CF Source: Foundation

A new call for grant applications will be launched on 1 October. Grants totalling £723,000 have been awarded so far this year to civil society across the Commonwealth to support innovation in the governance sector.

‘Successful applicants are showing how civil society is encouraging dialogue between citizens on development issues as well with institutions shaping people’s lives,’ said Commonwealth Director Vijay Krishnarayan. ‘The results of the projects will be fascinating to see as they progress.’ 

Launched in 2012, the Foundation’s new grants scheme supports organisations promoting effective, responsive and accountable governance within the Commonwealth.

Applicants come from a mix of sectors including agriculture, health, law and peace building and projects focus on active citizenship and the capacity of civil society to participate in decision-making processes.

‘Innovation, sustainability and knowledge management are key for successful grant applications,’ said Comfort Osilaja, Commonwealth Foundation Grants Manager. ‘Any proposal should be thoroughly informed by the local context.’

‘The projects show that participatory governance can be interpreted in all sorts of ways, for example, using radio as a tool for dialogue or connecting rural communities directly with policy makers,’ she said. 

Organisations are offered up to £30,000 per year for up to three years, for new projects delivered in Commonwealth Foundation member countries. All grant recipients will share project outputs via blogs, social media, as well as formal reporting processes. From Autumn 2013 there will be two calls per year and the next call will be announced in mid-September.

Grants have been awarded to projects in Bangladesh, Ghana, Grenada, India, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, St Lucia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Kingdom of eSwatini and Tonga. See the awarded grants page on our website for more information about the projects.

More information about the grant application process together with supporting information will be available on the website from 1 October.

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I attended the Commonwealth Health Ministers’ Meeting (CHMM) in Geneva.

They meet in the wings of the World Health Assembly and use the opportunity to convene on key themes for the week. This year the focus was “Mental Health: Towards Economic and Social Inclusion.” This is a pressing global concern, with one in four of us likely to experience some form of mental ill health at some stage during our lives.

I listened to Ministers present their experiences of meeting the challenges. As they did so it was clear that governments and public health systems (whether well-resourced or not) are struggling to cope. They all acknowledge the limits to institutional care and made continuing references to community based strategies. While there was an implicit assumption that civil society organisations must be an essential component there were few explicit examples of how this is being enabled.

Another common factor in the country presentations was the issue of stigma attached to mental illness. Again this was a global challenge – although experienced differently across the Commonwealth: industrial contexts citing employment and workplace discrimination; and rural contexts referring to long held belief systems that ostracise and exclude. Many Ministers raised the need for awareness raising and public education as part of the process of changing attitudes – again an area where it would have been good to hear how civil society organisations have been playing their part.

The problem was that the meeting took place over the course of a morning, sandwiched in between other happenings around the WHA. This left little time for meaningful engagement with civil society organisations on these issues – areas where value could be added to ministerial deliberations. I think it is right that the periodicity and duration of the CHMM be looked at again by the Commonwealth Secretariat and civil society inputs to that review should be encouraged.

I went from the CHMM to the Commonwealth Partners’ Forum (CPF) – a separate event organised by the Commonwealth Health Professionals Alliance (a group of seven Commonwealth accredited civil society networks). This had been designed as a counterpoint to the CHMM and it is unfortunate that time did not allow any formal exchange between the two. The CPF theme was: Mental Health: A legislative framework to empower, protect and care. I was asked to open the Forum and in my comments I highlighted the importance of engagement between civil society and Commonwealth political processes. These need to be more than symbolic – they also need to be substantive.

The Forum saw the presentation of an excellent review of mental health legislation across the Commonwealth made by Dr Soumitra Pathare. He made several astute observations that I wished Ministers had heard. For example he reminded the audience that community care is not a panacea – that the abuse of people with mental illness occurs in the community as well as in institutions, highlighting the need for sound legislative frameworks. These he argued should be rooted in concepts of human dignity and associated rights. The primary mechanism to enable this was the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD) which had been ratified by most Commonwealth countries. Yet in his review of legislation he found several instances where the law reinforces stigma and discrimination (for example there are 12 countries where there remain references to the term “lunatic”).

