News & Views

News & Views2023-10-09T12:01:50+00:00

Marcienne Emougou takes up new role leading Well Grounded’s strategic priorities in Congo Basin region

20 November, 2023 We are thrilled to share that our longstanding colleague Marcienne Emougou will be taking up a new position with Well Grounded as Regional Lead for our activities in the Congo Basin region. Marcienne has a background in urban planning and the environment, and joined Well Grounded in 2018. She has played a number of roles at Well Grounded spanning our core programmes: she has [...]

November 20th, 2023|Our activities, Well Grounded|

Bakokoli: announcing the latest cohort of ecofeminist leaders

A joyous online ceremony marks the close of a transformative chapter for 19 participants in our ecofeminist leadership programme, but their journey continues 26 October 2023 We are delighted to share with you the excitement surrounding the successful completion of our most recent iteration of our ecofeminist leadership programme. This cohort has been on a transformative journey, culminating in a closing ceremony last week - a celebration shared between [...]

November 2nd, 2023|Ecofeminist Leadership Programme, Events|

Reconstructing Indigenous identities in recently granted or acquired forest areas

Webinar in our series of online events aimed at discovering the positive heritage of the Indigenous Peoples of the Congo Basin Wednesday 11 October 2023, 1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. (Central and West Africa - UTC+1) / 2:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. (Eastern Africa - UTC+3)   Well Grounded is pleased to invite you to the fourth event in our series aimed at discovering the positive heritage of the Indigenous [...]

October 9th, 2023|Events, Indigenous Peoples' Leadership|

Experiences, successes and challenges in securing lands customarily managed by Indigenous Peoples of the Congo Basin

Webinar in our series of online events aimed at discovering the positive heritage of the Indigenous Peoples of the Congo Basin September 14, 2023, 1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. (Central and West Africa - UTC+1) / 2:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. (Eastern Africa - UTC+3) Well Grounded is pleased to invite you to our third event in our series aimed at discovering the positive heritage of the Indigenous Peoples of [...]

September 8th, 2023|Uncategorized|

Facilitators for Change (F4C) graduation ceremony celebrates 22 newly trained organisational development practitioners

March 31st 2023 Well Grounded’s year-long Facilitators for Change programme (F4C), which trained consultants based in the Congo Basin region in the facilitation of organisational development processes, came to a close in a graduation ceremony for the 22 participants on 31 March 2023. Facilitators for Change is a 12-month programme which seeks to equip highly committed individuals not only with the technical skills to be [...]

March 31st, 2023|Uncategorized|

Connecting representatives of civil society and development support organizations

Well Grounded Rainbow Event • January 24 and 25 2023 Our Rainbow event, held in Douala, Cameroon in January, proved to be both memorable and edifying for us all. The event brought together civil society organizations with whom we have worked in the past and development partner organizations to explore ideas and inspiration and to share Well Grounded’s strategic plan 2023-26. Well Grounded’s work seeks [...]

March 29th, 2023|Uncategorized|

Team Meeting in Cameroon a great success

Team Meeting • 16-20 January 2023 • Loulouti Lodge, Zalou/Yaoundé, Cameroon The first team meeting since before Covid was held in Cameroon at the end of January. The main objectives were to connect as a team; to develop a common understanding of Well Grounded (WG) strategy; and, of course, to have fun as team too. A detailed evaluation was carried out at the end of the week and, based [...]

March 9th, 2023|Uncategorized|

International Women’s Day

March 8th is International Women’s Day – celebrated to recognise the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women across the world. This year, the theme for International Women’s Day is “#EmbraceEquity” which seeks to drive worldwide understanding of why Equal opportunities aren't enough! Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities. Equity, however, recognises that each person has different circumstances, and [...]

March 7th, 2023|Uncategorized|

World Wildlife Day

March 3rd is World Wildlife Day – a United Nations International day to celebrate all the world's wild animals and plants and the contribution that they make to our lives and the health of the planet.  This year's theme, "Partnerships for Wildlife Conservation", highlights the critical role of collaborative working to support both human communities and wildlife. Such partnerships are fundamental to our work at Well Grounded. [...]

