The strength of civil society and the civil society support sector varies significantly across South and Southeast Asia.

Where civil society is strong, for example in India, INTRAC exchanges knowledge and experience with like-minded organisations in order to build a global perspective on civil society support and development.

In other countries we adapt our approach to the different needs of civil society and to the levels of existing support. For example, in Afghanistan, we have supported donors and INGOs to develop their capacity to provide appropriate support to local civil society actors, building on a track record of work in fragile states and contexts. In Bangladesh, we have worked with national capacity development providers to strengthen their skills. Whereas in Laos, where the support sector is still developing, we are piloting a directly delivered training programme.

We focus on:

  • Collaborating with like-minded organisations and organisations to produce comparative research on civil society across countries
  • Promoting publication and dissemination of learning by practitioners from the region
  • Development of programmes of training and mentoring of consultants and trainers to improve high-quality capacity development support in the region
  • Advice and design of capacity development programmes for civil society
  • Evaluations and impact assessments of capacity development initiatives
  • Evaluations of humanitarian responses, focusing on the role of local civil society actors and organisations.
  • Developing the skills of civil society actors to carry out evidence-informed programming and advocacy, including use of theories of change and action research
  • Online and face-to-face training and mentoring for civil society in our key themes of monitoring, evaluation, and impact assessment, organisational and capacity development, and programme design.

Related Projects

Mid-term review and final evaluation of Tsunami Disaster Risk Reduction Initiative

Using beneficiary feedback to improve development programmes

External Review of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation’s support to civil society in Lao PDR

Impact study of GIZ’s Northern Uplands Integrated Rural Development Project (NU-IRDP) in Laos

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