Across East Africa, there is a robust array of national legal and regulatory frameworks at the national level that govern relationships among stakeholders in policy making processes. However, citizen participation in governance and public policy making in the region remains significantly low as many citizens do not perceive participation beyond voting. The existence of legislation outlining citizen participation has not translated into meaningful participation of citizens in public policy making processes in practice. The net effect is that public policy making processes and resultant government actions remain significantly unresponsive to citizen needs and unreflective of aspirations of the majority of populations.

The 4th phase of the Policy Dialogue Consortium Project (Phase IV) intervenes directly in this context by providing resources for policy dialogue engagement as well as by strengthening CSO capacities for policy dialogue.
The project works on further institutionalizing and sharing the capacities and resources developed during the previous project phase(s) with women leaders of civil society, to also reach stakeholders beyond the project consortium. The setup of a dynamic and sustainable community of practice and (online) trainings will allow a broad range of CSOs to sustainably have access to capacity development as well as knowledge and experience sharing on policy dialogue.

The participating CSOs from Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania are supported in anchoring policy dialogue institutionally in their organizations, based on advocacy/ policy dialogue (PD) strategies (including business plans) and in sharing their knowledge with other stakeholders. The steering committee in Austria also continues to promote policy dialogue within their organizations, in order to anchor capacity development and funding of PD within their own frameworks for international development cooperation. The participating CSOs implement Small Action Fund initiatives. CARE Uganda and its partners, for instance, further strengthen the capacities of women activists in Northern Uganda and support them in their actions.

Objectives:

Outcome:
Capacity Development for Policy Dialogue has been sustainably anchored in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania in order for different CSOs to continuously influence policy processes with and in the interest of marginalised communities.

Outputs:

1. Access to policy dialogue knowledge is available for a broad range of CSO stakeholders and policy dialogue is further institutionalised at Partner Organisations.
2. Policy processes have been followed up successfully with and for the benefit of marginalized people and gender equality.
3. A regional multi-stakeholder Community of Practice (or similar exchange forum) for CSO Capacity Development and Knowledge Exchange on Policy Dialogue, has been initiated by interested actors in Eastern Africa, and includes women in leading positions.

Main project activities:

• Development/ Elaboration of an e-learning course offering a basic Policy Dialogue training for “newcomers” or serving as a refresher for more experienced CSO staff;
• Continuation and follow-up of policy dialogue processes that are already ongoing, with a focus on the implementation phase, exiting and ensuring sustainability;
• Define and kick-start the process of setting up a regional Community of Practice (CoP) (or similar exchange forum) with interested and committed stakeholders as well as external process facilitation support;
• Provide flexible support to the CoP or similar exchange forum (defined during the participatory process), according to needs and priorities communicated by this forum.

Target group:

Total direct: 17.416, 9.736 female, 7.680 male

• 6 partner organizations in East Africa, in the form of certain units and teams, benefit from further capacity strengthening and support to sustainably anchor policy dialogue in their work and institutions.
• Through the sharing of learnings and knowledge products with other projects and funding lines of Austrian partners as well as through East African partners, up to 80 other organisations or stakeholders will benefit and many other organizations could potentially benefit.
• A minimum of approximately 10-12 organisations (of which 6 consortium partners) benefit directly from the CoP or a similar exchange forum.
• At least 80 persons (40m/40f) benefit from completing an online course (self-based e-learning) offering basic training in policy dialogue concepts and methods.
• The direct beneficiaries of the Small Action Fund initiatives implemented by partner organizations are 17.022 (9.539 women, 7.483 men) while approximately 60.881 persons (appr. 51% women) will benefit indirectly from the Small Action Fund activities.