March 3rd, 2023|Uncategorized|

Kitty Brayne to join Well Grounded as Co-Director: Programmes and Partnerships

We are delighted to announce the appointment of Kitty Brayne as our new Co-Director: Programmes and Partnerships. Kitty assumes her role in April, at a key moment for Well Grounded as we build on our strong foundations from a decade of strengthening environmental and social justice across the Congo Basin, and while global interest in the region from a climate perspective grows.  Kitty’s appointment will reinforce the Well Grounded [...]

February 9th, 2023|Uncategorized|

What IT skills are important these days

I was recently reading a job advertisement for a project coordinator. In terms of required skills, there was just one terse line: Word/Excel/Outlook/Teams. Furthermore, there was no indication of the actual skills required. Almost anyone can open an Excel file and enter data. But who can do a Pivot Table? It's quite common to ask candidates for this kind of skills, but I wondered if it corresponds to the current [...]

March 23rd, 2022|Uncategorized|

Testing and learning, or implementation at a forced march

When a donor launches a call for proposals, the time lapse between the submission of the proposal and the beginning of the project can commonly take from 6 months to a year. This supposes that the circumstances have remained the same – which is obviously untrue! Furthermore, organisations often have limited time and means to write proposals. Of course, they know their work, targets and challenges, but writing a proposal [...]

August 30th, 2020|First hand testimonies|

How important are my values to me?

About a week ago, I met a long-time friend who works for a local human rights NGO. He looked really upset and admitted with regret he was disillusioned as, he explained: ‘…in our organisation, staff is estimated at20 people;50 % of them are trainees working without contracts… For over 5 years, many of them have not had social security, and in terms of salaries, payment is delayed 2 out of [...]

July 30th, 2020|First hand testimonies|

“You can’t be what you can’t see” (Aurélie Salvaire)

For two decades, I have been committed to the civil society sector, first as a humanitarian worker, and then as an organisational development practitioner. My daily work is to support civil society organisations in reaching their full potential, in becoming strategic and resilient. Working alongside civil society organisations has helped me develop a global view of factors that hinder the effectiveness and development of these organisations. «Be the change you [...]

June 30th, 2020|First hand testimonies|

Clean funding for civil society organisations: ethics and racketeering in Cameroon

Credibility of funders’ procedures Donors intervening in environmental preservation actions of civil society organisationsin the Congo Basin espouse their reputation of exhibiting and seeking transparency, effectiveness and efficiency in the initiatives they support. This is demonstrated in several areas. Firstly, by the rigidity of the procedures that regulate the funding processes, which are accessible only to a restricted elite of civil society organisations. Secondly, in the monitoring processes that these [...]

May 30th, 2020|First hand testimonies|

What is the real meaning of partnership?

Do relationships between donors and organisations have to involve some form of tension? Does there have to be a power dynamic at play between international non-governmental organisations (INGO) and civil society organisations (CSO)? Some may argue that this is not always the case, but we can’t deny that often it is. Partnerships are fundamental to our work and our sector. Without partnerships it is difficult to resource our work and [...]

April 24th, 2020|First hand testimonies|

Looking for change? Action!

Advocacy seems to be “à la mode” and figures in the plans of many platforms and individual organisations as an important strategic area of their work. Putting it in a plan is one thing but putting it in practice is another. Many advocacy efforts end with submitting a position paper to a high ranking governmental official. If your goal is to influence government so they change laws and policies for [...]

April 13th, 2020|First hand testimonies|

Wake up the resilient leader in you!

These are unpredictable times during which we cannot know from one day to the next how the Covid-19 pandemic will evolve. We can’t anticipate, nor control, the measures our leaders will take. I feel I have been through this before, with a different dimension. I am Congolese from Goma, and I am part of the unlucky, or lucky, generation that has lived in a Congo at war for two decades. [...]

March 26th, 2020|First hand testimonies|

How interventions in the “North” can jeopardise leadership in the “South”

Behind popular concepts, real imbalances remain Working for a long time with European NGOs linked to Africa, I was often embarrassed by the unspoken vertical relationship, and by the imbalance that often occurs between an NGO from the North and a partner organisation from the South. Northern NGOs, and funders, want to implement projects and programmes they care for and to answer problems they have identified as priorities by putting [...]

