Month: September 2020

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published a document about digital transformation and the futures of civic space to 2030.

The digital transformation, related to economic and social effects about digitization is altering the civic, physical, virtual and legal space where people associate, articulate and gather.

The implication of digital transformation for fundamental freedoms and civic space are particularly relevant in COVID-19 context, marked with a widespread display of digital technologies for replay at the global health crisis.  These trends challenging the ways that Development Assistance Committee (DAC) and other providers of development co-operation strive to promote an enabling environment for civil society to contribute to sustainable development. An open and dynamic civic space is essential for this.

The document provides a general vision of the variables that could decide the path of civic space in this context of digital transformation. Identifies four plausible futures that could materialize by 2030 and try to help at who are responsible of designing development cooperation policies and form the civic space of the future in a dynamic way; empowering the opportunities that digital transformation offers while mitigating its risks.

The point of this document is creating a guide for the members of DAC to encourage them to promote auspicious environments for the civil society. Protecting and the civic spaces and the responsibility of the OSC build on the principles of inclusive dialogue and participation.

The decisions of political cooperation that we make today will form the civic space for tomorrow.

For access to the complete document: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/development/digital-transformation-and-the-futures-of-civic-space-to-2030_79b34d37-en?mlang=en

The U.K. government must increase humanitarian funding to front-line NGOs to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, because of politicians and aid leaders insisting that less than 2% of funding committed under the Global Humanitarian Response Plan has so far made it properly and rapidly to NGOs.

Most of the funding is being directed through the United Nations or other multilateral organizations instead of being directly given to NGOs, which slows down the distribution. The funding insufficiency leads to a lack of actions taken by the NGOs, who are trying to give a quick response and fighting to prevent severe outbreaks of COVID-19 among vulnerable communities. Although a lot of that UN money actually ends up going to NGOs, it takes two to three months to get there.

“It’s very clear there is a window where we can be shoring up and making [communities] resilient and indeed preventing outbreaks of COVID-19, particularly in the global south, but that window is closing very, very quickly, if not shutting. So we need to be much more swift in our response in getting that money out to the front line,” said Sarah Champion, member of Parliament and chair of IDC.

We are going through times in which speed of action and efficiency are essential to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks in vulnerable communities. It is important to reconsider if the access to resources and funding for NGOs is the appropriate one. It may be helpful to leave unnecessary bureaucracy behind and start thinking about finding more valuable solutions and better ways of resource distribution for those who need it the most.

For more information about this issue, go to https://www.devex.com/news/ngos-say-most-covid-19-funding-is-stuck-in-multilateral-system-97255

In 2019, charitable giving rose by 4.2% in the US, reaching 449.64 billion dollars. In comparison, in 2018, Americans gave an estimated $431.43 billion to charities, which means an increase of $18.21 billion in 2019. The increase of giving in the US was driven by both individual and corporate donors, backed by a strong stock market.

The data comes from Giving USA 2020, the annual report on philanthropy for 2019, published by The Giving USA Foundation (an initiative of The Giving Institute) and written by The Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. Giving USA 2020 is the first aggregate estimate of total giving in the U.S. for 2019, and is based on various econometric models and government data.

According to Una Osili, Ph.D., associate dean for research and international programs at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, 2019 was characterized by a solid, broad-based growth in charitable giving, and especially in giving by individuals, due to the strong growth in the S&P 500 and in personal income. She adds that “giving trends vary according to donor’s income and wealth, and ever since the Great Recession, we noticed that giving has been concentrated towards the top end of the income and wealth spectrum”

According to Amir Pasic, Ph.D., the Eugene R. Tempel Dean of the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, the total increase in giving for last year happened due to an increase in giving by individuals, who are the major source of giving. This tendency is closely linked to that of the distribution of wealth and growth of assets across a decade of stock market expansion.

According to the report for 2019, eight out of the nine subsectors tracked saw an increase in giving. Giving to public-society benefit organizations increased an estimated 13.1%, to $37.16 billion (an increase of 11.1%, adjusted for inflation). It is also the sixth consecutive year of growth for the sub-sector of arts, culture and humanities which saw an increase of 12.6%, to $21.64 billion (an increase of 10.6%, adjusted for inflation). On the other hand, giving to international affairs organizations declined after two years of growth, with a decline of 0.4%, to $28.89 billion (a decline of 2.2%, adjusted for inflation).

Giving by individuals represents less than 70% of overall giving and last year it increased for only the second time ever. Giving by foundations has grown in nine of the past ten years, reaching a record dollar amount last year ($75.69 billion). Corporate giving also grew significantly (21.09 billion): this type of giving is characterized by more turbulent variations due to being very responsive to changes in pre-tax profits and GDP.

