'On 4 March, the government of Sudan expelled 13 international NGOs and revoked the licences of three national NGOs.1 In all, 7,610 aid workers – 308 internationals and 7,302 nationals – have been directly affected in Northern Sudan (including Darfur), where these agencies accounted for 40% of aid workers, delivering more than half the total amount of aid. NGO services – access to water, health and medical services, food rations – have been jeopardised. Assistance to Darfur’s 2.7 milli more...

'On the 15th August 2007 a magnitude 8.0 earthquake struck off the coast of Peru, killing more than 500 people and leaving more than 75,000 families homeless. Before the earthquake, CARE Peru had already identified CARE’s third programming principle “we seek ways to be held accountable to poor and marginalised people” as an organisational priority. The emergency response was an important moment for making accountability to disaster affected people a reality.

As a means for ensuring a f more...

GuideStar UK has produced a video which features views from a variety of stakeholders, such as local and international charitable organisations and grantmakers regarding the importance of information in the development of the sector. We would like to thank Dragonfly Productions, (previously Firefly Productions) for their generous support in the making of this film Have a look at the video.

USAID has had a long history of funding U.S. non-governmental organizations. The Advisory Committee On Voluntary Foreign Aid -- with 30 members who are all private citizens -- has advised the Agency on its work with PVOs for many decades. This report, obviously written to inform the incoming administration, appears to endorse some of the suggestions made by others and to add a focus on NGOs.

This case study describes the process of participation and incidence of a civil society organisation, Foundation for Urban Development (FUDEU) and other social actors in the elaboration of a new water law in Costa Rica, based on their own local experiences in the 'Grande de Tarcoles River Basin Commission'. In 2000, FUDEU's research suggested that the existing framework prevented the Commission from assuming necessary competences and legal responsibilities to be a real river basin agency. Hence more...

'This review of WWF-Norway, commissioned by Norad, examines the organisation’s ability to provide effective aid. The authors focus on WWF’s role as a civil society agent and its capacity to support civil society development and the relevance of its work to Norwegian development policies, national policies and local communities. They also consider capacity and risks within financial management, project management and general institutional capacity.'

'The Institute began its work in Iraq by compiling information from donors, particularly those active in the civil society arena, to assess progress made in key areas and identify where further support is needed. The Institute followed up this preliminary donor mapping with an informal survey of activities, through interviews with major players active in civil society development, for purposes of “ground-truthing” its assessments. It quickly became evident that while essential aspects of civ more...

'DecadeWatch reports aim to identify good experience and highlight achievements that countries can learn from. They are an attempt to compare government actions and to provide a snapshot of whether, and to what extent, governments have acted on their Decade promise. DecadeWatch recognizes that countries differ in size—in the size of their Roma populations and their level of economic development—and therefore may require differences in scale of effort. However, it is important to gain some me more...

'Bangladesh has made striking progress on a range of social indicators over the last 15 years, an achievement widely credited to the country's pluralist service provision regime. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have significantly expanded their services during this period and have shown that it is possible to scale up innovative antipoverty experiments into nationwide programs. Notable innovations that were expanded include delivering credit to the previously 'unbankable' poor, developing a more...

'This reporting exercise is an integral part of the contributions to the Third High Level forum on Aid Effectiveness, to be held in Accra, Ghana on 2-4 September 2008. It provides, in particular, an opportunity for agencies to assess how far the aid effectiveness agenda has been mainstreamed into agencies’ activities and to identify the key advances and challenges ahead. This compendium of donor reports on implementing the Paris Declaration (PD) provides a source of information and innovative more...