Civil society is widely understood as the space outside the family, market and state (WEF, 2013). What constitutes civil society has developed and grown since the term first became popular in the 1980s and it now signifies a wide range of organised and organic groups including nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), trade unions, social movements, grassroots ...» more
Civil society partnerships
CSOs supporting accountability in cash transfer programmes
Cash transfer programmes, like most social protection programmes, are vulnerable to fraud, errors, corruption and misuse of funds, which undermine their achievements. Civil society organisations (CSOs) have supported, or provided, accountability mechanisms in countries around the world: working to improve transparency to help citizens hold authorities accountable; checking ...» more
Legislative oversight in public financial management
This Rapid Evidence Assessment examines the quality of the available evidence on the effectiveness of reforms aimed at improving legislative oversight to attain improved development outcomes, and summarises the available lessons from the literature. The specific research questions considered are: What is the effectiveness of the different public finance legislative ...» more
Religion and development
Why would you want to mix religion with development? They appear to be completely different things – at best incompatible; at worst highly combustible. After all some strands of religion have an overtly political agenda, while other strands promote or condone violence, including terrorism. In some instances religions promote discrimination against women, children and other…» more
Incentives from donor funding mechanisms for civil society organisations
This review examines the evidence on some of the outcomes of donor funding to civil society organisations (CSOs). However, it is difficult to attribute causality to specific funding mechanisms, and few evaluations look directly at this issue. Scattered evidence in donor evaluations does reveal some commonalities and lessons: The literature presents a strong message from ...» more
Monitoring and evaluating civil society partnerships
This report lists and describes tools used by NGOs to monitor the quality of their relationships with partner organisations. It begins with a brief analysis of the types of tools and their approaches, then describes each tool. This paper focuses on tools which monitor the partnership relationship itself, rather than the impact or outcomes of the partnership. While there is ...» more
