Women for Change is coordinating consultations in the African region on the Istanbul 2nd Principle: Embody Gender Equality and Equity while promoting women and girls’ rights. The consultations are being conducted through phone interviews and answering to a survey questionnaire. In addition, a regional consultation workshop has been planned to be held from 7 to 8 April 2011 in Lusaka. You may also visit the Open Forum site for more updates on activities that have been going around the globe http://www.cso-effectiveness.org/
The Open Forum, an international consensus based CSO, led two years consultative process (2009 - 2011) was lauched in 2008 in Paris where more than 70 CSOs committed to maximise CSO development effectiveness - the result was the Open Forum on CSO Development Effectiveness.
The Open Forum for CSO Development Effectiveness is a unique space for CSOs (Civil Society Organisations) worldwide to engage in a global and fully participatory process towards defining and introducing a framework of mutually shared development effectiveness principles. 8 principles were developed in Istanbul, Turkey in 2010 after a world wide bottom-up process of consultations with CSOs. Through the Open Forum, CSOs world wide are now striving to build a consensus on commonly accepted principles to improve their development effectiveness and on minimum standards for enabling environment where CSOs can fully apply and strengthen their specific roles in development. Therefore, regional consultations are taking place in Africa, Asia, South America and Europe. The outcomes of the consulations will be brought to the Global Assembly of the Open Forum in mid 2010 to prepare a draft International Framework for CSO Development Effectiveness from which will come up with recommendations for the 4th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness to be held in South Korea, 2011.
