Knowledge Sharing with Hivos on Civil Society-Building Expanded

Can you tell us what this knowledge sharing network is about?

In 2004 the Dutch donor agency Hivos approached ISS asking whether we were interested in developing a mutual knowledge sharing network on one of their key strategic priorities; supporting civil society-building activities via their Southern partner organizations. Through Hivos ISS can gain direct access to a network of over 800 partner organizations with a donor agency that has shown great innovation in its civil society building strategies. As a research institute we are very interested in this rich and often unexplored practice. This initiative is partially supported through an internship programme for ISS MA students. It has also stimulated a diverse variety of spontaneous ties between the staff of both organizations. This is important for ISS, as it benefits from an active interaction with the Dutch development community; and in turn Hivos now better understands what our abilities are as a knowledge producing centre.

Has this collaboration also been beneficial for our students?

Together with Ria Brouwers (ISS senior lecturer in International Development Policy) we started an internship programme in which MA students can do research for their master thesis by focusing on one or more Hivos partner organizations. The advantage is obvious; the students get direct access to key development experiences plus a financial contribution to cover the costs of their field work. In return Hivos and their partners receive the benefits of a closely supervised research output at low cost. The value of such experience can go a long way; last year we had one South African student who wanted to do her research in another country, so she applied for the possibility to do a research internship with a Hivos partner in Tanzania. Her report was excellent, and she wrote me a few weeks ago that this experience with the Hivos internship had been instrumental in getting a new job with a South African NGO. She said the insights she had gained during the internship and the research process were precisely what was required as a basis for this particular job as an NGO programme officer. It is great to hear these types of stories, as this is actually what we hoped the partnership would support; preparation for our MA students to further develop their professional career in their home country.

What has been achieved and learnt so far?

In these initial two years we have concentrated on setting up the infrastructure, such as a website (www.civilsocietybuilding.net), internships, contacts, and focusing our research activities. Several international conferences and workshops were organized, most recently in April 2007, on NGO accountability. With such initiatives we have laid the foundations for developing an inspiring international network. Both ISS and Hivos realize that we are both organizations with a very different internal culture, which in the past sometimes generated misunderstandings. For example, Hivos is under more pressure to show concrete results of its activities in the short term, whereas ISS generates a longer term type of output, such as research reports. Hivos is also more practical in the use of its outputs; I think it helps us as an institute, to be told that our output is not only meant for the small academic circles but is very worthwhile also for the wider development community.

What are the plans for the coming period?

ISS and Hivos recently evaluated the first two years of our partnership and concluded that there was great mutual interest in expanding this over the next few years. Hivos is investing more in knowledge sharing activities and has used the pilot experience with us to set up three additional programmes with other knowledge centres. For ISS the extended programme is really attractive to invest in a longer term research collaboration with Hivos and its partners. This offers exciting new perspectives; for example, we will enlarge our team with Alan Fowler, one of the leading international scholars on NGO-related issues. He will be appointed as an ISS Affiliate Professor on Civil Society and Development, which means that we can count on his valuable inputs. We are also incorporating several new staff members, and we will even be able to create some PhD positions exclusively in the area of civil society building.

Dr Kees Biekart is a senior lecturer in Political Sociology at ISS. He can be reached at biekart@iss.nl Hivos’s English website can be found at http://www.hivos.nl/english