Resiliency: Word of the Year
If we had to pick one word to encapsulate 2020, it would be “resiliency.” While we started the year with our usual budgets, project schedules, and organizational plans, the COVID-19 pandemic threw us and the rest of the world into unknown territory. Seemingly overnight, the patterns and systems we had taken for granted were upended.
But as our homes became our workplaces and our plans and practices shifted in line with our new reality, we realized that the resiliency reserves we built as an organization and as a Network over the last 30 years would get us through this unprecedented time. Our experience building successful partnerships and programs around the globe through wars and dictatorships and through financial wins and shortfalls shaped us. And our resiliency made 2020 not only a year of learning and change, but also a year of growth.
As we adapted internally - shifting our policies, practices and programs to meet our new reality - we also shared our expertise and resources on organizational resiliency with others working in civil society. From our #ResiliencyPlus Framework to our webinar series and monthly roundups, this knowledge sharing has helped to bolster organizational resiliency of our partners in peers in a trying year.
Take a look at some of these stories of adaption and change and the ways our people, programs and perspectives have shifted as we look at a post-COVID world.
Supporting Civil Society Resiliency in Unprecendented Times
In February 2020, the Global Initiatives team traveled to Serbia to launch the Resiliency+ component of the USAID-funded INSPIRES program. With the goal to beta test our new Resiliency+ Framework developed to support civil society in times of closing civic space, we spent one week meeting with NGO partners and a new team of coaches to plan the roll-out of the year-long accompaniment process.
This process was originally envisioned to support blended in-person and virtual individual coaching and cohort-level learning exchanges. Spirits were high, connections were formed, and momentum was generated. Everyone was eager to start testing the framework.
Then the world changed, and with it, so did our plans. We quickly recognized that the R+ Framework and Process as originally designed would be impossible to implement in any of the focus countries (Ecuador, Georgia, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Serbia, and Tanzania) during the pandemic. We also realized that increasing civil society resiliency was more important than ever. We adapted out approach in the following ways:
- Instead of a blended accompaniment process, we transitioned every activity to be conducted virtually. This meant a complete overhaul of tools and methodologies and a heavy focus on effective virtual facilitation for an online R+ process. The team also invested in introductory capacity-building for coaching teams and R+ organizations alike.
- We invested in online technology tools to mitigate disruptions in implementation. The team made online communications and facilitation platforms readily available for the coaching teams and participating organizations.
- And we developed a preliminary Wellness and Readiness Questionnaire to ensure the safety and well-being of participating organizations were at the forefront of the process. Each coaching team held one-on-one conversations with the leadership of each participating organization to discuss how they saw the implementation of R+ moving forward.
As a result of these adaptations, PartnersGlobal was able to move forward with the program. While it wasn't without its challenges and learning moments, we have since expanded the cohort of organizations embarking on a Resiliency+ process to 10 countries across Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. We took this experience and knowledge and applied it to new Resiliency-focused programming in Cambodia funded by USAID, and in Hungary and Slovakia funded by the National Endowment for Democracy.
Standing Up for Racial Justice: BLACK LIVES MATTER
PartnersGlobal has always been committed to elevating the voices and actions of those most impacted by injustice or violence wherever we work in the world. We are equally committed to listening to, learning from, and elevating the voices of Black People in the United States who today are at the forefront of racial justice movements and activism.
In 2020, we made raised our voices to join in solidarity to stand up for justice and accountability for our Black brothers and sisters in the United States and to push for a wholesale change to the systemic racism plaguing this nation.
Africa: Adapting to Preserve Security and Accountability in Uncertainty
NIGERIA: Increasing Accountability of COVID-19 Relief Funds
In response to the pandemic, governments immediately established emergency funding mechanisms to stimulate the economy and safeguard public health. In Nigeria, these resources were procured outside of typical legislative appropriation procedures and distributed rapidly. This veiled process created significant opportunities for corruption to flourish. Civil society actors were often denied information about relief funds, which further aggravated public perceptions of abuse.
Since 2018, Partners’ Promoting Civil Society Participation in Anti-Corruption Efforts project has advanced anti-corruption measures in Nigeria, with support by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. PartnersGlobal works with the US-based small business New-Rule and with Nigeria-based Partners West Africa Nigeria, BudgIT, CLEEN Foundation and Public Private Development Centre to mobilize public opinion and promote the Open Government Partnership and national anti-corruption legislation among government. During the pandemic, they ensured accountability of COVID-19 relief funds in the following ways:
- Launched broad-scale advocacy campaigns via social media and other platforms to sensitize the general public to corruption-related issues in COVID-19 relief and other fiscal expenditures.
- Promoted the adoption of anti-corruption legislation at the national and sub-national levels.
- Monitored COVID-19 relief and other fiscal expenditures on the national and sub-national level. Tools included traditional monitoring and reporting, the open source Tracka platform, and submission of Freedom of Information requests.
- Convened a Hackathon for civil society organizations to develop prototypes to track public expenditures, donor funding, and private sector spending in response to COVID-19.
