The Open Forum for CSO Development Effectiveness is a global process set up by and for Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) worldwide, to create a shared framework of principles that deines effective CSO development practice and elaborates the minimum standards for an enabling environment for CSOs, while at the same time promoting civil society’s essential role in the international development cooperation system.

The Open Forum process was initiated in an exploratory meeting on CSO Effectiveness in June 2008 in Paris, France and was formally set up in latter part of 2008 following the Third High level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF3) in Accra, Ghana, in response to the call to civil society organizations to articulate their own statement on development effectiveness. The mandate of the Open Forum runs until the Fourth High Level Forum (HLF4) at the end of 2011 in Busan, South Korea, where its conclusions will be presented for official acknowledgment. At the same time, the outcomes of the process are also a perpetual reference point for civil society organizations on their own effectiveness as independent development actors.