Executive summary Strengthening Civil
Society Theory of Change
Supporting civil society’s political role
December 1, 2019
Strengthening Civil Society Theory of Change
Civil society strengthening in perspective
The main aim of the civil society strengthening policy framework (CSS) is to contribute to sustainable
inclusive development for all and fight against poverty and injustice by promoting civil society’s
political role. This presents a shift in focus from aid aimed directly at combating poverty through
service delivery to aid aimed at tackling the root causes of poverty and (gender)inequality through
lobby and advocacy. This focus on civil society’s political role stems from a ‘Social Transformative’
approach to development which states that poverty, inequality and exclusion are caused by power
asymmetries and that development is a complex, nonlinear and political process aimed at changing
power relations.
Civil society and development
Civil society support of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) is based on the principle that a
diverse and pluralist civil society is both goal in itself and a means to an end as it is crucial for
sustainable and inclusive development, good governance and responsible citizenship. Civil society is
defined here as the space between government, the market (businesses) and private life (family and
friends) where citizens can organise themselves to pursue goals not directly related to personal or
financial gain, which concern a wider group of people and are not necessarily taken care of by
government. Civil societies consist of both tangible aspects such as Civil Society Organisations (CSOs),
but also of less tangible aspects such as norms and values on citizenship, social capital, and the public
sphere. In terms of norms and values, the MFA positions its civil society strengthening efforts in a
human rights frame and links this to the attainment of the SDGs. In its concrete financial support the
MFA mainly employs an organisational perspective on civil society. This doesn’t mean that individuals
don’t play a specific role in increasing or decreasing space for civil society. Civil society is depicted as
a concept which is populated by all sorts of formal and informal CSOs like professional NGOs,
associations based on kinship, faith based groups, social movements, community-based organisations,
labour unions, professional associations. Such a broad definition of CSOs is necessary because as a
donor the MFA mostly relates to formal CSOs, it is therefore easy to lose sight of all the other
organisational forms which make up civil societies, especially in non-Western societies. While it is
difficult for the MFA to relate to these informal CSOs, it can stimulate others to relate to them.
Civil society’s political role as focus of CSS
CSS focusses on promoting the political role of CSOs. Instead of combating poverty through service
delivery, CSS aims for tackling the root causes of poverty and inequality through lobby and advocacy.
This focus on the political role of CSOs is both urgent and timely as there is a global trend of shrinking
civic space and limited international funding for this role. At the same time, CSOs around the world
have steadily grown stronger over the past decade. Organisations which previously focused exclusively
on providing services to the poor are increasingly making themselves heard in their own country and
internationally to expose structural injustices. The issues they raise, such as inequality, environmental
problems and extreme poverty, are increasingly interconnected both here and there. Therefore, it is
important to support the political role of CSOs on all different governance levels, from local to global.
Rationale
The CSS framework consists of two sets of policy instruments grouped under ‘Power of Voices’ and
‘SDG 5 Fund’ (see figure and table below). The main pathway of change, which consist of several
steps, applies to all these instruments. First of all, CSOs need the right capacities to be able to
implement strong advocacy strategies, therefore, mutual capacity strengthening of CSOs in this area
is one of the main underlying strategies of the CSS framework. With these strengthened capacities,
CSOs can implement more effective advocacy strategies which will start to have an impact in the
sense of setting agenda’s, influencing public discourse or gaining a seat at the table. This should pave
the way to positive changes in laws, policies and norms of state actors, societal actors or businesses,
for those that live in poverty or are being marginalized in another way. Advocacy doesn’t stop here,
because actual implementation or application of these laws, policies, norms and practices is the
ultimate goal. This will in the end ensure that they have a real impact on improving people’s lives.
Finally, civic space is an important precondition for all these steps towards structural change. The
figure below depicts this rationale in a flow-chart, followed by a table with the underlying assumptions
and policy instruments. Although it is a straightforward visualisation, it is important to stress the
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complex and erratic nature of advocacy processes, meaning that they will usually go back on forth
between these different steps depending on contextual changes.