- Opened and managed a Help Desk for citizens to inquire about COVID-19 relief and other public expenditures.
- Convened civil society actors in Nigeria and across Africa to discuss challenges of tracking COVID-19 relief funds.
GUINEA: COVID-19 Response Builds on a Foundation of Trust between Police and Citizens
As governments worked to contain COVID-19, they relied on security forces to maintain rule of law and reinforce health guidelines. Police and armed forces helped to enforce curfews and quarantines, distribute food and health supplies, and build new medical facilities.
Since 2015, the Partners for Security in Guinea project, funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, has been working with the Guinean government, security sector, and communities across the country to institute community policing and improve relationships between police and citizens. When the pandemic hit, the project pivoted, relying on the trust between security forces and citizens that had already been built to respond to this new health crisis. Together, they:
- Created COVID-19 response teams of district chiefs, police commissioners, health officers, and others who conducted awareness campaigns and implemented prevention measures.
- Formed partnerships to prevent gender-based violence and the spread of COVID-19. The teams included local leaders, women, and youth, among others.
- Activated local crime prevention councils to support community sensitization around COVID-19
- Trained police officers to work in health emergencies and prevent domestic violence.
SENEGAL: The Sahel Road Safety Initiative Steps Up for Safety and Security
When COVID-19 hit, Partners West Africa-Senegal led the Sahel Road Safety Initiative in Senegal in adapting to meet new needs. Under their leadership, the Sahel Road Safety Initiative jumped in to help prevent the spread of the virus while continuing to advance security reform and build police-citizen trust. Watch the video above for a story of adaptability and resilience.
The Sahel Road Safety Initiative is funded by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs and implemented by PartnersGlobal, Partners West Africa – Senegal and FOSEC.
BURKINA FASO: Local Safety Committees Press for Security with Rise in Violent Extremism
As much of the world experienced fear, trauma, and loss from the pandemic, many places continued to deal with conflict and violent extremism.
In Burkina Faso, violent extremism has displaced more than one million people. While the violence has not impacted the localities involved with the Sahel Road Safety Initiative, these areas were chosen strategically for being junctions for trade and migratory flows, making them a target for cross-border crime and insecurity.
The project, led by la Fondation pour la Securite du Citoyen (FOSEC), incorporated training workshops on road security, specifically for members of local safety initiatives, also known locally as Koglweogo. The civilian groups focused on prevention ensure security in their respective residential zones. Together with the project, these groups have:
- Outlined specific rules of engagement confirming their role as a preventive security measure but not an active security entity.
- Planned activities to improve literacy for some members to share information more effectively.
- Developed sustainability plans that allow them to access resources to continue their interventions long after the end of the project.
NIGERIA: Advancing the Rights of Pre-Trial Detainees
In Nigeria, the government enforced a strict lockdown to contain the spread of COVID-19, which increased tensions between security actors and citizens. In the fall of 2020, thousands of young Nigerians took to the streets to protest against police brutality. Police officers and prosecutors issued an increasing number of remand warrants to keep activists who were charged with offenses under arrest until their trial. Court closures as a result of the lockdown led to a rising backlog of cases and thus longer waiting times for pre-trial detainees.
Since 2018, PartnersGlobal had been working together with Partners West Africa Nigeria, the Network of University Legal Aid Institutions Nigeria and New-Rule to improve access to justice and human rights guarantees for pre-trial detainees, with support by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. Together with justice sector actors, legal practitioners, students and civil society members, Partners responded to the increasing needs of pre-trial detainees and succeeded to:
- Equip and train prison and court employees with electronic data processing systems that allow cases to proceed faster.
- Offer pro bono legal services to pre-trial detainees who otherwise had no representation.
- Train Nigerian law clinic students and promote exchanges with US students and legal professionals to nurture the next generation of lawyers who will promote social justice.
- Conduct monthly audits of custodial centers to continually monitor the pre-trial detention population.
- Create coordination mechanisms between correctional services, judiciary and civil society.
Latin America and the Caribbean: A Different Approach to Capacity-Building in Guatemala
The signing of the Peace Accords and the end of the civil war in Guatemala in 1996 paved the way for the creation of a comprehensive institutional architecture to promote and protect human rights and consolidate the hard-earned peace. Recognizing that strong, professional, and well-functioning government institutions are a prerequisite for the consolidation of peace, PartnersGlobal, under the umbrella of the Tejiendo Paz project, launched an ambitious capacity building-process for key government institutions dealing with social conflict and unrest. The capacity-building process, which was co-convened by Presidential Commission for Human Rights (COPREDEH) in early 2020, targeted regional delegates from different government institutions tasked with addressing and transforming conflicts.
Originally planned as an intensive, in-person program, COVID-19 delayed the start and forced the project to reconsider not only the format, but also the content of the capacity-building process. The result was a multimodal online course on Crisis Management and Conflict Resolution that leveraged virtual learning, facilitation, and communication platforms and synchronous and asynchronous learning moments. The course also incorporated dedicated topics related to the understanding and management of the pandemic and its differentiated effects on the population, on social relations, and on power and conflict dynamics and factors. In fact, the pandemic served as the subject of analysis for the different topics covered throughout the 9-week course, from addressing prejudices and implicit biases, to negotiation and collaboration, to participatory processes and decision-making mechanisms.
