SUN Civil Society Network

Cross-learning on national SUN CSA experiences on Independent Registration

 

Interesting learning from experiences of registration from Sri Lanka, Uganda and Malawi CSAs

• Why register – CSAs shared that registration is important for sustainability of CSA and ability to fundraise but also for having a valid and legitimate voice as a local CSO to advocate and promote accountability as opposed to INGOs which can sometimes push or be perceived as pushing international agendas

• Registration process

  • Legal advice in 3 countries have encouraged the CSAs to register as a company in a first instance and then as an NGO – it is unclear as to why this is though likely to be due to country legal requirements and legal framework

  • More to be learnt on challenges and how these were overcome

• Concerns and challenges – concerns mostly around managing perception that CSA will become a competitor of individual CSO members and around funding to support CS efforts. CSO alignment and pushing individual CSO agendas forward is still a challenge in SUN countries.

• Registration is linked to sustainability, nutrition investment and financing facilities 

  • As CSAs embark on this process it is important for CSO members to think critically about sustainability issues - especially continuity of the gains achieved by CSA if they are not registered.

  • When considering sustainability, a few avenues can be considered or looked into -  bilateral donor support, national pool funds facilities, CSA support built into budget for implementation of NAPs, multi-stakeholder round tables convening for brokering resources (financial, human, technical, implementation), CSO members financial support for the alliance, existing financing facilities)

 

Points to consider

• Registering as an independent entity has implications in terms of financial sustainability of the CSA and should be carefully researched before embarking upon.

• Some CSAs have not registered as independent entities (e.g. Mozambique’s Civil Society Platform and Peru’s Iniciativa Contra la Desnutrición Infantil)

• Hosting – there are a number of options to look into when registering as an independent entity including being an independent entity but hosted by another CSO (which may be a solution to consider in the interim should financial sustainability not be secured) or being completely independent (which will require a process of exploring how this needs to be done and will have financial implications (e.g. office costs, rental of premises, phone line rental, equipment, ….) and governance implications (e.g. having a treasurer and financial management team….)

 

Details of national SUN CSA registration as independent entities experiences 

Experiences of already registered CSAs

• Sri Lanka SUN People’s Forum

  • Details of the process available here 

  • Legal company advised to register under company guarantee limited – this is likely to have been a legal obligation – compulsory

  • Now in process of registering with the NGO secretariat in country (with new legal context)

 

Experiences of those trying to register or that have decided not to register

• Ethiopia Civil Society Coalition (ECSC)

  • Details of the discussions to inform decision not to register at present  available here 

  • Some interesting insights on discussions of advantages and drawbacks (actual and perceived) of registration process

 

• Zimbabwe Civil Society Alliance SUN

  • Progress or status of on registration - The majority of members are for registration. However, the steering committee was tasked to do an analysis of advantages and disadvantages report. This will be presented to the members on the 24th of April 2015 at the members meeting. Thereafter, we will be taking a position which will be agreed by members. 

 

• Uganda – UCCO-SUN

  • Details of the process available here 

  • Registering the coalition name is the 1st step

  • A lawyer was hired to assist UCCO-SUN in the process help develop articles for constitution for governing. Legal advice also indicated that UCCO-SUN should register as a company for 1 year and then proceed with registering as an NGO

  • Concerns

    • Coalition competing with the members and strengthening structure of coalition as become independent entity – likely perceived concern

    • A possible option is to seek CSO members of UCCO-SUN to support the coalition when securing funding for nutrition efforts (e.g. Advocacy)

    • However the concern and above may be linked to somewhat still difficult alignment of CSO members behind joint messaging and common agenda with donor and individual CSO priorities and agendas influencing efforts

 

• Malawi CSONA 

  • Rationale behind registration - government more  inclined to take a legal CSA seriously on advocacy initiatives than a coalition with no legal status. Shows a reference point and where ownership is coming form

  • Two options/areas for registration

    • Trustees Incorporation Act – minimum of 3 trustees who act as the Board of directors. Operates as non-governmental org and there is a forum where members convene at a general assembly, elects board members etc

    • Company limited by guarantee – has Executive Directors who own the CSA and each has equal shares within the entity. This means they have pull resources together as shares. However within the constitution we a clause can be put in to indicate that upon dissolution dividends etc. will be distributed by charity.  

  • Consensus amongst CSONA members is  to register with the Trustees Act – more of an open forum and members can input and have a voice as well as elect board members other than a company by guarantee

  • Registration supported through legal guidance

    •  Finalised constitution with lawyer – submitted to registrar

    •  Can be a lengthy process

    •  Once you have registration then it is easier to have funds transferred into your account, and can start applying for funding 

    •  Final stage of registration is a board meeting with at least 3 trustee members

    •  Registration has to be with registrar general (certificate from registrar general), NGO board and aligned with the trustee act

  • Registration 3 steps

    • Registrar General to obtain the Trustees incorporation Act/Company by Guarantee Certificate - Need constitution, CSONA Seal, Lawyers Seal, minutes of Board meeting where a a board member was identified to preside and declaration/contact details of  board members.

