Context and Background 

During the first Finance in Common Summit (FICS) held in November 2020 in Paris, PDBs acknowledged the important role that civil society plays in development processes, in line with the 2021 OECD-Development Assistance Committee (DAC)’s Recommendations on Enabling Civil Society reasserting civil society organizations’ full and meaningful role as independent development and humanitarian actors. 

Reaffirming the public character of PDBs, decisive ambitious actions must rely on democratic, transparent, participative and inclusive governance mechanisms at all stages at all levels, from local to multilateral. It is therefore essential that PDBs adopt a localized agenda by putting peoples and communities at the front and the centre of the discussions and decisions about their policies, strategies and operations, from financial decision-making to the planning, execution and evaluation of development projects. 

Accountability has been highlighted as an important issue, with the need to track progress on the commitments taken during the previous editions of FICS. There have been past agreements to 1) create an annual report will be published by the end of the year, taking stock on how FICS is implementing its commitments; 2) allow for participation by local community representatives impacted by PDBs’ projects in the FICS;  and, 3) the development of a Terms of Reference for CSO-PDB mechanism. 

The need to formalize dialogue at the local, national and international levels between CSOs and PDBs remains critical. While there has been a commitment to have a dedicated space for ongoing dialogue between CSOs and PDBs concerning the FICS, this platform has yet to be established. Consequently, CSOs have not had the opportunity to engage on FICS alongside with other key stakeholders on an equal footing such as on the planning of FICS, the development of the FICS agenda among other matters relevant for civil society’s meaningful engagement in FICS. 

Objective of the event: 

The Strengthening of CSO-PDB relations event will seek to promote a dialogue in which CSOs and PDBs will explore ways to improve cooperation and coordination, which will lead to improved development impacts on projects funded by PDBs.