On Tuesday, September 27, 2022, AfroLeadership attended a virtual meeting whose purpose was to strengthen the collaboration with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in Cameroon, organized by the World Bank. The purpose of the meeting was to present the innovative tool used by the World Bank— The Global Partnership for Social Accountability— to facilitate the collaboration of civil society organizations with governments, engagement of citizens to solve development problems, strengthen accountability and improve sector governance. To achieve its goals, the GPSA provides programmatic, flexible grants to support coalitions led by civil society organizations (CSO) for collaborative social accountability. This process, supported by World Bank teams, engages civil society groups, public sector institutions, and citizens in joint, iterative processes that embrace experimentation and support adaptive approaches. The Global Partnership for Social Accountability (GPSA) supports civil society and governments across the world to work together to solve critical governance challenges. Based at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington, DC, the GPSA Secretariat is a multidisciplinary team that works to implement the GPSA’s mission.
Jeff Thindwa, the GPSA’s outgoing Program Manager, shared his experience with GPSA. This was his last meeting at GPSA because he goes into retirement. For 22 years, he led its strategies for collaboration of civil society and governments to improve accountability and performance of public policies and key sectors such as health, education, and water. Ann-Sofie Jespersen, Sr Social Development Specialist, during her presentation, explained the main missions and purposes of GPSA. She gave some examples of GPSA’s projects and their outcomes in Mauritania, Sierra Leone, and in Kosovo. Main while, it is important to note that, with the support of Global Partners and donors, the GPSA is now supporting 50 projects in 34 countries operating in various sectors, such as health, education, social protection, water, and across issues such as public financial management and fragility conflict and violence.
The main announcement of this virtual meeting is that before the end of this year, a GPSA program will be launched in Cameroon for Cameroonians CSO only. An envelope of 700 000 US$ will be available to fund projects in two main areas climate change and some minority populations’ rights protection. CSO are invited to apply in a consortium. ToR will be available next month during another virtual meeting and more details will be given. Issa Bitang A Tiati, moderator of this virtual meeting announced the creation of a World Bank CSO national platform which will be the main framework for exchange and concertation on different topics.
