STAR-Ghana Foundation and the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI) are currently implementing the Civil Society Strengthening Programme Shift the Power (CSSP/#StP) with funding from Comic Relief and the UK Foreign Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO).
This eight-year programme aims to provide long term support to Civil Society Actors (CSA) in Ghana, contributing to their resilience, responsiveness, and effectiveness in delivering the priorities of their constituents.
It seeks to build institutional resilience of civil society organisations in Ghana by providing a more progressive, negotiated, participatory and widely owned solution to social development work.
Ibrahim-Tanko Amidu, Executive Director of STAR-Ghana Foundation speaking to the media during the launch
Shifting power
Speaking at the launch of the programme at a forum in Accra, the Executive Director of STAR-Ghana Foundation, Ibrahim-Tanko Amidu, said the CSSP-StP is about producing outputs and outcomes that strengthen local organisations, benefit most marginalised, and most excluded sections of communities.
He noted the mechanism where donors and partners determine how grants should be expended on programmes and projects have not served the nation well.
Alhaji Amidu challenged civil society organisations to find ways to redefine the paradigm that would rather assume that outcomes will benefit the most marginalised communities based on terms agreed by all parties.
“Shifting the Power means all actors in the value chain agree on uses of grants and not the previous practice where they only received and executed projects already determined by donors without question.
“It means we don’t restrict development to just a select few organisations and we are broadening the scope to bring in as diverse public as we can.
‘Shift the Power says don’t start by telling me what the fund needs to do but let us sit together to decide what needs to be done and what will be required,” he said.
Some participants at the launch of the CSSP-#StP
The Chairperson of the Governing Council of STAR-Ghana Foundation, Dr Esther Ofei-Aboagye, said the #StP is a bold undertaking that goes to the heart of the mandate of STAR-Ghana Foundation - active citizenship in the sense of local ownership for development, and citizens recognising their power and agency and taking responsibility for change.
She corroborated the #StP is about changing mindsets about how resources can be raised and used judiciously in a coordinated manner to achieve results.
Dr Esther Ofei-Aboagye (with microphone), Chairperson of the Governing Council of STAR-Ghana Foundation
In a remark, Nana Asantewaa Afadzinu Executive Director of WACSI, said the CSSP-#StP is to help organisations develop the skills and capacity to enable them to achieve greater results in their work.
She said often there are challenges with sustaining programmes because of the lack of connection with host communities.
"So, where we are working with organisations that are rooted in communities, we are looking at how do those communities own the programmes that are run so that after external funding they themselves are going to invest into those programmes and sustain it,” she said.
Partnership
The Development Director of the UK Foreign Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO), Beth Cadman, said the partnership affirmed the commitment of the UK in supporting civil society actors in the global south to become more resilient and responsive to their constituents.
She challenged civil society organisations to focus on how they can collectively work together to develop new skills and capacities to form new partnerships to promote community development for the duration of programmes and beyond.
The Head of Programmes at STAR-Ghana Foundation, Eunice Racheal Agbenyadzi, said the CSSP-#StP which is a long-term support (2022-2030) is also being implemented in Zambia and Malawi and has two components: organizational development and grant.
“It focuses on how civil society can be more resilient (independent, sustainable), and how they can deliver the priorities of their constituents, among other things. We are not set up for ourselves, but we are set up to meet some specific needs of our communities.”
“So, the point about how our work is organised and taken up in a such a way that it reflects the aspirations and needs of our constituents,” she said.
The Project Manager of the CSSP-#StP, Sarah Adjei, said the project aims to provide long term support to civil society actors (CSAs) in Ghana.
“A just world, free from poverty, is possible and those closest to the issues have the best solutions. The CSSP seeks to support and facilitate CSAs actions for increased resilience as organisations, and to make them more effective, responsive, and accountable to representing their constituents’ needs and priorities," she said.
She added the main delivery mechanism of the CSSP/StP will be through grants and capacity development support to diverse civil society actors to work in partnership with their constituents in demanding and exercising their rights and access to social services.
Prior to the launch, STAR-Ghana Foundation and WACSI held a series of consultations across the country on the validation of project frameworks and tools developed for the implementation of the CSSP-#StP. The consultations were held on three zonal bases: southern zone, the middle belt, and the northern sector.