1.Advocacy
The first one is advocacy. It is a rather top-down approach which consists in influencing authorities and impacting their policy making process by expressing cultural, spiritual, political, social, environmental and ethnical concerns. Advocacy can take the form of counter-power actions and protests. This includes notably bringing issues to the agenda through awareness campaigns and “name and shame” strategies. But it can also be a cooperation between CSOs and authorities as the latter consult civil society and incorporate its propositions in its policy making process. But in some cases it can also be local actions sometimes called “community building” activities, especially in the culture and recreation sector.
2.Service provision
The second type of CSOs’ work is service provision. It is a rather bottom-up approach which consists in acting as a socio-economical agent by providing concrete services to the population, businesses or governments and international institutions. This includes in particular welfare services to the population (education, recreation, health, family etc.), humanitarian support, development project implementation and advice & expertise services to businesses, governments and international institutions. This bottom-up approach is essentially local and very concrete. However service provision it is not only restricted to the local level and can sometimes scale up to a more global level.
3.Environment
The role of civil society in global environmental governance .This identifies major roles that civil society might play in global environmental governance: collecting, disseminating, and analyzing information; providing input to agenda-setting and policy development processes; performing operational functions; assessing environmental conditions and monitoring compliance with environmental agreements; and (5) advocating environmental justice. Three case studies include the Crucible Group, TRAFFIC, and global ecosystem assessment processes.
4.Development
Civil society organizations play a significant role in international development cooperation. As a token of solidarity, a number of European states assisted developing countries strive for political and socio-economic development well before establishing the European Union and institutionalizing the European policy for nongovernmental sector development. The Commission of the European Communities. Commission Staff Working Document accompanying the Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions.
Civil organizations operate in various areas and possess diverse competences. In recent years a group of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) specializing in the area of international development and humanitarian aid (NGDO - Non-Governmental Development Organizations) have been set up in a number of European countries. They allow placing donor-development assistance beneficiary relationship on new grounds. NGDOs conduct a dialog with EU institutions on issues of international development cooperation, participate in EU institutions’ work in their consulting capacity and implement EU funded development assistance programmes and projects. European NGOs have established structures to liaise with European institutions. In the area of development such a structure is CONCORD – a confederation with members from both EU member states and European NGDOs. The main objective of DEEP is to enhance public control and provide training on global issues such as poverty and famine.
5.Governance
Civil society organizations in participatory and accountable governance. Without strong CSO and grassroots groups may not be able to hold government accountable. The success at the policy level is seen as achieving favorable policy or legislative change. At the level of civil society, it means strengthening non-governmental and grassroots organizations capable of keeping government accountable and responsive to community needs. Finally, at the level of democracy, success means expanding the democratic space in which CSOs function, increasing their political legitimacy, and improving the attitudes and behaviors of government officials and elites toward NGOs and grassroots groups. In a nutshell, some of the key factors that contribute to the success of CSO policy initiatives include willingness and ability to negotiate and effectively lobby with government, elites and other sectors, a vision of narrow and comprehensive policy goals and good strategies to accomplish them, changed perception of the state, financial and technical resources to campaign, mobilize, network, analyze and disseminate, and good and speedy decision making within CSOs.
6.Governance
Civil society organizations in participatory and accountable governance. Without strong CSO and grassroots groups may not be able to hold government accountable. The success at the policy level is seen as achieving favorable policy or legislative change. At the level of civil society, it means strengthening non-governmental and grassroots organizations capable of keeping government accountable and responsive to community needs. Finally, at the level of democracy, success means expanding the democratic space in which CSOs function, increasing their political legitimacy, and improving the attitudes and behaviors of government officials and elites toward NGOs and grassroots groups. In a nutshell, some of the key factors that contribute to the success of CSO policy initiatives include willingness and ability to negotiate and effectively lobby with government, elites and other sectors, a vision of narrow and comprehensive policy goals and good strategies to accomplish them, changed perception of the state, financial and technical resources to campaign, mobilize, network, analyze and disseminate, and good and speedy decision making within CSOs.
Titany answered the question on August 27, 2021 at 07:52