Contribution from BCSDN has been integrated into the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Policy Instrument on Enabling Civil Society which was adopted by the DAC on 6 July 2021. The consultations on the document started in April 2021 and encouraged CSOs worldwide to provide feedback and develop the content of the Policy Instrument.
The aim of DAC Recommendation is to support DAC members and other development co-operation and humanitarian assistance providers to enhance how they address civic space and work with civil society actors, while underscoring that civil society actors must also take action to enhance their effectiveness, transparency and accountability. This document is the first international standard centered on the actions of providers, particularly to civil society actors as contributors to the 2030 Agenda, the pledge to leave no one behind, inclusive, sustainable development, effective humanitarian assistance, peacebuilding, and protecting and strengthening democracy.
The DAC Recommendation addresses three connected pillars of how development cooperation and humanitarian assistance providers enable civil society, such as:
1) respecting, protecting, and promoting civic space;
2) supporting and engaging with civil society;
3) incentivizing CSO effectiveness, transparency, and accountability.
Below are BCSDN’s suggestions that have been incorporated in the final DAC Policy Instrument on Enabling Civil Society:
Pillar One: Respecting, Protecting and Promoting Civic Space
- BCSDN emphasizes the importance of developing clear policy positions on the value of an inclusive and independent civil society and on the importance of respecting, protecting, and promoting civic space in line with rights to the freedoms of peaceful assembly, association, and expression, but also stresses some specific areas of improvement.
- BCSDN also supported the recommendation of investing in partner country or territory governments’ institutions of accountability and oversight and in their legal and regulatory frameworks and capacities relevant to enabling civil society, including capacities to provide financial support to civil society actors, in line with human rights and with appropriate application of international counter-terrorism financing standards, but stressed the process to be conducted in a transparent, accountable, fair and non-discriminatory manner.
Pillar Two: Supporting and Engaging with Civil Society
- The recommendation of increasing the availability and accessibility of direct and diverse forms of flexible and predictable financial support for partner country or territory: civil society actors to enhance their financial independence, sustainability, and local ownership, includes BCSDN’s suggestion on the inclusion of accountability.
- BCSDN suggestion in regard to supporting civil society strategic alliances, networks, platforms and resource centres at regional, national, and sub-national levels, that can represent civil society voices to international and regional institutions and fora, partner and provider country governments and other stakeholders was also taken into consideration.
Pillar Three: Incentivising CSO Effectiveness, Transparency and Accountability
- Alluding that CSOs working to address root causes should be emphasized, the document includes BCSDN’s recommendation to Call on and support CSOs to develop or build on existing internal systems to meet relevant human rights standards to prevent and respond to the root causes of discrimination, exploitation, abuse, or harassmenti n their activities and organisations.
In its final stage, the document has been endorsed by BCSDN and by some of its members.