March 5th, 2020|First hand testimonies, Well Grounded|

Collective intelligence or collective stupidity?

We often talk about collective intelligence, or the way we can take advantage of each contributor’s knowledge in order to find solutions that we would be unable to find individually. But we also talk about the dangers of a crowd. We see people in a group behaving in a way that contradicts how they would usually behave, in opposition to their values. How come the group sometimes brings out the [...]

September 23rd, 2019|Organisation Development|

Hope is not an endangered species

Albert Einstein once said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them”. His words came to me when I was asked to write a blog piece about the biodiversity crisis. I started reading about how scientists in Alaska have identified that global warming is happening far faster than anybody feared. About glaciers in the Himalayas melting twice as fast as previously [...]

August 30th, 2019|Inspiring stories|

New multi-stake holder collaborations to start in Cameroon

There were almost 25 participants at the three day workshop organized by Well Grounded in Yaoundé: associations of small- and medium-sized businesses, civil society organisations and community forest groups met and exchanged about their experiences of the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA). In 2010, Cameroon signed a Voluntary Partnership Agreement with the European Union to develop legal wood trade and improve forest governance. Large exporting companies quickly benefited from the opportunities [...]

January 9th, 2019|Our activities|

How to set good indicators for your projects

More and more, our donors, beneficiaries and the general public are requesting rigorous and objective evidence of the efficiency of our action. Beyond accountability requirements, good indicators also help us to assess the quality of our programmes, and correct them if necessary. In this article, you’ll find a few tips to define and use indicators in the conception and follow-up of your projects, while avoiding the most common mistakes! But [...]

September 14th, 2018|From our partners|

How to write a successful proposal

Donors are like you and me: they are busy people, and often don’t have enough time to thoroughly review all the applications they receive. If you make their work easier, you will greatly increase your chances of catching their eye, by following these simple steps: Select the right donor Sending the same proposal to any donor you hear about won’t work. The first step is to thoroughly research available donors [...]

May 8th, 2018|Organisation Development|

Complaint abandoned, but systematic human rights violations continue for indigenous Baka communities in Cameroon

In September 2017, Survival International announced that it had withdrawn from OECD mediation with WWF, following its 2016 complaint lodged against them in relation to (inter alia) mistreatment of the Baka in Cameroon connected with its conservation activities. While Survival International's formal complaint might be at an end, the serious abuses of indigenous peoples’ human rights associated with conservation activities in Cameroon (and elsewhere) are persistent, real and ongoing, and [...]

March 15th, 2018|From our partners|

Diversity and Inclusion: Human rights in the community forestry process in the DRC

Securing local communities and indigenous peoples’ rights is a major challenge in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The situation of Human Rights is among the most critical in the world. The rule of law is applied erratically and the goods, including land, are regularly stolen. Laws that favour a potential recognition of traditional practices and rights of rural populations often remain hollow. However, Community forestry, a set of procedures, [...]

March 2nd, 2018|From our partners|

Useful free resources for CSOs: tested and approved tools

Working in a small organisation is not easy. Financial and human resources are scarce, and although civil society organisations (CSOs) are aware that there are countless free resources and tools out there that could make their life easier, they are often so overloaded that they can’t invest the time needed to find out where they are and which ones would correspond to their needs. Here are a few resources we [...]

February 1st, 2018|Organisation Development|

Leadership Development: The Mustard Seed of Efficient Organisations

Leadership is an essential element that contributes to the success or failure of civil society organisations (CSOs). If properly nurtured within an organisation, it can be the panacea that can contribute towards ensuring a stable health in CSOs and boost their growth. Yet, it constitutes the weak link in many CSOs working in the Congo Basin. From Well Grounded’s experience in this region, leadership “affects all aspects of an organisation [...]

January 12th, 2018|Organisation Development|

How to involve women in forest management: Interview with a community organiser in DRC

“Women, and indigenous women in particular, need to be included in decision-making on ecosystem use at all levels, as essential players in preserving our planet.” –UN Women Ruth Badubaye has been working with rainforest communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for several years. Formerly a GIS (geographic information systems) technician with Congolese organisation GASHE (Group d’Action pour Sauver l’Homme et son Environnement), Ruth is now part of Rainforest [...]

