesa Ntsinyi, Robert White, CatherineRemmelzwaal, Oyinlola Olaniyi, MasoodaBano, Nelson Clemens, Amarsiri De Silva,Honest Prosper Ngowi, Cliff Benard Nuwakoraand Mwenda Mumbuna. A 17-countryresearch project was never going to besimple, but their dedication, engagementand humour made the task easier.

CEF coordinators and their colleagues, acrossAfrica and Asia, have been invaluable in theirassistance in appointing and working withthe researchers. The project could not havetaken place without Mohammed MuntasimTanvir, Francis Vernuy, Nyakassi Jarju, ZakariaSulemana, Niraj Seth, Chris Marsden, WilliamMigwi, Palesa Mphohle, Grace Taulo, TomeEduardo, Andrew Mamedu, ShahjahanBaloch, Beatrice Karim-Sesay, JonathanSaffa, Samuel Bangura, Rohan Senarath,

Chandima Liyanagamage, Patrick Ngowi,Nickson Ogwal, Joan Larok and HendrinaDoroba. The research workshop in Nairobionly took place because Loice Odhiambo,Margaret Ronoh and Emily Lugano madesure that it did. Thank you.

The consistent and engaged support andguiding questions of the CEF UKmanagement committee has been muchappreciated; thanks to David Archer,Akanksha Marphatia, Sonya Ruparel, SheilaAikman, Amy North and Katy Webley. InLondon, the CEF UK team has providedfantastic support, companionship, coffee andlaughter, and, for most of the time, desks.Many thanks to Chike Anyanwu, Jill Hart,Montse Pejuan, Nimrod Nyakanyanga andOley Dibba-Wadda. Particular thanks are dueto Montse, without whom there would havebeen no country researchers recruited, novisas or researcher visits, no documents toread, and much, much else. She is due farmore than Kilimanjaro tea. Jessica Muirprovided invaluable assistance trawlingliterature databases, and Anna Marriottcompleted the UK research team in anengaged and utterly reliable way. Thank you both.

This report is dedicated to three importantpeople whose lives intersected with thisresearch: Beatrice Karim-Sesay, formerCEF coordinator in Sierra Leone, and JaffBrendan, our charismatic Cameroonresearcher, who sadly passed away, andLouis Macpherson, who came into the world during the same period. They remindus that there is more to life than fundingmechanisms.

ADEA Association for Development ofEducation in Africa

ANCEFA Africa Network Campaign on Education for All

CBO Community-based organisation

CEF Commonwealth Education Fund

CIDA Canadian International Development Agency

CSEF Civil Society Education Fund

CSO Civil society organisation

DANIDA Danish International Development Agency

DBS Direct budget support

DFID Department for International Development (UK)

EPDF Education Programme Development Fund

EFA Education for All

EU European Union

FAWE Forum for African Women Educationalists

Finnida Department for DevelopmentCooperation (Finland)

FBO Faith-based organisation

FCS The Foundation for Civil Society (Tanzania)

FTI Fast-Track Initiative

GBS General budget support

GCE Global Campaign for Education

IMF International Monetary Fund

INGO International non-governmentalorganisation

JICA Japan International Cooperation Agency

MC Management committee

MDBS Multi donor budget support

MDGs Millennium Development Goals

NGO Non-governmental organisation

NORAD Norwegian Agency for Development

OECD Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development

OVCs Orphans and vulnerable children

PRSP Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper

RWS Real World Strategies

SAP Structural Adjustment Policy

SBS Sector budget support

SDC Swiss Agency forDevelopment and Cooperation

SIDA Swedish International Development Agency

SWAp Sector-wide approach

UN United Nations

UNAIDS United Nations Project on HIV/AIDS

UNDP United Nations Development Programme

UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund


Abbreviations

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To achieve this requires a significant investment in thecapacity of civil society organisations (CSOs) workingin the education sector. CSOs need to develop newskills to engage in policy dialogue, to understandnational education budgets and to present a coherentvoice. There have been significant developments since2000, with the emergence of national educationcoalitions in many countries. These coalitions oftenlink a wide range of international, national and localnon-governmental organisations (NGOs), teachers’unions, parent groups, students, faith-basedorganisations (FBOs) and diverse social movements.But funding these coalitions and funding theirmembership to develop their capacity to engageactively in national processes is not easy.

Since 2002, the Commonwealth Education Fund(CEF) has supported civil society education advocacywork. This work was carried out in 16 low-incomeCommonwealth countries and was made possiblethrough a £12.6 million grant from the Department forInternational Development (DFID). CEF has been quiteunique in this regard, supporting as it does thecombination of coalition building, education budgetmonitoring and the channelling of learning into policydialogue. Much has been learnt over the past fiveyears and it is clear that this work needs to continue.

In 2006, CEF commissioned independent research to explore the ways in which its mission could besustained as the organisation itself comes to an end in 2008. Two lead researchers were recruited to manage independent researchers across the 16


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Funding change:Foreword

At the World Education Forum in Dakar in 2000, a commitmentwas made to the development of national education plans with the systematic and sustained involvement of civil society in theirdevelopment, monitoring and implementation. Increasingly,international donors are coordinating their aid behind sector-widenational education plans, through mechanisms such as the Fast-Track Initiative. This is clearly welcomed. However, too often thefocus of dialogue has been between Ministries of Education andconsortiums of donors, with little space for the activeengagement of civil society. Yet for national education plans tobe effective, they need to be owned and supported not just bythe government but by wider society, with national governmentsaccountable to their own citizens for the direction andeffectiveness of educational reforms.


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CEF countries and the UK. Collectively, this multi-country research team interviewed over 500 people,representing donors, governments, academia andCSOs. The research interviews were conducted incomplete confidentiality so that the researchers could gather the honest opinions of all involved.

The result is this report, Funding Change: SustainingCivil Society Advocacy in Education, which offers acomprehensive and rigorous analysis of the issuesand lays out a clear direction for the future. Theresearchers concluded that, where conditions areright, support to civil society education advocacy canbe best supported by national funds. The report pointstowards a clear gap in the international aid architectureand the need to create national Civil Society EducationFunds (CSEFs), registered in each country andmanaged by inter-agency boards with a small,independent secretariat. These national CSEFs wouldsupport CSOs to engage with and advocate to theirown governments on education policy, work thatproves difficult to fund through existing mechanisms.

The CEF welcomes the analysis andrecommendations laid out in this report. Movingtowards establishing national funds will take time andwill be a focus for CEF in its final 18 months. In thecoming months, CEF will develop a briefing paperabout CSEFs – summarising the learning from thisreport and laying out guidelines for how such fundscan be established in any country.

However, it is not for CEF alone to do this work.National CSEFs could and should be created beyondthe 16 countries that have been the focus of CEF.Many countries remain significantly off-track fromachieving the Education for All goals by 2015. Civilsociety mobilisation must be galvanised in everycountry to help get back on track. Funding this workrequires innovative approaches to funding that canreach beyond incumbent governments. CEF calls onCSOs committed to Education for All to join in thiswork – and calls on donors to support this process.

CEF Management Committee March 2007

The Commonwealth Education Fund and its research

The CEF works strategically with civil society in thoseCommonwealth countries that are most at risk ofmissing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) oneducation and gender. It aims to make education asustained domestic priority and to make public schoolswork effectively for all children. The work of CEF and itspartners is focused on coalition building, budgettracking and increasing access to education formarginalised children. CEF works in 16 countries inAfrica and Asia (Bangladesh, Cameroon, The Gambia,Ghana, India, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique,Nigeria, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Tanzania,Uganda and Zambia), with a Secretariat in the UK. It isjointly managed by ActionAid, Oxfam GB and Save theChildren UK, and funded by DFID.

Changing agendas for civil society

The past decade has witnessed the rise of internationalcivil society advocacy in education, particularly with theestablishment of the Global Campaign for Education

(GCE), the events surrounding the Dakar WorldEducation Forum in 2000, and the Education for All(EFA) targets and MDGs. These provide standardsagainst which governments can be held to accountand hence work as frameworks within which civilsociety can advocate to government for bettereducation.

Donors, international non-governmental organisations(INGOs) and civil society organisations (CSOs) agreethat CSOs should be involved in policy processes andmonitoring government implementation. While theseactors saw some small role for CSOs’ continuedprovision of services in hard-to-reach areas, this wasseen by southern government interviewees as themain role for CSOs. This points to one of the manychallenges for CSOs engaged in advocacy: the limitedwill of governments to engage with them. In thiscontext, advocacy is seen to include both socialadvocacy (mobilising people) with the ultimate aim ofpolicy advocacy (to achieve changes in policy andpractice). Such ‘advocacy’ (including monitoring,networking, budget tracking, research) requires good


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Executive summary

Education is often spoken of as a political priority at internationaland national levels. Civil society advocacy strives to ensure thatthese education promises are fulfilled on the ground. However,this advocacy work receives limited and unpredictable funding.The Commonwealth Education Fund (CEF), the onlyinternational fund focused solely on supporting advocacy ineducation, commissioned this research to identify nationallyappropriate ways to maintain support for such work after the CEFitself comes to an end in 2008. Twenty researchersundertook the research across 16 CEF countries and theUK, together interviewing 529 people. This report and acompanion publication, focused on building and supporting civilsociety coalitions, are the result of this research.

evidence, and the organisations that undertakeadvocacy need support to develop their proposalwriting, financial management, networking andresearch skills.

Global funding for education

Significant developments in the international fundingregime affect the funding available for civil societyengagement in education advocacy. In particular,bilateral donors are increasingly using lump sumsupport to recipient governments in the form ofdirect budget support (DBS). DBS has grown in the context of increasing donor harmonisation,recognition of the need to reduce conditionality ofaid, and for increased financial support for progresstowards the MDGs.

The changing role of CSOs, associated with a view of the state as duty-bearer for provision of education to its citizens, has affected how donors support civilsociety. Social Funds and Challenge Funds wereintended by donors to act as a counterbalance to the weight of funding channelled to governments, by encouraging local CSOs to set the agenda forwork with poor and vulnerable groups. However, there is limited evidence of success of these funds in achieving these aims. As successors to these, Local Funds are nationally based fundingmechanisms intended to stimulate partnerships fordevelopment. It is in the form of Local Funds thatthere is potential for taking forward indirect donorsupport for civil society advocacy in education.

Learning from Local Funds

Thirteen Local Funds planned or in operation acrossAfrica and Asia were documented and analysedduring the research. These include Local Fundsmanaged by local CSOs and coalitions, hosted byINGOs, run by private sector or governmentrepresentatives, and three that are or will beindependently run. Some – including Manusher Jonno(Bangladesh) and the Foundation for Civil Society(Tanzania) – are already well known, but the majorityhave had limited international exposure. All providelessons for consideration when establishing a CivilSociety Education Fund (CSEF), including suggestions to:

• avoid dominance by one member through amulti-stakeholder board and independentimplementing agency

• use donor requirements to assist in accountabilitybut to harmonise reporting mechanisms todonors

• separate financial management, administrationand grant approval functions to encourageimpartiality, and consider using the private sectorto supply some of these functions

• provide capacity building to improve potentialpartners’ advocacy.

Also of value in developing future models is the vastexperience of CEF, to date the only international fundsolely supporting civil society advocacy in education.CEF experience suggests it is important that suchfunds have sufficient staff to support careful grantmanagement and to be aware of the challenges ofdomination by host agencies. There is widespreadsupport for collaboratively managed funds that provideboth grants and capacity building to CSOsundertaking education advocacy.


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Teacher in classroom with pupils in Bangladesh.

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The case for a Civil Society Education Fund

The research recognises that the money availablefor national CSEFs will be international insource, as there is insufficient commitment of privateand national money to such a fund. But internationalfunding has weaknesses, including the reproductionof inequality by southern organisations’ reliance onnorthern donors, the distortion of an organisation’spurpose and the limitation such funds place on whomthe recipient may critique. It is noted that nationalcontext varies. For example, in south Asia there isconsiderably more reluctance to use foreign fundingthan in countries in Africa with a history of donordependency.

But the reality is that northern governments financesouthern development and, consequently, that thereare recipient country expectations of that money.There is also the undeniable need for funding in orderto continue civil society’s advocacy work in education.Any fund must negotiate delicate power dynamics,including potential domination by national elites; CSOsand INGOs are not immune to such struggles. Anynew fund will need a structure that is able to manageand control these dynamics to ensure the fundoperates as transparently as possible.

Many bilateral donors are generally supportiveof the idea of national CSEFs as long as they aretransparent, accountable and have sound financialmanagement. It is clear that bilateral funding is nowmore accessible at country level rather than at anorganisation’s headquarters, which supports the viewthat national funds are now more desirable than aninternationally managed model. Multilateral donors,INGOs and southern governments seem lessenthusiastic or able to support CSEFs financially, butfoundations may be a potential source of money. Theprivate sector may be interested, but without tangibleoutcomes such support should not be assumed.

In addition to applications for in-country donorcontributions, mechanisms for obtaining andmanaging money could include the establishmentof an endowment fund. A mechanism could also beestablished so that, whenever donors coordinatefunding to support a government education sectorplan, an additional 3% would be triggered to supportcivil society advocacy and monitoring work, to bemanaged through the CSEF. These and other optionsrequire further national and international investigation,and there remains a need to promote the conceptand establishment of CSEFs internationally. This role might be filled by collaboration between CEFand GCE.

A model Civil Society Education Fund

All funds have an agenda, and any fund that focuseson advocacy is to some extent drawing on a northern,donor-related agenda. Yet it is vital for the content anddetails of the agenda of any new fund to be set byin-country stakeholders who are most engaged indeveloping civil society education advocacy. Acommon structure for national CSEFs isrecommended, on the basis that the concept haswidespread approval across the research areas (Africa,Asia, Europe and the USA). Moreover, the countries inwhich CSEFs might be established operate in thesame global context of Poverty Reduction StrategyPapers (PRSPs), EFA targets and MDGs. Additionally,the same donors might contribute to such fundsinternationally, with similar requirements across the globe.

The research thus recommends a model designed to fulfil the essential criteria of accountability,transparency and accessibility. A CSEF should providegrants and capacity building to civil societyorganisations engaged in education advocacy.The organisation should consist of a board and animplementing agency. The implementing agencyshould be responsible for three units, namelyfinancial management, capacity building andevaluation. Any or all of these units may be sub-contracted; the implementing agency should retain acore staff consisting of a director, administrator andproject officer(s). The board must be multi-agency,constituted of people who both give to and gain from (non-financially) its operation, with a formalisedrelationship to government. The fund should, ideally,be located outside of any other organisation. The fundshould provide varying sizes of grants, smallerones to be approved by the implementing agency,and larger ones by the board.

The road ahead

There is both a need and widespread support for theestablishment of national CSEFs. These funds wouldassist CSOs to continue their important advocacy workbut also provide donors with a nationally ownedmechanism to support the developing relationshipsbetween governments and civil society in advancingalong the road to education for all. Establishing suchfunds must be a nationally owned process, andalthough the task might be complicated, their creationis likely to be highly instrumental in sustaining civilsociety advocacy in education.


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1 Looking to the future offunding for civil societyadvocacy in education

This research was commissioned by the CommonwealthEducation Fund (CEF) in order to identify nationally appropriatemechanisms for sustaining support to civil society funds workingon education advocacy.

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CEF was launched in 2002, and operates in 16Commonwealth countries in Africa and Asia, with aSecretariat in the UK. Jointly managed by ActionAid,Oxfam GB and Save the Children UK, CEF aims tocreate a social and political environment in whicheducation becomes the number one national priorityfor developing nations, by:

• strengthening broad-based and democraticallyrun national education coalitions that have activemembership across the country and caneffectively channel grassroots voices andexperiences in influencing national level policyand practice

• ensuring that financing for education is sufficientto make public schools work for all girls and boys,and that government budgets are effectivelytargeted and reach where they are most needed

• supporting evidence-based influencing of policyrooted in innovative work that has succeeded ingetting excluded children, particularly girls, intopublic schools.

CEF’s country-level work will come to an end by June2008. However, CEF in general, and the CEF UKManagement Committee in particular, are committedto sustaining collaborative support for civil society andnational coalitions working on advocacy, campaigningand strategic monitoring of education. CEF began itsprocess of planning for sustainability in April 2004,

when a discussion document on sustainability optionswas circulated to all CEF country groups for commentand development (CEF UK, 2004a). CEF’s Global Mid-term Review resulted in a proposal to DFID to expandthe CEF model to benefit other countries likely to facedifficulties in achieving the MDGs, particularly inFrancophone and non-Commonwealth Africa, Asia,Latin America and the Caribbean (CEF UK, 2005b and2005c). Although the planned expansion was notapproved at this time, the interest in disseminating thebenefits of this model of funding contributed to CEF’sdecision to appoint an independent research team toidentify possible ways to build on the achievements ofCEF and its partners after 2008.

This research was therefore initiated to identifyappropriate national solutions for each CEF country inorder to sustain the good work that has been done,and plan for the remaining 18 months of CEF’s in-country operation, so that civil society and nationaleducation coalitions continue to work and grow. Thesenational solutions need to be based on a soundunderstanding of the history and nature of education,civil society and coalitions as well as the wider contextin each country, while making use of learning fromother country contexts. They also require anunderstanding of views from donors and otherstakeholders on the potential for more strategicsupport to civil society and coalitions, and informationabout the technical requirements for establishing asustainable funding mechanism. Additionally, CEF

recognised that there was a need to document theexperience of CEF and its partners regarding theprocess of coalition building, in order to share thislearning internationally.

1.1 Aims of the research

The overall aims of the research project were therefore to:

• document the process of coalition building andthe experience and impact of coalitions in theeducation sector, to understand the strengthsand weaknesses of different approaches in orderto provide insights that can guide future practice

• identify sustainable ways to channel coordinatedfunding into strategic civil society work oneducation in each CEF country, and consolidateinternational learning about the most effectivestructures and governance for collaborativesupport for strategic civil society work oneducation.

This report examines ways to sustain funding forCSOs engaged in education advocacy, in part bydrawing on the collaborative experience of CEF. Theexperience of coalition building is discussed in moredetail in the companion report.1

1.2 Methodology

The research was carried out by a team of 20researchers, 17 of whom were based inCommonwealth countries in which CEF has an office,2

and three in the UK. The CEF country researcherswere contracted from June to September 2006 toundertake interviews on all aspects of the research,and to write a report specifically on Sustaining fundingfor civil society advocacy in education in their country.

The majority of the data on which this and the countryreports are based are drawn from semi-structuredinterviews and focus group discussions in the CEFcountries, as well as in the UK and elsewhere inEurope, USA and a small number of other non-CEFcountries. In total 529 individuals were interviewed orparticipated in focus group discussions. These include:

• 90 coalition or network staff or representatives

• 89 national or local CSOs – many of the CSOrepresentatives were members of their nationalcoalition

• 30 CEF staff – the research team sought tointerview all CEF staff, including coordinators,accountants, administrators and project officers

• 92 INGO staff – of these, 60 were from the threeCEF agencies (ActionAid, Oxfam GB and Savethe Children)

• 90 donor representatives (49 bilateral, 16multilateral and 25 Foundation or Fund staff) – in-country researchers struggled to meet withbilateral or multilateral donor representatives,largely because the data collection periodstraddled August, a significant time of leave for expatriate staff


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1 Tomlinson, K. and Macpherson, I. (2007) Driving the Bus: the Journey ofNational Education Coalitions. London: Commonwealth Education Fund.

2 Although CEF operates in 16 countries, two researchers worked in Lesotho.

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• 43 private sector representatives – this figureincludes national bank officials, private fundmanagement companies and a range of othercommercial organisations with someengagement in education sector support

• 37 international organisation staff – all but twofrom United Nations agencies

• 32 government officials and Members ofParliament

• 27 academics and other researchers.

In CEF countries, most interviews were carried outface-to-face with the interviewee, while the UK teamcarried out the majority of its 73 interviews bytelephone. All interviews were carried out inconfidence: the data was only made available to theresearch team, and, apart from inclusion in a list ofinterviewees, respondents’ identities would beconcealed in all resulting research reports. Wherepossible, the researchers observed CEF managementcommittee meetings and interactions between CEFand coalition members.

It had been planned that each country researcherwould facilitate at least two focus group discussionswith key stakeholders in their country, ideally with thenational education coalition and with representativesfrom the donor community. Fifteen focus groupdiscussions were held, but it was very difficult for theresearchers to even meet with donors, let alone gatherseveral together for a discussion. In hindsight, theresearch team felt that it would be more valuable forCEF to organise such discussions after the researchhas been published, in order to disseminate theresults and to begin eliciting support for theestablishment of national funds.

All researchers also drew on published literature and unpublished documentation (often provided by interviewees). A UK researcher spent seven dayssearching databases including ASSIA, BLDS, BRIDGE,Eldis, ERIC, Id21, International Bibliography of SocialSciences, JSTOR, ODI catalogue, ParticipationReading Room, Science Direct, Social ScienceInformation Gateway and Web of Knowledge, as wellas searching the internet using Google. Approximately

60 relevant items were identified, 40 obtained and 20read. In addition, the UK research team also had fullaccess to CEF documentation, which was used inboth the development of the research plan and inwriting this report.

To support the research process, the UK researchteam sent a questionnaire to all CEF coordinators inearly July 2006, primarily to gather the contact detailsof key stakeholders for use by the country researchers.The full research team gathered in Nairobi, Kenya, atthe end of July, for a workshop to clarify the researchobjectives and to finalise the research instruments. UKresearchers also undertook short visits to Bangladesh,Ghana, India, Tanzania and Zambia, in part to supportthe country researchers, but primarily to experiencethe differing national contexts in which CEF operates.Country researchers were in regular contact with thecoordinating UK research team throughout theresearch period, through progress reports andtelephone calls. They sent interviewee data to the UK research teams and submitted their reports inSeptember. This report draws heavily on both these data and reports.

It should be noted that, because the research hasbeen carried out from the UK and in Commonwealthcountries, looking at a model of funding instigated byDFID, which is managed by three major British INGOs,many of the interviewees work within a particular andBritish-based perspective on development. Thus theviews of INGOs and donors cannot be taken torepresent those of the whole sector, but those of aparticular persuasion operating in the countries whereCEF works. Similarly, the national CSOs interviewedwere for the most part CEF partners, and hence, bydefinition, working in advocacy (rather than, or inaddition to, service delivery). Their views also cannotbe taken as representative of all CSOs in the countries concerned.

This report first examines the international educationadvocacy and funding contexts in which CSOs work. It then looks at models for funding such work, and theneed for structured funds, before recommending amodel for sustaining funding at national level for civilsociety advocacy in education.


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In 1998 ActionAid launched ‘Elimu’, a campaign tostrengthen the voices of poor people in educationdecision-making at all levels, particularly byencouraging community participation in managementof schools and involvement with the district educationauthorities. Elimu was motivated by experiences inKenya and India, where civil society coalitions andalliances built campaigns that focused on nationalpriorities, bringing together diverse civil society actors.


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2 Changing agendas,agendas for change

The right of all persons to education was established when theconcept of free and compulsory education was proclaimed by theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Forty years later,in 1990, international discussions in Jomtien, Thailand, led to theestablishment of the Education for All (EFA) targets,3 with acommitment to greater access, equity and quality in basiceducation, and to mobilise resources to enable this to happen.The importance of education in promoting social equity andassuring poverty reduction was further addressed at a number ofinternational conferences that followed the Jomtien initiative,particularly in Dakar at the World Education Forum in 2000 andwith the development of the Millennium Development Goals(MDGs) in the same year (OECD, 2006). The significance of theEFA targets and MDGs is that nearly all southern countries signedup to these mandates, and in so doing committed themselves toworking towards them. It is therefore within this context thatnational advocacy in education takes place, within the sphere ofentitlements by virtue of government sanction.

2.1 A short history of education advocacy

During the 1990s, evidence suggested that southerngovernments developed education policies inresponse to donor influence exerted throughconditionalities of aid and, significantly, that civilsociety had little or no input into the policy process asthey had no ‘voice’. Members of this INGO community‘came to see this democratic deficit in education asthe fundamental root of all the other problems ofaccess, quality and equity, which we had struggledwith over the years’ (Archer and Anyanwu, 2005, p. 4).

3 UNESCO (2006)

In 1999 Oxfam International launched the ‘EducationNow’ campaign, which centred on the impact ofstructural adjustments and debt repayments oneducation provision and quality. The campaignchallenged governments and donors to honour thecommitments they had made in Jomtien throughglobal policy analysis and lobbying (Murphy andMundy, 2002, p. 3). Linked with the highly visibleJubilee 2000 campaign on debt relief, Oxfam GBapproached senior officials in the UN and at the WorldBank and secured them a position on the EFASteering Committee in 1999. At the same timeEducation International – the global federation ofteachers’ unions – launched a campaign called‘Quality Public Education for All’, which aimed tochallenge the neo-liberal agenda and the creepingprivatisation of education. Simultaneously the GlobalMarch against Child Labour, a southern-basedalliance, came to view education as the most effectiveway of ending child labour.

A meeting between these four 4 key organisations andothers5 in 1999 led to the creation of the GlobalCampaign for Education (GCE). GCE was initiallyconceived as a short-term campaign to achieverecognition of the global education crisis, and to putpressure on the global community to provide theresources and to implement reforms needed toachieve education for all.6 A core statement andagenda was agreed that brought together the diverseexperiences of those involved. GCE undertook a rangeof advocacy activities in the run up to the 2000 WorldEducation Forum in Dakar to garner support for theGlobal Plan of Action and civil society’s involvement inits development, including convening a regionalAfrican conference on EFA in South Africa inDecember 1999 and arranging the first Global Weekof Action in April 2000 to raise awareness and supportfor EFA. GCE representatives from India, Senegal,

Brazil and the UK were elected to the draftingcommittee of the official conference and thecommittee to determine future EFA structures.

More than 300 NGOs attended the World EducationForum in Dakar. While there were considerabletensions between NGOs, GCE gained the support ofmost and ‘became the de facto representative of theNGO position’ (Murphy and Mundy, 2002, p. 6),securing meetings with key international actors in theUN and at the World Bank. The impact wasconsiderable; the GCE positions led to ‘clear andsubstantial changes’ to initial drafts of the Dakarframework (Archer and Anyanwu, 2005, p. 5).

After Dakar: education advocacy through coalitions

Following its success at Dakar, the GCE continued to expand its campaign in pressing G7 governmentsand international development organisations forbetter funding and coordination whilst stimulating civil society participation in national EFA policy work.However, there was criticism that northern INGOswere over-represented. GCE then realigned itself toprovide a balance between northern and southernvoices, NGOs and unions. Partly in response to thedomination of the northern voice, the African NetworkCampaign on Education for All (ANCEFA) was born,developed from and strengthening existing nationalcoalitions including TEN/MET (Tanzania), GNECC(Ghana), Elimu Yetu (Kenya), CSACEFA (Nigeria),MEPT (Mozambique) and FENU (Uganda). In Asiasome national networks working on EFA campaigns,particularly the Campaign for Popular Education(CAMPE) in Bangladesh and the Education Network in Nepal, achieved prominent success in basic education.

Additionally, UNESCO’s Collective Consultation onNGOs in EFA body underwent reform in 2001 andtook a ‘more formalised role in Dakar follow-upactivities, and began to take on the task of supportingcivil society involvement in the forming andmonitoring of national education plans’ (Murphy andMundy, 2002, p. 8). At the same time, major INGOsand other education actors in the USA formed theBasic Education Coalition to press the US governmentto increase its funding to EFA and to participate in


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4 ActionAid, Oxfam International, Education International and Global Marchagainst Child Labour.

5 South African NGO Coalition, the Campaign for Popular Education(CAMPE) in Bangladesh, and the Brazilian National Campaign for the Right to Education.

6 Archer and Anyanwu (2005, p. 5), Jouen qtd. in Human Rights Education(1999)

international EFA schemes. Coordinated INGOpressure, itself instrumental in influencing UNESCOand the World Bank, resulted in the request for abackground paper for the 2002 G8 meeting. Theoutcome was a G8 declaration on EFA and high levelpolitical support for EFA.

Certainly this global movement has been massivelyinfluential in pushing education up the globaldevelopment agenda and national political agendas.But global level action is no panacea for national levelaction, and international conventions such as EFAneed to be articulated in context by national civilsociety. Positive donor and government rhetoric onCSO advocacy on education is not always supportedby funds to carry out this work.