The success of this pilot online course demonstrated not only the possibility of delivering impactful and effective training programs online but also the urgent need to rethink traditional approaches and tools for government capacity-building efforts, intentionally incorporating peer and adult learning methodologies, as well as new skills for collaboration and for virtual engagement through new technologies. By swiftly adopting this format, PartnersGlobal also demonstrated its capacity to adapt and evolve to better respond to the emerging needs of the context and its target populations while protecting the core values and objectives of the project.
Middle East and North Africa: Promoting Peace through Conflict and Crisis
Iraq: Protecting Women's Rights in the Workforce
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the labor force participation rate for women in Iraq was the second lowest in the world. With women leaving their jobs to provide care for children and ailing relatives due to the pandemic, efforts to ensure that women are well-positioned to enter or re-enter the workforce after the pandemic have become all the more crucial.
With support from Global Affairs Canada, PartnersGlobal and PartnersIraq continued working with a variety of stakeholders throughout 2020 to ensure that Iraqi women know about their rights under Iraq’s Labor Law and that the provisions of the law are enforced consistently. In September and October, Partners worked with project partners New-Rule and a team of Iraqi legal experts to conduct an online training on the labor law and its gender equality provisions with 62 Iraqi lawyers. For this training, Partners adapted to the pandemic restrictions by:
- Conducting a series of virtual online lectures and discussion sessions led by Iraqi legal experts and international practitioners from New-Rule.
- Making sessions highly interactive by using Zoom breakout groups and providing simultaneous translation.
- Utilizing Google Classroom to share content, resources, and lecture recordings.
- Providing stipends for mobile internet access to ensure that all were able to participate.
Yemen: Addressing Safety and Stability in Crisis
In Yemen, where one of the world's worst humanitarian crises was ongoing even before the pandemic, COVID-19 threatened to further damage public health and safety in an already fragile environment. Partners took careful steps to make sure that critical project activities could contribute to peacebuilding, human rights, and stabilization while preventing the spread of disease, and even implemented activities specifically targeted at reducing the impact of the pandemic in Yemen. The actions taken to protect Yemenis from the pandemic include:
- A three-month COVID-19 rapid response initiative in Marib that helped local authorities and health officials respond to the pandemic by cleaning and sanitizing IDP camps, a COVID-19 awareness-raising campaign, and PPE distribution.
- A COVID-19 awareness and protection initiative for displaced people and host communities in Ibb, which included cleaning and sanitizing IDP camps, a COVID-19 awareness-raising campaign, and PPE distribution.
- Conducting seven virtual dialogues through WhatsApp and Zoom designed to bring communities together to address human rights violations while preventing the spread of COVID-19.
- Ensuring project activities were COVID-19 safe by minimizing in-person meetings, providing staff and participants with PPE equipment, monitoring participants’ health status, and ensuring social distancing at Partners events.
Bahrain: COVID-19 Adaptations to Increase Awareness of Bahrain’s Personal Status Law
As COVID-19 restricted in-person gatherings in Bahrain, civil society organizations worked to maintain their community engagement by increasing their virtual presence. Since 2019, the Strengthening Implementation of the Personal Status Law project in Bahrain has been working to raise public awareness of the country’s 2017 unified Personal Status Law, improve access to the law's provisions for marginalized groups, and identify still-needed improvements or amendments to the law. When the pandemic arrived, the project expanded its virtual presence and offerings, ultimately reaching a higher number of Bahrainis:
- Combined the project's two in-person forums into one virtual convening that now reaches more Bahrainis.
- Recycled Ramadan Competition social media posts on Bahraini women and children’s issues for continual year-round content.
- Raised Bahraini awareness of domestic violence, showing the linkages between this issue and COVID-19 stay-at-home requirements via social media activity.
- Built and maintained a virtual relationship with a religiously conservative community in Bahrain, hosting virtual events for them as needed.
- Used COVID-19 as an opportunity to increase communications and awareness-raising capacities, better fostering social media accounts and direct messaging functions for improved virtual relationships and viewership.
A New Way to Network: Fostering Community and Connection in a New Era
While we had planned to reconnect with our Partners Network colleagues in person in Hungary at the end of the year, 2020 had other plans. We regrouped and together with our Network colleagues organized the first-ever Virtual Network Meeting.
To keep engagement and spirits high, we mixed in video, small groups, dancing, singing, guest speakers, and so much more. The outcome? More than 150 colleagues from 20+ countries joined in over the course of the three days, our most well-attended and inclusive Network meeting to date!
One of the key outcomes of the Network Meeting was the organizing of the Partners Network Early Professionals Committee. These young leaders are bringing new energy and fresh ideas to keep the Network moving forward.
Check out some of our favorite content from the 2020 Network Meeting!