December 5th, 2017|From our partners, Our clients|

OKANI’s action in Gbabandi and the development of indigenous peoples

OKANI’s vision is «a cohesive society where the rights, justice and fulfillment of indigenous peoples from the forests of Cameroon are guaranteed.» Its mission is to «support Indigenous peoples from the Cameroonian forests, and to improve their living conditions through the promotion of respect for their rights Since its creation 11 years ago, Okani has implemented several activities through different projects with the support of different technical and financial partners [...]

November 13th, 2017|Our clients|

Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in Cameroon : Challenges and issues

This article is the first of two pieces about indigenous peoples in Cameroon, written by a staff member of Okani, one of our client organisations. In Cameroon, when speaking about forest indigenous peoples, we refer to four different groups: Baka people live mostly in the Eastern and Southern regions of Cameroon. Bakola and Bagyeli people live in an area of about 12 000 square km in the South of the [...]

October 31st, 2017|Our clients|

The fate of the Congo Basin forests must lie with its people

A light breeze of democratisation is blowing through the Congo Basin – and it is being driven by civil society. In the Central African Republic (CAR), civil society is playing a key role in rebuilding a nation torn apart by civil war. In Cameroon, it is pushing for democratic reforms in the face of often fierce government pressure. In the Republic of Congo (Congo), civil society is alerting to human [...]

October 4th, 2017|Our clients|

What is community forestry?

We frequently hear about community forestry, but how does it really work, and what are its advantages for the populations? This month, Carmel Kifukieto, programme officer at the Centre d’Appui à la Gestion Durable des Forêts Tropicales (CAGDFT), one of the organisations we support in the Democratic Republic of Congo, tells us about the different aspects of this practice. What is community forestry? Community forestry is a set of practices, [...]

September 14th, 2017|Our clients|

Bringing legislators and communities face to face – how one Congolese organisation has changed how laws are written

Well Grounded is publishing a series of blog posts that tells the stories of people and organisations who have spoken out, who have found new ways to solve old problems and who have stuck at it in impossible circumstances in the pursuit of social and environmental justice. Be inspired! Civil society organisations can influence legislation in all sorts of ways: lobbying, campaigning, researching, making proposals and so forth. One effective [...]

April 19th, 2017|Inspiring stories|

Local Communities Placed at the Centre of Forest Management in the DRC

Stakeholders working to ensure the sustainable management of forests in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have resolved to put communities living in and around forest concessions at the heart of things. Since 2015, national and international actors alongside the government of the DRC have worked to put in place a national strategy on community forestry that will ensure that forest communities benefit from the management and use of their [...]

March 27th, 2017|First hand testimonies|

People, organisations and positive change: an occasional blog series

Well Grounded is publishing a series of blog posts that tells the stories of people and organisations who have spoken out, who have found new ways to solve old problems and who have stuck at it in impossible circumstances in the pursuit of social and environmental justice. Be inspired! In the United States at the moment, a leader is sat in the White House signing executive orders that close the [...]

February 27th, 2017|Inspiring stories|

Paving the Way for Greater Success in AAFEBEN

Passion and commitment are two of the many qualities that drive the activities of most community based organisations. AAFEBEN (Appui à l'Auto Promotion de la Femme de Boumba et Ngoko), a community based organisation in Yokadouma in the Eastern region of Cameroon is one of such organisations. Its members and staff are dedicated and are working hard to promote better living conditions of people living in forest communities in the [...]

December 7th, 2016|Our clients|

Structures in organisations

One of the key standard questions an organisational development practitioner will ask any organisation s/he will engage with is to show their organigram. An organigram will show the functions in the organisation and how they are related to each other. Sometimes the diagram shows the names of the members in the organisation, but this is not always the case. The organigrams that we see are often very hierarchical and this [...]

November 7th, 2016|Organisation Development|

ICT for CSOs: simple solutions for faulty internet connections

CSOs, like any other organisation nowadays, manage a lot of data. When we think about them, we tend to imagine all the activities they implement on the field; unfortunately, they also have to spend a considerable amount of time writing e-mails, sending reports or managing their accountancy. But CSOs also meet a different challenge: their access to internet. What connection can we expect in the middle of the forest or [...]

