Resilient, pluralistic civil societies play a catalytic role in enhancing and maintaining quality of life for all people, regardless of gender, ethnicity, beliefs, age, and background. The term civil society refers to ‘private voluntary energies for public good.’ This is advanced when individuals come together, outside of the auspices of government, to do good within their communities, countries, and across the world.
Civil society timeless and organic, dating back to antiquity and continuously evolving to meet changing situations and needs. Today, civil society is represented by an array of institutions, movements, and platforms devoted to education, culture, science and research; to gender equality and the rights of vulnerable and marginalised groups; to commercial, labour, ethnic and religious concerns; to health, safety and environmental matters; to humanitarian service, or arts and the media; as well as professional societies in law, accounting, banking, engineering and medicine.
The Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) works in partnership with civil society actors around the world to strengthen capacities for collective action, improve essential service delivery, nurture values-based societies, enhance indigenous philanthropy, and foster transparency and mutual accountability. Doing so involves working closely with a wide spectrum of individual civil society actors, as well as forging new linkages and understanding between civil society, private sector, government, and philanthropy.
Programme highlights 1: AKF-supported civil society organisations reach more than 1.6 million people.
Programme highlights 2: AKF supports the strengthening of over 51,000 civil society organisations worldwide.
Organisational strengthening
AKF partners with local civil society actors to support improved quality of life across AKF’s programme portfolio in all geographies. AKF works with a wide range of groups including community associations, women’s groups, water user associations, non-governmental organisations, and professional associations. AKF’s engagement with civil society groups includes organisational assessment and strengthening, facilitating peer exchange, brokering linkages, co-creation and collaborative implementation. Local civil society organisations work together with AKF to bring critical expertise and local knowledge to improve quality of life for community members.
Local systems strengthening
AKF engages in local development systems across its themes, including health, education, agriculture and employment systems. Within each of these ecosystems, diverse actors from government, civil society and private sector play important roles in delivering services, making decisions and determining outcomes that impact quality of life. Local systems analysis allows AKF to visualise and examine these development systems together with the actors that participate in them. This process helps all actors make better decisions about where to engage and how to target resources to the places where they can have the greatest impact.
Mutual accountability
In order to build trust within local development systems, AKF facilitates the implementation of feedback mechanisms. Feedback mechanisms enable community members to provide input to local government and civil society organisations on resource allocation and service delivery. Feedback is collected digitally or in-person and is analysed and used to influence policy and action. Feedback loops are closed when changes made as a result of feedback are reported back to those who provided initial input. These processes empower men, women and youth to participate meaningfully in local decision-making processes, in order to forge societies that work for all.
Programme highlights 1: Over 100 targeted communities are undertaking social accountability actions through mechanisms such as social audits and citizen report cards in India.
Programme highlights 2: For over 40 years, AKF has been fostering the growth of transparent, democratically elected village organisations in Central and South Asia.
Community Development
AKF strengthens institutions and mechanisms at the community level. AKF’s community-driven approach to development actors in order to better understand and address a range of opportunities and challenges—from health and education, to women’s rights and natural resource management. AKF does this through community platforms such as community development councils in Afghanistan, village development organisations in Mozambique, mahalla committees in Tajikistan, and village and women’s organisations in Pakistan. AKF’s methods empower communities to diverge from traditional elite participation to include youth and women leaders and to use transparent decision-making processes.
Peace and community resilience
AKF’s multi-sectoral and community-driven development approach fosters peacebuilding, conflict resolution and social cohesion at the local level. In Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, the Kyrgyz Republic and Mozambique, AKF’s programmes are helping communities to understand the key drivers of conflict, often related to inequality, inter-ethnic issues, social exclusion, land and natural resource management, poverty, climate change and unemployment. Working closely with community leaders, local government structures, women and youth, AKF's interventions enable inclusive and transparent decision-making process and build systems, grievance mechanisms, and mediation and conflict resolution techniques to address the conflict.
Pluralism and inclusion
Diversity is a reality of all of the communities in which AKF operates. But pluralism is a choice, resulting from the daily decisions taken by state and civil society actors as well as by individuals to recognise and value human difference. AKF supports civil society to promote pluralistic institutions and practices through thoughtful and intentional incorporation of issues of race, religion, culture and disability within our own engagements with civil society partners. AKF collaborates with the Global Centre for Pluralism to incorporate a range of tools, approaches and ways of thinking within our work.
Gender equality
AKF works in many places that have strong norms and traditions around the roles of women and men, and where gender inequalities continue to hinder development. In these contexts, it is critical to address gender inequality both indirectly and directly, but to do so in ways that are community-led and responsive to community needs and values. To achieve this, AKF works with both women and men, girls and boys, to understand and address the underlying beliefs and practices that create and reinforce gender inequalities; to empower the disadvantaged, whether male or female, to develop confidence and skills and take control over their lives; and to create institutions that facilitate an environment that is supportive to gender equality.
Programme highlights 1: AKF-supported civil society organisations in Egypt raised the equivalent of US$560,000 through local philanthropic giving.
Programme highlights 2: The AKF-supported Yetu Initiative has assisted Kenyan civil society organisations in mobilising over US$1.5 million for causes across Kenya
Philanthropy infrastructure
AKF has a long history of supporting local philanthropy in its countries of operation. The Pakistan Centre for Philanthropy and Afghanistan Institute for Civil Society operate certification programmes for local civil society, building increased trust between civil society organisations and key stakeholders including government and donors. The University of Central Asia’s Civil Society Initiative is engaged in pioneering philanthropy research in Central Asia. In Kenya, the Yetu Initiative leverages digital platforms to enhance local giving. Each of these institutions contributes towards creating an enabling environment for local philanthropy in AKF’s programme geographies.
Grassroots philanthropy
AKF supports local civil society entities to engage in grassroots community philanthropy. Civil society organisations such as community development councils in Afghanistan, mahalla committees in Tajikistan, and school management committees across East Africa mobilise and act as stewards of local resources for local development initiatives. Local resources may be financial, but they may also be in-kind or volunteer time. By bringing their own resources to the table, communities take greater ownership of and enhance the potential sustainability of local development initiatives.
