Establishment

 

Visioning

Founding members of an Alliance need to create a widely–shared and powerfully articulated vision that will motivate its members. The vision needs to be bold, specific and achievable – seizing on the distinct opportunities and challenges within each country, reflecting the deeply-held values of civil society and the value-added contribution of civil society to the national SUN effort.

 

Galvanising Action

The initial phase of setting up a civil society alliance can be time consuming and stressful. This is particularly if there is no existing coordination mechanism in country or if existing mechanisms are fragmented and disparate. It will be important for the initial group to reach an agreement or consensus on how to proceed including which organisation is the key focal point, ways they might work together and the kinds of roles and responsibilities they might take on. An overview of what resources each organisation can contribute either financially or in kind such as time should be determined so that any external support the alliance will need to seek is identified early on. This process may involve a significant level of conflict or disagreement. This is normal and a key aspect of learning how to work together, particularly if organisations have not done so previously or if they have significant ideological differences. Ensuring that there is a process for managing conflict and allowing for open discussions to occur is important. It will be important to be aware of potential areas of sensitivity such as lead groups being perceived as dominant, financial allocations, hosting arrangement disputes, power imbalances within the group or perceived lack of leadership.

 

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Case study: Mozambique Civil society Alliance

For the Mozambique Civil Society Alliance, the first step was to come together and choose the organization that would represent and be the focal point; then formulate a ToR for the group which was agreed by consensus. All organisations had representatives sign a “Commitment declaration”.

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