About us

Publication date: Wednesday 23 June 2004

This website is the permanent and main communication and exchange platform of the member-based knowledge network Civil Society Building.net. The network brings together practitioners and researchers on the themes of civil society and civil society building.

Civil society building (CSB) has many ‘dimensions’, strategies and layers. It is a relatively new concept that will have to be developed further in research, training courses and knowledge activities. It is the purpose of the Civil Society Building network to approach the civil society concept in an open and non-normative way, and to explore new practices rather than to define these.

The general goal of the Civil Society Building knowledge network is to stimulate and facilitate knowledge integration, including:

1. the development of knowledge by innovative research,
2. the dissemination of new and existing knowledge, and
3. the application of knowledge to improve the performance of actors in South and North in their efforts to strengthen civil society.

The specific purposes of the initiative are:
- to collect and extract existing (dormant) knowledge from practices and experiences in CSB-related activities;
- to foster new and innovative research, including evaluation, that will lead to improved policy and programmes for civil society building;
- to disseminate the results of current and new research on CSB related topics;
- to intensify the links between practitioners and researchers, and to stimulate dialogue and debate among members of the network.

Hivos and ISS joined forces in 2005 to create this knowledge network in an attempt to bridge the gap between development practitioners and academia in the field of Civil Society Building.

Hivos - a Dutch NGO - wants to contribute to a free, free, fair and sustainable world. Local, independent organisations play a critical role in this. Hivos is convinced that if people are given a fair chance, they have nearly endless possibilities.

As an international academic agency the Institute of Social Studies (ISS) accumulates and exchanges knowledge and know-how on human aspects of processes of economic and social change. The ISS works with and for a multicultural community, in a critical and pluralistic, interdisciplinary and comparative approach based on a rich experience with development and transition processes. The ISS aims at widening civil participation in the process towards just and sustainable development in the context of global change.We invite partners, researchers, and other CSB-practitioners to join the CSB.net community.