Civil Society Strengthening ToC Flowchart
Ultimate Contribute to peaceful and just societies
goal
Inclusive sustainable development
Long term All people, especially marginalized groups, have equal access to rights, services and
impact opportunities.
Inclusive laws, policies, norms & practices:
Laws,
Medium term Government, private sector and societal groups address
regulations &
impact concerns of marginalized groups in their laws, policies, norms practices enable
& practices CSOs to engage
in advocacy
Adoption Improvement Maintaining Blocking
Sphere of
influence
Influencing norms & decision-making: CSOs play an Government,
Outcome important transformative role in societal norms, and private sector
decision-making by government and private sector and societal
groups are
capable and
willing to
Agenda Framing Procedural engage with
setting change CSOs on
decision-making
CSOs have the capacity and CSOs are supported and CSOs address
legitimacy to influence complemented in their shrinking civic
Interme-
government, business and advocacy activities by their space and are
diary
outcomes societal actors in various areas counterparts and/or the Ministry supported in
doing so by their
counterparts
and/or the
Political participation Funding
Ministry
Technical expertise
Mobilisation
Diplomacy
Civic Space
Activation
Brokering
Crosscutting:
Outputs / Power of Voices SDG 5 Fund Promoting Civic
policy Space
instruments
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Assumptions underlying Civil Society Strengthening
Core assumptions
On - Poverty, (gender)inequality and exclusion are caused by power asymmetries
development - Development is a nonlinear political process aimed at changing power relations
- Changing power relations often needs and/or breeds friction and conflict
- Local ownership of development processes is crucial for inclusiveness, effectiveness and
sustainability of development efforts
On civil - CSOs play a crucial role in changing power relations
society’s role - CSOs perform 4 types of political roles to change power relations:
o Educational (internal & external)
o Communicative (linking state & society)
o Representational (voice & resistance)
o Cooperative (subsidiarity & coordination)
- Different roles require different organisational forms (i.e. formal / informal), capacities and
different forms of legitimacy
- When pressured, informed and/or persuaded by CSOs, states, companies and societal actors
change their laws, policies and/or norms, and their practices to be more sustainable,
equitable and inclusive
- Assumption/precondition: CSOs need civic space to perform political roles
- Precondition: CSOs need to be locally rooted, strong, legitimate and autonomous to perform
political roles
On donor - External aid by the Ministry and (mainly Northern) CSOs can strengthen CSOs in low-income,
support lower-middle income and higher-middle income countries in their political roles through
mutual capacity strengthening and assistance in advocacy processes, including offering
protection in hostile environments and lobbying for improved civic space
- CSOs are actors in their own right and not merely instrumental channels for aid delivery
- Promoting civil society’s political roles needs a long-term, context-specific approach, which
incorporates mutual learning, trust and local ownership
- Precondition: The design of the aid chain does not interfere with the aspects mentioned in the
previous point
Policy Power of Voices SDG 5 Fund
instruments
- Power of Voices partnerships - Leading from the South
- Voice - Power of Women
- Accountability Fund - Women, Peace and Security
- SRHR Partnership Fund
Innovative approach of CSS
When promoting civil society’s political role, traditional top-down, logical framework approaches are
less suitable due to the complex and erratic nature of political processes. A more flexible and context-
specific approach is needed, ensuring local ownership, embeddedness and local legitimacy. Donors
have often been criticised of doing the opposite, therefore the CSS framework introduced several
innovations to overcome this criticism. First of all, the focus on promoting civil society’s political role is
an innovation in itself as not many donors support this role due to the greater risks. It involves
promoting the advocacy capacity of CSOs and raising their voice both in their own countries and
beyond. A second innovation is the choice to work with theories of change which can be adapted to
different contexts and can be updated based on contextual changes and emerging insights. This also
has consequences for planning, monitoring, evaluation and learning systems.
Besides these general innovations the policy instruments in Power of Voices and the SDG 5
Fund add specific approaches. To overcome the critique of unequal donor-recipient relations, the
Power of Voices partnerships, the SRHR partnership fund, Power of Women, and the Women, Peace
and Security programme go beyond a merely contractual relation between CSO consortia and the
Ministry by working in partnership with shared goals and responsibilities.