“Generally speaking, when there is broad-base economic growth, it is reflected in increased giving to all of the various sub-sectors” affirmed Patrick M. Rooney, Ph.D., executive associate dean for academic programs at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

“It is encouraging to see that not only did America’s corporate and foundation contributions increase, but also that its citizens continue to account for the substantial majority of giving. said Ted Grossnickle, chair of The Giving Institute, and senior consultant and founder of Johnson, Grossnickle + Associates.

For more information visit https://www.thenonprofittimes.com/npt_articles/giving-was-just-short-of-450-billion-for-2019/.

After their respective mandates as members of the RACI Executive Committee, Noel Alonso Murray, Directorio Legislativo Foundation´s Executive Director; Patricia Kahane, Tzedaká Foundation´s Executive Director; Bárbara Kuss, Huerta Niño Foundation´s Executive Director; Raúl Zavalía Lagos, Executive Director of Pro Vivienda Social Foundation; and Emilio Xarrier, General Manager of the Latin American Art Museum of Buenos Aires «MALBA» are leaving their positions to make way for the new members 2020-2022.

Every two years, RACI opens the application process where each Executive Director of the member organizations can present their intention to belong to the RACI board. The process began on July 1, after being announced at the member’s assembly, with the application opening. The new Committee will be announced at the third assembly of the year that will take place on October 28th.

The election is both in an institutional and personal level at the same time, in order to maintain the continuity and coherence of the work that the previous team has been doing. RACI promotes that those elected reflect the thematic, geographical, and size diversity of the Network’s member organizations.

As part of the process, RACI received nominations from various Executive Directors for a month. To apply, each one had to complete a short form and send a letter. Subsequently, the profiles were reviewed by the Executive Committee in its capacity as evaluation commission. The evaluation was carried out exclusively to determine if the postulates met all the stipulated requirements. Once this stage was passed, the application was considered effective.

Voting was open between September 7 and 11. To guarantee transparency during the process, RACI used the Helios elections platform, which allows votes to be kept encrypted, while providing an intelligent monitoring system to verify its correct reception and accounting. Through this tool, each Executive Director of the RACI member organizations received an email with a link, a username and a password generated by the same system. In this way, each voter could participate in the election online, from any device and with the guarantee that the process was entirely transparent.

We would like to extend our gratitude to Noel, Patricia, Emilio, Raul and Bárbara for their exceptional commitment to the organization. The goals achieved during these years are the result of the great contribution and networking they made during their management.

The candidates for this year’s elections, in alphabetical order according to institutions, were:

Mariela Belski of Amnistía Internacional

Horacio Joffre Galibert of Asociación Argentina de Padres de Autistas (APADEA)

Alejandra Perinetti of Asociación Aldeas Infantiles SOS Argentina

Verónica Torassa of Asociación Azul Solidario

Anabella Serignese of Asociación Conciencia

Andrea Rives of Asociación de Familias Diversas de Argentina (AFDA)

Daniel Pomerantz of Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA)

Natalia Gherardi of Equipo Latinoamericano de Justicia y Género (ELA)

Marisa Giraldez of Fundación Banco de Alimentos

Marcelo Miniati of Fundación Cimientos

Constanza Oxenford of Fundación Germinare

Gabriela Lozano of Fundación Interamericana del Corazón (FIC Argentina)

Alejandra Scialabba of Fundación Kaleidos

Diego Aguilar of Fundación León

Carolina Tamagnini of Fundación para el Desarrollo de Políticas Sustentables (FUNDEPS)

Nicolás Rosenthal of Fundación Protestante Diaconía Hora de Obrar

Nicolás Federico of Fundación Reciduca

Manuel Jaramillo of Fundación Vida Silvestre

Florencia Ruiz Morosini of Proyecto Educar 2050

Virgilio Gregorini of Techo Argentina

In September 2020, RACI formed an alliance with IAVE (International Association for Volunteer Effort) and joined its Global Network of Volunteering Leadership (GNVL).

The mission of this international association is to promote, strengthen and celebrate volunteering in every way and across the world. IAVE, having members in more than 70 countries, is what connects a global network of volunteer leaders, NGOs, companies and volunteer centers that strongly believe in the power of volunteers to make a strategic significant contribution in order to solve the most urgent problems of the world. Its four main pillars are: to hold international conferences with the purpose of convening leaders and volunteers of the field; to be a global voice for volunteering, working closely with the UN, international NGOs and global companies to draw attention to the strategic significance of volunteering; to develop knowledge; and to build a network with key target groups in order to learn from each other.

The Global Network of Volunteering Leadership (GNVL) is the new IAVE program and its aim is to bring together the national and regional structures that work to promote strategically volunteering and to develop the capability of the volunteering networks, enabling the growth of their strategic knowledge and building convening spaces. With this new alliance and its participation in the GNVL network, RACI will be a focal point of the network in Latin America and the Caribbean.

