Building and Strengthening Participatory Governance (Asian Region)
Objectives
To build the capacity of civil society to influence and improve the rules of engagement for civil society in governance at national and international levels.
To promote cross-learning and knowledge sharing on participatory governance.
To advocate for increased space for CSO involvement in global governance.
Geographical spread
Asian region
Key areas/components
Regional skills-building workshop for the Asian region: The regional skills-building workshop helped participants enrich and expand their understanding and skills in participatory governance approaches and practices.
Mentoring and exchange visits: The knowledge and skills gained through the regional skills-building workshop sustained and supported through mentoring and exposure visits for selected practitioners from CSOs and local government to benefit from the direct support, coaching and expertise of more experienced organizations like PRIA.
Innovation grants: Innovation grants provided by the donor for direct operational support to strategically selected participatory governance initiatives. PRIA was instrumental in identifying and reviewing the grantees.
Key outputs
The first regional skills-building workshop for South Asia was held from 20-26 August 2008. Twenty-two participants attended the workshop (3 from Sri Lanka, 4 from Nepal and Bangladesh respectively and 11 from India).
The exposure visit was held from 8-13 June 2009. The exposure visit was organised in the state of Bihar, an intervention site of PRIA, where the participants were exposed to some articipatory governance tools.
The online mentoring forum had 18 topics of discussion and 73 posts from all the participants. The online mentoring forum had 877 hits.