Month: August 2021

The Civic Perspective Latin America and Caribbean Survey is Now Available! 

Towards a view of the organizations from the Global South

Civic Perspective is a quali-quantitative periodical study conducted by  RACI whose objective is to measure the pulse of Nonprofit Organizations (NPO) On this occasion, and with the support of Innovation For Change’s Latin America and Caribbean Hub, we intend to understand the current reality of NPOs in the region in a deeper way.

The questions that move us and spark our interest in this case, and that we intend to answer in this project, are: Do the NPOs of our region reproduce the same concerns present in our societies today? What are the differences that are established between the different types of organizations in terms of access to funding, human, and technical resources? What are the links between large organizations and grass-root organizations?

In essence, Civic Perspective stems from an epistemology based on the Global South and from a polyphonic view of reality, looking into what are the main strengths, weaknesses and needs of social organizations according to their context. For this reason, this study aims to gather perspectives from organizations of all types, locations and sizes, whether they are formally registered or not, in order to better understand the realities of our sector, its working populations, and to begin to act accordingly.

Moreover, this initiative has been co-created and emerged from eight instances of dialogues and therefore reflects all those voices, conversations, visions and concerns shared by members of the Social Sector throughout our region.

I WANT TO ANSWER THE SURVEY

If you are part of any type of social organization, either as volunteer or paid personnel, we invite you to add your perspective! Here you can find more information about this study´s basis.

Last but not least, Will you help us reach more social organizations so we can amplify our voices? Find the dissemination kit here.

We look forward to hearing your perspective! The survey will be available until August 15.

Organizations in Argentina are going through a critical moment, in a context in which funds are dwindling, while the need for their work and support is doubling. For this reason, we decided to create a campaign in Donar Online that would allow us to raise funds to continue strengthening organizations and contributing, in an articulated way, to the social transformation of Argentina and the region.

Donar Online is a platform that allows you to help Latin American organizations with a simple and intuitive tool to safely receive and process one-time or recurring donations, streamlining individual fundraising processes.

By clicking here, you can begin to support our work, contributing to the strengthening of Argentine Civil Society. Thank you very much for joining us!

The official ECLAC website has published the COVID-19 Special Report: “The Paradox of Recovery in Latin America and the Caribbean”. The report presents a worrying overview of the general impact that the pandemic has had on the region, deepening structural problems such as inequality, poverty, low investment and low productivity. In addition, ECLAC presents a list of recommendations for the future in order to achieve a transformative recovery.

In the economic area, ECLAC identifies that the already tangible economic crisis in the region prior to the pandemic has been compounded by an even greater blow, with the largest contraction of GDP in a century. This situation has led to an unprecedented drop in employment and income levels. Moreover, technological advances to confront the pandemic have been unevenly distributed, resulting in the region having only 13.6% of its population fully vaccinated. Similarly, the concentration of wealth has also been unevenly distributed within countries, following a global trend. Against this backdrop, while the efforts of international organizations such as the IMF to remedy this situation have helped, they have also deepened structural problems such as debt.

Looking specifically at society, we are faced with equally worrisome results. As a consequence of the pandemic, the regional poverty rate increased to 33.7%. This fluctuation is clearly reflected in the field of education. Although the countries managed to create a remote teaching methodology, the technological gap generated clear disparities in rural and lower-income populations. This situation was addressed by the governments of the region, which implemented expansive fiscal policies of social protection, helping enormously to reduce the decline. However, the figures continue to be a warning sign for the region.

In the ecological sphere, the report highlights the reduction in green financing. The data shows that the pandemic has undermined public budgets for the environment, public transport, and the monitoring of natural resource exploitation, while it has favored high-carbon activities. This shows a mismatch with governments’ commitments to reduce carbon emissions and increase resilience by 2050.

As recommendations for the future, ECLAC encourages governments to sustain their expansive policies and social protection measures, as well as to increase tax collection through income and property taxes. In addition, the organization promotes changes in the international architecture that will allow Latin American and Caribbean countries to face their debt without losing their public policy space.

