• Civil Society and Governance
  • Civil Society and Governance Overview
  • Institutional Capacity Building
  • Civic Education
  • Citizen Participation
  • Advocacy
  • Democratic Governance
  • Grants Solicitation and Management Capacity
  • Women's and Minority Rights
  • Disenfranchised Groups
• Education
  • Education Overview
  • Basic Education
  • Higher Education
  • Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
  • Education for Vulnerable Groups
• HIV/AIDS
  • HIV/AIDS Overview
  • HIV/AIDS Prevention
  • Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC)
  • Grants Solicitation and Management Capacity
  • Institutional Capacity Building
• International Visitors Exchanges
  • International Professional, Academic, and Cultural Exchanges Overview
  • Undergraduate and Graduate Academic Exchanges
  • Professional Exchanges
  • Youth Exchanges
• Capacity Development and Training
  • Capacity Development and Training Overview
  • Participant Training
  • Institutional Capacity Building
  • Undergraduate and Graduate Academic Exchanges
  • Grant Solicitation and Management Capacity
  • Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

Civil Society and Governance

Overview

Despite significant progress, the majority of the world still faces serious development issues and lack of equal opportunities. World Learning programs connect local communities with public and private sector institutions to promote citizen engagement for good governance and foster policies at the local, national, regional, and global levels that respect basic human rights. 

These programs work from local to national levels to address interrelated issues of poverty, human rights abuses, conflict, poor service delivery, weak governance, and social inequalities. World Learning provides education, policy advocacy awareness, training, technical assistance, and small-grant support that help people and institutions build a better future. 
World Learning has an established track record in promoting democracy through civil society development and building constituencies for reform. Over several decades and in numerous countries, World Learning has helped civil society organizations (CSOs) develop their organizational capacity to advocate for effective democratic processes and to more effectively deliver services. Increasing the role of civil society in economic and political decision-making by providing support and technical assistance to the CSO sector has been an important aspect of many of World Learning's extensive programs in CSO capacity-building and development, anticorruption, education, and training.

Civil society is not a monolithic unit and CSOs come in all shapes and sizes. There are formal as well as informal groups, single issue and multi-issue groups, national or regional level non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and local community based organizations (CBOs). Some aim to influence the state while others are solely focused on service delivery and/or economic development. With these differences in mind World Learning's work is premised on the critical need to ensure that the voices of under-represented groups are not lost in engaging with civil society.  These underrepresented actors are handicapped by factors as wide ranging as the lack of appropriate forums to promote dialogue and information sharing, weak organizational capacity, language barriers, inadequate funding, and high transaction costs, among others.

World Learning programs also help ministries, parliaments, and government agencies to more effectively serve their constituents, promote participatory democracy, and adhere to human rights standards. Program strategies range from long-term institutional development interventions aimed at reforming organizational systems and practices to short-term technical assistance and training aimed at strengthening the implementation of specific policies or at helping public sector institutions work more effectively with CSOs and citizens.