Task Team launches free course on engaging CSOs in development

ROTTERDAM, Netherlands - Feb. 5, 2021 - PRLog -- Multi-stakeholder coalition Task Team on CSO Development Effectiveness and Enabling Environment is launching its free online course on Effective Engagement of Civil Society Organisations in Development via the platform Coursera, on 8 February 2021.

Designed to build awareness on the need to engage CSOs in development processes, the course features five modules on creating an environment where CSOs can meaningfully and effectively contribute to implementation and monitoring of international development processes. Each module starts with an animated video introducing the topic, followed by good practice examples, insights from the field via video interviews, in-depth readings, and an online activity.

The online course was conceptualised by the Task Team in response to how the scale and ambition of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) require participation of all development actors, including CSOs, to ensure its implementation. Task Team believes that the effective engagement of CSOs in development to achieve the SDGs is a shared responsibility: Governments, donors, and CSOs all have a role to play to help maximise CSOs' contributions to development.

"It is urgent that CSOs meaningfully and effectively engage in development processes. But what is needed for CSOs to be able to do so? This online interactive guidance offers some answers to that question," explained Sanne Huesken, Policy Officer of the Task Team secretariat, who will be the instructor.

The course will take participants through a history of the international commitments that call for this multi-stakeholder collaboration, what this means in practice for different development actors, and the benefits that can ensue through means of good practice examples from countries across the globe.

It will be based on Task Team's Guidance and Good Practice on CSO Development Effectiveness and Enabling Environment, as well as other research it commissioned through its Secretariat at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS-EUR).

The Task Team is a multi-stakeholder coalition. Its participants come from three stakeholder groups: development cooperation providers (donors), partner country governments, and CSOs (affiliated with the CSO Partnership for Development Effectiveness). The Task Team has around 30 active participants and strives for equal participation.

To learn more, visit http://bit.ly/3pDctKP, or contact the Task Team Secretariat: taskteamcso@iss.nl. #