    • Having obtained the certificate from the Registrar then we register with the Council for Non-Governmental Organisations in Malawi (CONGOMA) for affiliation and endorsement

    • Then with NGO Board as well

  • Currently CSONA has a constitution we are yet to convene the board members and have that minute with both seals

  • Due to the time constraint – exploring other ways in which we can by-pass the Registrar General registration (which takes ages) by affiliating ourselves with CONGOMA first to get an endorsement which makes registration with the Registrar easier.

  • Some funding concerns - gap in funding with the MPTF coming to an end December 2015, where will the funds come from and how will funding be sustained

  • Why – registration is important for CSA sustainability and ability to fundraise but also in terms of legitimacy in advocacy efforts and promoting accountability as a local CSO 

  • Some CSOs have budget line to use within alliance to advocate based on shared agenda and are trying to access funds on behalf of the alliance and sub-grant to CSONA (e.g. Clinton health Access Initiative) - Trying to encourage CSO members to ensure budget lines for CSONA would be a means to ensuring financial support to CSAs.

 

Sustainability discussions

 

• Independent registration intrinsically linked to CSA sustainability

 

• Donors are meeting at a senior donor official meeting this week and more information on outcome of discussions on support for sustained CSA efforts (both in the interim and in the longer term) will be shared in next update to the SUN CSAs

 

• Possible sources of funding to explore

  • Bilateral donor funding at country level

  • Setting up of pool funds facilities

    • Existing example in Zambia with some limitations but interesting model to look into

    • Tanzania may be considering similar model as that of Zambia

    • In Malawi, CSONA is interested in and pushing for DONUTS (donor group) to create some sort of pool of funding for advocacy in Malawi

    • In Uganda, UN REACH will be supporting UCCO-SUN financially to roll out the national advocacy and communications strategy and implement the NAP

  • Ensuring network structures and functioning of multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral platforms (MSPs) are integrated in budgets to support implementation of National Nutrition Action Plans

  • Multi-stakeholder round tables convening to be considered for brokering resources (financial, human, technical, implementation)

  • Seeking CSO members of alliances to include support for alliance when applying for funds. A word of caution – this needs to be in agreement that these funds will be to support commonly agreed priorities and agenda and should not be used to push individual CSO agendas forward.

  • Exploring the establishment of membership fees

  • Leveraging other kinds of supports

    • CSO-SUN Alliance in Zambia successfully mobilised funds from the Zambia Governance Foundation for Civil Society (ZGF), a local NGO that supports CSOs with response grants. The grant is supporting CSO-SUN’s policy engagement with the Ministry of Agriculture who are reviewing the current agriculture policy in place. The process has been a huge success as the draft policy has adopted recommendations made by CSO-SUN. ZGF also supports other country level efforts that CSO-SUN is implementing

    • Kenya SUN CSA has also successfully mobilized resources from the Population Reference Bureau (PRB), a US-based organization implementing advocacy programmes in some African countries, mainly on Informing Decision-Makers to Act (IDEA), Communicating Research Results to Policy Makers and Re-energizing Nutrition Worldwide (RENEW), to support county level efforts.

  • Looking at existing financing facilities

Directly supporting Nutrition efforts

- Power of Nutrition - http://www.powerofnutrition.org/

- Global Financing Facility (GFF) maternal and child health - http://www.who.int/pmnch/gff/en/

- UNITLIFE - potential source of new funding, based on the working model of UNITAID, has recently been proposed, although at time of writing it is too early to know if it will reach its full potential. According to press sources, UNITLIFE would be a new facility funded from a tiny levy taken from each barrel of oil revenues from African countries, with the money raised going to fight chronic malnutrition (stunting).  

- SUN Multi-partner Trust Fund - http://scalingupnutrition.org/resources-archive/sun-mptf & http://mptf.undp.org/factsheet/fund/SUN00 (ending December 2016 - currently no funds available but will be evaluated second half of 2015 for potential renewal)

- Bi-lateral donors

 

With potential to support Nutrition efforts

- The Global fund for fight HIV, TB and Malaria (GFATM) - http://www.theglobalfund.org/en/

- Potentially expansion of IFAD - GAFSP (Global Agriculture and Food Security Program) to become the Global Fund for Smallholder Agriculture and Nutrition. - http://www.gafspfund.org/

- Global innovation fund - The Global Innovation Fund invests in social innovations that aim to improve the lives and opportunities of millions of people in the developing world. - http://www.globalinnovation.fund/

 

Useful publications 

- Nutrition Aid Architecture How could improvements in financing mechanisms galvanise the global effort? RESULTS - http://www.results.org.uk/sites/default/files/Nutrition%20Aid%20Architecture.pdf

 

When making funding proposals, it may be useful to refer to donor commitments for the Nutrition for Growth as a supporting argument