OCIC Global Citizens forum 2022: Localization Matters
To kick off International Development Week 2022, we look forward to welcoming OCIC members, your partners and many more to collaborate, critically reflect, learn, and plan for action at our Global Citizens Forum 2022. Through panels, workshops, podcasting and other creative mediums we seek to explore ways we can re-imagine international cooperation, solidarity and ‘localization’, particularly from the perspective of small and medium-sized organizations (SMOs). Watch the recordings here.
All events are held online with Zoom.
Closed captions in English are available at all sessions.
Global Citizen Forum 2022
Tapestry 2030 Season 2
Past Workshop with Gloria Novovic
Global Citizen Forum 2022
Download the Global Citizens Forum 2022 Participant Package (PDF) | (Word). In this package you will find:
- Land Acknowledgement
- Code of Conduct
- Full Program and Speakers
- Localization Resources
Localization Resources
In anticipation of the Forum we have compiled the following resources, recognising that there are different perspectives and understandings of what ‘localization’ means, and questions regarding the relevance of the ‘localization’ agenda to diverse stakeholders in our sector and work and whether it is the right term and focus at all. This alphabetical listing provides different viewpoints and perspectives. To suggest additions email elizabeth[@]ocic.on.ca.
Articles and Reports:
‘Catalysing locally-led development in the UK aid system’ – Bond
‘Fostering Equitable North-South Civil Society Partnerships’- RINGO
‘Localizing the 2030 Agenda’- BCCIC
‘Localize or Perish: What you Need To Know About Localization” – Cooperation Canada
‘Time to Decolonise Aid’- Peace Direct
Unpacking Localization’- International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA)
Recommandation du CAD sur le renforcement de la société civile
Short Summary on the Recommendation
OECD Brochure on the Recommendation
Standards and Principles:
DAC Recommendations on Enabling Civil Society
Doing Development Differently Principles
Podcasts and Videos:
‘Disrupt Development’ podcast series – particularly the episode on the localization agenda
‘Localising the SDGs in Your Community’ (Youtube Video) – Together Ensemble
‘Rethinking Development’ podcast series
February 2, 2022
Global Citizens Forum 2022 Welcome
Contributors
Kimberly Gibbons – Executive Director, Ontario Council for International Cooperation
Elizabeth Tuck – Special Events Coordinator, Ontario Council for International Cooperation
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Exploring the OECD DAC Recommendation on Enabling Civil Society
Watch the recording here.
This panel brought together high-level experts, policy makers, policy analysts and other professionals for a conversation around the OECD DAC Recommendation on Enabling Civil Society, approved by OECD Development Assistance Committee members, including Canada, in July 2021. The panel intended to share the nature and content of this Recommendation, its significance for small and medium-sized organizations (SMOs), how SMOs can advocate for changes in Global Affairs Canada (GAC)’s support for civil society through the Recommendation, and the opportunities for improving conditions facing civil society from a global south perspective.
Moderator
Brian Tomlinson – Executive Director, AidWatch Canada
Contributors
Anabel Cruz – Director, Communication and Development Institute (ICD) of Uruguay
Marilyn Bachmann – Policy Analyst, OECD Development Co-operation Directorate, France
Susan Pereverzoff – Director, Global Citizens Division, Global Affairs Canada
Carmen Zubiaga – Founder and Executive Director, Women with Disabilities Leap to Social and Economic Progress, Inc (WOW-LEAP), Philippines
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‘Localizing’ Food Systems
Watch the recording here.
This panel brought together different perspectives around the ‘localization’ of food systems, food justice, and ending hunger. We explored grassroots initiatives from an Indigenous perspective, what it might mean to ‘decolonize aid’, and how community-led approaches are used by organizations working to end hunger in Argentina, Canada and internationally.
Contributors
Marisa Giraldez – Executive Director, Banco de Alimentos, Argentina
Theresa Rempel Mulaire – Conservation Agriculture Program Manager, Canadian Foodgrains Bank
Celeste Smith – Founder, Cultural Seeds
Geneviève Talbot – Program Officer – Africa Hub, Solidarité Union Coopération
FEBRUARY 3, 2022
Connecting Mind and Body thru Yoga
OCIC held an interactive yoga session with the aim of re-centering our mind and our bodies. This hour-long guided session was inclusive to varying abilities, body types, ages, and yoga experiences and participants may turn their cameras off. This space allowed us to reflect on the many learnings from throughout day one of the forum and prepared us for a second day of learning and collaborating.
Contributors
Nikki Martin – You can learn more about her on her website here.
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Feminist Approaches to ‘Localization’
Watch the recording here.
Oxfam Canada is on a journey to apply a feminist approach to all its work – both in terms of outcomes and ways of working. Applying feminist principles requires us to rethink current ways of working in the international aid sector. This session unpacked how ‘localization’ is part and parcel of an intersectional feminist approach. Drawing on its interviews with local women’s rights actors working across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus, and on its experience supporting the leadership of local women’s rights organizations in its international programming, Oxfam shared reflections and lessons learned on this crucial topic.