To find out more about IAVE and GNVL, visit www.iave.org, networks.iave.org.

The Argentine organization Chicas en Tecnología invited women between the ages of 15 and 19 in Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Colombia and Mexico to be part of its new free online program, Protagonistas del futuro, ellas transforman el mundo con tecnología, created with the support of Disney.

The new proposal seeks to reduce the digital gender gap in the STEAM disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics) and to promote digital literacy through an immersive and comprehensive experience in the technological world with social impact. This first edition had a call in which more than 900 young women applied, who did not need to have prior technical knowledge to participate.

240 young people were selected to start the program in October, which will last for 6 weeks. It will have different dynamics, such as workshops and inspiring talks given by referents in various fields, including Disney collaborators, so that participants develop technical-technological, leadership and social impact skills and become creators of local and global solutions for social problems through different technologies. The participants will be able to enhance their training experiences and transform their communities with the creations they develop. The launch of this regional program will allow the construction of a Latin American network of teenagers and young women protagonists of the future.

 

To consult more information about the program, go to: https://chicasentecnologia.org/protagonistasdelfuturo.

 

You can follow the progress of the program on the networks:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chicasentec/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/chicasentec

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chicasentecnologia/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/chicasentecnologia/

Last Wednesday, August 26^th, RACI – with the support of AGNA (CIVICUS) – held the first virtual unconference, whose guiding theme was “Resource Mobilization: How to Strengthen Civil Society?” The particularity of this new space for exchange was that the agenda was co-created together with the participants, who proposed the topics to be treated on the meeting. In addition, this event did not have formal moderators, but was developed as an open space for dialogue between the participants and the invited panelists: Amy Taylor (CIVICUS), Carlos March (Fundación Avina), Gabriela Masmut (Government of the province of Salta), Paula Cardenau (Arbusta), Pilar Arcidiácono (CONICET – UBA), Roxana Fantin (Austral University – Comunia) and Shawn Sieh (Social Innovations Advisory).

The objective of the event was to be able to offer a space for free and plural exchange and debate around central issues that occupy the current CSO agenda when it comes to resource mobilization. The event began with a general welcome and followed with a short pitch from the panelists related to the mobilization of resources towards Civil Society. Then, the participants and guests were divided into sessions, in which the following specific topics were worked on, such as:

• How innovation can emerge from a crisis,
• The reengineering of Civil Society in the current context,
• The role of the State in the mobilization of resources towards Civil Society,
• The case of Arbusta: the key to agility, adaptability and a change of organizational mindset to grow
• Deconstructing the virtuosity of Civil Society, the academic point of view
• The role of communication for the mobilization of resources in the current scenario,
• Innovative financing and business models in the new era,
• Sub-40 donations, what do we have to do to promote them?
• How to measure and evaluate the strengthening of an organization?

In addition, the space was open to develop new suggestions and ideas. At the end of each group session, there was a general and open presentation of each topic under discussion.

Before the Unconference ended, each participant had to choose three words that would define the assessment of this event for them, which was characterized by the experience during the meeting. These were the words that the attendees said the most:

If you could not participate in this first event, we will be holding a second unconference on September 23^rd, where we will continue to cultivate this space for dialogue and multisectoral exchange, innovating to strengthen civil society. We look forward to seeing you the next time!

Rafael Beleboni, Brazilian foreign affairs officer specialized on international cooperation for development, presents in his article; “The rise of the global South: Can South-South cooperation reshape development?”, An innovative perspective on the development cooperation strategy, based on the exchange of knowledge, implemented in the Global South.

In 1955, what President Sukarno called “the first intercontinental conference of people of color in human history” was held in Bandung, Indonesia. Bandung set the stage for what would later be formally labeled in international development as “South-South Cooperation” a reciprocal self-reliance movement that emphasized that developing countries help each other.

Today, due to the new challenges that developing countries are facing, mutual aid remains important. To achieve sustainable impact, all stakeholders must work to strengthen local capacities and create strategies adapted to the country and the context. Knowledge-based cooperation, inspired by emerging countries’ own solutions to deal with similar problems, can be the strategic advantage of South-South cooperation.

In the past two decades, many countries in the South have chosen to invest in knowledge-based growth, linked to experiential learning and capacity development for policy formulation. This approach reaped great benefits, generating a positive cross-sector impact on human development, competitiveness, and economic performance indicators. Building on these experiences, sharing technical knowledge through policy exchange enables countries to learn from each other. The acquisition and dissemination of knowledge and social learning is the most important public good.

