The Southern Africa Trust does this directly and indirectly through:
- Strategy One: Capacity Building – Improving the capacity of regional civil society organisations to play a more effective role in influencing policies to overcome poverty;
- Strategy Two: Policy Dialogue – Facilitating increased regional policy dialogue amongst civil society organisations, states, and the private sector, focused on overcoming poverty;
- Strategy Three: Evidence-Based Advocacy – Influencing aspects of the regional policy agenda in favour of evidence-backed policy objectives identified by poor and marginalised communities;
- Strategy Four: Creating an Enabling Environment – Promoting innovative practices and processes to build an enabling regional environment for engagement between civil society organisations, states, and the private sector; and
- Strategy Five: Grant-Making – Providing grants to civil society organisations representing the interests of the poor in regionally significant policy development processes
Strategy One:
The Southern Africa Trust will improve the capacity of civil society to engage in and influence public policies to overcome poverty and inequality:
SCO 1.1 Civil society’s knowledge base will be improved through more focused and targeted action research, better communication, and linking and learning;
SCO 1.2 Advocacy and lobbying, policy analysis, action research, networking and organisational development skills will be developed amongst civil society organisations;
SCO 1.3 The credibility of civil society organisations’ policy work will be improved through the promotion of professional, evidence-based policy work; and
SCO 1.4 Meaningful and effective regional civil society partnerships will be facilitated through networking and integration so as to be a credible and effective voice for the poor.
Strategy Two:
The Southern Africa Trust will increase dialogue between civil society organisations, the state, and the private sector for better policies and strategies to overcome poverty:
SCO 2.1Governments will acknowledge the positive role of civil society organisations in developing policies and strategies to overcome poverty through better forms of engagement;
SCO 2.2 Social trust and cohesion will be promoted amongst private business forums and individuals through their engagement in inclusive policy dialogue on poverty; and
SCO 2.3 The impact of civil society policy work will be increased by identifying strategic entry points in policy processes and facilitating participation by civil society organisations.
Strategy Three:
The Southern Africa Trust will influence the policy agenda in favour of evidence-based policy objectives identified by poor and marginalised constituencies:
SCO 3.1 Credible forms of representation of the voices of the poor will be facilitated;
SCO 3.2 Participatory democracy will be deepened through facilitating inclusive processes, increased consultation, upward policy coherence, and targeted actions towards defined policy development goals; and
SCO 3.3 Diverse and innovative forms of civil society organisation that are often excluded from the mainstream will be engaged.
Strategy Four:
The Southern Africa Trust will promote innovative practices and processes to build an enabling environment for civil society organisations to play a more effective role in developing policies to end poverty:
SCO 4.1 Opportunities will be created for popular organisations to engage in and influence the policy agenda by promoting new processes for policy engagement;
SCO 4.2 Drivers of change will be profiled by identifying outstanding examples of people, attitudes, practices, processes, and policies that create new possibilities and models for policy engagement;
SCO 4.3 A legislative environment that promotes civil society participation in public policy development will be supported; and
SCO 4.4 Sustained social dialogue on poverty will be promoted through the mass media.
Strategy Five:
The Southern Africa Trust will provide a regionally-owned, coherent, and sustainable source of financing for southern African organisations engaged in policy processes to overcome poverty:
SCO 5.1 Grants will be provided to organisations with a regional impact through open and closed processes;
SCO 5.2 Funding to support organisations and processes engaged in policy processes to overcome poverty will be sourced and channelled; and
SCO 5.3 A southern African regional mechanism will be provided for the coherent absorption of funding from international donor agencies, private corporates, and governments to civil society organisations for policy work to overcome poverty.
