Welcome to the website of the Task Team on Civil Society Organization (CSO) Development Effectiveness and Enabling Environment.
The Task Team aims to promote and advance the role of civil society organizations (CSOs) in development. It focuses in particular on advancing an enabling environment for CSOs to operate in, as well as the development effectiveness of CSOs themselves. Both are needed for CSOs to be able to effectively contribute to development. This is critical in light of the ambitious Sustainable Development Goals and the role that CSOs are expected to play in their implementation and monitoring.
The Task Team engages in a wide range of activities, including policy review, offering recommendations on ways forward and convening actors in dialogue. In its work, the Task Team mostly engages with the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation as well as the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals.
NEWS:
Task Team bi-annual meeting
The Task Team held its latest bi-annual meeting on 28-29 November at the International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague. During the meeting, participants spoke about implementation of its Strategy 2019-2021. This includes activities targeting the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (and its Senior Level Meeting in New York in July 2019) and the Sustainable Development Goals (and the High Level Political Forum in New York in July and September 2019). Participants furthermore agreed on country-level engagement, with multi-stakeholder pilot workshops anticipated for early 2019. Another key subject was plans for the Task Team’s tenth anniversary, which will be celebrated in June 2019 in Paris.
New Task Team Co-chair for the official donor community
The Task Team is happy to welcome its new Co-chair for the official donor community; Ms. Orla Mc Breen, Director of the Civil Society and Development Education Unit at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Ireland. She replaces former Co-chair; Mr. Cornelius Hacking, Lead Education Specialist at the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to whom the Task Team extends its gratitude for his contribution over the years.
Since joining the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in 2000, Orla has held a number of senior and interesting positions. She worked in the EU Division, in the Council of Europe, and in the Anglo-Irish Division, working on Justice and Security. She later moved to New York where she worked for five years as Permanent Mission of Ireland to the UN with responsibility for Human Rights and Gender Equality. She then took on the role of Consul General at the Irish Embassy in Chicago before returning to Ireland in 2016 to become Head of Public Service Reform at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.
Orla participated in her first Task Team meeting in The Hague, which was held on 28-29 November 2018 in The Hague, The Netherlands. The Task Team looks forward to a fruitful collaboration.
Task Team Co-chairs Richard Ssewakiryanga, Orla Mc Breen, and Stephen Okello at the November 2018 Task Team Meeting in The Hague.
Task Team updates
For updates from the Task Team, please see our TT updates page