At RACI, we believe that it is essential to work taking into account these guidelines in the future. We believe, like our members, that creating networks that contribute to research and advocacy on these worrying issues that affect our region is a step towards the transformation of Latin America and the Caribbean.

For more information, visit: https://www.cepal.org/en/publications/47059-recovery-paradox-latin-america-and-caribbean-growth-amid-persisting-structural.

RACI continues growing! The network is expanding and, in this opportunity, twenty-two new members will be included.

Following its mission, the Network continues to strengthen an inter-institutional space for dialogue and exchange between multiple organizations and Civil Society actors. Pursuing the goal set more than ten years ago, the Network continues to nurture its membership with 20 new members, who will expand its diversity and heterogeneity.

Once the membership process was concluded, in a warm meeting held virtually on July 23, from RACI we welcomed the new members of the Network.

At that meeting, the Executive Director of our organization emphasized the importance of cooperation and the benefits of being active members of the Network.

After the signing of the agreements, we are pleased to announce that the incoming members of RACI are:

• Alianza por Venezuela
• Animando Vidas Asociación Civil
• Asociación Civil Contribuir al Desarrollo Local
• Asociación Civil Estrategias Educativas
• Asociación Civil Mensajeros de la Paz
• Asociación Civil Monte Adentro
• Comunidad Malú Asociación Civil
• El Portal del Sol
• Fundacion Cultura para Todos
• Fundación Distrito Rotario
• Fundación Educando
• Fundación El Arte de Vivir
• Fundación Encontrarse en la Diversidad para la Educación Intercultural
• Fundación Horacio Zorraquín
• Fundación Niñ@Sur para los derechos humanos
• Fundación para la Conservación y el Uso Sustentable de los Humedales
• Fundación Plurales
• Grupo Autoayuda Mal de Alzheimer y Enfermedades Semejantes
• Inmigrantes Digitales Asociación Civil
• Junior Achievement Argentina
• Sholem Buenos Aires
• Sustentabilidad Sin Fronteras

Welcome to RACI!

Following a public process open to all AGNA members, and after evaluating applications from different countries in Africa, Latin America, Asia and Europe, RACI has been selected by CIVICUS to host the coordination of AGNA (Affinity Group of National Associations), a network that brings together national associations and regional Civil Society platforms around the world, with the aim of fostering greater cooperation.

AGNA has currently 92 members from over 81 countries, and its primary mission is to empower people to organize, mobilize and act by creating meaningful opportunities for networks to come together. RACI, as the new network coordinator, will be responsible for bringing its human and technical resources to the AGNA network to jointly achieve greater cooperation.

This alliance is a unique opportunity for RACI and all its members to continue to deepen networking, to enhance AGNA’s work around the world, as well as to strengthen Civil Society and deepen the articulation with strong and effective international networks.

More news on RACI’s upcoming work with AGNA will be available in the near future. For more information about AGNA visit https://civicus.org/stageit/index.php/es/que-hacemos/fortalecer/agna.

On June 16 and 17, the second digital edition of Festival de Innovación y Tecnología Social (FITS) was held, which is part of the 17 editions of FITS carried out in different parts of Latin America. FITS is an open and innovative space for collaboration carried out by WINGU, where specialists of the region share their knowledge with thousands of people from the social sector, with the aim of making them more autonomous and independent in the use of new technologies.

One of WINGU’s main findings of this edition, was that 90% of those who attend still prefer this event to be held virtually because of the democratic nature of access to information that virtuality allows. Moreover, this year FITS had for the first time an accessible main stage, fully translated into Argentine Sign Language.

There were 7515 registered participants representing 53 countries of the world, of which 4782 participated live.

During the two days of the festival, 153 specialists were present in 88 training spaces. For this edition, the methodology of round table debates was incorporated, leading to the articulation of 283 organizations from the region.

Here you can have access to all of the talks that took place during the festival.

About WINGU: It is a non-profit civic technology organization, which aims to boost social initiatives in Latin America through its digital transformation. For more information on WINGU, click here.