2.2 The space for civil society

‘Civil society’ means different things in differentcontexts. In Bangladesh, for example, researchrespondents felt civil society is synonymous withNGOs only. Yet there is consensus throughout theresearch data that civil society is a broader term thatrefers not only to NGOs with a developmental focusbut encapsulates local community-basedorganisations (CBOs) such as parent–teacherassociations, academics, professional associations(including unions), student associations, researchinstitutions, faith-based organisations (FBOs),charitable organisations and the media. Civil society

therefore ‘commonlyembraces a diversity ofspaces, actors andinstitutional forms, varying intheir degree of formality,autonomy and power (Centrefor Civil Society, 2004) anddenotes ‘the arena outsidethe family, the state, and themarket where peopleassociate to advancecommon interests’ (INGOdirector).7 This broad plethoraof organisations and groupsis seen as an intrinsic part ofan active, functioning society:

the milieu of non-state action,although the activities of civil

society are regulated and controlled by agovernment’s authority. However, a government’sauthority is itself affected by the agendas ofinternational organisations. This section thereforeexamines both how international actors shape theroles of national governments, and the space availableto civil society in these interactions.

International actors’ prescription of the roles of national actors

In order to understand the role of civil society, it isnecessary to recognise the influence that theinternational development community has played inshaping this role. Whilst cross-pollination of ideas hasoccurred between different organisations at theinternational level, for the purposes of this expositionthey are split into the donor community on the onehand,8 and INGOs on the other. From the mid-1980sto 1995, the World Bank and International MonetaryFund (IMF) imposed Structural Adjustment Policies(SAPs) as a conditionality of aid, significantly


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7 Although some commentators include the private sector in civil society, this report does not.

8 This incorporates bilateral donors (government agencies funding othercountries directly), and multilateral donors (including World Bank, IMF, EUand UN agencies) that manage collective funds provided by governments.

Pupils studying in Government school underneath a cyclone shelter, Char Kukri Mukri, Bangladesh.

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influencing the national plans of recipientgovernments. As a consequence of these policiesthere were large cuts to government spending ineducation – and other social service sectors – with aresultant drop in both access and quality of educationfor the poor and marginalised. In this context NGOs atthe international and national levels engaged in ‘gapfilling’: delivering education services where thegovernment was either unable or unwilling to do so.INGOs spent considerable resources not onlydelivering services themselves, but encouraging and supporting national organisations to do likewise.Similarly, bilateral donors channelled significantresources into national and international NGOsengaged in service delivery, often seeing them asmore responsive and effective providers than the state.

SAPs were succeeded in 1999 by Poverty ReductionStrategy Papers (PRSPs), strategies of reform that ‘setout a country's macroeconomic, structural and socialpolicies to promote growth and reduce poverty’(Bretton Woods, 2006). PRSPs, also imposed asconditionalities of aid, aimed to be ‘participatoryprocesses involving domestic stakeholders as well asexternal development partners, including the WorldBank and International Monetary Fund’ (IMF, 2006).Under PRSPs, national governments are encouragedto involve civil society in policy formation andimplementation to promote national ownership ofsolutions to poverty that recognise the complexity ofpoverty and the diversity of organisations involved indevelopment. Yet as conditions of aid, PRSPseffectively force governments to open their doors tocivil society, which presents a major shift in the waythat government and civil society had previouslyengaged. Bilateral donors who also follow the PRSPformat therefore exert irresistible pressure forgovernments to engage with civil society. In this way,the political space in many contexts was thereforeinvited by governments – through donor pressure –rather than being created by civil society. This processsignificantly shaped the role of civil society, and ledthe director of an international organisation to describeAfrican civil society as a ‘modern sector creation’.However, it is important to acknowledge theconsiderable critique of PRSPs; that in fact they

narrowly limit the amount of civil society policyconsultation space by excluding CSO–governmentdiscussion on issues such as industrial, trade andfiscal policy, privatisation and financial liberalisation aswell as domestic investment and land reform issues.ActionAid (2004) argues that the way PRSPs arestructured excludes CSOs because the IMFdetermines the macroeconomic policies – through thePoverty Reduction and Growth Facility – which in turnallocates government budgets even before the PRSPprocess begins. CSO participation in such debates istherefore excluded. Consequently, ActionAid arguesthat CSOs should consider ‘whether participation inother CSO-led public formats might be a more usefulstrategy for advocating alternative developmentpolicies and mobilising domestic support for them’(ActionAid, 2004, p. 2). Thus while donors view PRSPsas opening up the political space for civil society,other observers feel this is not the case and that civilsociety has to actively create the political space itoccupies.

Since 2000, the perspective of many INGOs has alsoshifted from service delivery to a rights-basedapproach. Previously many INGOs were engaged indelivering education services by working with andthrough southern organisations, most notably in theareas of non-formal education as a response to poorand ineffective state services. However, there hasbeen a shift to view the state as the ‘duty-bearer’ forsocial services and citizens as ‘right-holders’ withentitlements to these services. The role of citizens wastherefore to articulate and secure their entitlement tothis right. This is an instance of INGO–donor cross-pollination, because, since 2000, DFID has also beenarticulating a rights-based approach. Consequently,given these shifts at the international level, the role ofcivil society in education depends on whose viewpointis solicited.

The role of civil society

Government9 respondents to the CEF researchoverwhelmingly claimed that, because of their limitedcapacity, civil society needed to assist in delivery of


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9 Recipient rather than donor governments.

education services, particularly in remote areas and tomarginalised groups. This was partly because‘education is a shared responsibility’, partly becauseof the proximity of civil society to local communities,but also because civil society can innovate andrespond quickly to local situations. And despite theostensive participation of civil society in the PRSP, onlytwo of the 31 government individuals interviewedclaimed that civil society has a role in policy formation,that ‘we need civil society to push for certain issues’.10

Similarly, only one government respondentcommented that civil society had a role to act as acheck on the government:

“I feel there is a great need for advocacy workby civil society groups. There is so muchcorruption in the state system. If the governmentwas working efficiently and all the resources werebeing put to their right use, we won’t have thecurrent education problems. There is immenseneed to check the government, and the advocacywork is very important for this.”

The general government perception was in markedcontrast to the views of multilateral and bilateraldonors, as well as INGOs, NGOs and CSOs. Theyclaimed that, while civil society did have a limited rolein service delivery – that ‘only in special cases shouldCSOs be service providers, such as with children withdisabilities’ (CSO in Malawi) – the roles of civil societywere broader and intrinsic to democratic educationalplanning and transparent management at the nationallevel. Specifically, two major roles were outlined thathinged on engagement with the state, acting as awatchdog to the government and participating in thepolicy process.

Due to the general move towards decentralisation,donors saw strong roles for civil society in monitoringthe government through a variety of activities,including budget tracking. In a similar vein, a CSOmember from Cameroon viewed their role as a‘watchdog and pressure group to the government’,acting as the mouthpiece of those who were notcatered for in government provision. Monitoring

government spending was cited by NGO officers inNigeria, Cameroon, Bangladesh and Lesotho and, inthis way, not only did civil society aim to ensure thatmoney allocated was spent in education but also thatthe budget was increased in certain areas, and thattransparency in the government was nurtured. Anotherfacet of the watchdog role was explained by a bilateraldonor:

“In the context of direct budget support,11 civilsociety has to be more aware of their role becausedonors are now less involved with national plansas well as being less involved with civil society.Therefore civil society has to participate more inthe exchange with multi- and bilateral partners andorganisations. So civil society provides informationnot only to governments but to donors as well asthe other way around – taking information down to the community level.”

In addition, a further watchdog role for civil society wasidentifying gaps in the quality of government provision,‘blowing the whistle on the government and makingsure that government and their institutions live up totheir responsibilities towards achieving qualitativeeducation’ (NGO director). Succinctly put by onedonor, ‘civil society tempers governments to be morerelevant to what a particular province or district needs.Civil society is therefore critical in ensuring therelevance of education’.

Overwhelmingly, however, donors, INGOs, NGOs andCSOs saw that ‘it is the job of civil society to askdifficult questions of the government, to disagree withpolicy’. Yet as one donor representative explained, ‘It’snot just about strengthening the voice of civil societyto be audible, it’s about having a more informed andintelligent voice… through evidence-based researchso that education matters can be presented in aninformed manner which is most likely to have impact’.There are two elements to this. On the one hand this


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10 This implies that the engagement of civil society with government is, asper ActionAid (2004) often tokenistic.

11 Direct budget support (DBS) is discussed in Chapter 3.

involves sensitisation of the community to EFA andMDGs – ‘conscientising society about EFA’ (CSOMalawi) – and, on the other, working with the state tobe involved in the policy planning process. Civilsociety therefore links what happens at the micro-level to the meso- and macro- levels, and is not solelyabout civil society ‘using their new found voice to justcomplain louder against government but rather to becomplementary in their approach’ (INGO Tanzania). Asa representative of an international coalitionsuggested:

“Civil society is the local eyes and the ears thatwatch how national and international policies aretranslated into practice; civil society is like theintelligence service feeding information back upfrom the ground. Civil society has a massive depthof information; they are able to make investigationsinto corruption and transparency issues, loads ofdifferent issues… They are really good at collatingevidence, reporting and being part of a feedbackloop and they can be conduits of informationflowing both ways – from the government to thecommunity and the community to thegovernment.”

In Nigeria and Cameroon, CSO members stated that,whilst civil society cannot make policy, it can addvalue to the formation of policy by analysing theproblems of society, identifying gaps in provision,articulating the needs of society and providingalternative solutions, as well as monitoring andevaluating the implementation of policy. This was alsocaptured by a Bangladeshi NGO director who statedthat, ‘civil society needs to challenge the downwardsfiltration policy of offering a minimal level of educationfor the general mass’ by ‘acting as a trailblazer topopularise the agenda of education quality’. As adonor in The Gambia argued, ‘without the engagementof civil society in education, not much can happen.With DBS and SWAps, the involvement of civil societyis absolutely necessary’.

Therefore, whilst government respondents view therole of civil society as focused on service delivery, inthe eyes of donors, INGOs, NGOs and CSOs the rolesfor civil society are perceived as three-fold:

• qualified service delivery to particular areas andsectors of society that are not reached by thegovernment

• acting as a watchdog to the government (througha variety of means and functions such as budgettracking, community mouthpiece and whistleblower)

• participation in the policy process (throughevidence-based research, communitysensitisation, information conduits and articulatorsof community issues).

These roles are associated with changing perceptionsabout the role of the state, from seeing the market asthe driver of development (under SAPs) to viewing thestate as the duty-bearer of development and,correlated to this, civil society as the regulator of thestate, comprised of citizens with entitlements to rights.Yet these roles are considerable and require bothskills and resources, which the following sectionexamines.

2.3 Challenges for civil society

The primary role for civil society – as assigned by allrespondents other than government – is advocacythrough monitoring and policy engagement. Yet thereare two significant problems with this. First is that theadvocacy role is often donor-imposed. Second is thatmany CSOs lack ‘capacity’ to engage in advocacy andmany are unable to establish micro–macro linkages bytranslating grassroots reality into policy advocacyagendas. More specifically, ‘many do not even havethe capacity for programme development and writingproposals that can attract funding’ (CSO member),lacking skills in financial management, managerialprocesses and physical resources. Thus there is,according to an INGO representative, a ‘dearth ofcapacity for both advocacy and budget tracking’.

Yet beyond technical skills and resources that canprevent CSOs from travelling to conferences ormeeting the government, a significant part of theability to articulate needs rests on knowledge, as agovernment representative in The Gambia explained:


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“Civil society… is far from what we expect it to be doing. They are supposed to be remindingnational governments of their commitments andtrack[ing] their adherence to those commitmentsand keep[ing] them on their toes. They do not have enough capacity to do that. They must know government policy direction, actual policystatements and content. They must be able totrack policy implementation and produce empiricalevidence of deviation. They should also be able to know what international protocols andcommitments that national governments havesigned up to so as to hold them accountable. They cannot challenge me on any of the above.”

The statement indicates how many CSOs lackknowledge of how to access relevant information,skills in research, networking skills and confidence toengage with the government. More basically, abilateral donor was of the opinion that CSOs ‘don’treally understand what advocacy is about andtherefore restrict their activities to service delivery’. Inaddition, many INGOs and NGOs noted a ‘lack of

coordination betweennational level policyadvocacy organisationsand grassrootsorganisations’, with theresult that ‘independentCSOs fail just becausethey act on issues withouthaving any national levelconsensus: one effort byone CSO is dilutinganother’s effort’. Yet lack ofcoordination is not solelydue to poorcommunication andinsufficient networkingskills, but also because‘there can be a great dealof competition betweenNGOs, especially forfunding. So you find thatthey are not always willingto share with others’(bilateral donor).

Not only do power and politics saturate civil societybut the sector has become flooded with ‘briefcaseNGOs’: organisations set up to access funds but whothen do not implement anything. This phenomenonseems most germane to the African countries involvedin this research, all of which shared a young history ofNGO activities. For example, in Mozambique, acommentator explained how:

“We don’t have a strong history of NGOs. Theyreally began in 1991 when the Law allowed themto become associations. Many of them didn’t haveany constituency – they just wanted the trappings– the cars, offices, etc. that they saw. It was not atrue movement because it was created by thedonors who needed partners. They didn’t ask anyquestions about governance – they didn’t want toknow… they just write proposals to get funds.”

Such a lack of integrity compounds the competitionbetween CSOs, especially when one considers, as inthe case of Ghana and Mozambique, how numerousNGOs have been established by disgruntled


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Mephina Primary School, Mozambique.

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politicians to access funds but who maintain strongpersonal connections with the government. Anoutcome is the tighter constriction of the politicalspace that genuine CSOs are able to occupy.

A further challenge for CSOs is the will of thegovernment to engage with them. In Bangladesh andCameroon, ‘democracy is not institutionalised yet, andcivil society cannot evolve strongly,’ resulting in an‘unfriendly legal and political environment for NGOs’.Tensions abound because CSOs can be viewed ascompetitors to governments, especially because‘some NGOs are just too radical for the government’.Additionally, as observed by a UK academic, ‘manygovernments see civil society as oppositional. Theterm “non-governmental organisation” means just that;“non-government” which some, such as in the MiddleEast, equate to “anti-government”.’ The result isgovernment suspicion and mistrust, which can lead tostringent and restrictive NGO policies, as in Ghanaand Tanzania, to allow governments to regulate theCSO sector. An example of this is Haki Elimu, aTanzanian NGO widely supported by many externalorganisations including donors and INGOs, andenjoying a seat at the government table. However, in2004 Haki Elimu organised a competition forcommunities to provide evidence of corruption withinthe government. Whilst the intention was laudable, theupshot was that they were outlawed from working. Inthe words of one bilateral representative, ‘The problemfor Haki Elimu, and potentially for others, is that theywere labelled as political and this was terminal’.

Civil society therefore faces a number of challenges inengaging in their various roles, which includechallenges of insufficient capacity – including lack ofinformation and skills – as well as poor coordinationand lack of political will. This highlights how muchadvocacy carried out by organisations has been, quitesimply, ineffective in respect to influencinggovernment policy. What constitutes ‘good’ advocacyis therefore considered next.

2.4 What is ‘good’ advocacy?

There was broad consensus from a range ofinterviewees that ‘there is real confusion about thereal meaning of advocacy’ (INGO Mozambique) or,

alternatively put, ‘nobody knows what advocacy is’(bilateral donor, Bangladesh). This short section looksat what ‘good’ advocacy is, not with a view toproducing a ‘how to’ narrative, but to provide insightinto how organisations have dealt with the issuesdescribed above. It also has bearing on the agendathat should be drawn up by any future fund for civilsociety.

‘Advocacy’ is a catch-all term. It implies socialadvocacy, increasing citizens’ understanding of certainissues to promote public debate and to increasepublic pressure for change in policy and practice.There are various ways to do this such as organising a rally, taking to the streets or conducting a radiocampaign on, for instance, minority languageinstruction. The targets for social advocacy includeparents, teachers, students and the media. As anINGO member explained, ‘most people seem to besatisfied with the view that advocacy is the same aspopular mobilisation and awareness-raising’.

Yet ‘advocacy’ also implies policy advocacy that usesresearch and evidence from service delivery to offerinnovative solutions and make clearly articulatedpolicy recommendations. Succinctly captured by aconsultant, ‘this advocacy is a very specific way inwhich CSOs ask for a particular policy or point to beincluded in a law or piece of legislation based onevidence-based research or experience in order tobring about social change’. This implies that, firstly,policy advocacy must be legitimate: advocates needto know what they are talking about and this is gainedfrom sound research and direct experience. As abilateral donor put it: ‘What you need are solidexamples of things that you have done and that haveworked’ as ‘otherwise, how can you advocate withoutevidence?’ According to an academic, directexperience is what ‘gives organisations the legitimacyto talk about things they are engaged in’. Secondly, itimplies that advocates have access to informationabout policies. This information has to be timelybecause policy review processes are time-bound andif an organisation makes recommendations too latethey cannot be used. Equally, policies tend to be oflimited duration and run for between three to fiveyears at a time; policies therefore change. In the


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words of a bilateral donor, ‘The ultimate goal ofadvocacy has to be [to] change policy. Why do youwant to mobilise people? There has to be a goal. Firstpolicy has to change, then practice’.

‘Advocacy’ also implies civil society acts as awatchdog to the government. These activities involvebudget tracking, identifying gaps in provision (such asshortage of teachers) and whistle-blowing oncorruption or mismanagement of resources.

Altogether, ‘advocacy’ therefore implies a range of activities oriented towards changes in policy,management and practice. Part of the skill ofadvocacy is choosing the most effective means ofcommunicating a particular message or issue. Forexample, a radio campaign, a postcard campaigntargeted at politicians or regional education officials, or linking with other national, regional or internationaladvocacy initiatives such as GCE’s Global ActionWeek. Further, advocacy involves planning strategicactivities to address particular issues.

For these reasons the word ‘advocacy’ is usedthroughout this report as shorthand for social andpolicy advocacy, as well as watchdog activities.Altogether, the acquisition of these skills andproficiency with these processes may well lead to anelement of competition between CSOs. However, thisis not seen as a bad move as it would sort committedand serious advocacy organisations from those alongfor the ride or looking to profit from the increasingglobal attention to advocacy.

2.5 Capacity building: deficit, definition anddetermination

An INGO member in Mozambique commented that, ‘I face the problem of working with very, very weakpartners’. Throughout the research there were strongviews expressed that the focus of any fund for civilsociety had to be, at least in part, capacity building. Totake some selected examples, ‘Building the capacityof other civil society actors has to be one area of thistype of fund’; ‘It is not just about providing funds,capacity building is vitally important,’ and, ‘You needan organisation that gives more than just money’.12

The importance of this was captured by a governmentofficial, who said that, ‘They seem to have very goodideas and may have very attractive plans on paper,which are never implemented. It is not so much thelack of money that seems to stifle their work, it ismore a lack of skills.’ Yet ‘capacity building’ is anebulous and broad term. The research indicates that there were three interrelated areas of capacitybuilding that needed attention beyond generaladministration skills: proposal writing, financialmanagement and advocacy (including networkingand research skills). Financial management andadvocacy were seen by many commentators as themost significant gaps.

A CEF management committee (MC) membercommented that the model was more successful inKenya, where capacity building of potential partnerswas thought through, and a programme to addressgaps was implemented early on in CEF’s history. InTanzania, where this ‘paternal approach’ was notfollowed, partners struggled to apply for and spendCEF’s funds. Indeed, in Tanzania, one partner criticisedCEF for not assisting sufficiently with the applicationprocess to access funds, and felt that funds weretherefore being ‘underutilised’. According to a coalitionmember, there was also ‘a danger of leaving out goodperformers who do not have good or big names andcapacity to write proposals but can perform well onthe ground. There should be a mechanism to reachand uplift them through capacity building’.

Attention to proposal writing is linked with financialmanagement. Numerous respondents, especially CEFstaff, commented on the weak financial managementskills of partners and CSOs in general. Such limitedfinancial ability led to inadequate reporting (Malawi),delays in funds being released from CEF (Lesotho,Kenya and Tanzania) and trepidation by other fundingsources on the future of released funds (Lesotho). InWest Africa, a CEF accountant explained that, ‘My roleis to manage the CEF accounts and to providefinancial capacity building to the partners’. Heexplained the issue and process as follows:

“The problem is that the funding mechanisms inmany of the partners are very weak. I take a veryclose, personal interest in this and spend a lot ofmy time working with partners on their reporting


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12 Donor in Bangladesh, INGO representative in Mozambique and aCEF coordinator

systems. For instance, if a report comes in, I willgo back to their offices and sit down and gothrough the entire report so that they understandvery clearly what they should be doing and how itshould be done. But the problem is that many donot have any funding policies, and do not employa finance person. So I think that partners shoulddo both of these: employ a finance person - evenpart time - who has the skills and can do thereports quickly. Also, we should help the partnersto put financial policies in place. I am trying to dothat at the moment but perhaps this should be anexplicit aim.”

This undertaking was beyond his job description andin response to a perceived need. Not all accountantswere so motivated and many said that, whilst they didacknowledge the lack of financial capacity, they feltthey were unable to give time to resolving thisthemselves.

The third area, limited knowledge, skills and ability inadvocacy, was discussed by various respondents. InBangladesh, an NGO member commented, ‘We arelocal NGOs. We get some donations and work locally,but we do not understand or articulate the nationalagendas for policy change.’ Knowledge of advocacyissues, and how these tie with national plans, wastherefore a key issue. Related to this was how thisknowledge was then utilised. An INGO member saidthat, ‘Civil society groups in Pakistan do not havemany skills for advocacy [and] getting them to write aproject idea and develop a campaign is verydifficult… Therefore civil society initiatives have limitedimpact.’ Networking skills were felt essential to the setof skills for advocacy, to organise around a campaignor issue, to share information and build up momentumbut, ‘there is a big gap in engaging, managing andrunning networks’.

Thus a deficit of ‘capacity’ in CSOs was observedmost significantly in financial management skills, butalso advocacy and proposal-writing proficiency. Yetbuilding capacity comes with challenges. In particular,two were mentioned. The first is that capacity buildingtakes time. An INGO representative said that, ‘It is avery slow process when you see just how weak allthe CSOs are. We should not rush this just for the

sake of spending money.’ The second is that capacitybuilding runs the risk of enforcing an external agendaon the organisation. As a coalition member in Lesothocommented, ‘With the donors based locally, especiallyone who wants to build capacity of the coalitions,they tend to go beyond capacity building and onetends to lose one’s autonomy and they tend to over-influence what you do.’

Nonetheless, the evidence suggests that capacitybuilding presents a key area of determination for anysupport for sustaining the work of civil society (as CEFhas been doing). As such, this report recommendsthat capacity building for advocacy, as understoodabove, forms a key focus of the future CSEF. As anINGO in Lesotho stated, ‘support to CSOs has to befinancial and technical’.

With this understanding in mind of the nature, rolesand challenges of civil society to engage in advocacyactivities, the next chapter investigates theinternational financial realm in which civil societyoperates, before examining in more detail the forms of support that have been provided to civil society.


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Funding for civil society is split between funds that aregiven to northern INGOs that work or have partners inthe south, and discrete programme funding at thenational level. Bilateral donors fund civil societyorganisations by, most commonly, giving money todomestically based INGOs. For instance, DFID fundsActionAid UK, Oxfam GB and Save the Children UKthrough Programme Partnership Agreements (PPAs);they in turn work with civil society in southerncountries.13 Similarly, the Norwegian Agency forDevelopment (NORAD) provides funds for Save theChildren Norway.

Donors also support discrete projects at the nationallevel, administered by country education advisorsthrough respective embassies. According to oneMinistry official, ‘There is no mandate of criteria fordetermining which country gets how much, it is downto [country advisor’s] discretion and is really based onopportunism of what is happening in that context and

whether we can get involved in it.’ Similarly, a DFIDrepresentative explained that ‘most of our work isdecentralised to the country offices and the countryprogramme officers who manage funds at the country level’.

However, the climate of donor funding for bothrecipient governments and CSOs is changing, due to three simultaneous processes:

• First, discrete programme funding at the countrylevel is being reduced. This research indicatedthat DFID, the African Development Bank, theSwedish International Development Agency(SIDA), the Canadian International DevelopmentAgency (CIDA), NORAD, the United StatesAgency for International Development (USAID),


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3 Global funding for education

The research data illustrated that donor funding for development– and not solely education – is split between those fundschannelled to national governments and those channelled tonational civil societies. This section focuses on funding for civilsociety and examines government funding only in so far as itinfluences funding structures and mechanisms for civil society.For government funding, bilateral agreements made betweendonors and recipient governments constitute the majority ofsupport. In addition, donors also make contributions tomultilateral organisations such as the UN family and the WorldBank, which in turn support governments at the national level.

13 It is worth noting, however, that such PPAs only constitute about3-5% of overall INGO budgets.

3.1 The international framework

the Australian Agency for InternationalDevelopment (AusAID), FinAID (Finland) and theDanish International Development Agency(DANIDA) are all moving away from discreteproject funding because of burdensomeadministration and poor cost-effectivenessthrough micro-management. Of note is that suchgrants have been largely focused oninfrastructure development, and provided throughnational-level civil society.

• Second, concurrently, there is a growing trendtowards pooled funding (also known as basketfunding) whereby donors jointly fund commonactivities. This trend is partly due to efforts toreduce replication, streamline reporting processesand reduce management costs by revolving thechairing responsibilities as well as simplifyingadministration. Pooled funding is one of therecommendations of the Paris Declaration on AidEffectiveness (discussed further below). Yet someorganisations are against pooled funding,including USAID and JICA (Japanese InternationalCooperation Agency) because, it is claimed,‘each dollar is traced to an activity’ and pooledfunding militates against this specificity. Instead,some organisations offer ‘parallel funding’ alsoknown as ‘vertical funding’ – money for aparticular element of a programme – becausejoint funding requires complicated accountingsystems.

• Third, at the same time, donor support togovernments is increasing, largely through directbudget support (DBS). Numerous donors(particularly DFID, the EC (European Community),SIDA and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs,but excluding USAID, the French Ministry forForeign Affairs and the UN agencies) are movingtowards providing greater sums of funds directlyto national governments. While there is lack ofclarity on the specific numbers of donors usingDBS, and the extent to which it is used alongsideother funding mechanisms, it is a growing trendand increasing numbers of donors areconsidering it as an aid mechanism (Warrener,2004; Menocal and Rogerson, 2006; and

Government of the Republic of Zambia, 2004).DBS is therefore gaining momentum as a donormechanism. Given the importance of this trendfor the role and function of civil society, issuesaround DBS are examined in detail within thefollowing section.

3.2 The changing nature of donor aid

Direct budget support (DBS) involves the transfer of alump sum of money directly to recipient governments.DBS is not necessarily linked to specific projectactivities. It takes two forms at the recipientgovernment level: general budget support (GBS) andsector budget support (SBS).

• GBS supports the government’s budget as awhole. This money is given directly to the Ministryof Finance, and usually does not have manyconditions attached. GBS, it is argued, ‘lowerstransaction costs, improves donor coordinationand the predictability of aid flows, enhances theallocative efficiency of public policies andenhances public sector performance andaccountability’ (DFID, 2003). GBS is intended tohelp governments to respond to citizens’ needsthrough means identified through the PovertyReduction Strategy (PRS) process, as discussedin Chapter 2. In so doing, GBS ostensiblyenhances ‘government’s ownership ofdevelopment processes and accountability fordelivering agreed products’ (DFID, 2003).

• SBS, conversely, is money given for particularareas or sectors of the government budget. SBScan be given to support education.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, recipient governments tend tosupport the move to DBS. A Minister stated that, ‘Thedonors’ new approach through direct budget supportis seen as a step in the right direction whereby thegovernment is given help but still retains the right todo what it thinks best with the money.’ Interconnectedprinciples lie behind the increasing focus on DBSprovided to governments and, as a result, thechanging role of and support to civil society. Inparticular, six principal issues have contributed to the increasing use of DBS.


