“Civil Society Cannot Operate Without Discussion”

The International Civil Society Centre whose shareholders are fifteen major international non-governmental organizations, including Save The Children, Transparency International, Oxfam and Care, is a Berlin based not-profit company. Executive Director of the Center. We interviewed Dr. Wolfgang Jamann, the Executive Director, on main activities of the Centre and it’s 'Disrupt & Innovate' project.

Could you please tell us about the foundation and activities of International Civil Society Centre?

The Centre has been founded as a convener and platform for mutual learning and collaboration by leading International Civil Society Organisations (ICSOs). We provide services on global trend analysis, innovation in the sector, and opportunities to work together on big issues – for example the Sustainable Development Goals. Our activities are planned according to the priorities of our shareholders and their partners.

How does ICS Centre define the term ‘civil society’? Which actors do you include and exclude? For instance, would a social enterprise be within the limits of your work?

For us, the term ‘civil society’ encompasses a huge variety of organised and non-organised actors, spanning movements, activists and service deliverers, donors and philanthropists, as well as media, academia, social businesses and other actors.

We forge partnerships by bringing these actors together; seeking out the best innovations; and fostering mutual learning and joint action across the sector to achieve fundamental positive change in the world.

The ‘Disrupt & Innovate’ project by ICS Centre provides a discussion space for the future of civil society sector. This is actually quite inspiring. How did the idea and the need for such platform appeared?  Can we say the book ‘the Hedgehog and the Beetle’ by Burkhard Gnarig constitutes a base for this project?

Burkhard’s book was a synthesis of various ongoing discussions around disruption and innovation in the sector. We are now advancing the pace of discussions to bring new thinking into the debate, sourcing more varied actors view their experiences and ideas, and stimulate and exchange from which the sector can benefit.  

The project continues in the blog section of the ICS Centre, you are gathering not only your work but also different opinions from a various of professionals in the field. What do you think about the outputs of the project so far? 

As we have started to develop and implement a new concept around ‘Disrupt & Innovate’, it is too early to talk about the impact. However, we see a heightened interest in contributions and reception.

When we look at the overall work by ICS Centre, they all look like pieces of a puzzle. You have many different projects but I would like the emphasis the fact that you have a broad portfolio of publications. This, apart from everything else, this can transform to be a tremendous source for all sorts of actors in the sector. Do you have a specific policy and future strategy about your publications?

At the moment we are focusing a lot on innovation and futures and will provide publications that have a practical use for the sector – for example our recently released  China guide or Innovation Report. There might be the need to focus a bit more over the coming years, but the reality of CSO environments is indeed quite complex and calls for a multi-faceted approach.

As Civil Pages, we publish news, interviews and reports on Turkish Civil Society. We define our work as ‘civil society journalism’. ‘We aim to present a medium for the civil society world’s spokespeople where they can join discussions and can come up with new discussions.’ I would like to get a comment from you on this definition.

We cannot comment on civil society in the Turkish environment, for lack of deeper insights. However, we see in other contexts that there is an urge to bring discussions to tangible recommendations and actions – hence the ambition might have to be advanced a bit. Civil society cannot operate without discussion, that is why we must continue to write, speak and listen to one another to realise our collective potential.