The Forum ended with several examples of good practice and inevitably these included instances where civil society organisations had played an active role in shaping policy and implementing legislation. What is clear is that public health institutions need help in engaging with civil society organisations and people with mental illness. The point was made that the involvement and engagement of People Living with HIV and AIDS was instrumental in changing the global HIV paradigm – perhaps the same could happen with mental health: there is scope for exchange and learning within the public health sector and civil society can make that happen.

Read the report

‘Mental Health – a legislative framework to empower, protect and care’

Commonwealth Foundation Director, Vijay Krishnarayan will welcome delegates to the Commonwealth Partners’ Forum, held immediately after the Commonwealth Health Ministers’ Meeting (CHMM) in Geneva on Sunday 19 May 2013. The forum, titled ‘Mental Health – a legislative framework to empower, protect and care’ is organised by the Commonwealth Health Professions Alliance (CHPA) in partnership with McKinsey and Company, and the Commonwealth Foundation.

Sharing his expectations for the Forum, Mr Krishnarayan commented “While we recognise the importance of dialogue and gatherings like this we are much more interested in the action and consequences that follow. I particularly welcome the commitment by CHPA member organisations to follow up in countries where the need for improvements in mental health legislation has been recognised. It is very encouraging that regional organisations including CARICOM, SADC, WAHO and ECSA have already indicated an interest in the outcomes.”

In preparation for the CHMM, the CHPA has commissioned research on mental health legislation across the Commonwealth from a human rights perspective; with a focus on best practice and highlighting where improvements need to be made. The results from the research will be released at the forum and will include specific recommendations for Commonwealth Health Ministers.

The forum will bring together civil society representatives and senior officials working in health to discuss mental health legislation across the Commonwealth. Together with the commissioned research, it aims to give civil society a stronger voice and clearer messages so they can participate more effectively in advocating for mental health legislation and policy reform in their own environment.

Going forward the CHPA hopes to provide on-going support and encouragement at a national and regional level in order to empower mental health advocate organisations and individuals to lobby their governments to undertake mental health legislative and policy reform.

Ministers and senior government officials from across the Commonwealth gathered in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea for the 8th Commonwealth Youth Ministers Meeting.

Taking place in the wings of this meeting, the Commonwealth Youth Stakeholders’ Forum gathered together representatives from civil society organisations to discuss and debate emerging issues related to the youth agenda. Responding to the theme ‘Young People at the Centre of Sustainable Development’, the two meetings saw a strong focus on collaboration and collective impact.

Speaking at the Ministers meeting on the post-2015 development agenda, Vijay Krishnarayan, Commonwealth Foundation Director, outlined the aspirations and concerns of youth advocates for the post-2015 development framework. Referring to the increased global conversation on the future of the development landscape, Mr Krishnarayan stated that a number of processes dedicated to articulating a youth development agenda have “gradually evolved into meaningful and recognised components of the post-2015 discussion thanks largely to the advocacy of civil society organisations and networks.”

Reflecting on these processes, Mr Krishnarayan continued: “It is clear that the starting point for youth advocates has been that any framework, goals or targets must be responsive to the specific experiences, needs and rights of young people who are presenting not as the recipients of development – but as agents of development”. Featuring highly amongst the aspirations of young people are the need for governance systems which enable participation, environmentally responsible economic models and the development of public services which enhance life choices.

However, despite the increase in conversations surrounding the youth agenda, Mr Krishnarayan explained that there is still a need for an explicit reference to youth development in any post-2015 framework. Referring to collaboration as a key means for achieving this, Mr Krishnarayan concluded that “…here we have a tangible way that youth development institutions can act on this imperative in order to truly place young people at the centre of sustainable development”.

CSAC is an advisory group composed of representatives of non-governmental Commonwealth organisations that provides guidance on all aspects of our programmes and long-term strategy.

Two additional members from the Pacific and another from Asia have been appointed – to find out more about members of the committee, click here

Ricken Patel, Avaaz Director
‘Opportunity through Enterprise’

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Thank you for registering to attend this year’s Commonwealth Lecture. 

You should receive an email confirmation shortly. 

If this does not arrive, or if you have any other queries, please email h.thomas@commonwealth.int