The Dutch policy framework for civil society development: Dialogue and Dissent’
Focus on Civil Society Organisations
Civil society is the space between government, the market (businesses) and private
life (family and friends), where citizens can organise themselves to pursue goals
unrelated to personal or financial gain, which concern a wider group of people and
are not necessarily taken care of by government. Civil societies are usually formed
by countless different types of (networks of) civil society organisations (CSOs),
from small to large, from professional to amateur, from formal to informal, and from
democratic membership organisations to closed organisations without members.
CSOs and development
The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has a long tradition of supporting
CSOs operating in low- and lower-middle-income countries (LLMICs) for their developmental
roles. The policy in this area is based on the principle that a diverse and pluralist
civil society is crucial for sustainable and inclusive development. CSOs can contribute
to this in various related ways:
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• A social role – connecting and building trust. CSOs can contribute to building civil
society. By bringing people together and fostering dialogue CSOs can help rebuild
trust and promote reconciliation in countries torn apart by conflict.
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• An economic role – poverty reduction and service delivery. CSOs can help combat extreme
poverty by providing services. Support to poor communities may relate to agriculture,
food security, health care (including sexual and reproductive health), water and/or
education.
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• A political role – lobbying, advocacy and checks and balances. A strong and active
civil society is often seen as an important feature of democracy and a driver of good
governance. CSOs enable citizens to defend their rights and interests, and monitor
government and businesses. It provides marginalised groups a chance to have their
voice heard when policy and legislation are drawn up, implemented and enforced.
Dialogue and Dissent as a shift in focus
Over the past years, CSOs in LLMICs have grown steadily stronger. Organisations which
previously focused exclusively on providing services to the poor are increasingly
making themselves heard, in their own country and internationally, to expose the problems
they are addressing. The issues they raise, such as inequality, environmental problems
and extreme poverty, are increasingly recognised as being interconnected and demand
coherence between local and global policy agendas. This creates a growing need for
a different type of cooperation between Northern and Southern CSOs, thereby redefining
their complementary roles.
In light of these developments the MFA of the Netherlands has made a decision in the
new civil society policy framework, Dialogue and Dissent, to shift the focus from poverty alleviation (economic role) to support aimed at
tackling the root causes of poverty and inequality (political role), combined with
a greater focus on the interconnectedness between issues in developing countries and
in the Netherlands. Dialogue and Dissent envisages that Dutch development organisations will increasingly take on this new
role, both in the Netherlands and abroad. On the one hand, they will concentrate on
enhancing the lobbying and advocacy capacity of CSOs in LLMICs, helping them raise
their voice to be heard by government, businesses and societal actors in their country.
On the other hand, they are expected to ensure that their partners’ voice is heard
more clearly in the Netherlands and in various regional and international forums.
The overall goal of Dialogue and Dissent is to strengthen the lobby and advocacy capacities of CSOs in LLMICs, enabling them
to contribute to sustainable, inclusive development for all by fighting against poverty
and injustice with their national and international partners, and through their local,
national and international networks. The framework was implemented in 2016 and will
run up to 2020. It has five main support instruments:
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Strategic Partnerships - 25 CSO consortia strengthen the lobby and advocacy capacity of CSOs in LLMICs. Subsequent
lobby and advocacy activities focus on various themes including women’s rights, press
freedom and the sustainable use of natural resources. This policy is unique as it
spends € 1 billion euros exclusively on fostering the political role of CSOs, and
because the MFA plays an active and strategic role as partner in helping achieve the
jointly agreed objectives.
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The Accountability Fund (AF) – Through the AF, Dutch embassies can provide direct funding to CSOs in LLMICs.
Embassies are often keenly aware of the political scope civil society organisations
have in the country in question and the AF allows them to respond directly to existing
needs. This approach recognises the increased importance of CSOs in these countries
and their growing capacity to achieve results independently.
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Voice - Regular aid programmes often insufficiently reach those who are excluded because
of disability, ethnic origin, religion, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation or
gender. Voice aims to reach and support advocacy organisations of these most marginalised
and discriminated groups to enable them to effectively defend their interests.
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Leading from the South - Three Southern Regional Women’s Funds (Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean)
and one worldwide Indigenous Women’s fund have been selected to finance women’s organisations,
movements and networks in the South to strengthen their lobby and advocacy capacity
on gender equality and women’s empowerment and on the SDG’s and more specifically
SDG 5.
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Defending political space - In many countries it is becoming more and more difficult for CSOs to do their work
due to restrictive legislation or even threats and intimidation. It is therefore essential
that donors not only provide financial but also political support, to create an enabling
environment for CSOs. In this regard, the MFA monitors political space through its
embassies, takes part in various international networks like the Community of Democracies,
and supports the international civil rights movement CIVICUS.
Science for development policy and -practice
Oldekop et all highlight a critical need for a deeper reflection on paradigms underpinning international
development practices, the long-debated reform of global institutions and the significance
of contemporary economic and political scenarios for the development agenda.
They raise issues that require scrutiny of the theoretical assumptions of current
development paradigms, and their underlying systems of beliefs and values. Asking
such fundamental questions could lead to innovative problem framings and solutions.
Addressing these will be critical for the
success of any credible, long-term strategies aiming to promote sustainable and socially
just development.
The scientific community with its knowledge, curiosity, creativity, scientific methods
and independence, is well equipped to scrutinize paradigms. Scientists thus are key
partners in identifying the causes of poverty and inequalities, and in developing
innovative approaches and solutions that can be replicated, shared or scaled up. Science
can make a difference by providing policies and politics with evidence, viable options
and recommendations for tackling challenges in development policies in a more systemic
and integrated manner.
However, generating new knowledge alone is not sufficient to bring about change in
policies and practices. Knowledge must be made available and accessible to their possible
end-users. Therefore, in 2012 the MFA has installed (among other platforms) the Knowledge
Platform INCLUDE on inclusive development policies in Africa. This platform operates
as a knowledge broker between researchers, government, non-governmental organisations
and private organisations.
Call for proposals
In 2016, the MFA and the WOTRO Science for Global Development division of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) joined forces
to formulate the current call for research proposals. This call is aimed at scrutinizing
the Theory of Change (see annex 1) – and especially its underlying assumptions (see
Section 2.1: Research foci) – of the MFA’s policy framework Dialogue and Dissent. Research proposals responding to this call therefore must be demonstrably linked
to projects/programmes implemented in LLMICs by CSOs supported by the framework ‘Dialogue
and Dissent’ of the MFA.
Research projects should consist of two parts:
Next to these parts, research teams have to actively participate in knowledge brokering
activities (see Section 2.3).
The call is open for consortia consisting of a main applicant from a Dutch university
(holding a PhD), and co-applicant from a research organisation based in one of the LLMICs where the empirical part must be executed. Optionally, a third research organisation
(based in any country) can be added as partner to the consortium.
For effective knowledge brokering, the main applicant and the co-applicant must participate
in knowledge sharing activities organised by the Knowledge platform INCLUDE for this
programme.