Civil society has grown in size and importance around the world. A vibrant civil society can ensure that millions of vulnerable people have a voice and that they play a central role in the struggle to further political, social, economic and constitutional rights. Civil society can identify and raise issues around which collective problem-solving needs to take place. Civil society organizations (CSOs) also play an essential role in contexts of state service reduction or lack of services, particularly in countries of protracted crisis.
As such, in fragile and conflict‐affected areas where ACTED is working, the civil society often has limited space and capacities to operate. Civil society organizations are small, informal, with limited means and ability to effectively advocate beyond their immediate local communities. Therefore, we seek to reinforce CSOs institutional capacity and provide them with sustainable resources to ensure their effectiveness.
Among the many areas civil society focuses on and among the different functions it serves, strengthening democracy and contributing to development are the most crucial. In particular, civil society and civil society organisations make their key contribution to development and democratization processes by:
Depending of the context, ACTED:
Grassroots Organizational Capacity Development (GOCA)
GOCA stands for Grassroots Organization Capacity Assessment (GOCA) and it is ACTED’s signature civil society organizational capacity assessment and development toolkit.
The GOCA can be used to analyze the organisational and institutional capacity of local and national civil society organisations (CSOs). More specifically, the tool can be used to identify capacity building needs, to plan technical support interventions to address these needs, to then monitor and evaluate the impact of the capacity building support provided, and adjust technical support as and where necessary based on the findings.
The GOCA was developed to enable the use of participatory processes in the assessment of the capacity needs of civil society organisations in a number of areas. The tool also enables the development of capacity building action-plans to address the identified needs. The GOCA provides a comprehensive set of tools and guidance focusing on organizational management, financial management, leadership and participation, project cycle management, and external relations.
In Sri Lanka, ACTED and CIRCLE (civil society organisation resource center) assessed the capacity of over 130 civil society organisations in Killinochchi district and provided them with tailored training (human resources and finance management, project cycle management, external relations, organizational training management and internal governance) to strengthen their institutional capacity, thus supporting them to implement their mandate and voice the needs of the communities they represent.
ACTED is currently replicating the same approach in three additional districts of Sri Lanka, aiming to benefit 60 civil society organisations, thus reflecting on 1,100,000 community members. ACTED furthermore provides small grants to civil society organisations to support their involvement in local development processes. In the Northern province of Sri Lanka, 11 organisatoins received individual grants of an amount of up to 10,000 EUR to implement small community-based projects to address needs identified at grassroots level, such as awareness on alcohol abuse prevention, on gender-based violence and on HIV; prevention of environmental pollution; or development of organic fertilizers. The recipient civil society organisations were selected through a competitive call for proposal, in preparation for which they all received trainings on how to develop a proposal.