Cooperation Canada, in its continuous effort to cater to its members, held a two-day event tailored for its Working Groups on November 16-17.
During this virtual conference, we aimed to create a space allowing you to:
- meet with your Working Group if you’re part of one,
- or pop into a WG meeting to learn more about them
- be part of thematic brainstorms, a speed dating session, training and more!
Learning, networking and collaboration were the ultimate objectives of this event as sessions were designed for members to have ample opportunity to engage with their peers.
View the various working group sessions recordings below.
Working Group meetings & Plenaries
The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August of 2021 has led to an extremely concerning, and rapidly deteriorating, human rights situation in the country. This is the case particularly for women’s rights activists, journalists, human rights defenders, and humanitarian workers who had supported Canadian and other international actors who (alongside their families) now find themselves disproportionately at-risk and targeted. The Afghanistan Crisis Exchange group was launched to provide a convening space for members who are involved (directly or indirectly) in this crisis to share their questions, statements, resources, and to exchange with each other about the crisis.
The Africa-Canada Forum (ACF) brings together CSOs from across Canada that have a specific interest in cooperation and social justice in sub-Saharan Africa. This working group’s main objectives are:
- to improve the quality and impact of the work of participating groups through reflection and analysis of current programming relationships in Africa;
- to improve the coordination of policy development and strategies for joint action and advocacy;
- to engage in dialogue with African counterparts and colleagues.
The Asia-Pacific working group brings together CSOs from across Canada that have a specific interest in cooperation, social justice, and human rights in Asia. This working group’s main objectives are:
- to improve the impact of its members through collaborative reflection and analysis;
- to include input from southern partners, through the coordination of policy development, dialogue and learning.
The CFO Working Group, formed of CFOs, meets to discuss and advance the interests of the international development and humanitarian sector when it comes to financial and administrative policies and practice.
The Direction and Control Working Group is focused on improving Income Tax legislation and CRA regulations, and ways in which CSOs, as a sector, can support these efforts. Direction and Control regulations of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) are based on the provisions of the Income Tax Act Legislation written in the 1950’s; they impose outdated and ineffective obligations on Canadian charities, expected to direct charitable funds towards their “own activities” or exercise full control of the activities implemented by their local partners. These regulations hinder charities’ ability to ensure equitable partnerships with local actors.
Share and learn about great fundraising and professional development opportunities with other fundraising professionals within our sector.
The Human Resources Working Group seeks to discuss, share best practices and advance the interests of our sector in the area of Human Resources. This working group aims to provide a space for sharing information related to Human Resources initiatives, skills, events and information, identify synergies and potential partnerships or cooperation. The HR Working Group also offers co-learning opportunities and stores documents and information that might be of use to the international development community.
The Innovative Finance Working Group aims to identify new financing mechanisms and models through discussing innovative financing sources outside of government funders and explore how the sector can best leverage government finance to facilitate new and additional financial sources.
The Localization Working Group (LWG) aims to share resources and learning activities on specific areas surrounding localization, including: organizational change, culture change and policy innovation. The LWG will discuss avenues of joint action in relation to government advocacy, GAC dialogue opportunities, research and stakeholder mapping, as well as joint approaches to testing localization paradigms on operational level. In addition, one of the other objectives for the LWG is to support coordination within other global forums and with other networks and groups pursuing a similar agenda.
The Youth Engagement Working Group seeks to discuss, share best practice and advance the interests of our sector in the areas of Youth Engagement. It aims to provide a space for sharing information on current and upcoming youth engagement initiatives, identify synergies and potential partnerships. In addition, the Youth Engagement Working Group offers a platform for co-learning opportunities: provide learnings around successes and failures, creative solutions and pitfalls to avoid.
Minister Harjit S. Sajjan has recently been appointed as the Minister of International Development. Cooperation Canada has prepared its alternative Mandate Letter to influence core priorities of the Ministry. Mandate Letters, outlining general strategic directions for ministries, are a reliable indication of key political priorities particularly in the case of newly appointed ministers. Building on longstanding sector priorities and our pre-budget submission, we welcome your feedback on the letter, which we plan on publishing after the Working Group conference.
Though we have been using the Portal for quite some time, you might not know all its functionality and how to use it to its full potential, or you might be a new staff in your organization! Here are some tips and tricks that might help, as well as some other tools to discover to lead your working group into the digital age!
Sure, our current Working Groups are amazing, but what is missing? We have all seen unofficial committees become sector-wide priorities, so now is the time to think about what is next. What is your organization wishing they could collaborate on? Should we focus on themes or specific world events? How can we make sure each theme gets the attention it needs?
Are you a new member of Cooperation Canada, a new staff or volunteer among our doyens, or you’re simply in need of a refresher? Join us for this “Cooperation Canada 101” session and learn more about our mission, our recent accomplishments and how we can strive to serve our members! We’ll use this occasion to get to know our new kin better as well.
Download the Presentation here:
Being new to the international cooperation sector can be kind of daunting, and even discouraging at times. But you are not alone! Cooperation Canada has seen firsthand how new staff can bring about the biggest changes in the greatest ways. So who are these bright lights?
Although we are still weathering a 4th wave of COVID-19, our members never stopped working – from home, that is. Some have gone back to the office part-time, some wish they will never have to, some are waiting for clear directions; these discussions are probably happening in your organization right now, and you might be wondering what they sound like in other, similar organizations. This is your chance to see who is doing what and find answers to some of the harder questions you might be juggling with.