ACTIONS FOR STAKEHOLDERS TO EXPAND CIVIL SOCIETY CONTRIBUTIONS TO SDG16
The Partnership for Transparency’s (PTF’s) most recent publication, Expanding Civil Society Contributions to the Governance Agendas of the Sustainable Development Goals and International Financial Institutions documents evidence that well-designed civil society-led programs can produce better outcomes than state-led initiatives to improve government transparency, responsiveness, accountability and reduce corruption.
PTF has more 20 years of experience turning citizen-led governance innovations into action. Below outlines recommendations from the report where PTF can assist development stakeholders to expand civil society contributions to Sustainable Development Goal 16 (SDG16) and thus progress towards its achievement.
OPPROTUNITIES FOR ENGAGEMENT:
Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) can work with PTF to take advantage of entry points emerging from IFI stakeholder engagement policies in the up-stream phases of project cycle – to integrate greater CSO engagement in project design – and downstream – to monitor implementation of commitments made. Potential means of engagement with PTF support include:
- Influencing the design of IFI-funded programs to make provisions for CSO engagement.
- Seeking contracts for facilitating stakeholder engagement plans in IFI-funded programs.
- Advocating for governments to “institutionalize” CSO engagement in delivery of public services.
- Building programs that are evidence-based, adapted to context and shared at the global level
See for example, how we’ve worked with CSOs to develop and implement IFI, bi-lateral and other donor-funded citizen engagement programs in Mongolia, Myanmar and Ukraine; pilot and encourage government uptake of the Textbook Count program in the Philippines, and facilitate the first independently funded third-party monitoring of World Bank-funded development projects in Bangladesh and Nepal.
PTF can assist governments, IFIs, development agencies and donors to collaborate with civil society for meaningful stakeholder engagement by:
- Creating guidelines to fund stakeholder engagement in projects supported
- Identifying opportunities for CSOs engagement in stakeholder engagement plans
- Advising on how to make business processes for CSO contracting easier
- Facilitating CSOs to verification work in results-based lending
- Encouraging active civil society contributions in SDG16 strategy, policymaking and program
See for example, how we have assisted the African Development Bank and the Asian Development Bank with updating their stakeholder engagement policies, helped the Government of the Philippines strengthen the integrity of its Conditional Cash Transfer Program by instituting a strong and sustained civil society role in program implementation. and are working with the Lifebank Foundation to build beneficiary communities of informed citizens.
