EBRD launches the Digital Civil Society Programme in Turkey

Can digital technologies boost resilience in the civic space? If so, how? These are a few questions on the EBRD Civil Society Engagement (CSE) team’s mind since the beginning of the pandemic. Now, we are happy to announce that EBRD launched its first project of the Digital Civil Society Programme in Turkey.

After a series of consultations with civil society organisations in the EBRD region, other IFIs and foundations, supporting digital transformation has been identified as a critical area of the Bank’s engagement with civil society.

COVID-19 has pushed CSOs to embrace digital processes

COVID-19 pandemic has intensely affected civil society organizations (CSOs) and pushed them to embrace the digital world with open arms. Yet, the digital capacities of some civil society organisations in the EBRD region, along with the financial ones, were limited. Some were in need of additional resources to access digital platforms and expertise to ensure digital privacy and security, as well as to adapt their content in an effective way. Therefore, the EBRD has decided to strengthen community resilience and promote the sustainability of the civil society sector through digital transformation, under the name Digital Civil Society Programme.

Increasing CSOs resilience and adaptation to the new realities

The overall goal of this Programme is to facilitate a process of change for CSOs through digital transformation for increasing their resilience and adaption to the new realities.

In the first phase, we will identify five CSOs working on environmental and social sustainability, such as climate change and sustainable energy, gender and economic inclusion. Digital needs of selected CSOs will be assessed and then matched with digital mentors that have the necessary approach, skill sets, and experience based on the organisational theme that they want to work on. The organisations will develop their own digital strategies with their mentors’ support to transform their organisation based on the new realities and challenges that they face. Through a tailor made process, the mentor will support the organisation and the programme team will monitor this process.

One of the pillars of the digital strategy will be prioritised and implemented under project teams and mentors’ supervision. Each organisation will have its own set of activities, benchmarks and success indicators based on the organisational theme that they want to work. Throughout the implementation phase, civil society organisations will be provided with core digital competency trainings and small funding as implementation support for their digital transformation.

There will be opportunities for CSOs to connect with other participants in the network to ensure a collective learning process can occur as participants can offer skills, knowledge and experience to each other. Participant organisations will also be matched with other established civil society organisations for exchange of knowledge on effective digital systems.

Turkey as the pilot country

Turkey has been chosen as the pilot country for the Digital Civil Society Programme.

In the post-COVID world, it is expected for civil society in Turkey to pass through three stages: survival, adaptation and institutionalisation of adaptation.

1.     Survival: CSOs’ institutional sustainability was at risk as the donors are also financially affected from the crisis. Finding core funding for overhead expenses was especially hard.

2.     Adaptation: After almost a year of the pandemic, the CSOs still try to adapt to the changing environmental and social factors. Digitalisation, redefining fieldwork, revisiting strategies are the main agendas of this phase.

3.     Institutionalization of adaptation: The new “normal” will affect organizational structures and long-term dynamics of the CSOs. In this phase, CSOs will assess how much of the changing ways of doing business will become business-as-usual. The lessons learnt from this period will be carefully evaluated and reflected on the new ways of doing fieldwork, monitoring activities, fundraising strategies and organisational structures.

EBRD’s Digital Civil Society Programme focuses on the second and third phases of this transformation, namely adaptation and institutionalisation of the adaptation with a digital transformation focus.

360 degrees evaluation and a blueprint

During the pilot year, the change in the organisations’ digital capacity will be measured to understand the impact of the Programme. According to the results and feedback, the Programme will be fine-tuned. For dissemination to other EBRD countries, a blueprint will be prepared with lessons learnt and recommendations which will be distributed to all relevant stakeholders.  

We are here for EBRD’s civil society stakeholders

As EBRD Civil Society Engagement team, we are here to support our civil society stakeholders to keep up the pace with the changing and digitalising world. Defining digital transformation as a crosscutting pillar of the EBRD’s Civil Society Capacity Enhancement Framework, we will continue to focus our support and investment in CSOs digital transformation. If you wish to discuss any ideas and opportunities, please reach out to us.