The CSO Partnership for Development Effectiveness (CPDE) is a global civil society platform that facilitates bottom-up civil society engagement in partnerships for effective development cooperation (EDC). CPDE brings civil society organisations (CSOs) together on the issue of EDC and engages in multistakeholder policy arenas at the national, sub-regional, regional, and global levels.

CSOs continue to be challenged by shrinking civic spaces, a trend of narrowing opportunities for CSO funding, and other challenges to the enabling environment. These challenges mainly limit CSO operations but, to a certain extent, also help them realise their role as development actors in their own right. Moreover, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures that the governments have imposed have even attacked human rights and fundamental freedoms, such as freedom of assembly, freedom of movement, freedom of association, and the right to privacy. In some countries, civil society has witnessed aggressive authoritarian responses, including
massive surveillance measures, which have affected civic space and the capacities of civil society to respond to the crisis.

In a world marked by these ever-growing challenges, the capacity of any CSO to effectively pursue its advocacy agenda is greatly determined by its ability to plan, initiate, conduct, and maintain a constructive dialogue with a sufficiently diversified network of development partners at the country level.

This Guidebook is based on the Istanbul Principles for CSO Development Effectiveness and is part of CPDE’s effort toward forging stronger and more effective CSOs. It aims to contribute to an enabling environment in development partnerships, one of the five policy objectives in the CPDE 2020-2023 Strategic Plan. This Guidebook, part of a series that includes modules on project management and network management, is designed as a practical tool for CSOs’ effective engagement with development partners at the
country level.

This Guidebook is organised in three modules arranged in a deductive manner. First, it introduces and explains development partnerships, the international commitments to EDC, and CPDE’s engagement with donors and development partners. Second, it proposes principles and concrete applications to prepare CSOs to engage with
donors and development partners. Lastly, it discusses the donor cycle and the considerations for CSO sustainability.