We are activists representing and supporting civil society organisations in different countries, for South-South and triangular Cooperation, around the world, who are a vital third sector next to the state and the market.
We believe in the sustainable growth of independent and accountable local civil society organisations, which provide humanitarian assistance and development support. Generally, we see such organisations also being committed to democratic societies with equality and social justice. This is in line with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
We have been encouraged by the commitments made to ‘localisation’ under Agenda for Humanity, Grand Bargain and Charter for Change that came out of the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit. We believe in healthy collaborative relationships that support the existence and growth of independent, sustainable and accountable local and national organisations, certainly in aid-recipient countries.
Rezaul Karim Chowdhury
He has started development work with a job as a Field Coordinator in Mass Education Program of Noakhali DANIDA project during 1982, he worked in the project for 9 years, his last job as Training and Communication Advisor of Project Advisory Team of the project. In the name of same position he worked two years in RD9 project of EU in Rangpur. For a brief period he worked as Assistant Scientist in ICDDR,B, in Dhaka. During 1992 he gone to Charfassion, Bhola Island in Bangladesh with a job with a mission to make a project of INGO to make it nationalized and establish an independent NGO. Where the present organization COAST has formed during 1998, he is managing the organization as Executive Director till now. COAST (www.coastbd.net) is working in coastal islands and districts of Bangladesh including Rohingya response in Coxsbazar. COAST has especial consultative status with UN ECOSOC, and it has received certification from HQAI (www.hqai.org, ) Geneva.
Smruti Patel
Smruti Patel is the founder of Global Mentoring Initiative (GMI), focused on promoting localization and on creating mentoring platform to accompany organisational capacity strengthening of local and national NGOs. She has been working in and on humanitarian action since 1995. Formerly, the Head of Services and Certification at Humanitarian Accountability Partnership International, she has expertise in accountability and quality management in humanitarian action. She was one of the authors of the Tsunami Evaluation Consortium’s study on the Impact of International Response on Local Capacities. In the run up to the World Humanitarian Summit she lead the engagement of local and national NGOs in Asia, Africa and the Middle East to create a global network to raise the profile of their role in humanitarian and development work, and demand an equal voice in the global policy debates and increased funding. She was appointed as Interim Executive Director of the network (NEAR), which was launched at the World Humanitarian Summit in May 2016.
Mr. Muhammad Amad

Regina “Nanette” Salvador-Antequisa

Sudhanshu S. Singh

Gershom Kabaso
