News article added on Feb 15 2008
CIS has been awarded grants totalling one million euro by Irish Aid to lead a project on Active Citizenship in Central America, which will bring together DCU, with leading universities and civil society organisations from the region.
Building on previous activities in the region by CIS, this project seeks to add to existing civil society initiatives nationally and regionally by specifically working to strengthen and thicken sustainable networks between civil society, universities and policy makers in the region. It will achieve this not only at the national level, but in particular at the regional level thus supporting civil society to rise to the challenges of regionalisation processes in Central America. The key aim of the project is to strengthen civil society capacity to engage in evidence-based advocacy with the aim of influencing public policy at the national and regional levels in order to promote social and economic policies which reduce poverty, strengthen human rights and promote gender equality. Such engagement by civil society is now widely recognised by donors as essential to deepening democracy and a core requirement of social and economic progress.
The project aims to achieve this by enabling local communities to identify key issues affecting their ability to further development and reduce poverty. The core of the project is an annual 70,000 Euro fund to enable Civil Society Organisations in association with Universities to research and investigate the impact on local communities of issues identified by participating organisations as of particular importance. These projects will also include lobbying programmes facilitating the formulation of critiques of present policy and the creation of new policy proposals based on the findings of these research project. This will ensure that policy will impact development and poverty reduction more favourably in a pro-poor direction. It will also provide the means through which local communities can advocate for certain policies based on this evidence based research. By strengthening civil society capacity to engage in evidence based advocacy, the political space for civil society can be further expanded, deepening democracy in the region.
The project will also include a number of specific elements designed to improve the environment for civil society including annual workshops to assist in strategic planning and to act as a vehicle for lesson learning, thematic sessions on key issues to generate a diffusion effect, in particular on issues around regional integration and national, regional and international network building. In sum, through such activities the project will build the capacity of civil society organisations to influence economic and social policies in favour of pro-poor outcomes, ensuring sustainability.
Further info Dr Barry Cannon, Centre for International Studies, Dublin City University