Fiji Community Development Program

Building a stronger civil society by collaborating with partners to understand and respond to the needs of Fijian communities.

Situation

Many Fijians still face social and economic hardship. Civil society organisations need additional support, training and strengthening in order to respond to community needs.

Solution

The Fiji Community Development Program aimed to improve the delivery of social and economic benefits to the people of Fiji, working in partnership with civil society organisations to build resilient communities.

In collaboration with other donor partners, the program worked with civil society organisations to ensure that they are communicating, working together and coordinating their efforts to both understand and respond to the needs of Fijian communities.

The five year program commenced in June 2012, with the ultimate aim to strengthen civil society organisations to better respond to the needs of the communities they serve.

FCDP is supported through provision of grants, capacity building initiatives for CSOs, local management and M&E, tailored financial management assistance, use of Australian volunteers and development of participatory planning mechanisms.

Monitored result areas will include reduced hardship of identified poor and vulnerable communities and increased resilience of these communities. Also to be measured will be the increased ability of vulnerable communities to articulate their support needs.

Result

A major outcome of the program is stronger civil society organisations which are better able to deliver relevant services to communities.

As an example, after Tropical Cyclone Evans in December 2012, the program evaluated the role and response of the Fiji Government and civil society organisations to the needs of the community.

Since then, multi-media communication tools, including SMS, mobile applications, social media platforms and traditional advertising, have been developed to help civil society organisations to work with communities to prepare them for future disasters.

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