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First was a shift from the view in the 1990s that themarket was the primary mechanism for social changeto the notion that the state must be responsible forproviding for the welfare of its citizens (Collinson,2006, p. 9). This is coupled with the growingorientation of INGOs (and some donors such as DFID)moving away from service delivery to more rights-based approaches, which view national governmentsas duty-bearers for social service provision andcitizens as rights-holders for these services.

Second was the poor performance of aid conditionalityand results of donor-supported projects, of whichmany were ‘uncoordinated, commanded limitedownership by governments and have not generatedsustained impact’ (DFID, 2003). In addition, theadministrative costs for donors in pursuing a multitudeof agendas through projects not only had limitedeffectiveness, but also placed considerable reportingburdens on recipient governments – up to 10,000reports per year, per country in Africa (Collinson,2006). This operational point stimulated considerationof how to reduce and streamline donor administrationas well as minimise excessive and onerous reportingprocesses for southern bureaucracies.

Third was the broad support since the 1990s forPRSPs and for Sector Wide Approaches (SWAps). Ledand administered by governments, PRSPs aim topromote ownership at the national level ‘through aparticipatory process involving civil society, the privatesector and other development partners’ (Collinson,2006, p. 9). The wide participation of all society wasseen as necessary for effective, relevant andsustainable poverty reduction that encourageddownward accountability by making governmentssubject to their citizens. However, it is important torecall the critique of PRSPs mentioned above; thatwhile they aimed to broaden the political space of civilsociety, they in fact do the opposite by closing thedoors on issues such as industrial, trade and fiscalpolicy, privatisation and financial liberalisation as wellas domestic investment and land reform.

Fourth was the wide commitment to the MDGs forpoverty reduction and agreement to the principles ofthe Organisation for Economic Cooperation andDevelopment (OECD) to guide action for meetingthese targets through donor harmonisation and

alignment with national plans realised through PRSPs.As articulated in the Paris Declaration of AidEffectiveness 2005, donor harmonisation aimed toreduce replication and diversity in aid flows, ensureaid flows and target areas were dictated by thenational plans of partner countries and encouragepartner countries to increase participation of civilsociety in development planning and monitoring(OECD, 2005). Sharing agendas and pooling funding,as well as aligning with national plans, was seen toincrease synergy between donors at the same time as supporting national plans, tying with point oneabove. Whilst largely an operational issue, this alsolinked with an ‘increased demand for accountabilityand for monitoring instruments to measure progress’(DFID, 2003).

Fifth, donor commitments to achieving the MDGsbound them to pledge significant aid increases, mostrecently at the G8 Summit in 2005. Increases areprojected to rise by approximately $50 billion per yearuntil 2010 (Collinson, 2006). However, it is worthnoting that ActionAid finds that only 50% of aid is‘real’; the rest is ‘phantom’, including debt reliefdouble-counted as aid, poorly targeted aid, ‘tied’ aid(requiring recipients to use donor countryexpertise/companies), and overpriced and ineffectivetechnical assistance (ActionAid, 2005). Similarly, theOECD reports that increased official percentages ofaid flows to Africa since 2005 – of 32% – aremisleading because of the unprecedented reductionof Nigeria’s debt by $18 billion. Moreover, excludingNigeria, bilateral aid to Africa from OECD membercountries fell 1.2% in real terms in 2005, and aid toAfrica from all sources, including multilateralinstitutions such as the World Bank, fell by 2.1%.OECD also argues that debt relief and emergencyhumanitarian aid, as opposed to development aidintended to help countries gain a permanent exit frompoverty, accounted for all the increase in aid to sub-Saharan Africa since 2002 (Beattie, 2006).

Sixth, concurrent with the above processes was thechanging view of the role of NGOs, as discussed inChapter 2. Broadly, this involved a shift from servicedelivery to advocacy. Shifts in funding streams toCSOs were also associated with shifts in theirperceived role.


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Pooled funding and DBS come together in multi-donorbudget support (MDBS), as explained by a bilateralrepresentative:

“The MDBS mechanism represents a departurefrom projectised funding to programmatic support.By design, programmes funded under the MDBSsystem are developed by the government ofGhana and only endorsed by the contributingcountries to the fund. A development partners’forum has been established, which meets onceevery month to monitor the use of funds and tocontribute to policy direction.”

As an example of MDBS, the Fast-Track Initiative (FTI)is a multi-donor platform that supports low-incomecountries to develop quality education plans and thento raise funds to implement them, either by endorsingthe plans so that in-country donors support them orby offering direct support when in-country donors arenot sufficient. By April 2006, 20 countries had theireducation plans endorsed; by October 2008, it isplanned that another 40 will have had their plans forprimary completion endorsed. Whilst the FTI has hadconsiderable success, some critics argue that it is toonarrowly focused on primary schooling rather than theEFA targets, that there is an estimated shortfall ofabout £500 million for plans submitted and that,because it channels all funds to governments, there islittle scope for independent scrutiny or monitoring bycivil society. This last argument is that, for EFA to beachieved, all of society needs to be involved ineducation and not just the government; thus the FTIonly tackles part of the problem.

This critique of FTI signals a number of inherentcontradictions and tensions with DBS that haveimplications for the role and support given to civilsociety. As Beall (2005) argues, DBS strengthens thehand of central governments in policy formation whilethe last decade of development has beenencouraging the devolution of power throughdecentralisation processes. Associated with this, thereis little evidence of increased central funds findingtheir way to local governments. Moreover, DBSconcentrates the overall power and influence withdonors at the country level. In the words of an INGOmember, ‘There is now a grotesque contradiction

where donors are more powerful than ever beforeand that diminishes governance and democracy.’ DBShas increased upward accountability of governmentstowards donors rather than downwards to citizens.Additionally, there is little evidence of coordinateddonor attention to engage or support civil society aswith DBS (Collinson, 2006). As one INGO in Kenyaput it, ‘DBS is discriminatory to CSOs’. DBS meansthere is less opportunity for civil society to engagedirectly with donors at the country level.

DBS has not led to any significant changes in the roleof civil society in policy dialogue or democratisationprocesses, even though a multilateral donor inTanzania claimed that, ‘it is a condition of [our]funding for general budget support that CSOs areinvolved in a full way in dialogue at the national level.NGOs have been involved in the preparation andconduct of the education sector review’. Evidencesuggests that the opposite is the case and, ifanything, it has been accompanied by an increasedmutual suspicion and mistrust of NGOs as theyscrutinise government performance. Thus, the rhetoricof increased civil society participation through widerpolitical space encouraged by DBS (and PRSPs) hasnot been met in practice. As an INGO member stated,‘Donors’ assumption is that civil society is involved inthe PRSPs, but even this participation is oftenunsatisfactory. Civil society is also excluded fromother important donor-government relationships thatare fundamentally important in shaping policy.’Tightened government control is also evidenced byincreasingly stringent NGO policies in Tanzania,Malawi and Uganda. Consequently, DBS cannot createimproved accountability if those conditions do notalready exist (Collinson, 2006).

DBS therefore seems to encourage CSOs to aligntheir activities with national plans, and ignores whetherthey agree with them or not, whether they areadvocating for issues left out of such plans andwhether they have actually been involved in thedesign of these plans. It is in this context that theGCE’s Real World Strategies (RWS) initiative plays animportant role. Seen as key to the GCE goal ofensuring that governments and internationalinstitutions keep the promises to deliver EFA by 2015,


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RWS aims to increase the capacity of civil society toarticulate community demands and to makerecommendations for the allocation of resources,policies and management systems to make schoolswork. The first phase – 2003 to 2005 – focused onbuilding civil society capacity in the south to interveneeffectively in education policy, while the second phase– 2006 to 2010 – will focus less on capacity buildinginputs and more on advocacy outputs by aligningcloser with key GCE activities including the GlobalAction Week, the publication of School Reports, anEducation Watch Initiative and transnational advocacyon specific policy-relevant themes.

DBS therefore throws up a number of contradictionsand challenges for civil society. Paradoxically, becauseof increased donor support to governments, donorsare looking to civil society to be more involved withthe government, to monitor government spending andto engage in education planning as a check andbalance. One researcher said:

“In many African countries, donors want to spreadthe risk and are working on collaboration not onlywith other donors but also civil society as well as the state. The route of bilateral agreementsconcentrates the risk for them. So I think they are keen to work with civil society and thisinvolves an element of advocacy work.”

Donors’ direct association with advocacy work is,however, problematic. One donor commented thattheir hesitancy to support advocacy directly wasbecause it was difficult to measure and therefore tojustify in terms of expenditure. A researcher suggestedthat funding civil society advocacy provides donorswith a particular dilemma because:

“There is always a danger that if you supportadvocacy work they might end up pointing thefinger back at the donors. This could create aconflict of interest for donors who might besupporting government in one thing which is thencriticised by civil society it is also supporting. Ithink donors want to generally avoid this situationand keep a good relationship with government.”

Haki Elimu provides a good example of this. Accordingto a consultant they were strongly supported by arange of donors, but when the government reactednegatively:

“Haki Elimu were so intense that they were linkedto from a distance – no one wanted to get tooclose to them because they were really full on. Inthe end, when it came to their problems with thegovernment, they had few friends in Tanzania. EvenUNICEF who worked on the Rights of the Childand supported Haki Elimu on the Right toEducation didn’t want to be associated with them– they just gave them money in the end and didn’twant to work too closely to them. It’s all political,that’s the issue.”

Indeed, several donors commented that ‘developmentis not about being benevolent and for the benefit ofhuman kind; it is political and promotes politicalagendas’. Consequently there seemed to be a generalresistance to allowing the potential for negativefeedback that could jeopardise their relations withrecipient governments. At the same time, it was withthe view of civil society as a government watchdogthat, ‘donors are beginning to think that they shouldbe giving funds to civil society over and above whatthey are giving to the government’ (bilateral donor).One result is that, in the words of one donor, ‘the juryis still out’ as to whether DBS is an effective fundingmechanism for social development. Another is theattention that falls on Local Funds: fundingmechanisms for civil society that aim to incorporateboth civil society agendas and donor agendas for civilsociety.

3.3 Local Funds: from the shadows into the spotlight

‘Local Fund’ is a term that homogenises the evolutionof Social Funds and Challenge Funds into a collectivelabel. This section looks briefly at each of these beforeexamining Local Funds in detail.

Social Funds

Social Funds were initially established by the WorldBank in response to the shocks that accompaniedcrisis and adjustment in the 1980s. The emphasis of


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Social Funds then shifted from emergency relief andsafety nets for society to more general developmentprogrammes concerned with community-drivendevelopment. Social Funds ‘channel resources,according to pre-determined eligibility criteria, tosmall-scale projects for poor and vulnerable groups,and are implemented by public and private agencies’(World Bank, 1998, pp. 3-4). Institutionally andorganisationally distinct from government sectoralpolicies and services, Social Funds are administeredby a central administrative entity, often a unit that issemi-autonomous from the government. They areintended to ‘take quick, effective and targeted actionsto reach poor and vulnerable groups’ and ‘aim tostimulate participatory development initiatives byproviding small-scale financing to local NGOs,community groups, small firms and entrepreneurs’(Fumo et al., 2000, p. 11).

Social Funds aim to provide small-scale funding inresponse to demand from local groups but with a setmenu of eligible and ineligible projects. They insist onco-financing from beneficiaries to ensure projects areresponding to demand. They are often tied to nationalplans and policies and processes of governmentdecentralisation and are largely concerned with socialservice provision (Fumo et al., 2000; Braathen, 2003;Wiseman, 2004).

Social Funds exist in over 50 countries, primarily inLatin America and Africa. World Bank contributionsbetween 2000 and 2005 totalled $3.5 billion, withother donors contributing an additional $5.5 billion.However, although Social Funds have been aroundsince the late 1980s and had significant sums fed intothem, they have had both limited visibility andquestionable success. Social Fund programmes areimplemented in parallel with government programmes,not always with the knowledge or involvement ofgovernment. The result is the undermining of theoverall coordination of investment efforts andweakening of local government structures throughduplication. As Social Funds operate through localorganisations, they encourage privatisation anddiminish public responsibility. Additionally, given thatmany governments lack information about SocialFunds, they undermine the capacity of governments

at the central level to plan and implementprogrammes (Dossani, 2002).

Where they are known about, Social Funds encouragegovernments to reduce their budgetary allocations tothose areas where Social Funds are operating (Fumoet al., 2000; DFID, 2003). And while ostensiblydemand-driven from the community, local politiciansdrive the decisions on project choices (Fumo et al.,2000). For example, TASAF (Tanzania Social ActionFund) Steering Committees are made up of key localgovernment officials and local councillors, and projectsemanating from them are often found to be based inthese members’ villages (Braathen, 2003). SocialFunds are therefore often appropriated by politicalnotables and encourage political clientelism. At thesame time, by having set eligibility criteria, communitychoice is severely limited (Fumo et al., 2000). Theconcern with service delivery means that, on the onehand, requests for infrastructure have been the fastestto identify, screen and implement and, on the other,private firms and service-oriented NGOs benefit themost (Dossani, 2002, p. 6).

Thus contrary to the World Bank claims that SocialFunds reach the poor, have a positive impact oncommunity facilities and households, and providecost-effective and sustainable programmes (WorldBank, 2001), critics such as Tendler argue that ‘apartfrom the claim of fast disbursement of credits…[Social Funds] point in the opposite direction; asdonor-driven, supply-driven, not very decentralizing or participatory devices. The Social Funds produce novisible pro-poor sustainable impacts’ (Braathen, 2004,p. 7). On balance, Social Funds have been neither anoverwhelming success nor a complete failure.

Challenge Funds

Challenge Funds have their origins in northerncountries, especially the United States and the UnitedKingdom. Challenge Funds seek efficiency and elicitinnovation by requiring applicants to compete forresources through a tendering process. In Europe theyare associated with community-led and area-baseddevelopment strategies, such as urban regeneration. A key feature of Challenge Funds is that they areparticularly oriented towards the partnership principle:


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encouraging collaborative working between the grant-making body and the applicant. Examples are theLifelong Learning Challenge Fund in Canada,developed to fill critical gaps in the skilled labour trademarket by attracting matched funding from private andpublic participants for the development of onlineprogrammes for the automotive, health food servicesand manufacturing sectors (Independent LearningCentre, 2005). Another is the City Challenge Fund setup by the Government of India as an incentive-basedgrant facility to support reform of municipalmanagement and local economic reform. It does thisby providing incentives to large urban areas toundertake institutional, structural and fiscal changesnecessary to catalyse improved service deliverysystems that are sustainable, address poverty andenhance local economic performance (GHK, 2005).

Within the donor context, DFID also has a suite of fourtypes of Challenge Fund: the Business LinkageChallenge Fund (BLCF), the Financial DeepeningChallenge Fund (FDCF), the Mini Challenge Fund(MCF) and the Civil Society Challenge Fund (CSCF).

The last of these was set up in 2000to provide funding for projects outsideits bilateralcommitments, and to replace its JointFunding Scheme(JFS). Accessiblethrough DFIDheadquarters in theUK, NGOs can applyfor 50% of fundingrequired to carry outa project and forfurther monies at theend of the fundingperiod to carry onthe project. Beyonddiscrete projects, the CSCF aims toincrease the voice of the poor and

marginalised, and develop their skills to influence the policy decision-makers that affect their lives (Beall, 2005).

Coming together as Local Funds

Social Funds and Challenge Funds come togetherunder the broad term of ‘Local Funds’, the nature ofwhich shares common features of both. Beall offersthe following definition:

“Local funds are both financing instruments andfunding agencies created to disburse resourcesfor local development. They are a response tolocal needs and demands and encourageaddressing these through local partnerships. Theobjective of these funds is usually to reduce riskand to enhance the livelihood opportunities ofdisadvantaged people through developmentinitiatives that remove barriers to voice, therealisation of rights and delivery and accountabilityon the part of a broad range of local governanceinstitutions.” (Beall, 2005, p. 6)


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Kailahun Children's Club, for children formerly associated with fighting forces, Sierra Leone.

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Local Funds aim to involve residents and localgovernments in the co-production of infrastructure andservices and to support local governmentdecentralisation processes. They are intended to assistCSOs to advocate for increased effectiveness andaccountability of the government by helping citizens tomonitor the performance of politicians andgovernment officials. In addition, they aim to promotepartnerships between the community and the localgovernment for local development and are tied to thepursuit of democracy. As with Social Funds, LocalFunds tend to be small scale, targeted at communitiesand groups, be demand-driven, and require co-financing from recipients.

While most Local Funds are supported by singledonors, some are multi-donor supported. Local Fundsseem to be gaining currency as a means for donors tocounterbalance their funding to governments and tochannel money indirectly into advocacy work –thereby avoiding some of the risks discussed withdirect association above. Chapter 4 provides examplesof Local Funds that illustrate their structure, aims andchallenges, all of which provide useful lessons for anyfuture fund of this sort.

Local Funds have been heavily criticised as ‘open topolitical manipulation and interference’ (Golub, 2000,p. 12). Local Funds are critiqued for being used as apolitical tool in recipient countries to rewardconstituents, recruit new votes and win back thedisaffected and for being used by donors for politicalends. In addition, they are criticised because povertyreduction and social protection issues are not welladdressed, especially when compared with supply-driven, central programmes (Tendler, 2000). Further,

while ostensibly demand oriented, they are disbursedaccording to pre-determined criteria set by the fundingagency; that is, donors. Additionally, demand-drivenprogrammes tend to exclude the poorest who do not have the capacity to articulate their demands, to match-fund or to meet the eligibility criteria set bydonors. They therefore tend to favour local people who are well connected, well informed and well off.Furthermore, Local Funds are not sustainable becausethey are dependent on external funding. They aretherefore not necessarily the best means foraddressing local poverty (Fumo et al., 2000) and are no substitute for wider economic and socialdevelopment processes managed by centralgovernments (Kanji, 2002).14

But under the context of DBS, there is a strongargument for the promotion and use of Local Funds toact as a counterbalance to donors’ focus ongovernments, and for Local Funds to support civilsociety to fulfil the role that donors, INGOs, CSOs and(reluctantly) governments are increasingly assigning toit: that of monitoring the government and engaging inpolicy processes. Because of Local Funds ‘there isnow more funding available to CSOs for policy,advocacy and campaigning activities’(Collinson, 2006, p. 54).

Local Funds are therefore existing, structured meansfor donors to provide funds to civil society. They alsoseem to provide an appropriate model for nationalisingsupport for CSOs working on education advocacy. Thefollowing chapter examines a collection of these with aview to pulling out important lessons and key learningpoints for sustaining funding for civil society advocacyin education.


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14 These issues, of demand or supply-driven funds, and the donor driving ofagendas, are returned to in later chapters in the context of funding foreducation civil society work.

society advocacy work in education. That said, to dateit seems to be the only model of a fund purely foreducation advocacy work. Additionally, the researchteam has been able to examine 16 examples of thisfund in operation, and as such it provides an excellentcase study for anyone seeking to establish a new fundfor education advocacy.

As a concept – conceived for the purposes of thisresearch as ‘a collaboratively managed fundsupporting civil society (including coalition)engagement in education advocacy’ – it receivedalmost universal approval from interviewees. It wasseen as ‘good’, ‘absolutely great’, ‘logical’ and ‘unique’.In particular, the focus on civil society rather than


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4 Learning from CEFand Local Funds

A key task of this research was to identify models of fundmanagement that may serve as case studies in potentiallydeveloping a new model. CEF remains the largest fund focusedsolely on funding advocacy in education, and therefore the wayin which the CEF model has been implemented has beenanalysed in some detail, in order to take forward best practicesand discard problematic aspects. CEF itself is not strictly aLocal Fund; although each office has its own managementcommittee, secretariat and in some cases advisory board, as awhole it is funded, coordinated, and some would say, managedinternationally.

But the research has documented a range of othermechanisms that are Local Funds,15 both in andoutside education, although for many there is littleevaluative evidence on which to base judgements asto efficacy of the models. It is instructive that anumber of these models are still in development,suggesting that such funding mechanisms are widelysupported as a donor strategy. Details of some ofthese are included here, as their development is alsoinstructive for this research. As Mumbuna notes,‘donors have traditionally used intermediaryorganisations to pursue their own agendas’(Mumbuna, 2006, p. 20). Most of the examples areindeed managed by other agencies.

4.1 The Commonwealth Education Fund (CEF)

This report does not attempt to evaluate the impact ofCEF,16 to examine whether it has achieved what it setout to achieve. It is examined here only in as far as itprovides a model of a mechanism for funding civil

15 Given that the intention is to establish Local Funds, we have not focusedhere on other internationally managed funding mechanisms.

16 For more details on the aims and operation of CEF seewww.commonwealtheducationfund.org, in particular the Mid-term Review(CEF UK, 2005b), available on the website.

government, on advocacy rather than service deliveryand on INGO collaboration were seen as laudable.These views were well summarised by a CEFmanagement committee (MC) member, who said that:

“It’s a very good concept, innovative, andaccelerated some work – particularly budgettracking and advocacy. It was very difficult to getfunding at the time for advocacy – donors weretalking about NGOs not doing service delivery butthey were not funding them to do advocacy.”

CEF was a child of its time, a post-Dakar baby, bornamidst unprecedented consensus betweengovernments, UN, INGOs and national CSOs insupport of the MDGs, and at a point when nationaleducation coalitions were a hot new thing. Ironically,given the past difficulties of funding advocacy, withoutthe ‘tangible photogenic outcomes’ of service delivery,suddenly:

“CEF presented an opportunity to mobilise large-scale amounts to fund advocacy work. TheTreasury announced the commitment of £10million without any idea of how they were actuallygoing to use the money. So the money came firstand then we developed the idea of the fund. Inactual fact it was quite easy to convince theTreasury of the need to support public debate andparticipation in education. This was something thatmembers of parliament… could really relate to.”(CEF MC member)

The CEF model was aptly described by oneinterviewee as ‘complicated’. Those implementing ittook on two considerable new challenges, quite apartfrom those implied in managing this sum. The firstwas that of funding advocacy work in a world that wasnot used to spending so much money. The secondwas attempting partnership working between INGOs,in a field with little history of collaboration. As one CEFcoordinator said, ‘Let’s face it, between these agenciesthere is not only “friendly competition” but also“friendly fire”.’ A collaborative journey betweenorganisations so unused to working together wasnever going to be an easy ride. These challengesmean that the practice of implementing the CEFconcept has not always lived up to the ideal. As one

CEF partner put it succinctly, ‘The ideas and vision of CEF are good. The problem is when we begantransforming those ideas into reality, problems always arise.’

INGO collaboration

CEF was required by DFID to be collaborativelymanaged by a consortium of INGOs. This UKgovernment drive for partnership-working mirrors themove to donor harmonisation and pooled fundingthrough direct budget support on the internationalfront, and, nationally, an agenda for cross-agencyworking in local government.17 For international NGOs,however, it is not such established practice, partlybecause, as a CEF UK MC member pointed out, thereis an inherent tension between a unique institutionalmission (and fundraising on the basis of a uniqueidentity) and working in partnership.

There have been collaborative successes. InMozambique, a CEF MC member said it began well,as ‘We were all enthusiastic about this new model forpromoting advocacy in education. We pulled together,each agency contributing their complementary skills.’In Lesotho the success of the inter-agencycollaboration may be due to MC members’ priorexperience of INGO consortia. One explained that‘consortiums or partnerships in NGOs are becomingthe norm, and popular. There is value adding inresource mobilisation and advocacy’. Notably inanother example reported by this interviewee, it was adonor (Irish Aid) that advised INGOs to work together.

In Kenya, MC members mentioned ‘a successfulrelationship’, with no one organisation domineering; it was described as ‘very mutual’ working, and anarrangement that works well. Notably when Save the Children UK closed their education programme in Kenya, the education advisor continued to serve on the MC until the role was abolished; at this pointVoluntary Service Overseas (VSO) was taken on as a third agency instead. Elsewhere the inclusion ofpeople from outside the three INGOs has often


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17 See, for example, Great Britain, Parliament (2003); Tomlinson (2003).

been beneficial. In Mozambique, ‘Having a variety of different people to see things from differentperspectives – this is very important – otherwise we are in danger of becoming insular. Having arepresentative from the UN gave us that globalperspective, which only added value’ (CEF MCmember). CEF UK members stated that they hadencouraged opening the MCs to other members in order to avoid overdependence on the three core agencies.

Some CEF management committees include(d)members of the national education coalitions, asrepresentatives of local civil society. But theseorganisations were also key recipients of funds, andsome MC members felt these individuals wantedmoney for their own organisations. In Ghana this led toa reorganisation of the CEF MC to henceforth includeno coalition members. But this self-interest was notlimited to coalition or national NGOs; in at least twoCEF countries, the INGOs became involved with aview to accessing the large sums of money that CEFwas to manage. CEF MC members have gained fromthe collaboration in non-financial ways. Intervieweesreported benefits from shared programme learning,and increased knowledge of specific issues, resultingin individuals being better able to contribute to widerdebates, sometimes in a more coordinated fashion. Itis this kind of benefit that should be encouraged inmanaging a new fund.

Lead agency

In each country one agency acts as the ‘lead agency’,as the physical and legally responsible host to CEF.ActionAid is the lead agency in the UK, and also in 12 of the 16 countries in Africa and Asia; Save theChildren UK is lead agency in Pakistan, Sri Lanka andTanzania,18 and Oxfam GB plays the role in Zambia. Inpart this is because ActionAid has educationprogrammes in most of the countries in which CEFworks, and the other agencies have fewer educationprogrammes. One ActionAid staff member commentedthat ActionAid was more familiar with the types ofgroup that CEF wished to work with, and was seen tobe in the best position to work with them.

Several interviewees from all three agencies felt thatCEF’s strategic goals fitted most neatly with those ofActionAid.19 As a CEF coordinator stated, ‘the ActionAideducation strategy is essentially the same as CEF’s’. Insome countries this means that, ‘both Oxfam GB andSave the Children are marginalised in CEF’, althoughthis marginalisation is in part the result of the varyingextent to which agencies have decentralisedresponsibility for education programming as well asActionAid’s enthusiasm and some members of theother agencies’ reticence or more limited commitment.While attempts have been made to encourage orcoerce Oxfam GB and Save the Children membersinto a more proactive role, existing institutionalpriorities, and the fact that decentralised countryoffices were asked rather than told to participate,makes this a difficult and ‘highly politicised process’. 20

This points to the need for all partners in acollaboration to be equally, voluntarily andinstitutionally committed to working together.

There were good administrative, cost-saving and legalreasons why the concept of a ‘lead agency’ wasimplemented in each CEF country. As noted by CEF,‘overall accountability cannot lie with a committee andmust lie with the Lead Agency’ (CEF UK, 2005d, p. 8).One intended, and probably realised, benefit ofhosting the CEF within a lead agency is that of costsaving. Without the need to establish a new office,new systems, and employ full-time administrators andaccountants, CEF could in theory be more efficient,both in getting off the ground quicker and in savingmoney overall. It has not been possible to comparethe costs saved; it is probable they are considerable.In Ghana it was calculated that CEF’s costs are only1/15th of the lead agency’s overall running costs,hence the arrangement is ‘very economical’.

But, as a CEF MC member pointed out, a certainamount of conflict is inherent in the CEF model, inthat, ‘When you have a lead agency, it is bound to be


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18 Save the Children UK was also lead agency in Zimbabwe prior to theclosure of the CEF programme there.

19 It should be noted that the strategic aims of CEF did also fit with OxfamGB’s as articulated in the Global Education Programme and Oxfam GBStrategic Plans.

20 Both quotations are from CEF UK MC members.

the major implementer and would have a greater sayin decision-making.’ This indeed is what has occurred.For example, in The Gambia, there was widespreadagreement between MC members that, ‘Thedistinction between CEF and ActionAid here… is soblurred that many people perceive CEF as part ofActionAid.’ This is also the case in the UK; anorganisational audit of CEF UK of October 2005 notesthat, ‘This project, whilst having been set up as a 3-way partnership, is seen primarily as an ActionAidproject’ (Jackson, 2005, p. 4).

