How can the African Development Bank improve engagement with Civil Society Organizations?

Monday 18 July 2022

On July 18, 2022, the Independent Development Evaluation (IDEV) and the Gender, Women and Civil Society Department of the African Development Bank (AfDB or "the Bank") co-hosted a knowledge webinar to discuss the key findings, lessons, and recommendations of IDEV's evaluation of the Bank's civil society engagement (CSE) over a seven-year period from 2012 to 2019.

The presenters of the webinar included Girma Kumbi, Chief Evaluation Officer who led the evaluation; Zéneb Touré, Division Manager of the Civil Society Department; and Nana Afadzinu, Executive Director of the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI). The presentations aimed at enlightening the audiences about the approaches and practices for engagement with civil society by the Bank.

In her opening remarks, Ms. Karen Rot-Münstermann, Evaluator General of the AfDB, reminded participants that Civil Society Organizations are key stakeholders and implementing partners in the Bank's policies, strategies, and operations. She welcomed participants and encouraged the audience to share their experiences and views on what has worked, what could be done better, and suggest possible ways forward given the evidence exposed by the evaluation and the recommendations for future engagement.

Girma Kumbi reminded the audience of the key findings, lessons, and recommendations drawn from the evaluation, which was presented to the Board of Directors of the AfDB 18 months ago. He outlined the three recommendations made to improve the Bank's engagement with civil society. The first is to enhance awareness and common understanding of the purpose and potential value-added of CSE at country and regional levels. The second is to enhance the resourcing approach for the effective implementation of Civil Society engagement, possibly through alternative funding sources such as thematic trust funds. This was later commented on by Edward Nsobe, Senior Civil Society Engagement Capacity Building Officer at the AfDB, who said that mapping of potential funders was being done in order to identify windows of opportunities for support by trust funds. The third recommendation of the evaluation is to strengthen civil society engagement in policy dialogue at the country and regional levels. Country-specific mapping of Civil Society Organizations that align to the Bank's development priorities would help to contextualize engagement and foster an enabling environment for organizations.

Zéneb Touré acknowledged the recommendations made by IDEV and explained that the department has now set up an action plan to monitor the status of implementation of the recommendations and set up action points to improve engagement. She also informed the audience that the Bank is proceeding with developing a new Civil Society engagement strategy. One of the current strategic areas for increased engagement by the Bank with Civil Society Organizations is the organization of the world’s premier climate conference, COP27. She stressed that it was very important to include civil society in the discussions on the environment and on climate change in Africa, since the impacts are the affair of all African citizens, who are also the best resource for finding solutions adapted to their living environment.
Nana Afadzinu from the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI) offered her expertise in the domain of Civil Society engagement, emphasizing the need for the AfDB to leverage the expertise and proximity of civil society to gain public support for the Bank's projects and initiatives. She added that academia is a good example of a civil society stakeholder group that can offer a lot to the Bank's work, and which should be included in future discussions between the AfDB and Civil Society organizations. Florence Freda Dennis, Integrity and Prevention Division Manager of the AfDB added that capacity building should be comprehensive and cover all stakeholders. Community-based radio stations were an interesting choice of media to make sure that news was widely shared.

Malado Kaba, Director of the Gender, Women and Civil Society Department, said in her closing remarks that the status today of mainstreaming civil society engagement at the AfDB resembles that of gender mainstreaming several decades ago. This kind of knowledge event paves the way for improved awareness and understanding of civil society engagement in view of mainstreaming it in every Bank-funded project.
Echoing the general satisfaction of the audience as the event reached a close, Bank staff participant Henry Nampandu said, "This session has helped me to better appreciate the need to formalize partnerships with key Civil Society Organizations".

*IDEV's Evaluation of the AfDB's Engagement with Civil Society was published last year to facilitate the effective implementation of the Bank's CSE Action Plan (2019–2021) and to inform the design of a new AfDB CSE Strategy. It examined the extent to which the Bank's conceptualization of Civil Society Engagement (CSE) has been relevant and coherent, and how effectively and efficiently CSE has been operationalized in the Bank, on the basis of the Bank's CSE Framework. IDEV regularly holds knowledge workshops in order to facilitate learning and maximize the impact of its evaluations on the policies, strategies and operations of the Bank and improve development outcomes of the Bank's initiatives.

For more information on the evaluation, contact the Task Manager: Girma Earo Kumbi, Chief Evaluation Officer.