Hello Colleague,

This is our first newsletter in quite some time. Each month we intend to provide concise updates on what we are learning in the Movement for Community-led Development (MCLD), of relevance to policy makers and practitioners everywhere. If you are new to MCLD, our manifesto is here.

Do INGOs Have a Future?

This month, we heard from Danny Sriskandarajah, chief executive of Oxfam GB and former head of Civicus, a global alliance dedicated to strengthening civil society around the world. You can play the recording of his presentation here.

Danny described the transformation underway at Oxfam — toward a future where their current program countries are more in charge of their own development. He quoted Barney Tallack who wrote, “There are several future paths for INGOs – three possible paths are to transform, die well or die badly.”

Community Leadership: Key to Covid-19 Resilience

Community leaders are the first responders in a crisis. How can we support them during Covid-19? Facilitation is key – so how can we adapt facilitation programs without direct contact? Some 100 practitioners from around the world have met each month via Zoom to share both challenges and innovations. We’ve distilled these lessons here to note how the disequilibrium created by the pandemic offers us an opportunity to shift more power to communities and intentionally build crisis preparedness into CLD programming.

National Chapters are working with governments Covid task forces to create posters, shape policies, and organize collective action to reach everyone with facts, masks, and hand washing stations. You can find a collection of our resources here.

Liberia Launches National Chapter!

After months of groundwork, 14 local civil society organizations have launched MCLD-Liberia, joining Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Togo in a growing network in West Africa. The advocacy and collective impact required to empower communities at scale must occur in each country.

Landscape of CLD Programming?

For the past year, 35 evaluation professionals from 23 organizations have been collaborating to develop tools and distill lessons from 284 evaluation reports. This month, the coordinator of this effort, Gunjan Veda, shared some initial findings in a 15-minute presentation here.

Focus in August: Accountability

The Movement has recently welcomed organizations focused on ensuring communities can hold governments and international agencies to account. We will focus our monthly call on this issue and share it with you in the next newsletter.