• Full text of the cross-sectional analysis (French version only)
• Executive Summary (French version only)

As of 2009, the IRG has coordinated the capitalization of the Comité Français pour la Solidarité Internationale’s (CFSI) "Civil Society and Participation" (SCP) program, which aims to encourage dialogue between civil society organizations, between them and the public authorities, and to contribute to the renewal of cooperation practices.

Following a first ex post capitalization of the SCP 1 exercise (2006-2010), the IRG opted, for the second SCP 2 exercise (2010-2013), for an ongoing process of capitalization covering the entire implementation of the 18 projects supported by the program. This continuous learning and reflection work, stemming from the actions and concrete experiences of the projects, aimed at understanding the conditions necessary for the participation of civil society organizations in the dialogue with the government so as to implement more legitimate and effective public policies.

Two axes of questioning were identified: (i) the construction of “collective voices” (Axe 1), i.e. the capacity of organizations to unite a diversity of actors and to build themselves into viable political interlocutors; (ii) the “participation of civil society organizations to the devising of public policies” (Axe 2), that is to say the actual dialogue between the government and the various actors involved in an area or territory. This capitalization has identified several effects of these processes on the participation of said actors, on the institutions they interact with and on the public policies themselves. Certain more cross-sectional lessons challenge practices of multi-actor dialogue, and call for social change rooted in time.