Far from replacing traditional aid, collaboration with and across countries in the Global South rooted in new inclusive knowledge-based growth can promote a new narrative of development cooperation. South-South cooperation today questions the conventional top-down (donor-recipient) approach, based on the conditionality of development aid. Through the exchange of knowledge, the countries of the South seek a more efficient use and development of national capacities, with greater local ownership. Beyond the simplistic notion of solidarity among developing countries, South-South cooperation can be an effective instrument for development.

To access the full article, visit: https://ksr.hkspublications.org/2019/11/26/the-rise-of-the-global-south-can-south-south-cooperation-reshape-development/.

During the month of July, with a virtual presentation, RACI welcomed the organizations that have joined the network as members.

The new members express the continuity of RACI’s mission which, for more than ten years, has periodically added new organizations to the Network with the aim of enriching and expanding its diversity and heterogeneity.

Being a member of RACI means actively participating in spaces of exchange, connecting with other organizations to protect civic space and improving the enabling environment for civil society.

RACI believes that working collectively is the best answer to address the problems of the country and the world. In this way, an inter-institutional space for dialogue and exchange between multiple organizations and actors continues to be strengthened in order to contribute to the social transformation of Argentina. Our new 2020 members are:

 

Agencia de Desarrollo San Nicolás

Asociación Civil Ingeniería Sin Fronteras Argentina

Asociación Civil Manos en Acción para el Desarrollo Social

Asociación Civil Preservar Nuestros Orígenes

Asociación Distrofia Muscular

Brandon por la Igualdad/Equidad de Derechos y Oportunidades

Chicas en Tecnología

Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas

Fundación Acción Restaurativa Argentina

Fundación La Base Fondo de Microcréditos Solidarios

Fundación Llegando a Vos

Fundación SiMas

La Nazarena

Sumatoria Para Una Nueva Economía

Welcome to all new member organizations, let’s continue promoting a stronger network!

Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) has published their report, where they carry out an annual review of the progress of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 193 UN member states. The report was carried out with the combination of data and analysis produced by international organizations, civil society organizations and research centers. It includes considerations, considering the impact of Covid-19 on the fulfillment of the SDGs in the coming years.

The world is facing a public health crisis that has taken thousands of lives, the scientific efforts to move forward with a vaccine are extraordinary due to the urgency of the situation. As the world’s hospitals continue to collapse, the outlook for the virus’s behavior is still uncertain. This health emergency has required immediate and extreme measures, such as quarantines, lockdowns, social isolation, and reduction or paralysis of daily life activities, which directly impacted the economic sector, especially those that depend on social interaction. With thousands of companies closing, unemployment and poverty rates are growing. A great economic crisis is being generated, and it is estimated that it will impact especially the most vulnerable groups and the poorest countries.

But not everything is negative: the confinement and the reduction of productive activities have immediately reduced the environmental impacts. This shows the urgency of implementing new production patterns and sustainable forms of consumption.

The global pandemic is leaving us with multiple lessons and learnings that need to be taken into account on the road to recovery. As it is necessary that all countries have a strong and prepared health system, efforts must be directed in a collaborative way to prevent and face possible future epidemics.

Another lesson that is manifested as a result of the pandemic is the importance and urgency of international cooperation and solidarity, as well as understanding that globalization has interconnected societies in stronger and more direct ways. The most feasible and beneficial path is to think and work together with a more globalist approach that seeks to build a fairer and more resilient world to crises.

Finally, the need to implement greater statistical and data measurement capabilities in administrations with the help of technology is now more evident. Working together with the private sector and civil society, allows the scientific community to improve governance, action capacities and accelerate the identification of solutions.

Regarding the sustainable development report, the index and the SDG tables of the member states are presented, framing the implementation of the SDGs in terms of six broad transformations. The first one is education, gender and inequity. The second one, health, well-being and demography. The third, energy decarbonization and sustainable industry. The fourth, sustainable food, land, water and oceans. The fifth one is sustainable cities and communities. And finally, the sixth one is about leveraging the digital revolution for sustainable development. These indices did not consider the impact of Covid-19 due to the lack of current data and reports on the subject.

Among the results obtained, Sweden was in first place with 85 points, which indicates that the country is on average 85% of the way to the best possible result in the entire 17 SDGs. The report also shows us that the Asian continent in the eastern and southern countries have improved jointly and progressively since 2015. Argentina is in 51st place, with a score of 73.17, showing that despite having a long way to go, it is on track to meet its objectives.

This exhaustive work where multiple variables intersect is of utmost importance. Data is constructed and presented in multiple ways: by years, countries, regions, SDGs, etc., considering the limitations in the measurements, in order to have clear notions of how the situation worldwide develops and the work that remains to be done.

To access the full report, visit: https://sdgindex.org/reports/sustainable-development-report-2020/