Lead agency dominance takes many forms. In theGambia, CEF uses ActionAid’s standard assessmentform to assess applications from partners; in Malawithe CEF budget is reviewed by ActionAid’s FinanceManager, Head of Finance and Country Director. In athird country, the coordinator reported that, having‘toed the line’ with the lead agency for a while, ‘I nolonger attend all the internal meetings, only therelevant ones. Of course some people don’t like that. Istill get frustrated when we are treated just like anyother ActionAid programme.’ Apart from suchprocedural matters, lead agency dominance indecisions is probably a greater concern. This seems to have occurred where a MC does not meet regularly,though which is the chicken and which is the egg (the lead agency dominance or the irregular meetings)is unclear. For example, an ActionAid staff memberstated that, ‘I do not regret pushing the process at the time, even if we were looked at as dominating,because otherwise nothing would have been done,CEF would have been staying still, so I do not regretit.’ It is notable that the research data indicates thatboth Oxfam GB and Save the Children also dominatewhere they host CEF. Thus, despite a widespreadfeeling that CEF fits closer with ActionAid’s aims thanthose of the other organisations, the lead agencydragon rears its ugly head in any context.

Grant making

Civil society organisations wishing to apply for fundsfrom CEF usually submit a proposal to their nationalCEF office. This is reviewed by the coordinator and theMC. Funding requests must fit within CEF’s threecriteria 21 and within the national CEF strategy. As oneCEF staff member stated succinctly, ‘If the project is

well-articulated and the project fits into at least one of the strategic objectives of CEF, they get a grant. Ifnot they do not get a grant.’ In most countriesprospective and present partners receive support fromCEF in both applying and reporting on their funds. Inthis sense CEF is not just a fund; it is also a capacitybuilding organisation (see Chapter 2).

While the fit with CEF criteria has its benefits, notleast for ensuring that it is clear what CEF is trying toachieve across the Commonwealth, it has its critics. A partner in Bangladesh complained of the inflexibilityof CEF, and said that there was no scope forreconceptualising the role designed for them by CEF, and they could not always implement their ownagenda. Another partner said that the rigidity ofimplementation of CEF projects impeded thesuccessful implementation of CEF objectives. Herecalled another Foundation that funded them forsimilar work: grassroots level advocacy on qualityeducation. ‘They are much more flexible, we enjoymuch liberty, and mentionably, the outcome/achievement is higher. I suggest partnership based on policy objectives, mission and vision, rather thanon activity framework.’ It is somewhat inevitable thatgrantees will not be entirely happy with the restrictionsput on them by granters, and therefore some of thesecomments should be read in that context. But theyraise important points about who sets the agenda fora (national) civil society education fund, and howaccessibility, accountability and transparency can beachieved to the satisfaction of all stakeholders.

Once proposals are approved, money is disbursed to partners each quarter, on acceptance of activityreports. The requirement to report each quarter, whileonerous, has its benefits. In the face of repeatedcomments about the ‘lack of capacity’ of partners (one MC member stated that ‘most of the problemswe have with partners are about accountability’), thissystem ‘has an inherent mechanism to track fraud orabuse of resources by the partners because of thereporting period’. 22


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21 Broadly, encouraging wide participation in national planning, particularlyby coalitions, budget tracking and documenting innovations.

22 CEF accountant.

The CEF grant-making procedure illustrates the valueof building partners’ capacity in financial management.In Ghana, CEF was praised by an MC member forhaving brought in new ways of working in terms of thepro-formas that partners must use, in proposal writing,budget information and monitoring, and evaluation. InNigeria, a CEF staff member also felt that the systemhad helped partners to be more efficient as theircapacity in proposal development and documentationhas been enhanced. In India, the annual plan hadmeant that monitoring had become easier: ‘it made usmore disciplined’. On balance, the ‘clear, auditablesystem trail’, in which ‘every transaction is capturedand recorded’ 23 would seem to be admirable, and anaspect of the CEF model that should be maintained infuture funding mechanisms. There is an argument forincreasing staffing to manage this process.

That there might be delays in spending, and hence anoverall underspend, was recognised by ActionAid,Oxfam GB and Save the Children UK when theyestablished CEF, in that, ‘There is a risk that civilsociety in the focal countries may lack the capacity toabsorb significant (and so far unpredictable) amountsof new funding in the project time frame and todemonstrate the impacts required’ (CEF, 2002, p. 9).This has indeed occurred: there is a significantunderspend,24 and the CEF’s timeframe has beenextended by three years to December 2008 with only£2.6 million additional funding from DFID.25 There aremany reasons for this underspend, which include thestate of the CSOs expected to work with this largesum of money (see Chapter 2). The very nature ofadvocacy work, which involves developingrelationships, is a process that takes time but does notcost much money. As the CEF submission to DFID in2005 notes:

“If there is one overwhelming learning from theCEF Mid-term Review it is that this work takes time.You cannot rush the building of a nationalcoalition. Many NGOs also have a long journey togo on to move from delivering services toinfluencing policies. There is much distrustbetween different sectors, between the NGOs andunions, or between the private sector and NGOs –and you need time to build relationships thatwork.” (CEF UK, 2005c, p. 5)

Delays occur due to partners’ late or inaccuratesubmission of financial reports; this is an issue thatCEF has tried to address by developing the financialmanagement skills of its partners. However, thesituation has been exacerbated by a structuralproblem – the many layers in the funding model.Funds for partners travel through four accountancysystems before they are put to use. DFID UK mustrelease the funds to CEF UK,26 which, on request fromthe country offices, then releases funds to CEF in-country. Thereafter, the CEF country office releases themoney to the local CSO. A CEF UK MC memberreflected on this arrangement, asking, ‘Why add anextra layer between the donor and the field? Weessentially took the hassle away from DFID andlanded it on ourselves.’ In practice, CEF UK requestsfunds from DFID approximately twice a year, and CEFin-country offices make requests of CEF UK also twicea year. Money is released to partners each quarter, onacceptance of their quarterly reports. With so manylayers, there is much scope for delay. CEF partnersreported difficulties because of the time involved invisiting the CEF office to collect money, or to cashcheques. A partner in Malawi reported delays rangingfrom two to three months. The system relies thereforeheavily on timely reporting by partners and timelydisbursement of resources by CEF in-country offices,CEF UK and DFID, all of whom face delays, often forreasonable reasons.

Staffing

Like any other small organisation, CEF lives or dies by the quality of the individuals who run it. This isparticularly the case for CEF in that implementation iscarried out by one or two people in most countries.Little wonder that interviewees described CEF as


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23 CEF coordinator and MC member.

24 In October 2006, CEF countries had spent 34% of their annual budget for2006. To date overall, CEF has spent £7,922,179.

25 Bringing the CEF’s total budget to £13,465,303 (original grant£10,000,000, funds raised from private sector £728,575; interest incomeearned £136,728; match and additional funding from DFID £2,600,000).

26 ‘The money was pledged by the Treasury; not given’ (CEF staff member).

‘personality-driven at national as well as internationallevel’;27 it is difficult to see how, with so few staff, itcould be anything else. Unsurprisingly, CEF hasexperienced coordinators who range from ‘wonderful’people with a ‘magnetic personality’, to those who did not ‘have the competence and maturity tocoordinate’.28 Several interviewees within CEF and itspartners noted that high turnover of staff restricted theeffective functioning of the organisation. Onmanagement committees, turnover can result in lackof ownership or limited understanding of the purposeof CEF, as in one country where, ‘The newmanagement had a different perspective on how CEFshould be run in the country. The changedperspective had a negative impact on both agencies.Instead of dialogue, there was conflict and sometimesopen hostility.’ (CEF MC member). And when it is thecoordinator who moves on, operations can (and do)grind to a halt (Remmelzwaal, 2006).

A number of structural factors can be identified thathinder recruitment and retention of quality candidates,and the removal of inappropriate staff:

• the short-term nature of the position, with thebudget only guaranteed from one year to thenext, which both reduces the attractiveness ofthe position and increases the risk of CEF staffbeing ‘side-tracked because they see their futurejob as part of the lead agency rather than forCEF’ (CEF MC member and CEF staff)

• the limited authority and decision-making powersgiven to the coordinator and other staff, thusleaving them ‘un-empowered’ (CEF MC member)

• CEF MC members’ limited time or commitmentto step in to rectify unfortunate situations.

CSO and INGO partners recognised that the CEFoffices needed more staff to function efficiently. AnMC member described her coordinator as‘overloaded’; another recognised that there is ‘toomuch work for too few people’. While the limitedadministrative costs are admirable in ensuring that asmuch of the Fund as possible supports partneractivities, the employment of more CEF staff, withmore people available to support partners in preparingapplications, programme implementation andreporting, might reduce the underspend.

UK–country relations

A further difficult area in the implementation of theCEF model is the relationship between CEF UK andCEF country offices. The management of CEFcountries’ budgets teeters between local decision-making and London-based control. As a CEF UK MCmember explained:

“Our big concern was that we didn’t wantcentralised control, with everyone applying to theUK for money. We wanted to decentralise and theonly way of doing this was to carve up the fundsand give a guaranteed allocation to each countryso that they weren’t competing against each other.We did a simplistic analysis of size of population ineach country and the education challenges, anddivided up the countries into broad brackets…Broadly speaking it worked… We developed acore strategy for each country and if this wasn’t inline with all agencies or the broad criteria it wouldhave to change. However, we were not allowed tointervene in the minutiae.”

However, as the Fund progressed, CEF UK did indeed‘intervene in the minutiae’. In India, for example, CEFUK cut the budget due to the massive underspend,and angry partners complained to CEF India that theyhad ‘never heard of an international organisationreducing its commitments’ once they had beensigned up. A CEF MC member complained of thepointlessness of commenting on documents thatwould be sent to London for approval anyway. Andelsewhere a CEF coordinator stated that they werehappy to work with any planning forms that are‘imposed’ on them, but that they need guidance to do so.

A CEF UK MC member recognised this dilemma,noting that they are doing ‘lots of micro-managing offunding’, in a way that they would not accept fromtheir own donors. Another suggested that the shift to‘micro-managing’ had come about in response to a


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27 CEF staff member.

28 CEF partner, Ministry of Education official, CEF MC member.

feeling that the centre needed to be moreaccountable to DFID by holding the programmes moretightly to account. A researcher suggested that CEFUK had been impatient and failed to recognise thatcoalitions take time to build and strengthen. A CEF MCmember agreed, stating that, ‘Expectations were veryhigh in CEF [UK] in terms of how things function atcountry level.’

CEF MC in Pakistan felt strongly that:

“…despite the promised flexibility, the CEF UKteam did dictate terms when it came to criticaldecisions. Reportedly, the CEF UK insisted that anational NGO coalition has to be formed despiteresistance from some Committee members whowere more in favour of establishing a coalitionbased on teacher unions. According to oneCommittee member… it was very frustrating asCEF UK basically set aside CEF Pakistan’s ownassessment of the in-country conditions andneeds.” (Bano, 2006, p. 36)

Researcher visits to five CEF countries andobservations within CEF UK showed that thatcommunication between UK and country CEF officesis marred by a tendency to see interaction in ‘us andthem’ terms. Geographical distance and reliance onemail (rather than telephone) from both ends seem tocontribute to these problems.

Lessons learned

In sum, there remains widespread support for theconcept of a collaboratively managed fund supportingcivil society engagement in education advocacy. CEF’smulti-country experience shows that multi-agencymanagement of funds can be successful if:

• all agencies are committed both institutionallyand voluntarily to the collaboration

• the tendency for a host agency to dominate inpractical and strategic terms is carefullymanaged, possibly through avoiding having ahost agency at all

• MC members gain from the collaborativeexperience, though not financially

• grantees are supported to develop financialreporting skills

• any future civil society education fund has alarger staff than solely a coordinator and anaccountant, in order to ensure the requisite skillsare present for all required tasks, and to preventthe responsibility for the success of the fund lyingon the shoulders of a few.

4.2 Local Funds

As discussed above, this report takes ‘Local Funds’to cover any fund that is managed and funded within the country in which it operates. This sectiondiscusses examples of such funds, and draws lessons(shown as bullet points) from their experiences thatinform the creation of any new fund.

Funds managed by local or national CSOs

The idea that national education coalitions might takeover grant management at the end of CEF wassuggested in CEF’s first documentation onsustainability (CEF UK, 2004a). The following areexamples of other networks or coalitions that havebeen responsible for managing funds in this way.


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30 This case study draws on Bernard (2006, p. 16).

29 This section draws on Lefoka and Ntsinyi (2006, p. 35).

Lesotho Council of Non-GovernmentalOrganisations (Lesotho)29

In Lesotho, the Lesotho Council of Non-Governmental Organisations (LCN) manages abasket fund from Open Society Initiative forSouthern Africa (OSISA), Irish Aid and theKellogg Foundation. Established in 1990, LCN is‘the mother body of all civil society organisationsin the country’. It manages the funds through itsboard. Through the LCN administration office,small organisations that apply and qualify forfunding have to follow set criteria for accessingthe funds, including the existence of establishedmonitoring and evaluation and accountingsystems. LCN receives reports from fundedgroups and prepares its reports according to asigned contract and submits a report to aspecific donor (Lefoka and Ntsinyi, 2006).

One member of LCN expressed concerns that‘money does not reach the communities forwhich it is meant’. In her view this was due to ‘aproblem of capacity building’, in that ‘people failto provide financial reports mainly due to lack ofknowledge’. Another LCN interviewee stated thatthe time allocated by donors for spending fundsis too short, indicating that the AfricanDevelopment Bank’s maximum period of sixyears is more realistic than the EU’s requirementto spend within one year.

Human Rights Fund (Uganda)30

In Uganda, SIDA funds a Human Rights Fund(HRF) hosted by the Human Rights Network(HURINET) since 2001. The fund serves CSOsengaged in human rights promotion andprotection, specifically work on the rights ofworkers, minorities, women, refugees andchildren, as well as peace building. It is open tonon-HURINET members as long as they areUgandan CSOs. Day-to-day activities arecoordinated within the HURINET secretariat by anaccountant and a programme officer.

Hosting a fund has drawn HURINET from itsnetworking purpose towards fund management.Notably, the HRF is in the process of being‘delinked’ from the network and turned into anindependent organisation, as ‘it distracts[HURINET] from its primary objective and makesit a fund manager and in a way it is problematicin management.’ The new proposed governancestructure includes a council of donors, the board,technical committees, a secretariat responsiblefor day-to-day activities and a forum of allstakeholders to be convened when needed bythe council of donors and board.

These examples suggest that:

• grantees need support in developing skills infinancial reporting

• the time allocated for spending funds should notbe limited to one year

• linking a fund to a coalition can distort its keypurpose, and can put pressures on its financialsystems if both network and fund are managedtogether

• separating financial management, administrationand grant approval functions can improveimpartiality

• dependence on decision-making by the boardcan lead to delays.

Funds managed by INGOs

There are several other funds that, like CEF, aremanaged primarily by INGOs. This section discussesthree of them; others include Ghana’s Rights andVoice Initiative (RAVI), and Mozambique’s Joint OxfamGB Advocacy Program (JOAP).31


Human Rights Consultative Committee(HRCC)–NORAD basket funding (Malawi)

The Human Rights Consultative Committee (HRCC) inMalawi is a network that facilitates access toresources by its member organisations, who thenimplement activities. The fund is managed by aseparate institution, the Malawi Human RightsResource Centre (MHRRC), on behalf of the HRCC.HRCC is the project holder and the donors are notinvolved in any way in the management of the fund,except provision of the resources.

The MHRRC secretariat hosts and manages theFunding Mechanism, including the ProjectsManagement Unit (PMU). However, the FinancialManagement Unit (FMU) is sub-contracted toFinancial Management Services, a private financialorganisation.

The Grants Committee comprises independentindividuals who are not members of the MHRRC, anda steering committee (comprising members of theMHRRC board, the PMU and the FMU) overseesimplementation (White, 2006, pp. 37-38). The GrantsCommittee refers its recommendations to the HRCC

board, to receive direction on the choice of granteesbased on the knowledge and experience of theboard. This structure was described by one memberas ‘the reason HRCC has a less powerful secretariat’.

Interviewees identified the success of this structure,including developing the institutional capacity ofHRCC members and greater impartiality than if thefund were administered by HRCC alone. However, thelarge structure has considerable administrative costs,and the vetting process takes a long time, resulting infrustration by members. Additionally:

“The monitoring and evaluation part of the set up isweak. The financial manager is interested infinancial issues only and the project managerinterested in project issues only. None is interestedin the impact of the project. We need to havepersonnel with the secretariat to be responsible forimpact issues.” (coalition member)

A member of another coalition stated that the MHRRCfund has faced the same problems as CEF, namelylate disbursement of resources, prescription ofactivities to fit the budget, and the impact ofpersonalities on implementation.

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31 RAVI, funded by the British government and managed by a consortiumof four partner organisations led by ActionAid, is described by Ahadzie(2006). JOAP seems a good example of cross-agency working, but as itis essentially collaboration within the same umbrella organisation (OxfamInternational), rather than organisations with divergent agendas, we havenot included it here. For more details see Remmelzwaal (2006, p. 30-31)

FOSANET’s experience suggests that:

• if one member of a network manages the funds,they may dominate the organisation

• after some years associated with another body, afund may wish to, and be in a position to,become independent of its dominant manager.


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Food Security Agricultural Network(FOSANET) (Malawi)

FOSANET is a grouping of CSOs, networks andresearch institutions involved in food securityadvocacy. It comprises six main partners: LandNet, Right to Food Taskforce, ECAMA, CISANET,CARD and ActionAid. FOSANET is funded by theEU through ActionAid, at E50,000 per annum until2007. A steering committee meets to reviewconcept notes developed by partners, and when itis approved, ActionAid disburses the funds. Thepartner is expected to produce a report at the endof the activity. The FOSANET funding cycle is oneyear and the steering committee has a chairpersonwho rotates on a monthly basis among themembers.

The fund is managed as part of ActionAid’sportfolio but the FOSANET members are involved inthe budgeting and monitoring of use of the funds.It is also expected that the members of FOSANET

should contribute if the fund is less than thebudget from the concept. However, to date onlyActionAid and CISANET have contributed, and oneinterviewee reported that ‘the biggest challengenow is to get all the members to contribute’ asothers are faced with ‘resource constraints’.

FOSANET’s structure presents a challenge in termsof power relations. As a member reported, ‘Weinitially had a core group but with time the coregroup was seen to wield more power than theother members not in the core group… It is myexperience that new members do not wieldpower.’ ActionAid has also a certain degree ofpower because it controls the resources. At thetime of writing this report, FOSANET was planningto become an independent entity with anindependent secretariat. The intention is that thesecretariat would not wield more power than themembers, with its role limited to coordination, andfunding decisions made by the steering committee.


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32 This case study draws heavily on Remmelzwaal (2006, p. 27-29). 33 The original six organisations were: International Save the ChildrenAlliance; the World Conference of Religions for Peace; Plan International;CARE; World Vision International; and the Society for Women and AIDS inAfrica (SWAA). They were later joined by the Network of African PeopleLiving with HIV/AIDS (NAP+).

Hope for African Children Initiative (HACI) (Mozambique)32

The Hope for African Children Initiative (HACI) is apan-African endeavour in nine countries, whichaddresses the enormous challenges faced bymillions of African children affected by AIDS.Originally founded on finances rather than on acommon strategy, HACI is essentially a country-levelfunding mechanism used to promote capacitydevelopment and advocacy around issues related toorphans and vulnerable children (OVCs).

HACI was established in 2000 when a group ofinternational organisations33 came together to accessfunds for OVCs in Africa through the Bill and MelindaGates Foundation. This partnership brings togetherseven organisations to work to increase the capacityof local communities to provide services to orphansand other vulnerable children in Africa.

At a country level, HACI works with the core partnerspresent in that country; in Mozambique they includetwo INGOs (Save the Children US (SC US) andCARE) and two national NGOs – the Society forWomen and AIDS in Africa (SWAA) and the Networkof African People Living with HIV/AIDS (NAP+). LikeCEF, HACI works through a lead agency in eachcountry; SC US is the host in Mozambique. As HACIis not a legal entity in Mozambique, it piggybacks onthe accounting systems of SC US and even shares agrant manager to assist in grant-making activities.Unlike in other countries where HACI operates, inMozambique the core partners do not receive fundsto then disburse to implementing partners. This has apositive effect on the way the board works, as thereis no conflict of interest since members are notcompeting for funds. As a member of staff explained,‘None of them are looking forward to getting a pieceof the cake’. While two of the core partners are localorganisations, HACI is looking to ‘strengthen the localvoice’ by increasing the number of local partners onthe board.

In Mozambique, HACI is governed by a board madeup of the four core partners, and chaired by theCARE representative. Operational activities areundertaken by the secretariat based in SC US, whichcurrently consists of a coordinator, a programmemanager and a VSO volunteer with expertise inmonitoring and evaluation. They are recruiting a newstaff member to focus on advocacy. The board meetsevery three months to oversee the strategic

development of the initiative. Strategies such as thepreparation of ‘decision-making briefs’ in advance bythe coordinator reduce the amount of time andenergy that busy members need to invest incommittee meetings. In between steering committeemeetings, the chairperson takes responsibility fordecision-making, distributing monthly updates andcommunicating with other members. The chairpersontakes a very proactive role with the coordinatorreporting to him/her on a monthly basis. Goodcommunication between the chairperson and thecoordinator is viewed as crucial to the success of theinitiative. HACI Mozambique and its four corepartners help each other secure external or in-country funding, which can then be shared amongthemselves to the benefit of common local partners.

HACI Mozambique sees itself as a grant-makinginitiative and not as an implementer. To achieve itsoverall objectives, it needs credible and effectivepartners to be able to reach OVCs at the communitylevel through means of both service delivery andadvocacy. It has 14 local partners, three of which arestrong enough organisationally to work as ‘umbrella’organisations, to be funded to build the capacity ofother local CSOs. This method of decentralising afunding mechanism has been piloted in Manicaprovince of Mozambique with promising results. HACIhas also developed technical partnerships withorganisations in the region, such as the RegionalPsychosocial Support Initiative that provides capacitydevelopment for HACI’s local partners.

HACI’s pan-African Secretariat is guiding the country-level initiatives along a path towards independence.This process is likely to take up to two years. HACIMozambique’s recent move into its own premises isseen as a step along that path. There is still a highlevel of interdependence and no desperate sense ofurgency to gain independence. However, reportedlythere is much interest in funding HACI Mozambique;it has been approached by both USAID and theRoyal Netherlands Embassy to submit proposals. Aninterviewee said, ‘I’m not sure but we think that mostdonors would prefer us at this stage to stand on ourown so that funds go direct to us.’ Maintaining theinterest of partners after they become fullyindependent is a major concern for HACIMozambique. Harmonising measures are alreadybeing taken to align strategic plans with theirpartners so that they are both working for the sameoutcomes.

A consultant noted that the concept of grant-making,which is fundamental to both HACI and CEF, remainsrather new; INGOs would not ‘naturally’ work in thisway. It is thus an outside model that has beenimported. The following lessons can be taken fromHACI’s experience:

• having a proactive chair from a non-lead agencymay reduce lead agency dominance andpromote wider ownership of the fund

• umbrella organisations might be used as a wayto decentralise funding and expand capacitydevelopment to CSOs and CBOs, particularlythose located farther from the capital

• anyone seeking to establish a new fund shouldresearch other similar funds already in existence(in any sector), to avoid re-inventing the in-country wheel.


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34 This section draws on Beall (2005).

Manusher Jonno (Bangladesh)34

Manusher Jonno (MJ) – meaning ‘For the People’ –was established in 2002 and is funded by DFID tothe tune of £15 million for the period 2005-2010. It ismanaged by a consortium including CARE UK, CAREBangladesh, Deloitte and Touche Emerging Markets(UK), the Bangladesh Legal Aid Services Trust(BLAST) and the London School of Economics.However, MJ is in the process of becoming anindependent national organisation under Bangladeshilaw. MJ is overseen by a ten-person steeringcommittee of Bangladeshi professionals that acts asthe governing body and provides strategic directionand approval for grants over £45,000. The MJ teamleader acts as an ex-officio member and DFID, CAREBangladesh and BLAST have observer status.

MJ supports local and national initiatives that helpbuild the voice of the poor and their capacity to beheard, supporting improved governance andpromoting the rights of the poor and marginalised.This is principally done by awarding grants to NGOsthat submit appropriate proposals and meet strictselection criteria. While the vision was to fund arange of organisations, because MJ is registered withthe NGO Affairs Bureau, this limited their funding toequally registered organisations: professional, knownNGOs with solid track records and welfare-orientedprojects. But this clashed with MJ’s rights-based andgovernance agenda.

Efforts to build capacity within the government torespond to their obligations have been problematic.Intrinsic has been the difficulty of MJ being viewedas a leading partner in building organisationalcapacity to carry out human rights and governanceprogramming rather than simply a funding agency.Yet MJ was designed to retain autonomy anddistance from government institutions in order toenhance the voice of the poor and marginalisedcitizens. During inception, the political climate in Bangladesh was relatively benign and so innovation

and risk were stressed. But by the time it wasimplemented, there were serious tensions within theNGO community and between CSOs andgovernment. Consequently, the MJ secretariat andsteering committee decided that MJ, temporarily atleast, would avoid funding controversial issues thatmight be sensitive to government and put MJ and itspartners at risk.

It became clear that potential grant awardees hadvarying levels of awareness and experience of rightsand governance. Additionally, ‘[MJ] were not able towork on just advocacy issues because they did notknow how much to do advocacy outside servicedelivery. So a large part of the journey for them waslearning what advocacy was’ (academic).

Part of the assessment process therefore involvedjudging the readiness of potential awardees to takeon the more controversial rights and governanceissues that MJ stood for. Many projects were rejectedfor being service-delivery-oriented. MJ found itneeded to engage in building awareness andcapacity on rights and governance issues.Organisations were thus grouped into thoseengaged in service delivery, those engaged inadvocacy and service delivery, and those thatneeded to learn about advocacy through training.‘They ended up spending a lot of money on trainingfor effective advocacy’ (ibid.). This involved assistingawardees to scale down their ambitions, yet led toaccusations of favouritism.

MJ also faced the challenges of whether to supportprogrammes that utilised means that they did notnecessarily consent to (such as direct action), andwhether to intervene, when asked, on controversialpolitical issues. This raised the question of whetherMJ was simply a funding agency or a major player inthe field of rights and governance. While the aimwas the latter, it was recognised that its ability tocarry out this role was limited if it was to survive.

Manusher Jonno is an unusually well-documentedexample of a local fund. Its history provides lessonsfor those looking to establish a potentially controversial fund:

• potential partners come with a range of skills andadvocacy awareness; many need training beforethey can apply for funds to undertake advocacywork

• the political context affects how many risks afunding organisation feels able to take

• operating as a major political player, as well asmanaging funds, is a difficult role to play.

A fund managed by government

The research found few examples of funds for civilsociety that are managed by governments. TheNational Council for HIV/AIDS (CNCS) in Mozambiqueis thus an interesting model, especially as itsassociation with the government has enabled theestablishment of a decentralised model, servinggrantees in several provinces and thus overcomingthe capital city focus that hampers the fulfilment ofmany funds’ objectives.


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Pupil in class at the Tizaa Centre, Ghana.

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35 This section draws on Remmelzwaal (2006, p.26-7).

CNCS (National Council for HIV/AIDS)(Mozambique)35

The National Council for HIV/AIDS (CNCS) was createdin 2000 to coordinate a multi-sectoral response acrossMozambican society in order to mitigate the impact ofHIV/AIDS. Although the funds received by CSOs are notused specifically for advocacy, they are often channelledinto activities that spill over into advocacy work aroundHIV/AIDS. Currently some 1,800 civil society projects are funded by CNCS.

The CNCS is funded by the Government ofMozambique, the World Bank, and a Common Fundcontributed to by DFID, CIDA, the Swiss government,DANIDA, Finnida and the Global Fund. It also has ‘minorfunding partners’ (United Nations DevelopmentProgramme (UNDP), Joint United Nations Project onHIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and United Nations Children’s Fund(UNICEF)), which fund specific projects. The CNCSillustrates the difficulties of divergent donor reportingdemands. The Global Fund signed an agreement withthe CNCS in 2004 but was only due to begin funding itin 2006. This was because the Global Fund hadstringent reporting demands, in particular specificqualitative and quantitative indicators, and the CNCSrequired time to set up systems to meet these demands.However, the fund has begun streamlining its fundingmechanisms, resulting in a New Common Fund in whichall donors have agreed to a common reporting format(more or less in line with the Global Fund’s reportingmethods). The government’s funds remain separate fromthis, as its funds are audited by the Administrative Court,not an external auditor as preferred by other donors. Thedonors meet monthly, coordinated by a focal person(currently from UNICEF) appointed annually tocoordinate communication with the CNCS.

