Margit van Wessel, Farhat Naz and Sarbeswar Sahoo

A commonly explored theme in international civil society organisation (CSO) collaborations is the dominance of Northern CSOs and how this impinges on Southern CSOs’ autonomy, but there is little work on the relative importance of different collaborations for Southern CSOs. This study examined complementarity as a new approach to understanding CSO collaboration. Seeking Southern perspectives, we examined the case of CSOs working on disaster risk reduction in India and developed a typology of complementarities in this domain.

Margit van Wessel

On February 6, the Spindle organized a Meetup of the Strategic Partnerships. The theme of the meeting was "Rethinking Ownership and Control within advocacy Partnerships". Staff of about 50 CSOs were present and reflected together. To prepare collective reflection, they were all asked to write down challenges their organization faces in organizing Southern ownership and control, and options to solve these challenges - with interesting results.

Margit van Wessel, Suparana Katyaini, Yogesh Mishra, Farhat Naz, B. Rajeshwari, Rita Manchanda, Reetika Syal, Nandini Deo, Sarbeswar Sahoo 

This report was developed in the context of the research programme Supporting the political role of CSOs for inclusive development. Assumptions underlying Dialogue and Dissent.

It presents the results of a research project that examines a set of assumptions underlying the Netherlands’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs policy programme Dialogue and Dissent. Strategic Partnerships for Lobby and Advocacy and addresses a set of research and policy questions formulated by the Ministry. It does so from a perspective and set of interests defined by the research team. The purpose of the research is to inform future government policy and CSO activity to support and strengthen civil society advocacy roles advancing inclusive development.