Slide 1 Engaging with Civil Society - P resentation to 4 th Annual meeting of the Practitioners Network for European Development Cooperation Roy Trivedy Head Civil Society Department DFID May 2011

Slide 2 Objectives and Structure Objectives Share experience and learning from work with civil society Explore possible areas for future collaboration Structure Why support CSOs DFID’s Portfolio Review and recent changes Areas for discussion and increased collaboration

Slide 3 Why work with Civil Society? CSOs can respond quickly and flexibly to humanitarian needs Often better at supporting particular groups of poor (eg community based orgs and Disabled Peoples Groups) “CSOs help relieve poverty by reaching disadvantaged groups and geographical areas that governments often fail to reach” But limited evidence of… CSOs (individually or collectively) enabling chronically poor to organise and do things for themselves CSOs consistently performing more effectively than other aid modalities

Slide 4 Which CSOs does DFID support and how? Diverse range of Southern and Northern based organisations (including NGOs, CBOs, Faith and diaspora groups, research and policy institutes..) Unrestricted grants: 20% of portfolio Central Funds: 4 central funds plus humanitarian and in-country Indirect funding: through joint initiatives eg. Comic Relief’s Common Ground Initiative and the Disability Rights Fund Pooled funds: increasingly used - channelling approx 40% of funds Via multilaterals: Hard to trace – over £160m through World Bank, EC, UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF

Slide 5

Slide 6 Size and composition of DFID’s support Total spend £515m - 15% of bilateral programme (08-09) - £242m (47%) central - £273m (53%) through country offices Good evidence on project outputs/outcomes but difficult to aggregate results Plus £160m through multilaterals such as World Bank, EC and UN Where and what…? Most spend - on delivering goods and services Almost 66% spent in fragile states Spend by country ranges from over 30% in Bangladesh, Liberia and Burma to 3% in India and Ethiopia

Slide 7 Five objectives for DFID’s work with civil society 1.Deliver goods and services 2.Empower citizens to be more effective in holding governments to account and to do things for themselves 3.Build and maintain capacity and space for active civil society 4.Enable CSOs to influence policies at national, regional and international levels including on aid effectiveness 5.Build support for development by encouraging UK citizens to contribute internationally

Slide 8 Key changes in Ceiling on DFID funding - max 40% of org income Balance between support for small, medium and larger CSOs DFID focal countries + HDI bottom 50 More competition, stronger focus on outcomes, outputs and VfM Reducing advocacy and increasing focus on tangible results Pre contract due diligence work Encouraging matched and performance based funding Transparency Guarantee More emphasis on use of evidence and independent evaluations Increased emphasis on generating learning and changing practice

Slide 9 Results and VFM …..shared agenda, DFID wants civil society to be as effective as possible in eradicating poverty.. same agenda for all – multilaterals, governments, CSOs and private sector… Critical factors in improving effectiveness of CSOs: Having a clear vision and plausible ‘theory of change’ Measureable results – outputs and outcomes Sound and evolving partnerships strategy Being well led/governed with robust organisational processes Diversifying sources of income Maximising value through contribution Commitment to transparency, learning and improved practice

Slide 10 Areas for Discussion? How can we: Improve the transparency and delivery of tangible results through CSOs? Help protect the space for civil society to organise and contribute more? Make better use of multilateral instruments such as EC Structured Dialogue process to drive a stronger focus on results and systematic use of evidence in work with CSOs?