CNCS has a decentralised disbursement structure.Independent offices in 11 provinces mobilise civil societyto prepare proposals for community-level HIV/AIDS-related activities. These proposals are screened and

passed on for approval by the provincial Committee,which is chaired by the Governor and attended by thedirectors of various government departments with adirect interest in the work of the CNCS. Proposals withbudgets up to $20,000 can be approved this way; largerproposals are forwarded to the office in the capital,Maputo, and the national board of directors. This board,of whom half the members are drawn from civil society,sits under the presidency of the prime minister.

Funds are disbursed monthly from the national toprovincial offices; in return, the provincial office reportsmonthly on money received and spent. Financial reportsare provided quarterly to the donors, who meet as asteering committee to discuss them. Donors disbursefunds annually on approval of the operational plan.Initially only activities directly related to the preventionand mitigation of HIV/AIDS were funded, but laterfunding was given for operational costs.

CNCS is currently under-spending. It hopes to attractother donors by increasing its efficiency to spend fundseffectively. To this end, a new grant management systemwill be introduced. An independent professional grantmanagement body will take over the responsibility forthe development and monitoring of proposals from civilsociety and the public sector. They will also beresponsible for capacity development. It is hoped thatthis new system will not only improve efficiency but willalso give the national level CNCS more space forstrategy development and monitoring and evaluationmechanisms, which are currently underdeveloped.

Capacity development for both CNCS staff and granteesremains a central focus. Experience with private sectortrainers had limited success, as they provided blankettraining that did not always met the specific needs of thebeneficiaries. The fund later moved to annual in-housetraining.

This example suggests that:

• time can be saved by harmonising reportingmechanisms to use the same format for alldonors, while ensuring that they are sufficientlystringent

• pressure from donors can lead to changes aimedat improving a fund’s accountability andefficiency

• introducing an independent professional grantmanagement system might increase efficiency tospend effectively

• capacity development for both staff and granteesmust be tailored to needs.

Funds managed by the private sector

A number of donors have selected private companiesto manage their funds for civil society.

An independent consultant described this as ‘a verynew initiative and the first where donors have cometogether to fund civil society in this way using a highlyprofessional and contracted grant managementagent’; a view mirrored by the managing agent as a‘very interesting model for a more comprehensiveprofessionally managed fund’.


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Community Land Use Fund (Mozambique)

Still in development, this fund provides resourcesfor rural communities to take up their land rightsas granted through the Land Act. This Act, whichresulted from a very successful land campaign,is favourable to communities, yet they were notsignificantly taking up these rights. Funded by sixbilateral donors, with DFID taking the lead, thee3.6 million fund is managed by KPMG, withgrant-making agents decentralised in threeprovinces. The managing agent is to:

• develop, implement and maintain a projectmanagement system and a financialtransaction recording system ‘in accordancewith internationally accepted norms andpractices’

• raise stakeholder and client awareness ofthe fund through communication andmarketing capacity building for servicedelivery following identification of necessaryskills among service providers in eachprovince

• develop and implement the project portfolioincluding the fund criteria and proceduresfor eligibility and funding allocation

• document the learning process and beinvolved in the ongoing review of policyissues and the fund management systems.


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Ghana Research and Advocacy Programme (G-RAP) (Ghana)36

G-RAP was launched in September 2004 as a jointinitiative between Ghanaian civil society and DFID,CIDA, DANIDA and the Royal Netherlands Embassy.The overall goal is to strengthen civic engagement ineffective pro-poor policy by the Government of Ghana.It is intended to complement the donors’ move tomulti-donor budget support with a civil societycomponent, capable of feeding into policy processesand of monitoring implementation with a critical,competent set of eyes. G-RAP is managed by LTSInternational and Ernst & Young Ghana.

The overall purpose of G-RAP is to enhance thecapacity of research and advocacy organisations tocarry out evidence-based research and advocacyactivities in support of pro-poor and gender-balancedpolicies.

Core Funding Grants are given on a competitivebasis to organisations with an established track recordof achievement and influence. Over three to fiveyears, these grants support staff training orremunerations packages, buy equipment or services,or support research or advocacy projects. The value ofa core grant usually ranges between 25% and 40% ofthe institution’s total budget. Money is disbursedquarterly according to the grantees’ approved workplan and budget. Annual renewal of the grant isconditional upon demonstrable improvement againstkey organisational competencies and continuousimpact on the policy process. Grantees submitquarterly financial status reports, including bankstatements, reconciliation statements and completefinancial reports for the institution, and bi-annualnarrative reports using very concise standardreporting formats.

Technical Assistance or Project Grants support thedevelopment of specific skills or overcoming identifiedorganisational shortcomings over one year. They maybe used to acquire services and consultancyexpertise, or acquire equipment and resources toimprove a grantee’s research and advocacycapabilities. The grants may also be used to recruitnew staff and to carry out specific project activitiesthat help improve the overall efficiency of grantees.Applicants who are assessed as promising but do notyet qualify for core funding are given detailedfeedback on their profile and growth opportunities andcan be offered these one-year grants.

Institutional Capacity Building (ICB) Grants supportspecific activities to strengthen institutional capacity(such as strategy development, training anddevelopment, financial management assistance,marketing and fundraising). With IBIS West Africa andSNV-Ghana, G-RAP has developed a coachingpartnership, through which activities are agreedbetween the grantee and G-RAP coaches, and set outin an ICB work plan, which forms part of the grantagreement. ICB grants are usually for one year butcan be renewed.

Expressions of interest are reviewed by theProgramme Management Team (PMT) against the G-RAP criteria. Short-listed organisations are theninvited to submit detailed applications, which arereviewed by the funders’ committee, comprisingdonor representatives and an eminent Ghanaian. An advisory board, comprising individuals from civil society, government and donors, advises onpolicies and priorities for the programme, and leads on the external relations of G-RAP. The PMTacts as secretariat to the advisory board and thefunders committee, and manages all aspects of thegrant-making procedures and organisationaldevelopment support.

36 This section is drawn from Ahadzie (2006).

It is notable that, although this fund is managed bythe private sector, its structure and focus are verysimilar to those of funds managed by INGOs ornational coalitions. Its grant-making process suggeststhat:

• varying kinds of grants may be made available toorganisations in differing stages of development,to fit their individual circumstances.

Two private sector financial management companiesexplained how they work:

“We offer a comprehensive array of auditing,taxation and a wide range of financial, accountingand business services to our clients within thepublic and private sector. Our approach is to fullyunderstand our clients’ needs and the environmentin which they operate. We organise ourselvesthrough multidisciplinary teams. This allows us toprepare a team that is customised for the job athand.”

Another explained that, ‘We help clients design theircontrol mechanisms for their funds. We ensure that astrong discipline is adhered to and that procedures are followed. If not, funding is stopped.’ There isconsiderable scepticism on the part of civil societytowards allowing a private organisation to managefunds for civil society. Focus group participants inZambia worried that, ‘The firm is into making profitsand thus might not share the same values as those ofthe CSO… “It might not have a humanface”’(Mumbuna, 2006, p. 26). Yet for the financialmanagement of the fund, it would make sense to haveas professional an approach as possible. This may bean area in which the private sector is better placed toensure the efficiency, accountability and transparencyof the fund. This is not to argue that a private sectororganisation is best placed to manage the fund as awhole.

Independent funds

Malawi’s FOSANET, the Ugandan Human Rights Fundand Bangladesh’s Manusher Jonno have all indicatedthat they wish and intend to become fully independententities. The Foundation for Civil Society in Tanzania isone local fund that has achieved independent status,having previously been managed by an INGO. TheCivil Society Support Mechanism, currently indevelopment in Mozambique, will also be anindependent organisation.


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The Zambia Election Fund (Zambia) 37

In order to promote good governance and theconduct of free and fair elections, donors inZambia pooled money to fund activities in the run up to the 2006 tripartite elections. Funds were granted to the government (specifically theElectoral Commission of Zambia), and to privatecompanies and CSOs. The government fundswere managed directly by the government, whilethe $3 million for other organisations was pooledin the Zambia Election Fund (ZEF),38 managed by the UNDP. The fund management organisationwas identified through selective tender. A numberof organisations were asked to put in proposals. A committee of the donor organisations selectedPC Marketing, a local consulting firm, on thestrength of a good proposal and it being the only indigenous organisation to bid.

Prospective grant recipients submittedexpressions of interest that were short-listed andthe list submitted to the donors. Those approvedwere asked to formulate detailed proposals thatwere again given to the donors for a final approvalbefore the funds were given. The funds weregiven in tranches and PC Marketing providedcapacity building to those organisations thatseemed to have problems in implementation. ZEF was responsible for quarterly reporting to thedonors, and monitoring of the implementingorganisations’ activities. The evaluation of theactivities was conducted by an independentorganisation engaged by the donors. PCMarketing charged 9% as a management fee and 5% for operational costs; thus the projectinvestment was 86%.

37 This section draws on Mumbuna (2006).

38 ZEF’s donors were the Irish Embassy, the Royal Netherlands Embassy,Finland and Norwegian Embassy, the Canadian High Commission, the Japanese Embassy, PACT Zambia and HIVOS.


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39 This section draws on Ashley and Hamilton (2005) and Wiseman (2004).

The Foundation for Civil Society (Tanzania)39

The Foundation for Civil Society (FCS) developed outof the Civil Society Programme (CSP), which waslaunched and managed by DFID Tanzania in April2001, and divided into three:

• a management agency, CARE Tanzania,overseeing the grant-making process

• a capacity building agent, TRACE, providing pre-designed training programmes to applicants andgrantees

• a national evaluator, responsible for evaluation ofgrantees and developing linkages betweenorganisations.

CSP was established in part to address internal DFIDinefficiencies in dealing with civil society, which hadcentred on funding a number of locally basedinternational NGOs through not particularly strategicor transparent mechanisms. DFID also felt it wasnecessary to ensure an effective mechanism wasdeveloped to balance the growing focus of fundsgoing directly to government through direct budgetsupport, to build the voice of Tanzanian civil society tohold the government to account and participateeffectively in the PRS process.

In 2003, FCS was established as an independentTanzanian organisation to continue the work initiatedin CSP. TRACE and the national evaluator still fulfiltheir original functions but CARE has no role in thenew Foundation. From establishment to 2005, theFoundation was funded in the amount of $10.7 millionby four bilateral agencies, DFID, the Swiss Agency forDevelopment and Cooperation (SDC), RoyalNetherlands Embassy and Development CooperationIreland (DCI). Since 2006, FCS has signedagreements to secure funding from SDC, theEmbassy of Sweden, the Embassy of Denmark andCIDA.

At least one member from each agency sits on theboard and each is represented on the council ofmembers. Prospective donors are members of thecouncil, for which they pay $100 per year (in line withTanzanian law that dictates this liability is paid by allmembers). On the board also sit the three-memberexecutive committee, a main grants committee and asmall grants committee. Below this is a secretariatcomprising 25 members: Management and PolicyServices; Development and Capacity BuildingServices, Grants Services (Officers); andAdministration Services.

The Foundation aims to support CSOs to enableeffective engagement in poverty reduction efforts asset out in the Government of Tanzania policies: Vision2025; the Tanzania Assistance Strategy; and thePRSP. The FCS awards two levels of grants: up to£5,000 or £35,000 for a maximum of three years.There are two selection committees for the differenttypes of grants with members comprising donoragencies, CSOs, civil society activists and otherprofessions. Grants can also roll on consecutively toprovide continuous funding to a project. Ensuring thatfunds reach the levels of society where they are mostneeded, and balancing disbursement of grants with acoherent approach to targeting organisations, hasbeen difficult. The FCS is attempting to reach smalleror less capable organisations by encouragingpartnership and networking among CSOs, particularlyencouraging applications from consortia of CSOs.Currently, the FCS is expanding its capacitydevelopment work for grantees, beginning withcapacity assessment for each grantee. Previously,FCS conducted very basic ‘manager grant training’ onhow to manage the funds, but it is now movingtowards building relationships with grantees that gobeyond the specific projects and build the a range ofskills needed in CSOs, including fundraising,advocacy, leadership, partnership (with other CSOsand government) and organisational sustainability.

One challenge faced by FCS is donor domination ofthe board, thus questioning identity of the Foundationas an independent, Tanzanian institution. There wereproblems in recruiting prominent Tanzanians, and‘non-donor members commented that the Foundation“was almost like creating an institution to assist whatthe donors want to do” and that donors were morefocused on getting the money out and looking forquick successes’. In addition, ‘the voting process onthe board for decisions was seen as nonsensical asthere could not be balanced voting when “all thedonors agreed with each other and voted one wayand those non-donor members tended always tovote another”’ (Wiseman, 2004, p. 13).

FCS has attracted a lot of attention from other donorsto the end that it may become the principal fundingmechanism for civil society and, in turn, capturingother funding and ‘unbalancing the market’ (Wiseman,2004, p. 15). It was felt by several interviewees thatseeking to include education within the FCS’smandate would further broaden its already (too) widescope, and education organisations would not thenreceive satisfactory attention.

The FCS thus provides a model of a local fund that isin theory independent, but in practice suffers from adominant group on the board. Its experience suggeststhat:

• Local Funds need to integrate capacity buildingfor potential grantees into their structure, in orderto enable small organisations to access thesupport that the fund is intended to offer

• the board should include a range of stakeholdersin order that decisions are not split

• positive engagement with government is,perhaps inevitably, difficult and must be handledwith care

• having only one in-country civil society fund maynot be ideal for diverse civil society work.


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40 This section is largely draw from Remmelzwaal (2006).

41 Johnson (2005).

Civil Society Support Mechanism (CSSM) (Mozambique)40

DFID and Irish Aid are currently establishing the CivilSociety Support Mechanism (CSSM) to improvegovernance and accountability for ordinaryMozambican citizens by strengthening anddiversifying the engagement of CSOs with monitoringand advocacy on governance. Its target groups areCSOs with an existing focus on areas of governanceor who are in a position to respond to opportunities toengage in governance issues when they arise, suchas in the case of elections or the revision of the PRSP.

A combination of support through capacitydevelopment, funding and improved access toinformation will be provided through an independentlymanaged mechanism. The main function of thisprofessional management body is ‘to facilitate,catalyse, support civil society activity and capacitydevelopment in the areas of economic and politicalgovernance; not become a civil society organisationin its own right’.41 The Management Agent appointedto implement CSSM will be responsible for theinternal financial management and will be expected toprovide Irish Aid and DFID with quarterly and annualfinancial reports in an agreed format. Irish Aid andDFID will jointly be responsible for ensuring oneannual external audit of CSSM and have the right tocarry out other joint audits at any time.

A management board will be responsible for overallpolicy and strategic development of CSSM, includingoverseeing financial, policy and administrativedirections. Members of the board will be drawn fromdonors, civil society and people independent from,but with an understanding of, government. The boardmay draw periodically upon an expanded technicalgroup of individuals who can provide strategic andpolicy updates and analysis.

In order for CSOs to be eligible for a grant, proposalswill need to include an outline of the governanceintervention, a monitoring and evaluation plan for theCSO and a capacity development plan for the CSO.Where possible, CSOs’ existing financial and reportingsystems will be used. This may put an extra burdenon the Managing Agent in dealing with a range ofsystems, but it will avoid overly stringent reportingsystems being imposed on grantees. As a result, inthe first instance finance will only go to strongorganisations with the capacity to develop thenecessary documents. Weaker organisations will beable to engage through standard packages of training(sub-contracted to existing CSOs) and exchangevisits. CSOs will be responsible for evaluatingthemselves, in order to shift from evaluation carriedout by donors for donors, without CSOs seeing theresults. Capacity development, a focus area for theCSSM, will not be restricted to grantees but will beopen to all CSOs engaged with governance in various locations.

While the CSSM model was in development,42 the EUin Mozambique was also designing a fund for civilsociety work on poverty reduction, due to open in late2006. Its focus is non-sectoral (education would beeligible) capacity development of CSOs so that theycan deliver more efficiently. It is not training fortraining’s sake, but must be tied to a specific purpose,for example, for improving home-based care forHIV/AIDS. While it will fund individual CSOs who areable to write good proposals, the donors reported, ‘We would be very interested in funding a coalitionwhich would in turn use money to build capacityamong their members with a purpose in mind. Thiscould well be for advocacy in education.’ Therecommended model also includes decentralisedoffices and training for consultants, in order to developa skilled national pool of consultants. An internationalconsultant explained that, ‘Donors are willing to giveorganisations money to employ consultants to buildcapacity but often [the consultants] do not have thenecessary skills to do so or at least not to pass ontheir skills’.

Similarly, the designer of CSSM reported that, ‘DFIDwants to play down the money aspect and play upthe capacity development aspect. This is difficultwhen organisations perceive their greatest need asbeing finance.’ It seems therefore that capacitybuilding is high on the agenda of donors interested insupporting civil society work, both for CSOs and forthose training them or managing their funds. This fitsclosely with the needs identified by many of theseLocal Funds to support CSOs even before theybecome beneficiaries. CEF’s experience mirrors thisfashion – it is not just a fund, it is a supportive fund. Inorder to satisfy both donors and beneficiaries, it wouldseem unwise to divorce these two aspects – capacitybuilding and fund management – in any futurefunding model, but they should be handled byseparate teams within the funding organisation.

Conclusions

The above models not only paint a rich and detailedpicture of funding mechanisms for civil society but,more significantly, offer lessons for establishing afuture fund for education advocacy. All the casesillustrate that managing funds is not a straightforwardprocess. Managing power issues, acquiring ordeveloping appropriate skills (for both granters andgrantees) and ensuring access for potential granteesis paramount. Those funds managed by local ornational CSOs, INGOs and the independent fundsshow how having a mixed board constitution canmilitate against one particular group dominating theboard and the board itself dominating the fund.Separating the financial management, administrationand grant approval functions can further encourageaccountability. Involving private sector organisations tomanage the actual funds can also promote impartialityand accountability in the organisation as well asefficiency and effectiveness of the administered funds.The cases discussed also highlight the importance ofcapacity building (in financial accounting andadvocacy skills) for potential grantees. These issuesare developed in Chapter 6, which considers in detailhow to establish a CSEF.


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42 As the CSSM is in the process of being established, it is not possible atthis point to draw lessons learned from their experience

One way of working towards national sustainability isto access national funds. But this depends on therebeing national donors willing to support such aventure. The experience of the Tanzanian Foundationfor Civil Society (FCS) is instructive. In seeking tobecome more of a national model, the FCS tried tobroaden its funding base to include more national andlocal donors, with limited success. An INGOrepresentative said:

“It is very difficult to find sustainable fundingoutside of bilateral funding and there hasn’t beenthe same trend in developing countries ofgovernments turning to civil society and fundingthem. This can sometimes happen for servicedelivery work but not for advocacy.”

If a body as well-known and developed as the FCShas difficulty accessing national funds, the chances ofsuccess for a new organisation appear slimmer still.While the private sector has been highlighted,particularly by researchers in Sierra Leone (Clemens,2006) and Nigeria (Olaniyi, 2006), as a potential and

untapped source of support for CSOs, there does notseem to be sufficient evidence of the private sector’swillingness to support education advocacy in order torely on them to establish a wholly nationally fundedCivil Society Education Fund (CSEF), as discussedbelow. A private sector representative in Sierra Leoneadvised that the chances of CEF continuing itsactivities depending on funds generated locally isslim. In stating that, ‘The private sector is weak’ hiscomments echoed those of several other interviewees.Therefore attempting to establish a fund that does notaccess money from international donors is notrecommended. As a CEF MC member stated, ‘Withoutsupport from donors, a local funding mechanismindependent of government won’t be able to function.’Therefore any new CSEF would be sustained byinternational funding; that is, money from bilateral ormultilateral donors, INGOs, international private sectorcorporations and UN agencies. But this propositionwas questioned by many interviewees.


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5 Is a national CivilSociety Education Fund a good idea?

A senior INGO representative questioned, ‘Why is there funding in the first place? …Why should we live off donors for the rest of our lives?’ He pointed out that the global inequity (of 10% ofthe people managing the majority of the resources) means thatasking for international funding implied asking the same peoplewho produce that inequity to provide services. Therefore theprocess of establishing any funding mechanism should ensurethat the fund leads to some kind of self-sufficiency.

5.1 To fund (internationally) or not to fund?

Oh no, you shouldn’t

A researcher commented that, ‘Grant making isdangerous; it is trying to use money as a driving forcefor change.’ Or, as put by a coalition member,‘Funding must be tactfully considered,’ sincecampaign successes can bring a huge amount ofdonor interest, and as a result there is a risk thatnational education coalitions and other advocacyagents ‘will be easily seduced and distorted by donorrequests’.43 A bilateral donor similarly flagged thedanger that, ‘Once funding is involved, this can reallycompromise and distort a coalition’s mission.’Representatives of national and international NGOs,and of donor institutions, commented on the dangerthat while INGOs assist in socio-economicdevelopment, their engagement with and funding oflocal partners leaves CSOs dependent on INGOs.

An international coalition representative arguedstrongly, ‘This advocacy cannot be funded bygovernments.’ His point was that those who fund thework are very unlikely to be criticised by thoseundertaking it, thus limiting the objectivity of theadvocacy. He said he would go as far as to ask theUK government to pull out of funding advocacy, andthat, ‘If the US government starts funding advocacy,we’re all sunk.’ It is hard to bite the hand that feeds.Taking funding from the UN, which represents allgovernments, is ‘the death of effective advocacy’.44

How then to ensure that sufficient funds are availableto carry out advocacy that is not directed by donoragendas, or that does not leave national NGOsdependent on INGOs? One answer, at least forcoalitions, is to look within the coalition itself. As therepresentative of an international organisation pointedout, ‘Coalitions already have funds’, in that they areconstituted of member organisations that have fundsof their own. Thus one approach is to levy fees fromtheir members. Interviewees from Ghana and Lesothoindicated that this was already the case; agovernment interviewee in Ghana further stated thatwhile ‘coalitions must rely on internal contribution fortheir activities’, District Assemblies had been providedwith funds that could be accessed by coalitions. Thusmembers are an important, but not the only, source ofintra-national funding for coalitions.

A second approach is to limit the amount of moneyrequired by an advocacy organisation, or at least by acoalition. A donor commented that ‘Coalitions aremost effective when there is not a lot of moneyinvolved.’ If coalition staff are solely responsible forcoordinating members, and the implementation iscarried out by coalition members rather thansecretariat staff, the coalition needs limited funding.

“Advocacy takes time and whilst commitment can be through money, I do not see that this iseither necessary or appropriate in this case. What you need is some kind of demonstration of commitment through time given by theorganisation – this is hard enough as it is.”(researcher)

The senior INGO official quoted at the beginning ofthis chapter suggested that coalitions should welcomefunding for the short and medium term, but that long-term funding must come from the nationalgovernment, national income. He insisted that in everypoor country, there are ways of doing this. In a similarvein, a representative of a fund in another sectoragreed that, ‘We want southern countries andsouthern civil society organisations to be receivingfunds from their own sources in the south. It’s aboutownership and kick starting in-country developmentprocesses.’ He gave an example of a project in Nepal,to which funds have been given to initiate the processof mobilising money locally from governments, NGOsand the community. ‘But rather than giving them fundswe want them to be lying awake at night, staring at theceiling and thinking about where the next payroll iscoming from.’ A network representative from Pakistanagreed that coalitions need initial funding but alsodescribed how his organisation was working tobecome independent of big NGOs:

“We believe we can become self-sustainable after[three years]. Our proposal is that we shouldintroduce Rs 50 (£0.50) as monthly membershipfee. This is a small amount which all members canafford but since we have 2,500 members,collectively this will generate a decent amount. In


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43 CEF MC member

44 If the funds were pooled, and/or released to a civil society fundautomatically as a percentage of overseas development aid, the directlink to individual donor governments may be removed, and this pointameliorated. Mechanisms for accessing funding are discussed brieflybelow.

addition, we propose to introduce a monthlynewsletter, which should also have a small fee.Also, we propose to develop a good resourcecentre within the secretariat in the first three yearsand the members can then be charged for usingthe facilities. So, there are ways to sustain thesecretariat without having donor funding for toolong but the funding is critical in the initial years.”

This example illustrates a trend in some countries,particularly in Asia, in which CSOs have already takenthe issue of dependency into their own hands. InPakistan the researcher identified three civil societycoalitions that explicitly chose not to take donorfunding, in order to avoid tensions and rivalry betweenmembers. In one case it was stated that this was alsoto ensure the legitimacy of the network was notplaced in question. Similarly, in neighbouring Indiathere is ‘huge resistance to foreign funding’, and oneINGO is putting considerable effort into raising itsprofile without being seen as an international NGO,nor even as an ‘Indian’ organisation, to avoid thecolonial connotations to which this name gives rise.45

The research report from India emphasises that thereis an ‘intense suspicion of institutional funding’ fromthe USA and UK, and concludes that ‘the Indiansituation is not entirely conducive to direct nationallevel advocacy work, especially from internationalorganisations’ (Bhatty, 2006, p. 1). In suchcircumstances it would be unwise to devoteconsiderable energies to establishing aninternationally funded CSEF, which is unlikely to be appreciated by those it seeks to support.

In other countries, civil society dependency onexternal funding is far more ingrained. In Lesotho, oneinterviewee told this story:

“Our civil society has been moulded by our history;that history plays a major role in how we think andhow we participate in civil society-relatedprogrammes or projects. In the past, many donoragencies used to sympathise with Lesothoparticularly during the apartheid system. Donor aidwas never a problem for this country. Our civil

society grew with a mentality of being helped. Thatattitude of thinking that there is someone out therewho will always help created a dependencysyndrome among the civil society… We are awarethat after South Africa gained independence in1994 the system changed. We saw donor partnersmove to South Africa but the institutions remainedbehind and continued with old practices.”

Granters and grantees are thus continuing a pattern ofinteraction that puts the donor in control not only ofthe funds and agenda, but also of the spark ofinspiration for change. A CEF UK member recognisedthe same kind of problem in the allocation of moneyto CEF countries, in that, ‘Because they all knew thatthis money was there, so there was no real incentivefor rigorous analysis. The CEF could therefore notdemand deep thinking and clear systems analysis.’

Thus the existence of guaranteed funding can breedstagnation. The same is true of continued funding ofcoalitions. A bilateral donor in Kenya felt it would beinadvisable to ‘prop up coalitions which are clearly notworking’. This sentiment was mirrored by the staff andMC of CEF Pakistan, who felt that, ‘the Coalition iscurrently home to NGOs who are entirely donordependent, and whose legitimacy and roots in thesociety are questionable’. A discussion of thisresearch focused on:

“…ideological concerns about continuing tosupport an advocacy coalition, which eight months on from its formal inception has failed toconvincingly demonstrate that it has any agenda of its own and won’t just become anotherplatform for implementing donor priorities.”(Bano, 2006, p. 42)

Difficult though it is, it is imperative to questionwhether coalitions that have been supported to datewarrant continued support.

Oh yes, you should

To counterbalance that perspective, to a certain extentCEF can be seen as having a moral inheritance toexplore ways to sustain international sources offunding for national civil society advocacy efforts. ACEF MC member pointed out that, before CEF,


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45 CEF coordinator, INGO staff member.

national coalitions and other advocacy organisations inthese countries were often funded by the threeagencies that are now part of CEF. Once CEF tookover the lion’s share of the funding burden, the ‘placein the budget’ of INGOs for supporting coalition andother CSO advocacy has gone. She continued:

“ I am quite worried about what will happen at theend of CEF. For [the coalition] the money givenmeant they massively scaled up what they weredoing. Can they sustain that? Will it go through apeak and come back down? CEF did makecoalitions feel that there was a funding source thatthey could access and not have to traipse aroundgetting money.”

The impending end of CEF brings CSOs to a newstage in the life cycle of funding for this still young andfragile child, advocacy in education. There has been aprogression from INGOs feeling an obligation tosupport CSO advocacy – in many cases creating theorganisations (particularly coalitions) that carry out thiswork – to INGO-managed donor funding through CEF.What comes next? Is it time to cut the apron stringsentirely and let national civil society advocacy set itsown agenda through its own, national, funding?

