Civil Society CEOs, Youth Leaders Attend Annual Meetings

October 16, 2008—“My image of the Bank and Fund has improved this week, as I was able to grasp the human dimension of what is often perceived as a faceless monolith.” These remarks were made by Ingrid Srinath, the new Secretary General of CIVICUS, one of the world’s largest networks of civil society organizations (CSOs), who was attending the Annual Meetings for the first time.

Srinath’s sentiment was echoed by Mamadou Fofana, who heads up Mali’s National NGO Network (SECO-ONG), who readily admitted he had generally negative preconceived opinions about both the Bank Group and the Fund, but found the Civil Society Policy Forum helpful and quite informative.

These CSO leaders were among the 350 or so civil society representatives  from over 50 countries who attended the 2008 Annual Meetings, a marked increase from previous years, and the highest ever.

Diverse Representation

They represented a wide diversity of CSOs—from NGOs and trade unions, to foundations and faith-based organizations. Some 28 organizations from developing countries were sponsored to attend in order to ensure that the perspective and views of Southern civil society are present.

Moreover, CEOs of leading Part I and Part II CSOs as well as youth leaders attended the Annual Meetings for the first time. For many, it was their first time to travel to Washington and to come to the Bank and their fresh perspectives and feedback were insightful.

Srinath chaired the townhall meeting hosted by Bob Zoellick and IMF Managing Director Strauss-Kahn. In her view, her CSO colleagues were perhaps too “deferential and polite” in this setting, and she would have liked to have seen a more frank exchange.

Fofana, on the other hand, seemed surprised by the “straightforward” nature of the dialogue, saying “we gave the staff members of both institutions a very hard time in the meetings, but yet they responded to our questions and remained courteous at all times”. Srinath said while it was good for the Bank to welcome CSOs to the Bank, she would like to see the Bank go to civil society ‘spaces’ as well. In this regard, CIVICUS plans to invite Mr. Zoellick to its global Annual Assembly in Montreal next year.

Mark Garcia is a youth leader from Silliman University who heads a youth education project in the Philippines supported by the Bank. He felt his experience at the Annual Meetings was quite worthwhile, particularly the youth sessions, and enjoyed the ability to network with youth leaders from other countries.

In his opinion the youth program should become a regular feature of the Annual Meetings, and he suggests that youth should be involved upstream in planning the agenda and topics to be discussed.

In all, 30 heads of CSOs attended. They had a breakfast meeting with Mr. Zoellick, and a number of them spoke on several of the Program of Seminar panels. Their attendance doubtless helped further raise the profile of civil society as development actors at the Annual Meetings. Indeed, by cultivating relations with seasoned leaders of influential NGOs and foundations, we can lay the foundation for greater operational collaboration, in important areas such as food security.

Youth Leaders

The youth leaders —17 of them from 14 countries, both developed and developing — were responsible for youth projects in their countries, and had worked on development issues. Many of them also had links to the Youth Advisory Groups or Youth for Development and Peace Networks.

They were invited to join a pilot program, Youth@Annual Meetings 2008: Partners in Development, which was put together by a cross-sectoral team from EXT, HDN, SDV, and OPCS, joining forces with Friends of Africa International.

The objectives were to recognize young people as equal partners and provide youth a space to discuss major development concerns from the youth perspective, institutionalize the dialogue and exchange of experiences in the field between the Bank and youth organizations, and increase the knowledge of young people on the World Bank to become stronger partners in development.

The plenary sessions focused on two big issues of interest to youth and the Bank: youth citizenship and the school-to-work transition, and during the breakout sessions, participants drafted a “youth action plan” to guide collaboration and coordination between the Bank and youth leaders over the next year.

Annual Policy Forum

The Civil Society Policy Forum consisted of more than 30 dialogue sessions, covering such topics as climate change, IFIs transparency, the role of the state in agriculture, financing for development, and the IFC's water and sanitation strategy.

Importantly, there was a workshop on the global food crisis, co-sponsored by InterAction, the IMF and World Bank and chaired jointly by Sam Worthington, President and CEO of InterAction, and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. It included reports on the Bank and Fund’s response to the crisis, and civil society analyses of the impact of high food prices in Latin American countries, Malawi and India, and the impact on small farmers.

The Dutch NGO “Both-Ends” co-sponsored a so called ‘Political Café'  with other NGOs, a space where animated but civil debate took place between CSO representatives and Bank sector staff on how the “right to water and sanitation” can help to enhance the Bank’s policies and practice in this sector. CSOs saw this as an effort to encourage the Bank to move toward “rights based approaches” in its efforts to fight poverty.

Zoellick’s Interactions with CSOs

In his interactions with CSOs, Zoellick asked for specific actions and input from CSOs in the following areas: working with the Bank to help turn the food price crisis into an opportunity, especially for food producing countries; promoting country ownership, including providing incentives for broadening citizen participation; and partnering with the Bank to strengthen governance and the rule of law at the country level.

For their part, CSOs acknowledged that the Bank had made significant improvements in the structure, content, and facilitation of its dialogue with CSOs. They called for CEOs' attendance at Annual Meetings to be institutionalized going forward, to ensure enhanced dialogue, and effective follow up on recommendations.

They also requested more formal contact with Executive Directors in the future, as this can both help strengthen the government-civil society interface at country level, and raise the profile of CSOs in the eyes of developing country governments.

Edith Grace Ssempala, acting senior vice president of EXT, as the senior Bank manager responsible for civil society engagement at the global level said, “CSOs can be key allies of the Bank and governments to promote good governance at the local level. They can also be partners in leveraging resources for job creation and economic empowerment, and delivering essential social services.”

Contributed by John Garrison, senior communications officer, EXTIA
Posted in the World Bank Intranet