With the Voice programme the Ministry recognises that regular aid programmes have often
failed to reach the most marginalised and discriminated groups. It has therefore set up a fund (Voice)
to reach these hard to reach groups.
With the Accountability Fund the Ministry recognises that many Southern CSOs have grown
stronger and therefore can be supported directly through our embassies.
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In the Leading from the South programme, four Southern regional women’s funds are
supported directly, so they can strengthen the international women’s rights movement in the global
South.
Finally, the Ministry is actively involved in monitoring and protecting civic space through its
embassies, support to CIVICUS and ICNL, and through participation in international initiatives.
Political roles of CSOs
To understand how CSOs contribute to changing power relations for promoting inclusive development
and (gender)equality, it is important to look at the various political roles they can play. CSOs can
perform four interrelated political roles, namely an educational role, a communicative role, a
representational role and a cooperative role. These roles are often seen as an indispensable feature of
democracy and as a driver of good governance, which explains why a vibrant and critical civil society
is considered a goal in itself. In their educational role, CSOs are usually portrayed as schools of
democracy where citizens come together and learn about democratic norms, values and practices.
Furthermore, CSOs can provide various social actors with information and educate them about their
rights and duties. In their communicative role CSOs provide communication channels between state
and society. In practice CSOs often foster strong links with the state, society, knowledge institutes
and/or businesses. In their representational role CSOs enable citizens to monitor government and
businesses and defend their rights and interests, acting as a countervailing power. This can enhance
participation of marginalised groups and can also promote transparency and accountability of various
types of actors. Finally, CSOs can perform a cooperative role by working together with states,
companies or societal groups. In this role they can act as alternative modes of governance by
providing basic services, or they can act as brokers in policy debates, linking various types of actors
and generating expert knowledge through their networks.
Civic Space
An important precondition for performing political roles is that CSOs have the space to do so. Civic
space is defined as the space that CSOs have to perform their political roles and implement their
advocacy strategies. This can relate to individual citizens, to the formation and functioning of CSOs,
but also to less tangible aspects such as the functioning of the public sphere and the formation and
distribution of norms, values, social capital and trust in a society. The topic of civic space is urgent as
there is a worldwide trend of shrinking civic space. Many countries are curtailing CSO activity and civic
participation. CIVICUS points to several important aspects of this trend, such as exclusive economic
systems, fake and flawed elections, weakening multilateralism and the growing power of anti-rights
groups. 1 As these are very different but still connected issues, understanding what civic space is and
how it affects CSOs is key for countering this trend.
Various interpretations of what civic space entails can be found. First, sociological studies look
at the impact of national contextual factors on civil society related aspects such as the (financial) size
of the non-profit sector, CSO membership and volunteering. They point out various contextual
variables which are important for civil society development, including religiosity, economic
development and the rule of law. A positive finding is that low economic development and a low rule
of law do not necessarily coincide with a weak civil society, but seem to change its nature from formal
to informal. Second, political opportunity structure theory provides a model for understanding the
threats and opportunities in the political system for social action. It shows that different CSOs have
different opportunities and challenges in restrictive environments. Because states and societies are
such complex and multi-layered phenomena, they usually have multiple entry-points, even in
restrictive contexts. Third, practitioner oriented literature captures civic space in indexes for country
comparisons, signalling global trends and organising agenda’s for action. These indexes show the
extent of the problem of shrinking civic space and put it on the (international) agenda. The CIVICUS
civic space monitor is a prominent example of this.
CSO Advocacy
The political roles of CSOs provide the building blocks for the more concrete advocacy strategies of
CSOs. Through advocacy, CSOs can influence decision makers, strengthen the voice of marginalised
groups, and ultimately challenge the unequal power relations which perpetuate poverty and exclusion.
