Is all this talk about a 'power shift' in our sector really amounting to substantive changes?

Is all this talk about a ‘power shift’ in our sector really amounting to substantive changes?

And if it is – what has actually changed in the past 3-5 years?

This was the topic of a small ‘benchmarking study’ of 17 international civil society organizations (ICSOs) that are co-owners of the International Civil Society Centre. My fellow consultant Esther Kwaku and I looked into what actually shifted, in terms of decision rights, processes, and structures. And we looked at sources of informal power, as much as formal ones. The results?

The Centre shared the full findings with the agencies who had chosen to be the focus of the study. It also aggregated the findings in a shorter report for the public — credit to Esther for writing this summary!