The research suggests not. However unattractive, thereality of global development is that even what is seenas national money (in developing country governmentbudgets) is in large part financed from internationalsources. It cannot be denied that there exists aninternational funding regime in which northerngovernments (bilateral and multilateral donors) andcitizens (through taxes, charitable giving, legacies,etc.) commit funds to help ‘develop’ their southernneighbours, and that southern partners have come torely on and expect such support.

On a more positive note, it is worth alluding to theother changes that the existence of CEF has broughtabout. One CEF MC member asserted that, ‘We’re in acompletely different world of education because ofthe Fund.’ A CEF coordinator asserted that, in part dueto the presence and work of CEF, there has been achange in the aid architecture, in that eight years agoit was impossible to get money for civil societyadvocacy in education. CEF ‘is changing the view of

what “education” is and we are part of thedemocratisation of the education process’. Aninternational network staff member said that CEF hasbeen successful at helping a process that was alreadygoing; it has helped to improve the skills ofcampaigners round the world. This view was echoedby a senior multilateral donor representative, whodeclared, ‘That’s what’s different about CEF – it’sraising the policy level of NGOs’. Thus on a globalscale, CEF seems to have played a significant role inadvancing the agenda for civil society advocacy ineducation.

For those carrying out this advocacy work, a moreimportant point is that, now it has started, this workshould continue, and to do so it needs money. To takebut a sprinkling of comments, ‘The coalitions are justnow starting to have a good impact so we need tocarry on supporting them’. ‘The CEF has broughtCSOs together and there is a need to sustain it’.46 Or,more succinct yet, the words of a government official:‘There is a need for civil society.’ Such commentssuggest that the issues in which CEF and its partnershave engaged remain pressing. The question thusbecomes47 not whether to (internationally) fund, buthow to do so in a way that allows the advocacyagenda to be set by people within the country ratherthan by money from outside it.

5.2 International?

In commissioning this research, the CEF indicated adesire to establish national funding mechanisms, asopposed to replacing CEF with another internationalnetwork of country-based funds. The data from theresearch confirms that this is the most appropriate wayto proceed. From a practical fundraising position,bilateral donors’ increasing decentralisation of controlof funds means that decisions about allocation offunds are increasingly being made by country offices.Bilateral and multilateral donors stated that ‘mostdonors are at country level’ and ‘locally based fundingis the best’.


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46 CEF MC members

47 The question of the appropriateness of international funding remains openin any particular country, and should be assessed by anyone seeking toestablish a civil society funding mechanism. In most CEF countries, thisproject’s researchers have asked and helped to answer that question.Elsewhere it must still be asked.

A multilateral donor representative stated that thecountry is the owner of projects, and likewise CSOs atthe country level have to be supported: ‘They are theones who should be in the driving seat and decidingwhat support they should be receiving from whatpartners.’ But this raises the question: who is ‘thecountry’? In a basic understanding of a democraticallyfunctioning country, the government is elected to berepresentative of the people, and therefore ‘nationallyowned’ could be interpreted as government-run. In thecontext of advocacy, this naïvety is of courselaughable; indeed, most advocacy efforts are directedby CSOs towards changing government policy andpractice. However, the question stands: in consideringestablishing a ‘nationally owned’ funding mechanism,who are the owners?

In all contexts there are elites who will dominate, orwill seek to dominate, any structure established todistribute large sums of money. Some of the powercomes from outside the national structures, or theculture, of the country concerned. In many cases,INGOs form (part of) those powerful elites. As a CSOmember commented, ‘The country directors ofinternational NGOS are extremely powerful. Theirposition is just after Allah.’ But it must be recognisedthat most staff in INGOs now are national citizens. It iseasy to dismiss staff working for internationalorganisations as internationals, but in reality they are(also) members of their own national elite. A bilateraldonor interviewed in one country had, two yearspreviously, been working for a national NGO. An INGOmember in another country commented on being ‘oldcolleagues’ with the CEF coordinator, as both hadworked in the Ministry of Education before the (now)CEF coordinator joined another INGO.

A senior UN official complained about people whodemanded that more time was made available forconsultation. She asserted that, ‘In [this country]everyone knows each other,’ and that the ‘informal,proactive’ consultation that took place betweenlongstanding friends and colleagues, usually in highplaces, was the most effective. This view waschallenged by the director of a local NGO in the samecountry, who lamented the exploitation of CEF’s local-

level partners by national-level influential individuals orthink-tanks. Such ‘powerful individuals’, he said, ‘areself-proclaimed civil society but to me they arenothing but “consultants” and “elite researchers”. Theywant us to feed the kitty by limiting our role atgrassroots.’ Both individuals in question were citizensof the country they worked in. Thus CSOs are notimmune to elitism. A bilateral donor representativeagreed that, in his country,

‘Extended family cartels still dominate the powerstructure of every sphere. NGOs and civil societyare not free from this cultural influence.’

While individuals adopt the stance associated withtheir employer, it would be naïve to suggest that theonly people who truly represent the country, andtherefore should manage the fund, are those workingfor ‘national’ CSOs, or national governments. It will take an incredible amount of self-awareness andconsensus-building to avoid domination of the fund by a particular group, be it political, ethnic, religious,family-linked or tied by any other shared commitment.Probably the best that can be sought is thataccountability systems and transparent structures areput in place that limit the possibility of dominance byan elite and ensure that the fund’s functions are notabused, and then limit the impact such dominancemakes on the effectiveness of the fund when itinevitably occurs.

In sum, such funds would be national funds because the money would be nationally sourcedfrom nationally based donors; with nationallyrelevant agendas tied to national education priorities;and the funds would be nationally managed andnationally led. They retain an international facetbecause they would be concerned withinternationally agreed targets (EFA and MDGs),funded by international donors in each country, and provide a model for funding civil societyinvolvement in education advocacy in all countries.

5.3 Fuelling the CSEF: sources of funds

Also discussed in Chapter 3 was how donors areincreasingly looking to pool funding for governments,and the potential for a similar method of support for


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‘watchdog agencies’ in the form of CSOs. Moreover,interviewees at headquarters and in-country officesexpressed interest in the concept and some went sofar as to say that they would be willing to contribute tosuch a fund. This section considers who the potentialfund supporters are, and the conditions needed toencourage this support.

Some bilateral donors saw that funding advocacywas ‘high risk’, therefore ‘they would need to be verysure of the organisation they are funding’ through thesatisfaction of a number of requirements that require itto be ‘quite sophisticated’. Another representativestated that ‘most donors would be supportive of anational fund if they thought it would be managedwell’. Thus transparency, accountability and soundfinancial management influenced donors’ perceptionof such a fund.

Yet in terms of the purpose, key was the idea that,‘From a donor point of view, the most important thingis to demonstrate the value of this advocacy: themore you can say about the results you haveachieved, the more likely they will listen. The keyquestion is what difference is it making to that ruralgirl who is not yet going to school.’ There wastherefore common support for the fund, as long ascertain criteria were met that included soundadvocacy skills and means but also ‘a clear strategicplan on the main areas of the fund, that they weregenerally aligned with donor priorities and they werenot too controversial – then donors would be happyto support it’.

CIDA, DANIDA, SIDA, NORAD and DFID were allviewed as ‘friendly to CSOs in education’ advocacyand therefore good potential funders, as against JICAand USAID, which were less keen to support such aninitiative. Given that many donors are devolvingdecision making for civil society engagement tocountry representatives, donor funds for a CSEF wouldbe best accessed at the country level through therespective embassies. Indeed, a bilateral donor statedthat accessing funds from central headquarters ‘wouldbe a major shift in the way we work so it is notsomething we would consider’.

Additionally, several donors and academics spoke ofthe ‘potential for supporting a CEF-like pooled fundfor advocacy in the future’. Pooled funding was seento minimise some of the risk of funding advocacy bydrawing fire from any one organisation should therebe any backlash with the government, but alsobecause donors would have to contribute smalleramounts. As a bilateral representative in Mozambiquesaid, ‘We have downsized our involvement with NGOsand are now looking for opportunities to support civilsociety through modalities that complement the otherones we are using… Advocacy work and capacitybuilding does not need much money so the fundwould not have to be big.’ Bilateral support for thefund was, therefore, in word at least, quite high.

In comparison to bilateral donors, multilateraldonors were reticent to voice support for the fund.For example, representatives in Cameroon andBangladesh would not commit either way because‘whilst we would certainly want to be part of such aprocess... we would not want to engage in any“adventures”’. World Bank and EU representativestended to point towards institutional funds for civilsociety.48 One World Bank representative said thatfunding CSOs to undertake advocacy would falloutside its mandate. Rather Bank members advocatefrom inside the government system by ‘encouragingthem to involve civil society in the implementation,design and monitoring of its projects’. The EU has acentral budget that has existed for 30 years andprovides funds for civil society, administered through acompetitive tendering process. Thus, ‘Whilst we wouldstrongly support a national education fund, locally ledfunding, we simply don’t have the money for itourselves.’ Consequently, advice was given that


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48 For example, the Social Development Fund in The Gambia, which ismanaged by the Gambian government, the African Development Bank,UNDP and the International Cooperation Development Fund of Taiwan.

prospective managers should approach bilateraldonors who ‘have little pots of money but don’t knowwhat to spend them on’.49

A UNESCO representative was more positive, saying:

“There is more interest for donors to work with civilsociety but the problem is that they often do notknow how to get involved with civil society, wheretheir money goes and whether they are supportingthe right organisations. By going through such afund there could be a clear criteria, committee andselection process that would give a guarantee thatthe money was going to the right place.”

Despite this view, UNESCO felt they had insufficientfunds to provide themselves. The same was the casewith one UNICEF officer in Africa, whilst another officerfrom Asia commented that they would rather give anyfunds to organisations such as ActionAid or Oxfam asknown and trusted organisations. A UNDPrepresentative stated that there was no possibility ofthem releasing funds for education as this wascatered for within the UN system by UNESCO andUNICEF. Support from multilateral donors was thuslimited.

Supporting such a fund with resources went againstthe nature of most INGOs interviewed as, in the case of ActionAid, Oxfam GB and Save the ChildrenUK, they themselves are often the managers of similarfunds. It was therefore counter-cultural for them tohand money over to conduct work in which they areengaged. Instead, INGOs suggested non-financialsupport such as joint research endeavours, influencingefforts and fundraising experience. While unlikely toprovide funds, their considerable experience inaccessing resources would be valuable.

There was insufficient data to comment on the viabilityof foundations as sources of funds, although thisseems a potentially very fruitful avenue for furtherexploration. There is evidence of foundations givingfunds to coalitions, and some foundations supportedthe idea of a CSEF. An interviewee from the USAindicated that in-country advocacy is a ‘hot topic’ inwhich foundations are increasingly interested. Thissource of funding thus merits further investigation bothat the international level and nationally by thoseestablishing CSEFs.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there was little support fromgovernment officers for giving funds, as articulatedby one government official:

“All this support for civil organisations is justanother way of expressing that we do not trustgovernments because national governments arenot accountable enough. But remember thatnational governments are responsible for nationalpolicy and all civil society work has to be withingovernment policy framework. So why not supportgovernments directly to fill gaps in policyimplementation?”

Other government officials cited that they should be involved in providing funds to civil society, yetoppressive bureaucratic checks and balancesprevented this happening. Another stated thatgovernment funding of CSOs would likely compromisetheir ability to criticise governments. Thus governmentsare unlikely to provide resources for their nationalCSEF.

It is important to discuss why private sector50

involvement might be desirable in education. Forsome businesses, there are clear though indirectincentives for involvement in education; ‘If they help toeducate young people of today they will have abetter-educated work force.’ And some private sectorrepresentatives see the need for CSOs to ‘breakdonor dependency by encouraging people to look tothemselves to generate funds’. But it cannot beassumed that businesses should or will want tosupport education advocacy.

Private sector involvement in education has met withsome success. For instance, CEF was fuelled withcontributions from, amongst others, Zurich FinancialServices, Standard Chartered Bank, Goldman Sachsand Cadbury Schweppes (CEF UK, 2005b). Yet thesupport given by these firms to CEF goes against thegeneral trend of private sector involvement. In all the


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49 However, the EU does have a centrally managed fund to which CSOs mayapply; see http://ec.europa.eu/comm/europeaid/cgi/frame12.pl

50 There are two senses of ‘private sector involvement in education’: for-profitcorporations and business that provide funds for education, and privateschooling where fees are paid for education provision that lies outside thegovernment system. We are only concerned with the former, accessingcorporate funds to support education work.

countries researched, private sector involvement wasfocused almost exclusively on service delivery ratherthan advocacy, mostly in the form of bricks and mortarfor schools but also, in Sierra Leone and Nigeria, forexample, through the provision of hardware for schoolssuch as generators, computers, laboratory equipment,books and stationery, as well as essay competitionsand sports prizes. Explaining the motivations forengaging in ‘social development’ or ‘socialresponsibility’ – terms used almost ubiquitously byprivate sector respondents to refer to their non-profitcore activities – one representative explained that,‘Sport receives the biggest support every year andthen education and the arts. Sport receives the mostsupport because of its mass appeal and, therefore, itsadvertising value’. This presents a gentle reminder thatthe private sector is primarily in the business ofmaking profit, not developing nations.

Other reasons facilitate and constrain the involvementof the private sector in education. Most immediate isthat the macroeconomic condition of the countryclearly influences the presence and prevalence ofcorporations and businesses. Commentators fromMozambique, Sierra Leone and Lesotho described theprivate sector in their countries as ‘weak’. In SierraLeone, many multinationals left because of the war;most businesses are therefore small companies thatengage mostly with the informal sector (Clemens,2006). Another factor is infrastructure, such as roadsand communications; ‘Businesses have to supply theirown power supply and purchase barrels to transportwater to their offices.’ Thus operating costs leave littlefor social development donations.

In some contexts, such as Mozambique, thegovernment has created enabling conditions forprivate sector donations for development, principallythrough favourable tax incentives. In addition, somelarger corporations in Mozambique are obliged todonate some of their profits towards socialdevelopment; in Tanzania, a 6% Skills DevelopmentLevy is taken from companies’ payrolls, which causesdissatisfaction (Waite and Mosha, 2006, p. 7).Conversely, in Sierra Leone and Lesotho, anydonations of this nature are taxable items. The resultin Lesotho has been that companies that do make

donations do so in South Africa where tax laws arefavourable. Thus there is no tax incentive forbusinesses to invest in social responsibility. Tax lawsare therefore critical to private sector contributions.Furthermore, engagement in education may be a lowpriority for corporate social engagement. AlthoughStandard Chartered has donated to CEF, and donatesuniversity scholarships, like many corporateorganisations, they prioritise HIV/AIDS. And inTanzania, a study on corporate sector involvement inbasic education noted that business leaders weremore preoccupied with technical and professionaleducation and training than with basic education(Waite and Mosha, 2006, p. i).

So, in the light of limited involvement in education,what scope might there be for private sector supportto education advocacy? Evidence suggested mixedpotential. On the one hand, a bilateral officer inMozambique felt that, ‘If we want the private sector toget involved in education because of higher levelreasons like they understand that advocacy will leadto improved education systems, we may well beexpecting too much.’ Yet another representative feltthat the private sector could be interested insupporting advocacy, but that:

“It would really depend on how you put acrossyour needs. You have to remember that they havebeen used to dealing with bricks and mortar –service delivery. If you can concretise some of thesoft advocacy issues such as involving them in theGlobal Week of Action or the Teachers’ Week, itcould work. You really have to touch their hearts…Otherwise, it is very hard work.”

CEF is witness to the difficulty of raising private sectorfunds for advocacy. A fundraiser employed for over ayear found the international target of £10 million inprivate sector donations to be ‘very ambitious’, andthat ‘private sector partnerships have not beendeveloped easily or sustained at the country level’(CEF UK, 2004b). Yet there is potential. Oneinternational bank’s involvement in social responsibilityfocuses on ‘developing innovative solutions’ inrelatively well-developed markets, and on women’sempowerment and financial literacy in developingmarkets. Both offer scope for education and advocacy.


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Cadbury Schweppes’s foundation in Africa focuses on education funding to support enterprise skills, jobshadowing and raising awareness of their work undera generalised curriculum and skills developmentfocus. As an employee stated, ‘We steer away fromdirect service provision or infrastructure projects suchas building schools.’ And creative advocacy ideashave received support. In Kenya, KANCO (Kenya AIDSNGOs Consortium) published an AIDS message inschool books, providing free publicity for the issues,and Tetrapak and General Motors supported the StopViolence Against Children Campaign by donating abus that travels to communities to raise awareness ofthe campaign.

In summary, although private sector involvement inadvocacy education has been limited, there ispotential, and some larger corporations seem attunedto the idea. The challenge is to translate this intopractice at the country level, where profit andrelationship to government remain motivating factorsfor the private sector.

5.4 Obtaining money

It was outside the scope of this research to look indetail at mechanisms that may be used to access and release funds to a CSEF. It is clear, however, thatpotential donors must be approached with care. Manybilateral donor interviewees, though interested andtentatively supportive of the concept of national civilsociety education funds, commented, ‘This is a newidea’, and ‘I hadn’t thought of this before.’ While thisresearch has gone some way to starting thisconversation, there is much sensitive work to be doneto consolidate support, let alone funds. As a seniormultilateral donor representative said, ‘You will need toplant the seed in several different places and water it.’He further recommended that priority should be givento emphasising the need for this model, and theimportance of such support for civil society advocacywork, before broaching the practicalities of how fundsshould be allocated and released. He stressed thatthe fund would be in line with the current thinking thatgovernment rather than CSOs are the service


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providers, and that the fund is to support civil societyto engage in the dialogue that donors andgovernments wish them to be engaged in.

It should also be borne in mind that, while key BritishNGOs and the UK government are broadly supportiveof the model, this is in part because it fits neatly intothe agenda developing in the UK amongst agencies,broadly in support of DBS and of advocacy rather thanservice delivery by NGOs. This is not the case in manycountries. A Netherlands government interviewee said,‘It is very complex because this would compromisethe existing way we fund Dutch NGOs – and thereforeCSOs at the country level … However, the DutchNGOs may say that they want to be part of thisstructure, then we might consider.’

Similarly, Canadian funding for national CSOs goesthrough Canadian INGOs, which receive funding fromCIDA to match funds they have raised from theCanadian public. To raise money from the public theymust show how they are different from one another.This makes INGO collaboration difficult; indeed anacademic compared the situation with the UK andsaid that Canadian NGOs ‘are so far away from thatdegree of coordination or consensus’. Therefore,although CIDA might support the concept, CanadianNGOs are ‘very good at refusing CIDA’s leadership,’hence the idea would also have to be championed by Canadian INGOs if it were to access Canadianmoney. Thus in these and other countries, supportmust be garnered from both the INGOs and thegovernment development agencies if there is to bebilateral money contributed to these funds. Thisrequires considerable international level advocacy for the concept of national CSEFs.

Two ideas concerning the mechanics of fundmanagement did emerge that would be worthexploring further. The first is that whenever donorscoordinate funding to support a government educationsector plan, an additional 3% could be triggered tosupport civil society advocacy and monitoring work, tobe managed through the CSEF. So, if donors provide£10 million a year to the government, an additional£300,000 would go into a CSEF. Several intervieweesmentioned that they had discussed this, and receptionto the idea was positive in institutions such as theFast Track Initiative (FTI). Though one academic felt itwould be contradictory to take money for a CSO fundfrom the money transferred to government treasury,since, ‘It would undermine the explicit purpose of[DBS]: that the government needs support.’ This ideadoes fit nicely with increasing donor desires for CSOsto play a watchdog role (for which they need funding),as well as the drive for DBS, pooled funding andlowered transaction costs. It is worth exploring further.

A second possibility is that of establishing endowmentfunds, whereby a large sum of money is invested andthe CSEF operates using the interest generated. Thisidea was mentioned by UN and INGO officers duringthe research, and considered by other researcherslooking at establishing national civil society fundingmechanisms (Naik, 2006; Wiseman, 2004). Based onthe example of foundations such as Dell and Ford, acapital sum of $1 million would provide a yearlydividend through interest that could fuel the CSEF. Aconsiderable long-term advantage of an endowmentwould be that the fund would be sustainable andindependent of other donors’ changing agendas,contributing to a truly national fund. This researchcollected limited data to elaborate further, but thisoption, though potentially complicated, would certainlywarrant detailed investigation by anyone seeking toestablish a national CSEF.


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6.1 A standard model

A CEF coordinator reported that, ‘We have learnt thatwe cannot generalise or superimpose one model ofdoing things in every context and the African modelof movement building does not work in Asia, and soas a model it should be flexible.’ Similarly, a CEF MCmember told us:

“You can’t plan an initiative like CEF from outside.Particularly in Mozambique, you have to look at thecontext and be sensitive to the historical experienceof the country. What may work in one country, sayKenya for instance, won’t work here as our experienceis so different. Remember, we have had three verydifferent political systems in the last thirty years. Thenthere is the impact of the war, the floods and othernatural disasters that we have experienced.”

While it must be assessed whether national conditionsare right for the establishment of an internationallyfunded CSEF, and that the new fund’s agenda shouldbe worked out in-country, the research suggests that it

is possible to recommend a standard structural modelfor a national CSEF. There are several reasons for this:

• First, it is noticeable that the concept of a multi-agency managed national fund supporting civilsociety advocacy in education retains widespreadapproval.

• Second, most developing countries are workingin the same global context of PRSPs, MDGs, withbilateral and multilateral donors contributingmillions to their national budgets, andinternational NGOs seeking roles for themselves.

• Third, and related to the above, the donors thatmight contribute to such a fund in one countryare also found in another, and they have similarrequirements across the globe.


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6 Establishing new CivilSociety Education Funds

This chapter recommends a model for a CSEF, providing arecommended structure and discussing the ways in which thefund's agenda should be set. It offers suggestions on how toensure transparency, accountability and accessibility, as well aspossible sources for money. This model is based on the identifiedneed to continue to support civil society advocacy in educationthrough nationally based funds. As discussed in Chapter 2,‘advocacy’ includes evidence-based policy advocacy and socialadvocacy as well as watchdog roles such as budget tracking,whistle blowing, research and networking skills.61

51 While evidence may be drawn from the experience of service delivery, it isnot recommended that such a fund support distinct service delivery.


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The following model draws on an understanding ofthe education and advocacy context in the worldtoday, and on the lessons learned from examiningexisting and planned Local Funds. The rest of thechapter explains the reasoning behind this model.

6.2 Setting the agenda

A CEF coordinator stated that, ‘The CEF is just a fund,but a fund with a difference because it is managed bythose who have a vested interest, they are players inthe sector, so it is not just a neutral fund, it has anagenda.’ In fact all funds have an agenda, and all aremanaged by people with a vested interest in thesector in which they work. The important question istherefore who sets this agenda, and what is it?

It has been suggested by a multilateral donor that‘limiting [the fund’s agenda] to advocacy limits it to anINGO agenda’. An INGO representative concurred,saying:

“The agenda to fund advocacy work in the firstplace can be a reflection of [bilateral donor]themes. In many countries for instance, civilsociety would be quite content to carry on gettingfunds to do service delivery; they are notnecessarily demanding this kind of fund.”

Certainly, as shown in Chapter 2, education advocacyhas been pushed by international, largely northern,organisations. However, as advocacy and monitoringare increasingly the roles assigned to CSOs by donorand recipient governments, with a strong argumentthat it is the responsibility of the state to provideeducation to its citizens, it would be foolhardy not tofocus the fund on developing and supporting goodadvocacy. This includes support for quality informationgathering (through local and national level research,and development of research and evaluation skills)and information dissemination (seminars, developingengagement of and with the media). As legitimateadvocacy can be based on experience of innovativeservice delivery, it is recommended that the funds alsofinance evidence-based advocacy skills (whichinclude research, information management andpresentation) and bridge the gap between servicedelivery and policy participation by translating servicedelivery experience into well-articulated policyrecommendations.

Throughout this report there are allusions to concernsabout a fund of this sort being donor-led. Severalinterviewees, including CSOs and INGOs, felt thatCSOs should set the agenda, and that, ‘Donorsshould not come with their own agenda’. It must berecognised, though, that every stakeholder has theirown agenda, and if the donor agenda is not taken intoconsideration, they will not put money in the fund, andthere will be no fund to have an agenda. The diversityof stakeholders in the management structure (seebelow) should go some way to mitigating thedominance of any individual agenda.

Bearing all this in mind, the content of the agendamust be established nationally. It is not theresearchers’ place to recommend the specific focusareas of the fund (such as advocating for freesecondary education, non-formal education, or girls’education). These issues must be discussed widely in

A model CSEF

A CSEF should provide grants and capacitybuilding to civil society organisations engagedin education advocacy. The organisation shouldconsist of a board and an implementingagency. The implementing agency should beresponsible for three units, namely financialmanagement, capacity building andevaluation. Any or all of these units may besub-contracted; the implementing agency should retain a core staff of director,administrator and project officer(s). The boardmust be multi-agency, with a formalisedrelationship to government, and the fund should,ideally, be located outside any otherorganisation. The fund should provide varyingsizes of grants, smaller ones to be approvedby the implementing agency, and larger ones bythe board.


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each country. If the board is established with therecommended constituency, they will represent thenecessary stakeholders to make this an effective andwidely ‘owned’ discussion, and hence a fund that isnationally appropriate. There is insufficient evidencefrom the data to argue either for a broad approach, orfor focus on specific (possibly changing) themes. It isleft to people in-country to make this decision.

Demand, supply and competition

In a sense, by focusing on the international agenda ofeducation advocacy, the fund is automatically ‘supply’(donor) driven. But beyond that, there are expertvoices arguing that ‘funds should be demand notsupply driven’. A CSO argued that the fund ‘shouldhave a strong strategy based on ground reality ratherthan predetermined objectives’. This suggests that theagenda for the fund should be left general, and opento any suggestions that are brought to it by potentialgrantees. However, an INGO member with experienceworking with Local Funds warned ‘You need to thinkvery carefully… if the local fund is to be completelydemand-led. It is actually very difficult to meet anyestablished objectives without steering the fund insome way or without some level of targeting.’ TheFoundation for Civil Society (FCS) in Tanzaniareportedly initially worked in this way, but found they were only receiving applications from city-based NGOs.

The extent to which grant disbursement is demand-driven also depends on the extent to which itencourages competition between CSOs. There are two possible delivery models that could be adopted.Similar to a Challenge Fund, a CSEF could stipulatequite specific issues on which they would fundadvocacy work, and publicise the amount of fundingavailable, overall, for CSOs to apply to work in thisarea. This would result in CSOs competing for this setamount of funding, with the competition focusing inpart on what they plan to undertake. A CSO advocateof this approach insisted, ‘Coordination is not the idea. We should have competition; you have todemonstrate results.’ Alternatively a fund could have a general theme, like the FCS, and organisations thatapply are vetted against criteria of organisationalquality and effectiveness, rather than their area ofspecific focus. The danger with this approach is that

funding may be seen as an entitlement; allowingCSOs to assume that funds are available is notconducive to encouraging development or creativethinking.

A related issue is that of whether the fund providescore funding (such as for staff salaries, as does CEFinternationally and HACI in Mozambique (p. 40), orwhether it should only provide for particular campaignsor issues (as with HURINET in Uganda, p. 37). CEF hasplayed a significant role in establishing and supportingcoalitions by ensuring that these core costs arecovered. As a CEF staff member explained, ‘coalitionsneed assured funding so that they can achieve acouple of successes and then on the back of theseapply for more competitive funding’. Other examplesindicate that assured core funding enables advocacyorganisations to adapt their programmes according tochanging contexts. As an international coalitioncoordinator explained:

“People also struggle with the need for institutionalfunding. This implies a different kind of partnership.One-off projects are easier for people to fund, butinstitutional funding requires a partnership: to seethem through their birth pangs, be involved on aday-to-day basis, assist with decisions.”

Yet equally there is an argument for not funding staffcosts, or at least not for extended periods. Aresearcher stated that the fund should focus onresearch, campaigns and dissemination, and not oncore funding. He added that hardly any UK researchinstitutions have core funding, and hence have tofocus on concrete outcomes, and that the sameshould be true of advocacy organisations. (It is,however, unlikely that the extent to which the UKgovernment and other British bodies that commissionresearch can be matched in many of the CEFcountries).