Advocacy is defined as the process of influencing actors to promote political, social and economic
change on behalf of a collective interest. Advocacy processes can be divided in three overlapping and
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Source: CIVICUS state of civil society report 2019
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non-linear phases. First, the activation phase concerns the recruitment and political activation of
individual citizens. Second, the mobilization phase refers to the process of aggregation and sense-
making. In this phase, CSOs act as vehicles for translating individual concerns into collective action by
mobilising resources and support, and by framing the message for communication in the public
sphere. Finally, in the participation phase the mobilised resources and framed messages are translated
into action in the form of a broad range of advocacy strategies.
Three general advocacy targets can be identified, namely state actors, market actors and societal
actors. Within CSS, these actors can be targeted with advocacy messages on a range of issues related
to inclusive and sustainable development, for instance on women’s rights, improved tax systems or
the sustainable use of natural resources. Five cumulative types of advocacy claims are distinguished,
namely agenda setting, discursive change, procedural change, policy change and behaviour change.
Agenda setting is about awareness raising and getting your issues on the political agenda. Discursive
change refers to the process of framing, and means that advocacy targets start adopting your
terminology, rhetoric and framing of an issue. Procedural change refers to influence on institutional
procedures, for instance by changing the way in which decisions are being made, by opening up new
spaces for dialogue or by gaining a seat at the table. While law, policy or norm change can mean a
great victory, this does not always translate into actual changes. The highest attainable form of impact
is therefore behavioural change of state, market and/or societal actors.
CSO advocacy capacity
CSOs need the right capacities for implementing successful advocacy strategies which help raise the
voice of marginalised and discriminated groups and contribute to improving their lives. Strengthening
the advocacy capacity of CSOs is therefore CSS’s main policy instrument. It is defined as a process
which involves the transfer or mutual exchange of certain skills, ideas, capabilities or resources to
attain development goals or social justice. Capacity strengthening trajectories should adhere to the
following principles, namely: to address power relations, promote national ownership, adapt to local
conditions, build on existing capacities, go beyond training individual skills and take a long-term,
flexible and comprehensive approach. Together, these three elements (mutual exchange, social
justice, principles) summarize capacity strengthening as envisaged in this ToC.
It is important to keep in mind that capacity strengthening trajectories should not promote a
unidimensional organisational model, because different democratic roles and advocacy strategies
require different organisational forms, different capacities and different forms of legitimacy. Not all
organisations need to become a professional NGOs, for certain political roles and advocacy strategies
it is even better to have informal organisations like CBOs or loosely organised networks like social
movements. This is the case because different types of CSOs occupy niches, making them better
suited for certain roles and strategies over others. In terms of capacity strengthening this means
tailoring capacity strengthening trajectories to specific organisational setups and specific political roles
rather than promoting a standard set of capabilities. Furthermore, to overcome the limitations of
specialisation, these trajectories should include a reflection on how various types of CSOs complement
each other and how cooperation between them can be stimulated.
Learning and adaptation
As CSS uses a ToC approach, learning and adaptation form an important part of the programme. CSS
aims to build on and extend the learning approach which was initiated under the previous Dialogue
and Dissent policy framework. This approach included annual linking and learning sessions with CSO
partners, field visits, shared meetings, lunch seminars, Mid Term Reviews, IOB research on
partnership, and a research programme with NWO-WOTRO and INCLUDE on the assumptions
underlying the Dialogue & Dissent ToC. All these trajectories delivered valuable input for both the
implementation of the ongoing Dialogue & Dissent framework, as well as for the design of the new
CSS framework. Especially the NWO/INCLUDE research programme added an extra layer of
understanding on the complexities involved in supporting civil society’s political role. 2 The most
important lessons coming from all these learning processes, and which have been integrated in the
CSS policy framework, are: to strengthen ‘Southern’ leadership throughout the programme; to have a
stronger focus on civic space; to integrate gender equality right at the start of the programme; to
better manage expectations in the partnership relation between the Ministry and CSOs and to include
monitoring, evaluation and learning more structurally.
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For information on this research programme and the research reports see:
https://includeplatform.net/theme/new-roles-for-csos-for-inclusive-development/
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