The new Country Director for IBIS in Ghana, Mr Hamza Tijani, has said there was the need for Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) working in the country to diversify their sources of funding as competition for the limited donor funds increases.

He said organisations that relied solely or heavily on one or two donors for funding must make greater effort to attract funding from other organisations so as to sustain their programmes

“Diversified funding is very critical in insulating CSOs from one donor but also critical for their independence and the sustainability of their interventions,” he said.

Mr Tijani, who assumed office at the beginning of September, was speaking at IBIS’ Joint Governance Partners Forum held in Bolgatanga.

The periodic forum brought together CSOs that are partnering with IBIS to implement projects on three strategies of the Governance Programme, that is the Democratic Consolidation and Accountable Governance (DCAG), West Africa Human Rights and Democratisation (WAHRD) and Africa Against Poverty (AAP).

It enables IBIS and the partners to jointly review their work, share lessons learned, reorganise around the issues and synergise their work for greater impact and prudent use of resources.

Mr Tijani lauded the partners of IBIS for their contribution to democratic consolidation in Ghana through the pursuit of durable interventions in diverse areas within the governance portfolio and urged them to help direct the nation to make reforms that would put the country’s democracy on a firm standing.

The Governance Programme Director of IBIS in Ghana, Mr Emmanuel Abeliwine, said IBIS also used the partners’ forum as a monitoring and reporting tool to enhance programme effectiveness.

“It helps us to get an account of what partners are doing and what the results are,” he said.

Key issues discussed at the forum included the need to legislate the 30% quota for women’s representation at the District, Municipal and Metropolitan Assemblies level, the need for the election of DCEs to deal with some of the challenges of the Winner-Take-All system, the need and challenges for public interest litigation especially in the area of natural resource management.

IBIS is a Danish non-governmental organisation working at global, national and local levels for the empowerment of civil society and underprivileged communities to ensure that all people have equal access to education, influence and resources.

IBIS works through strong partnerships with civil society and government institutions.