On balance, while grant applications must berigorously assessed and only effective organisationsfunded to carry out advocacy work, the evidence fromother local models suggests that a general themed(and hence more ‘demand-driven’) approach ispreferable, and that core costs should be funded.Advocacy takes a long time and involves building uprelationships, and the people who build theserelationships need to be funded to do so.

Funding and capacity building

A CEF MC membersaid that, ‘Ifcollaborative funding isabout being a donorthen follow a donormodel. Operate asdonors should, in ahands-off way. If notyou should invest inhelping peopleinvolved to understandthat it’s more than adonor relationship.’ It isnotable that, whenDFID wanted toestablish a mechanismto spend £10 million in low-incomeCommonwealth countries52, it turned to INGOs tomanage it rather than to professional financialmanagement companies. There seems to have been a desire to work with beneficiaries in the way thatINGOs have long worked with national CSOs, as‘partners’. Given the increasing support from donorsfor ‘capacity building’ as part of a grant-making body(see Chapter 4), and the widely identified need forincreased skills in this field (Chapter 2), any new fundmust explicitly incorporate both these aspects, and itshould advertise itself as such.

6.3 The structure

Based on the interview data and models of LocalFunds, it is recommended that CSEFs are managedby a board that would be responsible for strategicdirection, decision-making regarding larger grants, andoverall accountability for the fund. In order to fulfilthese functions it is felt, following the FCS model in

Tanzania (p. 47) and Manusher Jonno in Bangladesh(p. 41), that the board should have six to eightmembers – to ensure sufficiently broad representationbut without becoming unwieldy – and to meet bi-monthly or quarterly, so that the operational activity ofthe fund is not delayed by lack of strategic guidance.An implementing agency should be established toimplement the work of the fund.

Some very specific details about the structure of thefund have not been addressed here, including thelength of term for office holders, or the exact size ofthe board and how often they should meet. Theresearch did not gather data that provide sufficientevidence for such detailed recommendations. Thesewould have to be established and documented in-country before the fund began to operate. Clearresponsibilities have been said to be vital, but itshould be up to the change agents to decide thespecificities of those responsibilities. A list of criticalquestions to guide this process is included in theappendices.

The timeframe over which a CSEF operates will bepartly determined by the periods for which donors arewilling to fund it. The experience of CEF and the LocalFunds discussed above suggests that advocacy worktakes time and needs sustained funding in order to be


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52 There were 17 countries originally selected for inclusion in theCommonwealth Education Fund: Bangladesh, Cameroon, The Gambia,Ghana, India, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Pakistan,Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Theprogramme in Zimbabwe was subsequently terminated due tounfavourable political and work conditions, thus CEF became a 16 countryprogramme.

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effective. Therefore, a CSEF should exist for anextended period, for example for ten years. If itdraws on an endowment it can operate for anunlimited period.

Board

The constitution of the board is key in ensuringaccountability, transparency and ownership of thefund. Despite the difficulties that multi-agency CEFmanagement committees have experienced,interviewees overwhelmingly favoured a managementstructure that drew on a range of stakeholders. Andindeed a multi-agency structure would seem to be theonly way to ensure the national character of the fund,by drawing on the diverse organisations that have astake in that character.

The difficulty then lies in how to select its members. A CEF coordinator agreed. ‘Be cautious. You have tovery carefully choose your [board] members,’ byasking what value they bring to the organisation. Andthe membership needs to be diverse. As CEF itselfnoted, ‘Selecting MC members should be people thatwould add value to your cause or your agendainstead of bringing people who look and work likeyourselves’ (CEF UK, 2005a, p. 38). They must bothrepresent the major stakeholders and be sufficientlybalanced to ensure the board is not dominated by an elite.

Board members should not gain financially fromparticipation. In one country, CEF partially funds thesalaries of staff of the member agencies who sit onthe board. The assumption was that, as a result theymight take a more ‘eager and active role in CEFimplementation’. In reality, this seems not to havebeen the result. The research argues against thismodel; on the contrary, implementing the Tanzanianmodel of financial contribution to the fund by all boardmembers may promote ownership and engagement.

However, members must have self-interest inparticipating, to contribute to an agenda, learn fromthe experience, or gain from contacts made. Ifmembers have nothing to gain they are unlikely to befully committed to long-term participation. As oneinterviewee commented when asked whether her

INGO – which is not active in education – wouldbecome a member, ‘I would say absolutely not. If youare not able to help steer, select partners, you shouldnot be there. And it has to be a two-way process –[the INGO] has to get something from it too.’

Beginning with INGOs, ActionAid, Oxfam GB andSave the Children UK have invested considerableeffort into CEF. As a CEF staff member pointed out,‘After four years we have finally come to a workableunderstanding between the three agencies. If thework comes to an end and then has to be startedagain … in my view it is not worthwhile to make asimilar investment again.’ It is important not to losethat experience and that commitment. And while it isimportant not to allow INGOs and their agenda todominate, CSO interviewees also felt that the INGOsshould be involved to avoid domination by a localelite,53 and ‘It would help having an outsider being partof the conversation, but not dictating theconversation.’ Furthermore, given the position thatINGOs hold in the international advocacy world, twoINGO interviewees emphasised that, if the fund reliedonly on national NGOs, it would have a limited voice.

The other international representatives who must beinvolved are the bilateral and multilateral donors.Despite much CSO and researcher insistence thatdonors should not dominate the agenda, the boardmust have donor involvement, as interview data clearlyindicated that the fund will only exist if it is on thedonors’ agenda. They have a stake in the fund’ssuccess, and help to assure accountability. As oneinterviewee said, ‘We can have donors involved if wewant their money.’ However, not all donors would wantto be involved, and there should be mechanisms inplace to ensure that the donor agenda does notdominate, so that the agenda is led by civil society.Such mechanisms might include giving donorsobserver status on the board, restricting the number ofdonors present or a donor consortium beingrepresented by one member. This issue is one of themost controversial, and should be debated at an earlystage in the development of a national CSEF.


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53 See though our caveat in Chapter 6 that INGOs sometimes are the localelite.

It is widely agreed that the board of a national CSEFmust include, or even be dominated by, nationals ofthat country. Perhaps the most contentious issue forthe constitution of the board is the issue of whetherthose involved in governing the fund should be ableto apply for grants. Instinctively this jeopardisestransparency and accountability, and indeed CEF andother funds, such as Lesotho Council of NGOs, havesuffered from board members being involved as theyexpected and received funding for their organisations.However, if such organisations were precluded fromjoining, this would prevent national educationcoalitions and advocacy organisations frombeing involved, and hence in setting the agenda fornational education advocacy. This would seem to fly inthe face of the idea of a nationally appropriate fund.Therefore there should be some civil society advocacyorganisation representation on the board, but it mustbe written into the constitution that any organisationthat applies for funds cannot be present duringdeliberation of its application. Other points of accessto civil society include involvement of academics andretired individuals. As a bilateral donor suggested,‘We need people who really want changes but don’thave the organisations to do it’; or in the words of aformer member of CEF staff, it needs ‘people whohave nothing to gain or lose’.

Interviewees from across the sectors agreed thatgovernment must be involved in the fund in someway. A coalition representative said that, ‘a certaincritical minimum of government involvement isnecessary,’ and a researcher confirmed the view that,‘It is counter productive if government is not involvedin some way.’ There seems to be general agreementthat government involvement would increaserecognition of the fund and decrease mistrustbetween government and civil society. The fundtherefore should have a formalised relationship withgovernment. But there is also agreement thatgovernment officials should not have controllingpower. They should therefore not sit on the board, toavoid the possibility of political favouring andappropriation of agendas. Rather, an advisory orfacilitating role is seen for them. What this role mightbe will depend on what is seen as appropriate at

country level. Interviewees suggested a fewpossibilities, including:

• membership of an advisory or steeringcommittee. While this would be a straightforwardway of formalising the relationship (and wouldalso allow for a formal involvement of otherpeople who could or should not serve on theboard), it is not clear that another layer ofmanagement in this sense would be to theoverall benefit of the fund. Nor is it guaranteedthat this would lead to engaged involvement withthe government.

• allocating responsibility for liaison withgovernment to a member of the board

• regular meetings between the implementingagent and the government.

Whichever approach is chosen, formalising therelationship with the government is an issue to bethought through carefully at an early stage in thedevelopment of a CSEF. Experience from CEFindicates the importance, as a staff memberexplained, ‘The governments are the drivers of thisprocess and their early involvement in CEF wouldhave been useful.’

The CSEF might consider ways to involveparliamentarians, journalists, formergovernment ministers and other individuals knownto have a stake and a valuable position on education.Eminent individuals can greatly increase the profileand even the funding of a civil society fund. Membersof CEF UK’s Oversight Committee have used theirposition to help set up meetings between CEF andMinisters of Education, which has been extremelyvaluable for opening doors of influence. In the fundingrealm, the Royal Education Fund in Lesotho usesfunds from invitees who could not attend the King’swedding, and gave their gifts in this way. A CSEFmight benefit from the patronage of such an individual.But such renowned members of society are oftenextremely busy, thus limiting the time they may beable to commit.


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Implementing agent

An MC member said that a new fund must bemanaged by an organisation that is ‘hugely credible,reliable and well-respected by donor organisations’.No small task. Drawing from the lessons from CNCS,CSSM and the Community Land Use Fund inMozambique, the Zambia Election Fund and the FCSin Tanzania, it is recommended that in developing thefund the essential but potentially conflicting tasks offund management, capacity building and evaluationare divided between three separate units, togetheroverseen by an administrative section. This would‘avoid a structure where any one person knowseverything,’ as advised by the director of a local fund.By separating financial management from technicalsupport, the model ensures transparency and reducesthe risk of misconduct or bias on the part of thoseapproving grant applications. These units might allform part of the same organisation, within the samebuilding, or they may be put out to tender and sub-contracted to existing organisations.

But where to host the fund? There are arguments forhosting a new CSEF within an existing organisation,be that donor, INGO, UN agency, government, nationalNGO or coalition. In particular, the CSEF could benefitfrom existing administrative and financial structures.Few interviewees suggested that a donor should hostthe fund; indeed part of the justification forestablishing these funds would be to remove theburden of civil society fund management from donors,and to encourage basket funding (seen to be lesslikely if one donor ‘owns’ the fund). A couple ofinterviewees suggested a UN agency might be anappropriate host, but this does not count aswidespread support, and an international coalitiondirector went as far as to say, ‘That’s like the deathstar.’ Likewise the government received little supportas a hosting option, and indeed it would seemcounter-intuitive and a conflict of interest for thegovernment to host an advocacy fund.

INGOS were seen by more interviewees as apreferable implementing agent, notably frequently byINGO representatives, but also by some CSOs. In partthis sprang from the need to use an organisation with

the expertise in managing funds. But it was noted bya CEF MC member that INGOs could not be reliedupon as ‘they tend to pack up and go’, implying thatsustainability of the fund would require its managingagent to be based permanently in the beneficiarycountry. And CEF’s experience of the domination ofthe lead agency (the host) in each country indicatesthat this is not a good long-term model for ensuring abalance of stakeholder views in the operation.

While there was little suggestion that a privatesector organisation should manage the fundoverall, there are indications that sub-contractingsome or all of the operating units (financialmanagement, capacity building and evaluation) toprivate contractors may be beneficial. This is themodel on which the FCS in Tanzania was developedand still operates, and other Local Funds have sub-contracted parts of their operation. A Bangladeshfocus group discussion suggested that capacitybuilding could be contracted out to experts rather thanconducted by fund staff themselves. The experienceof CNCS in Mozambique (p. 43), where privatelysourced training was not appropriate to the fund’sneeds, is a warning to ensure that the sub-contractingorganisation is appropriately aware of the needs ofCSOs, but is not a reason to avoid this route.

However, the financial management unit of the fundmight very successfully be put out to tender, given theexistence of companies specialising in this field suchas Ernst & Young in Ghana (involved in G-RAP, p. 45),KPMG in Mozambique (concerned with theCommunity Land Use Fund, p. 44) and Deloitte andTouche Emerging Markets in Bangladesh (participatingin Manusher Jonno (p. 41). As one of the researcherscommented, the private sector environment‘represents an incredible contrast to the “messy”worlds of CSOs and CEF… An air of efficiency andclinical operation pervades.’ As long as the overallmanagement of the fund is in the hands of a bodyattuned to the messy world in which CSOs operate,private sector financial managers should be seriouslyconsidered.

For national CSOs, there was some but limitedsupport for their managing the fund. Referring togiving a successful national NGO the task of


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managing the fund, a consultant said that, ‘Supportingthem would be the right sort of capacity building.’However, managing the fund should not in itself beseen as a capacity building exercise if it is to stand asgood a chance as possible of being credible,transparent and effective. To be a national organisationit does not need to be managed by a national CSO.But such organisations may be in good positions to becontracted to run the capacity building unit of a CSEF(as with the involvement of TRACE in Manusher Jonnoin Bangladesh).

Last and far from least is the issue of nationalcoalitions hosting a new fund, the issue thatproduced perhaps the most divergent opinions duringthe research. There was very strong support for theidea of a coalition managing CEF’s successor fund(mostly from coalition members or staff) and equallystrong resistance to the idea (mostly from peopleoutside the coalitions). To give an idea of the differentperspectives, here are divergent voices from onecountry:

“Managing the fund is not a problem. The problemis spending. When [the coalition] becomesindependent and has its own accounts it will begreat… [We] are capable of managing the funding.I just refuse to do accounting. That should be leftfor the accountant.”

“[The coalition] should be assuming the role oftaking over gradually so as not to cause anyproblems. I believe donors will be happy to see[the coalition] take over.”

as against

“[The coalition] can’t manage the fund because itwants to be a beneficiary. Fund management is not part of their remit; they would lose their focus.”

“I would be very worried about [the coalition]taking on that role. It would change [the coalition]beyond belief. Members of networks often wantthem to take on that role because they feel under-funded. I would never recommend that [thecoalition] take on CEF’s role.” 54

While coalition members globally often felt that takingover CEF’s role would complement the functions ofthe coalition, because it has many members whocould then receive funds, others saw significantproblems with this potential arrangement. Foremostamong these is the change of remit that this wouldimply, from coordinating members and advocating forchange, to fund management. A CEF coordinatorstated bluntly that, ‘They [would] die because theyhave not come together as fund managers.’ Thedanger of corruption, that ‘senior members will simplygive money to themselves,’ 55 was also highlighted, as was the fact that some of the coalitions arethemselves not yet independent from INGOs. It mustbe asked why a coalition might want to manage afund, given that this task is outside its essential remit.If it is because they wish to access the funding, thenautomatically the transparency of the fund isquestioned.

The examples described in Chapter 4 – Lesotho’sLCN, Uganda’s Human Rights Fund and Malawi’sHRCC-NORAD basket fund (p. 38) – illustrate that itis possible for coalitions to manage Local Funds; butthey also demonstrate the challenges this involves,issues that centre on inadequate skills to managefunds competently and that the additionalresponsibility that risks distorting the purpose of theCSOs. At present there is insufficient evidence thatany of the coalitions in CEF countries are in a positionto manage a CEF successor local fund, and plenty ofevidence that they should not.

The vast majority of interviewees from across thesectors (with the exception of coalition staff) insistedthat a new fund should be independent. Yet few of the models of funds examined are independententities. But it is notable that several established LocalFunds are moving in the direction of independence,such as Manusher Jonno in Bangladesh, and even the one already established independent local fundexamined (Tanzania’s FCS) used to be managed byan INGO.


67

54 Coalition staff member, coalition member, bilateral donor andindependent consultant.

55 CEF accountant.

It is recognised that an independent fund may bedifficult to establish. However, the funds examined inthe research indicate that most existing organisationshave their limitations, and that attaching a CSEF tothem risks repeating the challenges already identifiedin Chapter 4. For example, White discusses thepossibility of adding an education component to thework of the HRCC-NORAD basket funding (White,2006, pp. 37-38). While there would be clearadvantages to piggybacking on an existingorganisation (including reduced overhead costs,limited set-up requirements and the establishment ofa wider civil society funding mechanism), there arealso issues that would need to be addressed. Inparticular, just as CEF is too closely associated withDFID, so the HRCC has been associated with NORAD,and, while it is a basket fund open to other donors,work would be needed to attract new funds.

In the countries where CEF currently operates, inpractice, CSEFs may grow out of CEF, with CEF takinga lead to establish new funds. These CSEFs willbenefit from CEF’s experience, but care must be takennot to replicate old practices without considering theirrole. In other countries it may be possible to establishnew independent funds immediately. But it is alsorecognised that a period of location within an existingorganisation may be a necessary evil.

As a multilateral donor said, ‘There is no such thing asan ideal fund’. All structures have their weaknesses,and are open to manipulation. Establishing anindependent fund may be a difficult task, but thisseems to be the model that will be as close to theideal as possible.

Legal framework

The legal framework under which this fund wouldoperate will differ from country to country. Somecountry researchers have offered recommendationsabout the form that it should take in their countries.For example, in Zambia the researcher recommendedthat an independent fund should be registered underthe Lands Act as a trust, as this would allow for theestablishment of a board of trustees (Mumbuna, 2006,p. 33), while in Uganda the researcher recommendeda not-for-profit company limited by guarantee without

share capital (Bernard, 2006, p. 22). However, none ofthe researchers was contracted to investigate the legalframework in detail.

It is therefore recommended that whoever intends toestablish a CSEF decides on the most appropriatestructure, and then takes legal advice on how toregister and institute such an organisation. It isrecognised that this may be complicated and will takeconsiderable time. The situation identified inCameroon, that ‘there is limited experience infoundation creation and management – the legal andinstitutional framework for foundation creation seemscomplex and time consuming,’ is likely to bereplicated elsewhere in the Commonwealth. InBangladesh a CSO noted that, ‘The regulatory regimerelating to foundation, trust, NGO and not-for-profitcompany in Bangladesh is not at all consistent andcoherent. Rather laws are archaic; in some cases onelaw/provision contradicts with another process/law.’ Itwould be inadvisable to cut corners and use an‘easier’ legal form in order to speed up the process, as this may make operations difficult further down the line.

6.4 A fair and open fund

In discussing an ideal model for a national CSEF, anumber of terms surfaced time and time again.Interviewees insisted that the fund should be‘transparent’, ‘accountable’ and ‘accessible’. Rarely,however, did they define what these somewhatnebulous terms meant. Contrary to the assertion ofone multilateral donor that, ‘Features such astransparency, governance structures are notparticularly odd or unusual and I’m sure that you or Icould draw up the essential features in a few minutes,’it has proved somewhat difficult to summarise whatthese features should be. Rather than attempt todefine these terms, the suggested fund structuretakes these concerns into account and wouldhopefully result in a professionally managed institutionthat satisfies the concerns of donors and local NGOsalike. The following are ways in which this should beachieved.


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Transparency

• The fund’s aims and objectives andthe members of the board should bepublished.

• Staff and any sub-contractor must berecruited through a competitiveprocess in which the positions areadvertised widely.

• The basis on which proposals areassessed should be available to allapplicants.

• Grant making should be competitive,in the sense that organisations mustbe assessed against commoncriteria.

• Any board member who submits agrant proposal must not be presentwhen this proposal is discussed, or, afterapproval, while any issues relating to their fundingare discussed.

• The results of each funding round should bepublished on the fund’s website and in papercopy elsewhere.

• Publishing annual reports, income andexpenditure indicates that the fund is open toscrutiny and has nothing to hide. This wouldencourage confidence from all donors that mightcontribute and CSOs that might apply.56

Accountability

• The board should include donor representation.

• Accounts should be externally audited annuallyand the reports published.

• INGOs should not be eligible to apply for funds; it must be limited to national CSOs.

• Reporting requirements for both the fund and itsbeneficiaries should be established in advance ofany grant making, on the basis of extensiveconsultation with donors and potential grantees.

Accessibility

• Publicise the fund widely, in national and localnewspapers and on the internet with links fromsites of other organisations involved in educationdevelopment, in order to make it accessible toorganisations based outside the capital.

• Provide different sizes of grant to make the fundaccessible to organisations of differing size, focusand capacity.

• Encourage consortium applications for funds.

• There must be clarity from the start over what thefund will or will not fund, and why. Such clarityshould be available to all involved in running thefund, and to potential grantees. It includesconsideration of whether the fund will covermaterial and personnel costs, projects, and thetimescale for funding.

56 Private sector representative.

In Batticaloa, Sri Lanka, Suthashine, 10, attends a catch-up class after the tsunami.

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• Publicity about the fund must take a number offorms. Written and web-based documentationshould be supplemented by regular presentationsin and outside the capital.

• The fund’s staff should explore organisations thatmay be eligible for support and take risks withorganisations that need support to build up theirskills but otherwise have a strong application.

• Publicly promote the idea of the fund and laterhold a high-profile CSEF launch.

6.5 Supporting the change

This research has indicated that national CSEFs are an appropriate way to take forward funding for civilsociety advocacy in education. The internationalfunding context seems ripe for such funds to bemanaged in-country, and for their agenda to be setby national civil society. However, it should not beassumed that such funds should, or could, beestablished in all countries. Three issues in particularneed to be addressed before moving forward.

The first question that must be asked is whether thenational context is conducive to establishing a CSEF.CEF research in India and Pakistan, for example, hasindicated that efforts to establish CSEFs here may bewasted. In India, the difficulty of raising funds and therejection of international funding by some parts of civilsociety means it may be foolhardy to attempt toestablish a fund. In Pakistan, while there arepossibilities for mobilising funds from internationaldonors, the dependence of NGOs and the nationaleducation coalition on donor money led severalinterviewees to fear that establishment of such a fundwould, ‘become a means of suppressing civil societyby further strengthening donor influences in thesociety rather than actually strengthening the voices of the people’ (Bano, 2006, p. 41).

Secondly, if the context is conducive, is there a needfor the fund? While there are few funds specificallyfunding CSO advocacy in education, Chapter 4indicates that there is a wealth of funding alreadyestablished to support CSO work in other fields. Manyof these (governance, child rights, HIV/AIDS) do

accept, or have the potential to accept, applications for education advocacy work. A fund specifically foreducation advocacy should not be established unlessit is clear that other funds do not sufficiently addressthese issues. A related point is to assess the level of donor interest in supporting a CSEF. If donors arealready engaged in establishing a civil society fund(such as the proposed CSSM and EU funds inMozambique), careful consideration must be taken of whether those donors would be interested incontributing to another fund, or whether there issufficient interest from other donors to move forwardwith a fund with an education focus.

The third key area of concern is that of the peoplewho will take forward the development of a CSEF. Insome countries CEF, with its four years’ experienceand learning from multi-agency fund management, iswell placed to move forward with a replacement fundto sustain the work that CEF has supported to date.But in other countries without existing CEFmanagement committees, and even in some CEFcountries in which the multi-agency experience hasbeen less supportive, there is a need to develop anew group of key committed individuals wanting tomanage this process. This will take time, and arealistic assessment of whether the resources and thetime are available to develop this group must beundertaken before embarking on establishing a CSEF.

International support

This research supports the view that CSEFs should beestablished independently in individual countries.However, some interviewees have recommended thatsome form of international support for educationadvocacy funding remains. A senior multilateral donorcommented that, ‘I would be inclined to have a globalprofile entity, so that the work of those countryorganisations is being profiled, to increase thesustainability’. There is a need for close engagementwith donors to identify how and where fund moneymay be available, and for support to nationalgroupings establishing CSEFs.

The Global Campaign for Education (GCE) is onecandidate for such a role. Its suitability stems from thefact that the GCE has visibility and credibility with


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donor organisations and, equally, has a growingmembership at the national and international level. Ittherefore is able to use its network of contacts andmembers to promote and sell the idea of the CSEF inpreparation and in concert with change-agent actionat the country level. In its 2005 submission to DFID,CEF indicated plans to strengthen the relationship withGCE with a view to creating a Global Civil SocietyEducation Fund. It was noted that, ‘It will be importantto ensure that it is sufficiently connected to GCE butthat fund management does not undermine theidentity or political voice of GCE’ (CEF UK, 2005c, p. 9). Therefore there may be scope for CEF and GCEto work together to capitalise on their respectivepositions, strengths and experience in order topromote internationally the concept and establishment of CSEFs.

6.6 The road ahead

This research has shown that there is both a needand widespread support for national CSEFs supportingadvocacy work. There is as yet no other national fundproviding support focused particularly on advocacy ineducation. As a result, those who take forward thismodel will be both building and navigating a new road for support for civil society, and taking a new but significant step for global education advocacy. Thereport provides a list of questions in the appendices to help guide these developments

As a CEF coordinator commented, ‘We must ensurethere is no vacuum. We need to phase in as wephase out.’ New civil society education funds inCommonwealth countries should not wait until the endof CEF to open their doors. CEF must be commendedfor the energy and resources it has invested inseeking to sustain funding for civil society advocacy,and it should celebrate if its own existence issubsumed within new civil society education fundsbefore June 2008. Elsewhere those interested inestablishing civil society education funds would dowell to capitalise on the interest generated by theprocess of this research, to keep the idea fresh in allstakeholders’ minds and to move forward with theconsultations, legal assessments and practicalminutiae necessary to establish new funds. It will be a complicated but commendable task.


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Shamin writes in earthquake damaged government primary schoolclassroom in Pakistan.

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IntervieweesThe tables provided here include all individuals interviewed by theresearch team across Africa, Asia, Europe and the USA.

Bilateral Donors

Organisation

Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

CIDA

DANIDA

DFID

GTZ

Irish Aid

Irish Embassy

JICA

NORAD

Royal NetherlandsEmbassy

SIDA

SNV

Swiss Agency forDevelopment andCooperation (SDC)

USAID

Name

Alain Dhersigny (Belgium), Anke van Dam (Belgium), Kris Panneels (Belgium)

John Wavamunno (Uganda), Beatrice Omari (Tanzania), Archie Book (Ghana), Scott Walter(Canada), Alfred Ojwang (Kenya), McPherson Jere (Malawi), Hasan Momin (Sri Lanka)

Zaida Cabral (Mozambique)

Anita Kaushal (Kenya), Fazle Rabbani (Bangladesh), Louise Banham (Kenya), Paul Wafer(Mozambique), David Levesque (UK), Abdi Foum (UK), Eilidh Simpson (UK), Jane Hobson (SierraLeone), Kathleen Richmond (Gambia), Mark Poston (UK), Richard Arden (UK), Sally Gear (UK),Steve Passingham (Pakistan), John Leegh (Nigeria), Businge Charles (Uganda)

Fiona Musana (Uganda)

K. Thabana (Lesotho), Lidia Mecque (Mozambique), Miyanda Kwambwa (Zambia), MaireMatthews (Ireland)

Ruhweza Akiiki (Uganda)

Freedom Ngwenya (Malawi), Riko Saito (Kenya), S. K. Kibe (Kenya), Yumiko Yokozeki (Kenya)

Eva Klove (Norway)

Farid Mustafa Zahid (Bangladesh), Jeannette Vogelaar (Mozambique), Sissel Volan (Pakistan),Benedict Kondowe (Malawi)

Nahwera Maureen (Uganda)

Russel Mushamga (Zambia), Kennedy Phiri (Zambia)

Kaneez Fatima (Pakistan)

William Osafo (Ghana), Greg Loos (USA), Tom LeBlanc (Malawi), Christopher Lafarge(Bangladesh)


75

Private Sector

Organisation

Adam Smith International

Africell Ltd

Apex International School Ltd.

Arab Gambia Islamic Bank

Association of Lesotho Employers

Bankers Association of Malawi

Basotho Entreprises Development Corporation

Businessman

Byte and Wireless Consultants Ltd.

Cadbury Schweppes

Cameroon Development Corporation

Cameroon oil refining company - SONARA

CEF MC & Mamoth

Delmonte Banana/CDC Banana project

Deloitte

Federation for Chambers of Commerce

Freetown Cold Storage Company

Independent consultant

KPMG

M and G Enterprises

Mpereeza Associates

MTN company

National Bank of Malawi

National Insurance Company

Ntheri Mushemi & Co.

