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The Southern Africa Trust has five programme areas and five strategies that contribute towards supporting deeper and wider civil society engagement in regional policy dialogue to overcome poverty in southern Africa. The programmes of the Trust are;
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Learning For Better Poverty Reduction Results
Civil society organisations and other stakeholders have not demonstrated sufficient knowledge and adequate analysis of challenges on key thematic issues that are relevant to the poverty dimensions of regional integration and the regional dimensions of national poverty reduction strategies. Methods used by civil society organisations for policy influencing work do not generally withstand debate and critique by other stakeholders.
There are also limited skills amongst key civil society organisations in identifying and packaging civil society issues appropriately for insertion into policy debates. There is lack of adequate reflection, learning, analysis, models for engagement, prioritisation, resourcing, tactics (strategic leadership) for future initiatives that arise from civil society organisations. There is limited investment in knowledge generation and learning amongst civil society organisations.
This programme area aims at creating and expanding knowledge and learning to assist in the achievement of better poverty reduction results. It also aims to strengthen participation of civil society in regional policy dialogue by improving their knowledge base through evidence-based research information.
Initiatives
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Knowing Civil Society Organisations and Building Capability to Do Pro-Poor Policy Work
Civil society organisations face challenges in strengthening their structures and networks due to inadequate resources. This results in weak representation in policy making processes at the regional and national level, and declining leadership quality of civil society organisations. Inadequate representation of civil society leadership in policy making processes has meant that those carrying the voices of the poor are not effective in advocating for pro-poor policies.
Furthermore, civil society organisations, while legitimate, generally lack credibility amongst other stakeholders to create the scope and scale of policy change that is needed to overcome poverty. They need to demonstrate their capability to engage in policy making processes and earn their credibility amongst their membership and other stakeholders. The programme aims to strengthen civil society capability to influence policy development and to generate knowledge on trends, shifts and nature of civil society in southern Africa. It also aims at strengthening the credibility and capability of civil society organisations to engage effectively in regional policy processes addressing regional integration from a pro-poor perspective.
Initiatives
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Creating new opportunities for the voices of the poor to be heard in policy development
Limited access for civil society to engage public policymaking process means that the voices of the poor are often not heard. Current policy making processes and engagement mechanisms provide limited policy spaces to the point of exclusion of civil society voices. On the other hand civil society organisations lack information and effective engagement strategies to take advantage of those available opportunities for policy engagement. There is also a limited understanding and recognition of policymaking space and opportunities by civil society organisations.
The long standing adversarial relationship between civil society and official institutions (governments) has limited each other’s capacity in engaging with each other and has entrenched government dominance in public policy making. Civil society organisations lack knowledge of entry points in policy-making processes and they are unable to recognise and make full use of potential opportunities. This programme area aims at strengthening institutional governance for multi-stakeholder participation in regional policy development and implementation in order to insert the voices of the poor.
Initiatives
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Forging a Regional Identity through the Promotion of Civic Participation in Regional Integration
The effectiveness of institutional mechanisms for regional integration depends largely on direct citizen representation and popular participation on all regional issues. People-centred regional integration requires that governments consult the public through parliaments; private sector, civil society, and other popular formations to get feedback on the regional agenda.
It is important that regional integration should take root first within member states and an integrationist mindset must be encouraged within countries to build a bottom-up (people-centred) but state-led integration approach. Regional integration institutions, programmes and activities should be made as widely accessible as possible to the public to ensure that citizens understand the issues at stake and engage with it.
Informal regional integration activities involving daily cross-border interaction and transactions between people must be encouraged and nurtured. These informal exchanges of goods, services, and socio-cultural relations transcend formal arrangements at national and regional levels and they are true reflections of the benefits of regional integration at local level. However, in practice such regional integration activities are not officially recognised, less documented and, therefore, not harnessed to advance formal integration.
