Emele Duituturaga (far right), Executive Director at Pacific Islands Association of Non Governmental Organisations in Fiji, sits in a plenary session with other CSO leaders at the 2nd Global Assembly of the Open Forum in Cambodia in 2011. A development specialist, academic, consultant and trainer, Emele has exceptional knowledge of gender and development issues in the Pacific region, having served in senior roles including CEO of the Fiji Ministry for Women, Social Welfare and Poverty Alleviation and Head of the Pacific Women's Resource Bureau for the Secretariat of the Pacific Community. Here, Emele speaks with CIVICUS about development effectiveness in Civil Society.
You played an important role in the Open Forum for CSO Development Effectiveness. What are, for you, the key results of this process?
The key results are the collective and unified voice of Civil Society created as a result of a very focused and well-organised global bottom-up process of consultations in over 70 different countries and reaching global consensus on the Istanbul Principles and the International Framework for CSO Development Effectiveness which we tabled at the Busan HLF4 and got global recognition for. This is truly remarkable.
What do the Istanbul Principles bring to the CSO sector, on top of existing accountability and self-regulating tools?
The Istanbul Principles bring a unifying mission and global consensus of what CSOs value and work for: a mission and consensus which other stakeholders – particularly governments and donors – have now embraced.
What follow-up should be done on the Open Forum work? What should be the priorities for CSOs working on their development effectiveness?
Follow-up on the Open Forum work at the country level should focus on the use of tools to implement the International Framework of CSO DE to contextualise the Istanbul Principles, develop minimum standards of practice and also to strongly and effectively advocate for an enabling environment by governments and donors to enable CSO Development Effectiveness. We should also continue to meet periodically at the global level to monitor enabling environment conditions and have peer review.
CSOs need to focus on their own effectiveness being guided by the International Framework and to identify enabling environment issues such as policy, funding and regulations to lobby with governments and donors.
The Open Forum and Better Aid merged into a new CSO platform called the CSO Partnership for Development Effectiveness (CPDE). What will success look like in 2015? What makes the CPDE unique, compared to other Global CSO coalitions?
Success for the CSO Partnership for Development Effectiveness will be the permanent acceptance of CSOs at the table with governments and donors as part of the global partnership architecture to agree on global policies on developments – be it development cooperation or the Post-2015 development goals. The acceptance of CPDE representatives on the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC) as an equal is the unique feature, we are no longer observers, we have a voice at the table.
Is the CPDE open? How can other CSOs get involved?
The CPDE is an open platform. It is available to all CSOs that share the vision, mission and goals as espoused in our founding document. To get involved, CSOs can contact the Global Secretariat via
The website, which will be launched later this year, will explain how the CPDE works and will connect interested CSOs to their regional or sectoral focal point who will explain what activities they can get involved in online and when meetings take place for them to attend.
The CPDE is about aid and development cooperation? How can the CPDE substantially input to the current Post-2015 discussions?
Development cooperation is ultimately about poverty reduction and meeting other internationally agreed upon development goals such as the MDGs and the development goals of each country. The Post-2015 discussions provide the CPDE with the opportunity to input into what the global partnership (MDG 8) should look like based on our experience of Busan and the GPEDC. Paragraph 22 on the Busan Outcome Document and the Istanbul Principles provide the basis for global recognition of the role of CSOs in the Post-2015 framework. The CPDE needs to lobby for this and for a human rights-based approach and democratic participation to the Post-2015 development agenda – this is the specific policy advocacy of the CPDE.