ORANGE company

PC Consultants

PKF Accountants and Business Advisers

Rulum Consultants

Sam-King Services

Sierra Leone Chamber of Commerce,Industry and Agriculture

Sierra Leone Commercial Bank

Sostenuto

Southern Bottlers

Standard Chartered Bank

T. Choithrams and Sons Ltd.

Name

Felix Edwards (UK)

Berlindo Percival Deigh (Sierra Leone)

Janet Davies (Sierra Leone)

Mamour Jagne (Gambia)

L. Sephomolo (Lesotho)

Mr Kumdana (Malawi)

J. Rametse (Lesotho)

Shahriar Alam (Bangladesh)

Wordsworth S. Cole (Sierra Leone)

Suzanna Nagle (UK)

Mr Francis Sendze (Cameroon)

Ngome Blasius (Cameroon)

S. Motseko (Lesotho)

Taka Samuel (Cameroon)

Margarida Martins (Mozambique)

Samantha Abeywickrama (Sri Lanka)

James S. Koroma (Sierra Leone)

Philip Machon (Mozambique), Katie Wiseman (Tanzania), Michael Gibbons(USA), Mwiya Mundia (Zambia), Padmini Mendis (Sri Lanka)

Miguel Alvim (Mozambique)

Mic Carol (Sierra Leone)

Grace Lubaale (Tanzania)

Alice Etondi (Cameroon)

Daphter Namandwa (Malawi)

Ronald Hingston (Sierra Leone)

Mooka Mushemi (Zambia)

Francoise Ewane (Cameroon)

Mwale (Zambia)

Samuel Noldred (Sierra Leone)

Richard Mwanza (Zambia)

Wilfred Sam-King (Sierra Leone)

Alhaji U. A. Sesay (Sierra Leone)

Habib Conteh (Sierra Leone), Patrick J. Langba (Sierra Leone)

Karen Johnson (Mozambique)

Harris Kalichero (Malawi)

Morie Fofana (Sierra Leone), Angela Sibbley (UK)

Anonymous (Sierra Leone)


76

Commonwealth Education Fund

Organisation

CEF

Name

Muntasim Tanvir (Bangladesh), Rafiqul Islam (Bangladesh), Vernyuy Francis(Cameroon), Momodou Lamin Cham (Gambia), Nyakasi Jarju (Gambia),Reuben Hukporti (Ghana), Zak Sulemana (Ghana), Chris Marsden (India), NirajSeth (India), Caroline Munene (Kenya), William M. Migwi (Kenya), PalesaMphohle (Lesotho), Grace Taulo (Malawi), Labani Nyirenda (Malawi), CláudiaMacaringue (Mozambique), Lucrécia Gemo (Mozambique), Tomé Eduardo(Mozambique), Andrew Mamedu (Nigeria), Janet Adebo (Nigeria), LaraShekoni (Nigeria), Shahjahan Baloch (Pakistan), Sadaf Zulfiqar Ali (Pakistan),Chandima Liyanagamage (Sri Lanka), Patrick Ngowi (Tanzania), Joan Larok(Uganda), Nickson Ogwal (Uganda), Chike Anyanwu (UK), Jill Hart (UK),Montse Pejuan (UK), Emily Lugano (Kenya)

Coalitions/Networks

Organisation

Association for Development ofEducation in Africa (ADEA)

AEN & Maarifa

ANGOZA

ANPPCAN Kenya Chapter

Anti-Corruption Coalition Uganda

Arusha Education Network and CapacityBuilding Organisation

Association of Christian Educators in Malawi

Basic Education Coalition

Bo District Education Network

Bombali DistrictEducation Network (BODEN)

Cameroon AIDS Service Organisation Network (CASONET)

Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED)

CCM/ MEPT

CED coalition

CEF Forum

CEFAN

CISANET

Civil Society Movement

Coalition for Common Schooling

Coalition of Civil Society and Human Right Activists

Name

Mamadou Ndoye (France)

Dicodemus Eatlawe (Tanzania), Peter Bayo (Tanzania)

Mariam Abubakar (Tanzania)

Rose Odoyo (Kenya)

Henry Muizi (Uganda)

Sauni Javes (Tanzania)

Lexon Ndalama (Malawi)

Carolyn Batholomew (USA)

Mary Coker (Sierra Leone)

Morris Ellie (Sierra Leone), Yayah T. Turay (Sierra Leone)

Tita Gwenjeng Isaac (Cameroon)

Khadijah Fancy (UK)

Pastor Reinaldo Sive (Mozambique)

Mr. Tilakaratne (Sri Lanka)

J. Motoko (Lesotho)

Aisatou Ngong (Cameroon), Balome Josue (Cameroon)

Victor Mhoni (Malawi)

Festus E. Minah (Sierra Leone)

Ambaresh Rai (India), Muchkund Dubey (India)



77

Coalitions/Networks

Organisation

Commonwealth Secretariat

Coordination Assembly of NGOs (Swaziland)

Council For Education in the Commonwealth

CSACEFA

CSCQBE

Campaign on Good Governance (SUPRO)

Democracy Monitoring Group

Education for All Coalition

Education International

EFA Campaign Network

EFA Coalition

EFA network chapter

Elimu Yetu Campaign

Forum for Education NGOs (FENU)

Gambia Teachers’ Union

Ghana Trades and Livelihoods Coalition

Ghana Trades Union Congress

Global Aids Alliance

Global Campaign for Education (GCE)

GNECC

HRDN network

HURINET

ICISO

Interagency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE)

Kailahun District Education Network

KIKANGONET

Lesotho Association for Non-Formal Education

Lesotho Clothing and Allied Workers’ Union

Lesotho Council ofNon-Governmental Organisations

Lesotho Council of Women

Lesotho National Federation of the Disabled

Magariro

MANARELA

MANGONET

Name

Henry Kaluba (UK)

E. Ndlangamandla (Lesotho)

Peter Williams (UK)

Felicia Onobon (Nigeria)

Limbani Nsapato (Malawi)

Reazul Karim Chowdhury (Bangladesh)

Odoi John Mary (Uganda)

Augustine A. Karim (Sierra Leone)

Elie Jouen (Belgium)

Adelaide Sosseh-Gaye (Gambia), Matar Baldeh (Gambia)

Hawa Koroma (Sierra Leone), Moses Ogendeh Kamara (Sierra Leone),

Abdou Dunor (Gambia)

Chapman Kisiero (Kenya), Wambua Nzioka (Kenya)

Fred Mwesigye (Uganda), Teopista Mayanja (Uganda)

Baboucar Jeng (Gambia)

Ken Abotsi (Ghana)

Josephine Ashong-Sema (Ghana), Mr. Yanney (Ghana)

Paul Zeitz (USA)

Anutum Joseph (Cameroon), Joyce Ekondi (Cameroon), Gene Sperling (USA),Lucia Fry (UK), Lucy Tweedie (UK)

Anonymous (Ghana)

Azhar Saeed (Pakistan)

Josephine Kampi (Uganda), Kabajuni Agnes (Uganda)

Charles Lwabulaa (Tanzania)

Allison Anderson (USA)

Edmond John Alpha (Sierra Leone)

David Yanga (Tanzania), Shida Salum (Tanzania)

E. Sakoane (Lesotho)

B. S. Lebakae (Lesotho)

Mr Motsamai (Lesotho)

M. Mosala (Lesotho)

O.M. Kalawe (Lesotho)

Joachim Mucar (Mozambique)

McDonald Sembereka (Malawi)

Salehe Chilumba (Tanzania)


78

Coalitions/Networks cont.

Organisation

MEPT

MWANGONET

Ndop Union of Rice Farmers

Network for Disadvantaged Children

NGOs Network of Dodoma

NNED

Pakistan Education Coalition

Pakistan NGO Forum

Parent Teacher Association (PTA)

Punjab Teachers’ Union

Rede da Criança

SPO

TANGO

Tanzania Education Network (TEN/MET)

TNCHF

Uganda Debt Network

Union of PTA Associations Bamenda

Zambia National Education Coalition

Name

Amina Issa (Mozambique), Dinis Machaul (Mozambique)

Adam Ndokeji (Tanzania)

Alice Bong (Cameroon)

Abdul K. Lebbie (Sierra Leone)

Josiah Mshuda (Tanzania), Sara Mwaga (Tanzania)

Anonymous (Ghana)

Kaneez Zehra (Pakistan)

Rana Shafiq (Pakistan)

Richard Agbor (Cameroon)

Sageer Alam (Pakistan)

Amélia Fernanda (Mozambique)

Ms Nighat (Pakistan)

Mary Daffa (Tanzania), Samuel C. Mlay (Tanzania)

Joseph Kisanji (Tanzania)

Ritha Toutant (Tanzania)

Julius Kapwepwe (Uganda)

Abongwa Christopher (Cameroon)

Robert Mtonga (Zambia)

Foundations and Funds

Organisation

Aga Khan Foundation

Agape Foundation

CAMCOF

Canadian Gender and Civil Society Fund

CfBT

Community Development Trust Fund

Devolution Trust forCommunity Empowerment

FEDEC

Foundation for Civil Society

Foundation for Community Development

G-RAP

Human Rights Fund

KERD Foundation

MCC

Moruo consultants

Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa

RAVI

Name

Mr. Dayaram (India), Kathy Bartlett (Switzerland), Khurran Riaz (Pakistan)

G. Odom (Nigeria)

Priscilia Etuge (Cameroon)

Simon S. Awancheri (Cameroon)

Susy Ndaruhutse (UK)

Agnes Mgaya (Tanzania)

Tanvir Malik (Pakistan)

Paulette Bisseck (Cameroon)

John Ulanga (Tanzania)

Marta Cumbi (Mozambique)

Anonymous (Ghana)

Tumwiine Patrick (Uganda)

Chals Elamaldeniya

S. Mohapi (Lesotho)

S. Santo (Lesotho)

G. Kaimala-Aajo (Lesotho), N. Shoba (Lesotho)

Anonymous (Ghana)


79

Foundations and Funds

Organisation

Religious Consortium

Siyath Foundation

The Asia Foundation

WAVE Foundation

Women Entrepreneurship Development Trust Fund

Name

M. Mathaha (Lesotho)

Kala Peiris (Sri Lanka)

Dr Farhat Sheikh (Pakistan)

Tasneem Athar (Bangladesh)

Alama Jumbe (Tanzania)

Government

Organisation

ANAFOR – National ForestryDevelopment Agency

Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE)

CNCS

Department of State for Education

Department of State for Finance

Education Research Unit

GEA

Health and Education

Kalangala district

Member of Parliament

Ministry of Basic Education

Ministry of Education

Ministry of Education Planning Wing

Ministry of Education and Culture

Ministry of Education, Science and Sports

Ministry of Education, Science and Technology

Ministry of Education and Training

Ministry of Finance & Development Planning

Ministry of Finance HIPC-Initiative

Ministry of Gender, Culture and Sport

Ministry of Human Resource Development

Ministry of Manpower, Youth and Employment

National Education Foundation,Government of Pakistan

National Institute of EducationalPlanning and Administration (NIEPA)

Olhar de Esperança

Name

Ewusi Bruno (Cameroon)

Sandeep Pandey (India)

Arminda Maculuve (Mozambique)

Momodou Sanneh (Gambia)

Abdou Turay (Gambia)

Vimla Ramachandran (India)

Asante Bempong Charles (Ghana)

Ogwang Charles (Uganda)

Kikoola Daniel (Uganda), Nyombi Kassim (Uganda), Bbosa Florence (Uganda), Nakyanzi Olive Hope (Uganda)

Sandeep Dikshit (India), David Ebong (Uganda)

Gilbert Nlege (Cameroon)

K. Piyasena (Sri Lanka)

Dr Fayyaz (Pakistan), Haroona Jatoi (Pakistan)

Cristina Tomo (Mozambique)

Mr Afrani (Ghana)

Oratio Nelson-Williams (Sierra Leone)

E.M.Phae (Lesotho), P. Phamotse (Lesotho), M. Mofokeng (Lesotho)

M. Rammoneng (Lesotho)

Tamajong Motuba (Cameroon)

Joyce N. Kebathi (Kenya)

Keshav Desiraju (India), B. Anand (India)

E.K. Akuffo (Ghana)

Muhammad Afzal Haque (Pakistan)

Dr. Govinda (India)

Joãn Gomes (Mozambique)


80

International NGOs

Organisation

ActionAid

CARE International

Christian Children's Fund

Concern Worldwide

Education Action International

Global Green Grants Alliance

HACI

JOAP

NOREF/ActionAid

Norwegian Association for the Mentally Handicapped

Oxfam GB

Oxfam Intermón

People Earthwide

Plan International

Right to Play

Saferworld

Save the Children

Sight Savers

VSO

Name

Nasreen Azhar (Pakistan), SA Hassan Al Farooque (Bangladesh), HalidouDemba (Cameroon), Kadijatou Jallow Baldeh (Gambia), Yaya Sanyang(Gambia), Julie Adu-Gyamfi (Ghana), Jackson Karugu (Kenya), Joyce Umbima(Kenya), F. Gitari (Lesotho), A. Opito (Lesotho), Carol Kayira (Malawi), ChrisKinyanjui (Malawi), Julita Nsanjama (Malawi), Alberto Silva (Mozambique),Eduardo Costa (Mozambique), Paula Mendonça (Mozambique), SofianaSulemane Racune (Mozambique), Roberto Luís (Mozambique), OmonikhuduIdogho (Nigeria), Otive Igbuzor (Nigeria), Ms Sabina Ahmed (Pakistan), AlphaSankoh (Sierra Leone), Sam Bangura (Sierra Leone), Tennyson Williams (SierraLeone), Saroj Dash (Sri Lanka), Rose Mushi (Tanzania), Tumsifu Mmari(Tanzania), Abwang David (Uganda), Byenkya Tom (Uganda), Kintu Fred(Uganda), Kwiiri Topher (Uganda), Amanda Serumaga (Uganda), KiwanukaSpecioza (Uganda), Akanksha Marphatia (UK), David Archer (UK), SonyaRuparel (UK), Tamar Ghosh (UK), Tania Boler (UK)

Munmun Slama Chowdhury (Bangladesh), Saejeda Yasmin (Bangladesh),Seema Gaikowad (Bangladesh), Taslima Jahan (Bangladesh), Ian Willis(Ghana), Norman Tembo (Malawi), Christine Achieng (Uganda), Zaza Curran(UK)

Wendy Wheaton (Uganda)

Mary O’Neil (Kenya), Silvia Collazuol (Mozambique)

Sulieman Mleahat (UK)

Chris Allen (USA)

Earnest Maswere (Mozambique)

Gloria Nyamuzuwe (Mozambique)

Peter Etabu Peter (Uganda)

K. Motsamai (Lesotho)

Sonya Kwame (Ghana), Jael Shisanya (Kenya), Ruth Bechtel (Mozambique),Viriato Chevane (Mozambique), Ayesha Ijaz (Pakistan), Zeeshan Ahmed(Pakistan), Abimbola Akiyenmi (Sierra Leone), Ellen Binagi (Tanzania), HeatherJohnston (UK), Othman Mahmoud (UK), Sheila Aikman (UK), Chilufya Kasutu(Zambia), Cherion Mathew (Sri Lanka)

Eusebia Mata (Mozambique)

Benjamin Serkfem (Cameroon)

Seraphine Tamabang (Cameroon), Douglas Titiati (Ghana), Farooq Dar(Pakistan), Michaela Kelly (Sri Lanka), Gaye Gustave (Cameroon)

Erine Kiley (Sierra Leone)

Alex Nyago (Kenya)

Shireen Miller (India), Emily K. Echessa (Kenya), M. Shale (Lesotho), ChrisMcIvor (Mozambique), Priya Coomaraswami (Sri Lanka), Rohan Senerath (SriLanka), Nilu Gunesekera (Sri Lanka), Dharshini Seneviratne (Sri Lanka),Angolwisye Kamwela (Tanzania), David Wright (Uganda), Annabel O. Okot(Uganda), Janice Dolan (UK), Katy Webley (UK)

Jerre Sanyang (Gambia)

Alice Ching’oma (Malawi), Aisatou Ngong (Cameroon)


81

International Organisations

Organisation

Asian/South Pacific Bureau of Adult Education (ASPBAE)

EFA Global Monitoring Report

FAO

National Advisory Council (NAC) and UNICEF

South Asia Partnership

Southern African Development Community

UN agency

UNAIDS

UNDP

UNESCO

UNFPA

UNICEF

WFP

Name

Maria Lourdes Almazan-Khan (India)

Nicholas Burnett (France)

Lavinia Gasperini (Italy)

AK Shiv Kumar (India)

Irfan Mufti (Pakistan)

L. Mavimbela (Lesotho)

Ayse Sule Caglar (USA)

Gillian Holmes (USA)

Avik Rahman (Bangladesh), Shakil Faizullah (Bangladesh), Simran Singh(Ghana), Surekha Sabharwal (India), P. Santos (Lesotho), Shamim Hamid(Bangladesh)

Adama Ouane (France), Mark Bray (France), Peter Smith (France), SabineDetzel (France), Mbiya Celine (Cameroon), David Mulera (Malawi), JohnMwaiseghe (Kenya)

Bob Ngaiyaye (Malawi), M. Cadribo (Lesotho)

James Jennings (Bangladesh), Josephine Mbarga (Cameroon), JeniereSanyang (Gambia), Peter de Vries (Ghana), Corrine Woods (India), Govinda(India), Sandeep Dikshit (India), Vimala Ramachandran (India), B. Batidzari(Lesotho), Deirdre Watson (Mozambique), Marriall Davies (Sierra Leone),Sarath Rajapakse (Sri Lanka), Dina Craissati (US)

L. Ntlou (Lesotho)

Multilateral donors

Organisation

African Development Bank

Asian Development Bank

European Union

Fast Track Initiative

OECD

World Bank

Name

Boukary Savadogo (UK)

Brajesh P. Pantha (Bangladesh)

Parimal Bardhan (India), Noel Cooke (Mozambique), Bockery Conteh (SierraLeone), Douglas Carpenter (Tanzania), Ingeborg Veller (Tanzania)

Desmond Bermingham (USA)

Richard Manning (France)

Badara Joof (Gambia), Kofi Tsikata (Ghana), Vinita Kaul (India), A. Mulken(Lesotho), Adekola Senior (Nigeria), Ms Sofia Shakil (Pakistan), HarshaAturupane (Sri Lanka)


82

National CSOs

Organisation

1st Step

African Civil Society Organisation (ACSO)

ADWAC

APIT

Association for Rural Development

AUPAES

Bangladesh Adivasi Forum

Baptist Education Board

Bunyad

Campaign for Good Governance

Catholic Commission forJustice Development & Peace

CATTU

CCL

CDRN

Centre for Agric Settlements Studies and Development

Child Concern Consortium

Child Development and Education Section

Civil Resource Developmentand Documentation Centre

DAPP

Education Concern

Education Cooperative Society

Elimu Kwa Wanavijiji Coalition (EKWVC)

ENCISS

Fair Finance

Family Heritage Initiative

Forum For African WomenEducationalists (FAWE)

FESER

Girl Child Network (GCN)

Green Circle

GSIAE

HRCC

ISODEC

ITA

JNU and CBGA

KADEFO

Kenya AIDS NGOs Consortium (KANCO)

Name

Rosemary Hua (Nigeria)

Maurice Tadadjeu (Cameroon)

Mam Samba Joof (Gambia)

Mustafizur Rahman (Bangladesh)

Ugwu Daniel (Nigeria)

Simo Emmanuel (Cameroon)

Shanjeeb Drong (Bangladesh)

Konglim Emmanuel (Cameroon)

Ms Shaheen Attiqur Rehman (Pakistan)


M. Akapelwa (Zambia)

Simon Nkwenti (Cameroon)

M. Mathaha (Lesotho)

Mugisha J. Bitature (Uganda)

Nichlas (Nigeria)

Edwin Mwela (Tanzania)

Sayeedul Hoque Milky (Bangladesh)

Oby Nwankwo (Nigeria)

MacDonald Kadam’manja (Malawi)

Sixtus Mallya (Tanzania)

Ihienachov (Nigeria)

George Mikwa (Kenya)

Sybil Bailor (Sierra Leone)

Faisel Rahman (UK)

Lawrence Osho (Nigeria)

Elamu Kayange (Tanzania), Salome Anyoti (Tanzania), Nacima Figia(Mozambique), Mr Chikuse (Malawi), Mrs Chamgomo (Malawi), Rose Younge(Cameroon), Penina Mlama (Kenya), Eileen Hanciles (Sierra Leone)

Jean Kamdem (Cameroon)

James Nzioka (Kenya)

Rana Safiqur Rehman (Pakistan)

Issa Dabo (Gambia)

Justin Dzonzi (Malawi)

Vicky Adongo (Ghana)

Baele Raza Jamil (Pakistan)

Praveen Jha (India)

Ssenyanja Peter (Uganda)

Jane Mwingi (Kenya), Mark Racbachi (Kenya)


83

National CSOs

Organisation

Kenya Alliance for Advancementof Children (KAACR)

Kenya National Association of Parents (KNAP)

KIWAKKUKI

LCN

Lesotho Pre-Primary and Day Care Association

Literacy For All (LIFA)

Live Vanguard

Maarifa and AEN

Mkombozi

Nari Pragati Shangha (WomenAdvancement Association)

NGO Link Forum

Nkong Organisation for RuralDevelopment Action

Non Governmental OrganisationCoalition on the rights of the child

NRDS

ONP

Pani Water Committee

Partners Women Commission

Power & Participation Research Centre (PPRC)

Pratham

ProPAG

Reaching Out Of School Children (ROSC)

Sahee

Sandhaan, Jaipur, Rajasthan

SID

Strengthening Civil Society in Lesotho (SCIL)

Sudhaar

TAAC

TANGO

TECDE

Transformation Resource Centre

UCEP (Underprivileged ChildrenEducation Programme)

UPIMAC

Uttaran

WACANE

Name

Caroline Nalyanya-Okumu (Kenya)

Musau Ndunda (Kenya)

Dickson Mallya (Tanzania), Edna Ngowi (Tanzania)

M. Kuleile (Lesotho)

M.K. Moshoeshoe (Lesotho)

Joseph Mutamba (Kenya)

Modupa Adelaja (Nigeria)

Boniface Lyimo (Tanzania), Iris Kalevo (Tanzania)

Kate McAlpine (Tanzania), William Raj (Tanzania)

Rokeya Rahman Kabir (Bangladesh)

Jamara Sam (Uganda)

Anu Vincent Folefac (Cameroon)

P. Mohapeloa (Lesotho)

Abdul Awal (Bangladesh)

Maria Paula Vera Cruz (Mozambique)

Shahidul Islam (Bangladesh)


Hossain Zillur Rahman (Bangladesh)

Rukmini Bannerjee (India)

Siga Jagne (Gambia)

ANS Habibur Rahman (Bangladesh)

Fareeha Zafar (Pakistan)

Sharada Jain (India)

Duncan Okelo (Tanzania)

L. Nketu (Lesotho)

Fawad Usman (Pakistan)

Oponya Tom Superman (Uganda)

Ousman Yarbo (Gambia)

Enock (Tanzania), Henry Wimile (Tanzania)

N. Ntsoelikane (Lesotho)

Aftabuddin Ahmed (Bangladesh)

Steven Nyabongo (Uganda)

Shahidul Islam (Bangladesh)

Ebu Martin (Uganda)


84

National CSOs

Organisation

WAVE Foundation

Women Educational Researchers of Kenya (WERK)

Yakubu Gowon Centre

YONECO

Zambia Centre for Inter-Party Dialogue

Zambia Prevention Care and Treatment

Name

Mohsin Ali (Bangladesh)

Zipporah Ongweni (Kenya)

Ambassador Ekpan (Nigeria)

McBain Mkandawire (Malawi)

Anamela Njekwa (Zambia)

Ernest Phiri (Zambia)

Researchers/Thinktanks

Organisation

African Population and Health Research Centre (APHRC)

Aga Khan University

CENWOR

Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University

Development Education Institute for Human & Environmental Resource Management

Educationalist

Goldsmiths University

Institute of Education, University of London

Lesotho National Development Cooperation

London School of Economics

National Governance Programme

National University of Lesotho

NORRAG

Ontario Institute for Studies inEducation, University of Toronto

Open University

Overseas Development Institute (ODI)

University of Bamenda Education Fund

University of Birmingham

University of Ghana

University of Sussex

Name

Charles Epari (Kenya)

Brown Ndale Onguko (Kenya)

Swarna Jayaweera (Sri Lanka)

Jean Dreze (India)

Pradeep Paranagama (Sri Lanka)

Bandula Gunawardene (Sri Lanka)

Majorie Mayo (UK)

Elaine Unterhalter (UK)

P. Molapo (Lesotho)

Jo Beall (UK)

Kofi Ocran (Ghana)

D. Ambrose (Lesotho), N. Morobe (Lesotho), S.T. Motlomelo (Lesotho), M.M. Sefotho (Lesotho)

Kenneth King (UK)

Karen Mundy (Canada)

Sudatta Ranasinghe (Sri Lanka)

Andrew Lawson (UK), Enrique Mendizabal (UK), John Young (UK), MarkRobinson (UK), Naved Chowdury (UK)

Christopher Yuyun (Cameroon)

Lynn Davies (UK)

Kweku Yeboah (Ghana)

Pauline Rose (UK)


85

The following questions are offered ascritical starting points for anyone wishingto establish a CSEF.

The decision to establish a CSEF• Is the national context conducive to

establishing a CSEF?

• How would a CSEF add value to civilsociety education advocacy? What otherfunds are already in existence and wouldit be more appropriate to link the aims ofa CSEF with existing mechanisms?

• Is a CSEF politically appropriate andviable?

• Would a CSEF coordinate or complicateCSOs?

• Would establishing an internationally fundedCSEF increase donor dependency?

• Is there sufficient donor support for the ideaof a CSEF to make accessing funds arealistic possibility?

• Does a multi-agency group exist that coulddevelop the concept from idea to reality? Ifnot, could such a group be established?

• Who is the most appropriate change agent?

• What is the legal framework for establishinga CSEF?

The agenda• What exactly will the fund support?

• What does advocacy mean in each contextand which activities constitute ‘advocacy’?

• How will the fund support capacity buildingfor advocacy?

• To what extent and through what means will the bridging of service delivery andpolicy recommendations be supported by the fund?

• Will core costs be covered by the fund? To what extent?

• How will the total capital be split betweendirectly supporting advocacy activities andsupporting capacity building of local CSOsto access funds or develop skills inadvocacy?

The structure• What will be the constitution of the board?

• How will a formalised relationship with thegovernment be established?

• What will be the role of the donors on the board?

• How long will board members serve?

• How will the structure ensure that theagenda is not dominated by donors and beset by civil society?

• Which eminent individuals, includingjournalists, parliamentarians and formerminsters might be involved?

continues overleaf

Questions to help inestablishing national CSEFs


86

The administration• What sort of organisation should serve as

the implementing agent? How will theorganisation or staff be identified ordeveloped?

• How will grant sizes be split and accordingto what criteria?

• Which organisations are best placed todeliver capacity building and grantmanagement roles?

• Where will the CSEF be located?

The funds• Which bilateral donors and foundations are

present in the country, with an interest ineducation and support for civil societyadvocacy?

• How long is the fund projected to last?

• How will the fund link with donor agendas?

• What will be the most viable reportingmechanism to ensure that all donorrequirements are met while notoverburdening the managing agent withpaperwork?

Access and transparency• How will the fund publicise its existence and

criteria? How will it use national and localmedia?

• How will the fund ensure that it is accessibleto smaller, less organised and more remoteorganisations?

• Who will set up and manage the fund’swebsite? How will this be used to ensuretransparency?

• How will audits be made public?

Support• Which organisations might promote and sell

the idea of the CSEF?


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Mohammehd Sabir, 12, at a school for rescued child domestic workers in Rajbati, India.

Chr

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John

ston

/ Sav

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hild

ren

Commonwealth Education Fund (CEF)

Global Secretariat

Hamlyn House, MacDonald Road

London N19 5PG

UNITED KINGDOM

telephone: +44 (0) 20 7561 7619

fax: +44 (0) 20 7272 0899

e-mail: [email protected]

web: www.commonwealtheducationfund.org Designed by JF Design

2013 07-cef-sustaining-civil-society-advocacy processed

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