Cultural heritage also plays an important role and can be harnessed to fight violence, xenophobia, and other social ills hindering regional integration. Cross border exchanges in culture and entertainments, therefore, need to be promoted and protected to help drive regional integration. This programme area lays the foundation and creates conditions for making regional integration institutions more responsive to the needs and aspirations of the people of the region. The strategic interventions anchor on the following main issues:- i) Thought leadership and high level forum on equitable and pro poor regional integration; ii) Youth participation in regional integration; and iii) Building regional identity and encouraging citizen participation in regional integration through, inter- alia, advocacy, media messaging and regional media platforms major activities to achieve the above strategic objectives include:
- Creating a high level forum of eminent persons from a diverse background including public, private and social sectors to think through regional integration issues on an ongoing basis;
- Harnessing the capacity of academic institutions and think tanks to strengthen the empirical basis for advocacy through evidence-based research and to nurture participatory regional integration mindset;
- Promoting investment in youth development as future leaders of regional integration and encourage cross border youth exchange programmes including cultural exchange and youth civic participation; and
- Supporting official regional institutions to promote public dialogues, encourage national referendums and organise high-level public discussions on the direction of regional integration as a basis for enhanced citizen participation and democratic accountability of regional institutions.
- Supporting the strengthening of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) National Committees and civil society participation in them to ensure an inclusive approach in dealing with regional issues.
- Encouraging the private sector to play a meaningful role in regional integration through business for development and public-private dialogue.
Initiatives
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More and Better Financial Flows to Civil Society Organisations
The financial resource flows to key regional civil society organisations for policy influencing work at a regional level is inadequate, especially to representative organisations with a strong community constituency. Donors prefer to work with bigger and more professional civil society organisations, often resulting in the smaller, lesser known organisations struggling to access resources for their work. This has negative implications for inserting / raising the voice of poor people in policy development.
Civil society organisations tend to chase the money and follow agendas set by donors rather than developing their core identity, playing their role as a particular type of organisation (e.g. network, umbrella organisation, etc), and thus being able to make an impact on policy in the region.
Civil society organisations lack knowledge about the changing aid architecture and how it affects aid flows to the sector in southern Africa. They are generally not aware of how they are perceived by donors, and donors are not aware of civil society perceptions of them. As a result, civil society organisations are not able to engage meaningfully with donors and are not adept at shaping their programmes to become more effective at fundraising.
This programme area aims to deepen understanding of the trends, shifts and impacts of aid flows to civil society organisations in the region to inform engagement / dialogue between civil society and donors that will increase and sustain financial sources for civil society organisations.
It will further deepen the knowledge and understanding of grant-making practices in the region, donor coherence and its implications for effective programming by local and regional organisations, perceptions of donors and civil society organisations and how these can be improved, and the impact of a changing aid architecture on civil society organisations in the region. In strengthening dialogue between civil society organisations and donors, the Trust aims to improve the volume and quality of financial resources to civil society organisations for regional policy influencing work in southern Africa.
The Trust will conduct research on tracking and analysis of financial flows to civil society organisations in southern Africa, and facilitate informed engagement that is evidence based with civil society organisations and donors on financial flows in the region. It will encourage cooperation with other regional grantmakers to optimise and harmonise funding sources in the region to develop and support African-owned philanthropy and grantmaking through participation in the African Grantmakers Network. It will also influence public attitudes about giving / philanthropy to development work, and work towards establishing financial sustainability mechanisms for regional civil society apex organisations.
This programme area will also focus on direct from public fundraising. There is evidence that substantial charitable giving happens in the region, and particularly in South Africa, the largest economy in the region. However, these contributions are mostly to very localised charities, and there is no tradition of supporting policy change processes that address the root causes of poverty. Through the Change 4 Ever campaign, the Trust will influence trends in public giving by raising awareness of the root causes of poverty in southern Africa, and by encouraging philanthropic-minded individuals to support initiatives and organisations that seek to address these root causes.
Initiatives
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