The International Civil Society Centre (or ICS Centre) is a
civil society organisation founded in 2007, located in Berlin. The organisation was initially founded under the name of Berlin Civil Society Centre as a not-for-profit company (GmbH) by
Peter Eigen
Peter Eigen (born June 11, 1938, in Augsburg, Germany) is a lawyer, development economist and civil society leader.
Over a period of 12 years, Eigen founded and chaired Transparency International (TI), a non-governmental organization with Nationa ...
, former chair of the
Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and founder of
Transparency International. It was co-founded by Burkhard Gnärig, former CEO of
Save the Children International
Save the Children International, formerly known as the International Save The Children Alliance, is a worldwide non-profit organization that aims to improve the living of children. There are 30 Save the Children member organizations around the wo ...
,
Greenpeace Germany and
terre des hommes Germany.
The team is composed of 16 persons, with Wolfgang Jamann as executive director.
Organisation
The International Civil Society Centre's work focuses on leadership support, future trends and sector services. The organisation is owned by 15 associated international civil society organisations, which work across environmental, human rights, social justice and humanitarian issues:
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ADRA International
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Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
*
CARE International
CARE (Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere, formerly Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe) is a major international humanitarian agency delivering emergency relief and long-term international development projects. Founded i ...
*
CBM International
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ChildFund Alliance
ChildFund, formerly known as Christian Children's Fund, is a child-focused international development organization that provides assistance to children facing poverty and other challenges in 24 countries, including the United States. ChildFund's h ...
*
HelpAge International
HelpAge International is an international NGO that helps older people claim their rights, challenge discrimination, and overcome poverty, so that they can lead dignified, secure, active and healthy lives.
Five organisations from Canada, Colombia ...
*
Islamic Relief Worldwide
Islamic Relief Worldwide is a faith-inspired humanitarian and development agency which is working to support and empower the world’s most vulnerable people.
Founded in the United Kingdom in 1984, Islamic Relief has international headquarter ...
*
Oxfam International
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Plan International
Plan International is a development and humanitarian organisation which works in over 75 countries across Africa, the Americas, and Asia to advance children’s rights and equality for girls. Its focus is on child protection, education, child par ...
*
Save the Children
The Save the Children Fund, commonly known as Save the Children, is an international non-governmental organization established in the United Kingdom in 1919 to improve the lives of children through better education, health care, and economic ...
*
Sightsavers International
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SOS Children's Villages
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Transparency International
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VSO International
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World Vision International
The shareholder organisations all hold equal shares in the centre and are its highest decision-making body. They meet twice a year to elect members to the centre's Board of Trustees, hear reports on the centre's work and approve the centre's budget and audited accounts.
The role of the centre's board of trustees is to monitor the management of the organisation.
The centre's work is also supported by international civil society organisations who are its Core Supporters. These are organisations who pay annual contributions and are involved with the work of the centre but do not own any shares.
Programmes
The International Civil Society Centre'
workfocuses on three aspects: Convening, Futures and Innovation, and Collaboration.
Its convening role allows for workshops and conferences where civil society practitioners connect, collaborate and co-create. The Futures and Innovation programme gathers research on the latest innovations and analyse how they can help ICSOs achieve greater impact; while scanning for future developments that could influence civil society's relevance. As for the collaborative aspect, it allows for events which gather many different civil society members.
The Leave No One Behind partnership
One of the International Civil Society Centre's biggest project in scale and partners is it
Leave No One Behind Partnership Initiated by a dozen international civil society organisations, the partnership brings together actors from local to international level, with the aim to forge a more participative and inclusive implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. The coalition aims to fill knowledge gaps on marginalisation (making voices heard) and to advocate for evidence-based policy making at national and global level (making voices count). Its mapping has found that governments often lack knowledge about people living at the margins of society and are thus unable to adequately address their needs. At the same time, civil society organisations command a wealth of knowledge on marginalised communities, as they interact with them on a day-to-day basis. That's why a majority of the centre's owners decided to jointly collect and share data, bringing it to the attention of decision-makers to enable evidence-driven policy making. The pilot project launched in five countries: Bangladesh, India, Kenya, Nepal and Vietnam. Based on learnings, the partnership will build on its pilot with a four-year project from March 2019, to scale up to 20 countries by 2022.
Innovation in Civil Society
To their advantage, many ICSOs constantly innovate and experiment with new approaches. However, there is a significant opportunity for organisations to benefit more from the lessons others have learned or are in the process of addressing. To fill this gap, the Centre provides a space where innovation can be showcased, analysed and discussed. It does so thanks to it
Innovation in Civil Society report another important project led by the centre. The report is an annual, interactive multimedia format that shares such insights and analyses, on innovations related to pressing themes. As a facilitator and recognised thought leader in the sector, the Centre convenes ICSOs with new strategic partners, leading trendsetters, experimenters and implementers on local and global level to provoke thoughtful analysis and practices that can trigger responsive action.
The Solidarity Action Network (SANE)
Th
Solidarity Action Networkbrings together international civil society organisations and their local partners to support each other when faced with undue threats and challenges to their operations or civic space restrictions more broadly. It enhances cooperative mechanisms for joint actions beyond public statements of solidarity to push back against clampdowns on civil society.
The network holds two primary functions:
* Collecting and sharing knowledge, experiences, and best practices to create a ‘Solidarity Playbook’ to help other civil society actors to respond to threats and challenges.
* Enabling exchange of best practices and inspiring collaborative actions – mainly connecting development and humanitarian ICSOs with an operational or a partner presence on the ground and bringing them into discussions on challenges and opportunities related to civic space.
External links
Official websiteThe Leave No One Behind Partnership websiteThe Solidarity Action Network (SANE) websiteThe Innovation Reports websiteWebsite of the INGO Accountability Charter
References
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Think tanks based in Germany
International organisations based in Germany