Details

The project intends to develop a collaborative platform of civil society organisations (CSOs) in order to respond to several problems facing the Kuwaiti CSO sector. Most notably, the sector of CSOs in Kuwait suffers from a lack of formal and informal communication between CSOs leading to inefficiency in using collective intelligence, common resources and human capital. This results in lost opportunities for knowledge and resource exchange between organizations within the Kuwaitis civil society sector.

Currently, en.v develops a needs assessment and a mapping study of Kuwait’s civil society sector. This process will culminate in holding a two-day CSO forum or “Unconference” in October 2018, jointly organised by en.v and the KAS Regional Programme Gulf States. The event will include informal as well as more formal engagement, discussion and networking opportunities. The focus of the forum will be to highlight the role of the sector in promoting just and sustainable development, as well as to begin the process of building the CSO platform.

This marks already the third year of joint cooperation between en.v and KAS, in order to improve the civil society sector’s visibility and legitimacy. The first phase of the project was successfully finished in 2017, after 27 representatives of Kuwaiti CSOs were hosted over two workshops designed to introduce them to issue-based and sectoral networks and help them develop initial action plans for increased collaboration. An additional 32 CSOs were engaged through a final community meeting in fall 2017, during which workshop participants received input and feedback on their plans.