October 6th, 2016|Organisation Development|

Increasing community’s right to land through participatory mapping

The Congo Basin forest is the second largest tropical forest and the third largest forest in the world. This forest is considered as one of the most important ecological zones in the world with over 10,000 species of  plants, 1000 species of birds, 500 species of fishes and over 500 variety of mammals. Hence, it produces substantial financial resources for states in the region including Cameroon. In Cameroon, the government [...]

September 16th, 2016|From our partners, Our clients|

Industrial forest exploitation: the main cause of deforestation

This is the result of a study carried out by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) examining the causes of deforestation and forest degradation in central Africa. In Cameroon, over 44 762 hectares of forest are devastated annually by industrial exploitation in the TRIDOM (Tri-National Dja-Odzala-Minkébé). This is the finding of a study carried out by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). This situation is due [...]

August 9th, 2016|Our clients|

A Good Start for Well Grounded in 2016: Lessons from Practice!

2016 started on a fast paced note for us at Well Grounded. Between January and June we carried out 27 interventions for 18 of our clients in three countries in the Congo Basin. Cameroon Gender and Environment Watch (CAMGEW) works to protect the Kilum-Ijim forest in the North West region of Cameroon. Through our support in the first quarter of 2016, the team was able to define the organisation’s vision [...]

July 22nd, 2016|Our clients|

Collaboration in a fracturing world

A great organisation development practitioner, Davine Thaw, often summarises what organisations are in three words: people, purpose and process. Today, a bleak day for all of us who believe in collective action, as more than half my fellow citizens have chosen to take the UK out of the European Union, I have been thinking a great deal about the “people” part of that. One of the issues Well Grounded and [...]

June 24th, 2016|First hand testimonies|

Raising funds for small NGOs: meeting the challenge

By Camaleo Let's face it: competition for funds is high, and fundraising has converted into an uphill battle for all non profits. The situation is even more dire for smaller organisations, especially when they are based in the countries where they implement their programmes. Small organisations and their specificities The vast majority of charitable organisations in the world are rather small, and most are based in the global South. Much [...]

June 8th, 2016|Organisation Development|

Should social media be part of your organisational strategy?

By Victor van Reijswoud Social media is useful for more than just social connectivity and entertainment. Social media opens new possibilities for organisations all around the world. It changes the way organisations communicate and engage with their clients and stakeholders. Social media expands the communication reach of organisations at a lower cost and these relations become more intimate and frequent. Social media opens up new horizons for civil society organisations [...]

May 17th, 2016|Organisation Development|

“Bee farmers are in tears”

By CAMGEW (Cameroon Gender and Environment Watch) Just over a month ago, on February 21st, CAMGEW director Wirsiy Emmanuel Binyuy was alerted that a bushfire, allegedly started by a farmer in Bihkov, a small community in Jakiri sub-division in the Northwest Region of Cameroon, had gone out of control and was threatening to extend to the whole Kilum-Ijim forest, which covers over 20,000 hectares. The Kilum-Ijim Forest is an area [...]

April 22nd, 2016|First hand testimonies, Our clients|

Organisation development: a cornerstone for the sustainable management of natural resources

By Alphonse Muhindo Valivambene From 27th to 30th July 2015, Well Grounded and Maliasili Initiatives organised a day of exchange between Kenyan, Tanzanian and Congolese (DRC) civil society organisations in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. The aim of this event was to share the diverse experiences and points of view regarding the development of a strategy, a business plan and more sustainable, innovative funding models. This event was linked to a wider [...]

January 15th, 2016|First hand testimonies, Our clients|

Revitalizing civil society support in the face of crisis and opportunity

By Cath Long Civil society organisations are under assault around the world. As recently described in The Guardian and by networks such as CIVICUS, the past several years have witnessed a surge in government efforts to restrict local organizations’ ability to operate or access external funds. At the same time, development aid often exacerbates constraints placed on civil society organizations by favouring short-term, restricted funding, curtailing investment in salaries and [...]

December 14th, 2015|From our partners, Organisation Development|

Why do local people often end up losing their community lands and forests, and see little of the profit that companies make from exploiting natural resources?

