This tool is a living document that provides guidance on good partnership practices that promote strong relationships between civil society organizations and government representatives on engaging men and boys in gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). Its goal is to strengthen these partnerships in order to enable the scale up and/or institutionalization of evidence-based approaches to engaging men and boys.
This tool is intended for CSOs already engaging men and boys in their current programming, such as members of the MenEngage Alliance, and who are looking to collaborate more effectively with government partners in order to scale up and/or institutionalize their approaches. It is useful for government leaders who are interested in partnering with CSOs to implement these types of programs and would like to point potential partners to good practices. This tool will also provide insight on how United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), at the country level, can facilitate government and civil society partnerships on engaging men and boys.
This tool is part of UNFPA’s broader effort to support and strengthen duty bearers’ commitment to gender-transformative action. Most existing evidence-based initiatives that engage men and boys alongside women and girls in gender programs are often implemented at a small scale and for a short period of time. More resources are needed to support organizations and their government counterparts to scale up these initiatives in order to have impact. Strong partnerships and meaningful dialogue are often the foundation of such efforts, but no tool on CSO-government partnership building exists particularly as it relates to men and boys. This tool aims to address this gap.
This tool, organized by stages of the program cycle, can be used to highlight key entry points to gain, strengthen, and maintain government support for CSO-implemented programs. It provides guidance on how CSOs can serve as more effective partners in these collaborations. At the same time, it is important to recognize the limitations of this tool – it is not meant to be a detailed, operational “how to” on institutionalizing or scaling up a particular program. Instead, it aims to provide generalized guidance to CSOs on how to collaborate with government. This tool can be used to facilitate conversations between CSOs and government leaders to lead, support, and/or fund integrated gender-transformative approaches engaging men and boys.
You can download this tool for free here.