Contributors
Brittany Lambert – Women’s Rights Policy and Advocacy Specialist, Oxfam Canada
Farwah Qasim – Program Officer, Oxfam Canada
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Maintaining the Gains – People, Projects and Partnership in the Time of COVID-19
Watch the recording here.
This session was organized and led by the Primate’s World Development and Relief Fund.
For the past two years, PWRDF, together with its partners in Burundi, Mozambique, Rwanda, and Tanzania, and with support from Global Affairs Canada (GAC), has carried out two one-year projects that have responded to the COVID-19 global pandemic. Designed to maintain the gains achieved through the four-year GAC-funded, ‘All Mothers and Children Count’ (AMCC) program, these projects have supported vital COVID-19-related work. In this panel PWRDF’s Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator, Bart Dickinson, together with partners from Village Health Works, Burundi; the Diocese of Masasi, Tanzania; and EHALE, Mozambique, explored the impacts of COVID-19 through the data they have gathered and through real-life experiences on the ground. They discussed how this has both made possible new work, and challenged existing ways of working. And they explored how COVID has changed the ways it has impacted how we live out our partnerships.
Moderator
Sophie Kiwala – PWRDF Representative for the Diocese of Ontario (Kingston and area)
Contributors
Bart Dickinson – Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator, PWRDF
Ramula Issa – Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, EHALE, Mozambique
Witness Mushi – Gender Officer, Diocese of Masasi, Tanzania
Melchiade Ninganza – Program Manager, Village Health Works, Burundi
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Haitian Women at the Forefront of Community Solutions and Locally-led Change
In this panel speakers shared insights on how community-led and grassroots solutions are transforming communities in Haiti. It built upon the conversation between leaders from Rayjon Share Care Canada, Rayjon Share Care Haiti, and the Haitian Women’s Federation in OCIC’s ‘Tapestry 2030’ podcast and illustration series, Season 1 (available here), focusing on how grassroots actors, particularly women, are the drivers of sustainable change.
Moderator
Safa Shahkhalili – Producer, OCIC ‘Tapestry 2030’ Season 1
Contributors
Denis Côté – Policy Analyst, Association Québécoise des Organismes de Coopération Internationale (AQOCI)
Miselande Parisien – General Secretary, Fédération des Femmes de Haut-Saint-Marc (Haitian Women’s Federation, Haut de St. Marc)
Heather Smith – Executive Director, Rayjon Share Care Canada
Renaud Thomas – Community Coordinator and RSCH Manager, Rayjon Share Care Haiti
Tapestry 2030 Season 2
OCIC ‘Tapestry 2030’ Season 2
PODCASTING & ILLUSTRATION SERIES
OCIC’s Global Citizens Forum 2022: ‘Localization’ Matters includes a number of workshops and other engagement activities, and is also the topical focus of our ‘Tapestry 2030’ podcast and illustration series Season 2. This series will further our exploration on the future of international cooperation and global solidarity, and the partnerships needed for gender transformative, sustainable development.
We look forward to launching Season 2 in partnership with Cultural Seeds, Heart-Links | Lazos de Corazón, the Primate’s World Development and Relief Fund, and Rayjon Share Care of Sarnia Inc., and their respective international and community partners in March 2022.
This series builds on ‘Tapestry 2030’ Season 1, which profiles contributions from Bhutan Canada Foundation, CAP Network, CMETrust, Heart-Links | Lazos de Corazón, Inter Pares, Partners in Health Canada, Rayjon Share Care of Sarnia Inc., the YMCA of Greater Toronto, and their respective international partners in conversation with podcaster Safa Shahkhalili. Illustrations for both series are created by Amanda Schutz.
To view OCIC’s call for expressions of interest to partner in Season 2, click here: (PDF) | (Word)
Past Workshop with Gloria Novovic
Re-imagining International Solidarity: Foundations of Equitable Relations in International Cooperation Workshop
Canada’s international cooperation organizations are grappling with the global call to shift the power within the sector in favour of equity-seeking communities and the values of self-determination, human dignity, and global solidarity. Such a sector transformation, however, requires individual and institutional capacity to reflect on our own motivations, mandates, as well as processes we follow in our attempts to achieve them. This workshop guided participants through personal and collective reflection, offering insight on privilege, standpoint, positionality and feminist reflexivity as an instrument of solidarity.
On Friday, January 7th from 10:00 am – 1:00 pm ET, OCIC and Gloria Novovic presented this free foundational session that helped inform the scope, form and focus of OCIC’s Global Citizens Forum 2022, and future efforts.
About the Facilitator
Gloria Novovic is a feminist policy and global governance specialist. She holds a PhD in Political Science and International Development from the University of Guelph and has spent over a decade in community and international development spaces. In her work, Gloria aims to apply decolonial feminist approaches and leverages her understanding of social and policy change to strategically disrupt traditional paradigms of international cooperation.