Many conflicts around community rights in natural resource management are caused by competition between companies and communities over access to and control of natural resources. Commercial exploitation of natural resources deprives communities of access to the spaces and resources on which they depend for their livelihoods and well-being, and local people usually see little if any of the revenues generated by these resources. In April this year I participated in [...]

December 11th, 2015|First hand testimonies|

The need to rethink collaboration between Cameroonian CSOs in order to increase their impacts on human and environmental wellbeing

Most of the civil society organisations (CSOs) that are involved in nature conservation and development activities in Cameroon are associations and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). They often try to work in synergy and to complement one another in their implementation of projects, but often fall short of their own expectations or those of donors and beneficiary communities. Collaboration is often seen as being the cause of setbacks and bad experiences, but [...]

November 19th, 2015|From our partners|

Building Potential to put Social and Environmental Justice at the Centre of Development

I am Wirsiy Emmanuel Binyuy and I work for Cameroon Gender and Environment Watch (CAMGEW), a non-profit organisation based in Oku, Cameroon. CAMGEW works to sustain the environment to ensure that people are free from poverty and gender inequality. CAMGEW works on forest conservation, environmental education, apiculture, agroforestry and eco-businesses like women’s microcredit schemes and vocational training. This work is done with rural communities with little employment opportunities and with [...]

October 7th, 2015|Our clients|

Strengthening Organizations – what do African CSOs need and want?

“We tend to talk a lot about the work on the ground, but focus much less on organizational development, even when the sustainability of actions on the ground depend on the strength of an organization…Organizational development is not like planting a bean seed where you will actually see the growth in two months, but instead it’s a process.” -Representative from an African civil society organization (CSO) On July 26th we [...]

August 17th, 2015|Organisation Development|

The value of conversations in organizations

While we may sometimes think of an organization as a structure, something more or less permanent, organizations are, of course, never static things. They are always in process - their visions change, as do their missions, structures, activities, donors, and staff. One of my biggest learnings has been that to truly appreciate the nature of process and change in organizations, I have had to work at seeing the world very [...]

July 8th, 2015|Organisation Development|

Eureka moment for an organisation development practitioner

Have you ever had a Eureka moment when a song describes exactly how you feel?  Yep, that OMG moment! I know the feeling. Now imagine what is being described in the song is not only how you feel, but also your perception of the world, your ideas of how to make a difference, your personal vision, your values. I know, what are the odds? Small, you'd say? Wait until you [...]

June 8th, 2015|First hand testimonies, Organisation Development|

What makes a strong organisation? Six insights from African CSOs

“One thing I’ve learned from our discussion, is that for an African organisation to survive, they need to either cope with having nothing or with having too much.” – Representative from an African CSO Over the last year Maliasili Initiatives and Well Grounded have worked together in trying to better understand key issues, challenges, and opportunities related to strengthening African civil society organisations working to improve natural resource governance. As [...]

May 19th, 2015|From our partners, Our clients|

Values and ‘deep culture:’ the roots of change

I was recently facilitating a session with civil society representatives in the Republic of Congo, and I asked them to reflect on their personal values, and how these values relate to their professional life. It was inspiring and enriching to hear their responses, and it made me think about how I would answer the question if someone were to ask me. For me, values are an intricate part of who [...]

May 12th, 2015|First hand testimonies|

What if we stopped telling other people what’s good for them and thinking and acting on their behalf?

A recent conversation brought to mind Gandhi’s observation “Whatever you do for me without me, you do against me…” I’d been facilitating a strategic process with an organisation whose executive director told me about an earlier experience with strategic planning in 2008: “… [it] didn’t really help us move forward, it wasn’t the right time and we never asked for it. Our partner was concerned about our organisational development; they [...]

April 9th, 2015|First hand testimonies, Organisation Development|

Welcome to the Well Grounded blog!

Welcome to the Well Grounded blog! This will be a space for reflection about the challenges facing African civil society organisations today – particularly the challenges they face in their own organisations, in developing collective action with others and in identifying how to open and occupy space for real and positive change. As time goes on, we hope that many different people and organisations get involved in the conversation, challenge [...]

March 16th, 2015|First hand testimonies, Organisation Development|
Go to Top