The Resilient Roots initiative has “primary constituent accountability” at the center of the programme. From the initiative’s co-creation phase to the open call for proposals from the wider civil society organisation (CSO) community, this term has been used frequently. Understanding a concept like this outside of the immediate community, where many other similar terms exist, is not straightforward. What do we mean by primary constituents? These are individuals or communities that a CSO aims to assist or who benefit from its work (also known as ‘beneficiaries’). Simply put the people for whom the organisation works, represents and seeks to empower. In most cases, each CSO will have multiple primary constituents. The second part of this term is built from what we usually call CSO accountability. By this we mean the ways in which an organisation is held responsible for its policies and actions by – (and answerable to) – its primary constituents. Accountability is highly context-specific and constantly evolving. This means that organisations need to adapt to the nature of their relationships with primary constituents as and when things change. To find out more about the Resilient Roots initiatives and the thinking behind the Constituent Accountability you can read the blog here.
Source: CIVICUS