What is our encouragement, what we have learned from international agreements and discourse

We have been following Development Effectiveness discourse (Monterrey 2011 to Nairobi 2016 declaration), where CSO have been recognized as third and equal parties as like as state and market / private sector. We believe in the spirit of GPEDC (Global Partnership of Effective Development Cooperation, www.effectivecooperation.org). So we do like to promote the sense of equal partnership of CSOs along with state and market in all level. The discourse have been initiated by state parties, United Nations and World Bank.

We have also followed and participated in the international discourse for setting Principle of Partnership (PoP)  have held worldwide during 2005 to 2007 by Global Humanitarian Partnership (GHP) as facilitated by IFRC (International Federation of Red Crescent) and ICVA (International Council of Voluntary Association). Finally the PoP     (https://www.icvanetwork.org/system/files/versions/Principles%20of%20Parnership%20English.pdf) embodied, Equality, Transparency, Result Oriented Approach, Responsibility and Complementarity. The PoP declaration has signed by around 40 humanitarian organizations including, INGOs, UN agencies, World Bank and Red Crescent Societies.

World Humanitarian Summit (WHS, www.agendaforhumanity.org) 2014 to 2016 is a turning point in this regard especially who have given birth of the historical Grand Bargain Commitment. WHS was initiated by UN especially to meet the gap in humanitarian funding and facilitative accountability while there are growing numbers of refugees and humanitarian crisis. Bangladeshi CSO have participated actively since the beginning of WHS which have had started with field research, country wide mobilization on issues. (https://www.facebook.com/bdnngoswhs/). Grand Bargain commitment has adopted during May 2016 in final WHS in Istanbul (https://interagencystandingcommittee.org/grand-bargain-0). It has signed by 24 states, 11 UN agencies, 5 Inter governmental organizations including Red Crescent Societies and 19 INGO/ NGO networks. Grand Bargain commitment have embodied with 10 streams including 51 measurable indicators. It is the first time clearly recognized the primacy of local actors like local NGOs in its stream 2 localization, accountability to the affected population with their participation in stream 6 participation revolution, and full aid transparency in stream 1. We are especially encouraged by these three streams and related indicators thereby.

During this WHS process, majority of the INGOs (International NGOs) came up with 8 points Charter for Change (https://charter4change.org/). The 8 points charter has embodied, Direct Funding (commit on humanitarian funding at least 20 % to national NGOs), Partnership (reaffirm principle of partnership), Recruitment (address and prevent the negative impact of recruiting national NGO staff during emergencies), Transparency (publish the amount of funding pass to the national NGOs), Advocacy (address the importance of national actors to the humanitarian donors) , Equality (address sub-contracting and maintain equality in decision making) , Support (provide robust organizational development and capacity building) and Promotion (promote the role of local actors in media and public)  in respect of localization. Around 50 INGOs from global north are the signatory of the charter while more than 150 NGOs from global south has endorsed the charter. We have followed the development encouraged by the charters.

We have also followed the UN New Way of Working Approach (NWoW) as declared during 2016 WHS. For details please see this link, https://www.icvanetwork.org/topic-five-%E2%80%93-new-way-working-what-it-what-does-it-mean-ngos. All most all UN agencies has signed this. This is an approach to work on triangular basis, i.e., not only on humanitarianism and development, but it should be with sustainability forces, especially with local actors. UN Secretary General in several speeches and in respect of its explanation, has given emphasize local label accountability of the UN agencies and also in respect of working with local actors. This is also important to work for SDGs / agenda 2030 in countries. The NWoW i.e., especially importance of local CSOs is very much important while it is the matter of implementation of two Global Compacts of Refugees and Migration too.

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