New website launched to support civil society in Nepal

In the last three decades, the development context of Nepal has evolved significantly, the regulatory context has been streamlined by the state, but CSOs’ organizational capacity remains challenging to contribute meaningfully to changing development discourse and requires more holistic institutional strengthening support and capacity development. The future of the sector is via supporting local civil society actors alongside strengthening government systems, yet the processes and systems to support such locally-led action are so far minimal.

The current five-year National Development Plan (NDP) 2019-2024 acknowledges the role of CSOs in the priority sectors of the Plan. Similarly, the European Union’s Multi-Annual Indicative Programme (MIP) 2021-2027 also emphasizes on Good Governance Sector and particularly the Government and Civil Society an area.

To better serve local CSOs, People in Need (PIN) Nepal, inspired by the EU Delegation’s MIP and Government of Nepal's NDP, has launched a new platform called “Civil Society Now” (CSN). The CSN was formally initiated in March 2022 and recently it completed its inception phase and is now being launched. “At PIN, we are looking at an approach to flip the power dynamic whereby we provide capacity building services to local Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in order for them to be able to directly access and manage international donor funding. PIN itself has grown from being a small civil society organisation in the Czech Republic to become a trusted partner of institutional donors operating in more than 20 countries. This recent growth means it has a fresh living memory of its own organizational development, remembering and understanding the needs of smaller organisations and pathways for establishing the required standards,” said Camila Garbutt, Head of PIN’s Global Technical Advisory Unit.

PIN has opened up its internal fundraising, accountability, donor compliance and programme management systems to provide local CSOs with the resources required to build their own in order to access and effectively manage international donor funding. Currently, the CSN platform aims to contribute to Nepal and Mongolia’s development, growth and emancipation of local civil society organizations as it is being initiated from these two countries to begin with. Nepal has very vibrant and effective civil society and CSOs contribute tremendously through their different services. The services provided to members would be template resources, internal guidance documents, drop-in sessions on topics requested by members, and consultancy support.

About People in Need (PIN): The CEO and co-founder of PIN is Simon Pánek, one of the student activists during the Velvet Revolution in the Czech Republic. PIN is an active member of the European Partnership for Democracy as well as a framework partner of the European Commission for civil society development. PIN launched its programming in Nepal in 2015, when it provided emergency response to 25th April 2015 earthquake. Later PIN continued working in Nepal through its three programme sectors Emergency Preparedness and Response, Resilience and Nutrition Security, Social Inclusion and Protection, and has implemented various projects within these three programme sectors. Good Governance and CSO capacity building have been integrated feature of these projects. 

For more information about PIN Nepal and its work, visit here.

For project or media-related inquiries, please contact 

Sajana Shrestha, Communication and Advocacy Manager

Email: sajana.shrestha@peopleinneed.net 

Office Phone: + 977 01 4002100