As Ghana continues to navigate complex challenges and opportunities, the GCSF remains a crucial space for reflection, collaboration and strategic planning. Ghana has a vibrant NGO/CSO ecosystem.

The database of the Ghana Non-profit Organization Secretariat indicates a total of 2,295 registered Nonprofit Organisations (NPOs) in 2019. The contribution of the NGO/CSO sector to Ghana’s development in terms of funding inflows, employment generation and more importantly, policy development, capacity development, public education, grassroot infrastructure, among others, is enormous. Just like any sector, the NGO/CSO sector has its peculiar internal and external challenges. Internal challenges include, weak or lack of understanding of regulatory and policy compliance issues, weak synergy and co-ordination amongst CSOs, and absence of self-regulatory mechanisms. For example, of the 2,295 non-profit organisations in the NPO secretariat, more than half of them (1317) are designated as not being in good standing. Many CSOs may not be aware of the existence of the Secretariat and what it takes to be in good standing. External challenges to the sector include growing restrictions through policy and regulatory reforms, increasing antagonism and mistrust for the sector by both state and non-state actors, dwindling funding, and an overall context of shrinking civic space.

Despite these prevailing and growing challenges, the NGO/CSO sector has over the years, lacked a mechanism or platform for periodic sector-wide convening, reflections and planning to improve the sector, and confront existing and emerging challenges that need to be dealt with. What has existed over the years, have been clustered, largely thematic-focused groups such as the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC), NGOs in the extractive industries, Civil Society Organizations platform on Strategic Development Goals (CSOs platform on SDGs), Right to Information Coalition, Coalition of NGOs in Health, among others. Meetings of these groups have, thus, often been around dealing with thematic or sectoral issues. There have also been funder-grantee types of platforms and convenings such as STAR Ghana grantees convening, OXFAM partners meeting, etc, which are often programme/project-based meetings. The thematic, funder-grantee, issue-based groupings and meetings are critical and need to exist to respond to emerging thematic issues.

But what is also critical is a sector-wide platform that occasionally convenes the entire sector to focus, not on thematic issues per se, but on the sector itself and contextual sector-wide challenges. This has necessitated the call for a sector-wide forum on the sustainability of civil society in Ghana.

In furtherance of the above, STAR-Ghana Foundation in collaboration with Oxfam in Ghana, Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition, Ghana Integrity Initiative, NORSAAC, Ghana Developing Communities Alliance (GDCA), West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI) and Ghana Philanthropy Forum have over the period convened two (2) forums that sought to provides a common platform for CSOs in Ghana to deliberate and reflect on their work as facilitators of good governance and inclusive development.  The Forum is a space and a mechanism to facilitate collective and inclusive actions towards enhancing the effectiveness, legitimacy and sustainability of the civic sector and its organisations. The maiden edition was hosted in March 2022 under the theme: "Reflections on the Conceptual and Developmental issues of CSOs in Ghana and the Sustainability Challenge." The 2nd Forum was hosted from 25th and 26th of June 2024 under the theme “Civil Society at an Inflection Point: Strategizing for Increased Legitimacy, Effectiveness, and Sustainability.” Participants recommended the institutionalization of the Forum and engagements with the NPO Secretariat on the way forward around CSOs regulatory framework.