Global Partnership for NGO Studies, Education, and Training

The Global Partnership (GP) offers uniquely relevant, international-quality, professional education opportunities for the leaders, managers and staff of non-governmental organizations (NGO) and other civil society organizations around the world.

As a South-North partnership of NGO training and capacity building organizations and an accredited school of graduate and professional studies, the GP's members collaborate to offer a number of different programs.

• Postgraduate Diploma in NGO Leadership and Management
• Joint Diploma-Master's Degree
• Individual Courses (intensive residence and/or online)

All programs build on participants' prior development work experience. New learning is grounded in practice through which participants directly contribute to strengthening the capacity of their own organizations.

Our Vision

We envision a world in which communities and nations that have been marginalized by poverty, conflict, environmental degradation and other forms of injustice (and that, due to the forces of globalization, are ever more distant from the locus of power and the decisions that impact their quality of life) gain control over their own futures and affect social change.

Our Mission

The GP will contribute to this vision by strengthening the capacity of NGOs, other civil society organizations, social movements, and the poor and marginalized themselves in order to make development more effective, to democratize the state, and to increase the accountability of the market sector. Our primary strategies include:

• Working with a critical mass of current and emerging leaders to develop or refine the social values, competencies, credibility and confidence they need to effectively engage organizations and networks in local, national and global development strategies;
• Supporting these leaders in their efforts to become highly skilled learners, capable of continuous clarification of values and increases in competencies through reflection on practice, dialogue with colleagues, and self-directed learning activities;
• Focusing on values and competencies needed for communication and collaboration across cultural and national boundaries, including South-South and South-North divides;
• Promoting greater understanding of NGOs and civil society organizations as agents of social justice;
• Expanding the capacities of NGOs in the South to offer high-quality education and training opportunities and the capacities of Northern institutions to more effectively support such NGOs through partnerships based on equality and mutual learning.

Core Values

Within our work, GP partners and associates are committed to:

• Excellence, quality and professionalism
• Equity and fairness
• Sensitivity to cultural diversity
• Open communication and transparency
• Collaboration and teamwork
• Blending academic and practitioner perspectives
• Careful integration of field-based and classroom learning experiences
• Immediate application of learning in the participants' own organizations.
• Teamwork in both the classroom and the field.
• Reliance on faculty with extensive professional experience.

History

The Global Partnership reflects the mission and values of its three founders: BRAC in Bangladesh, Organisation of Rural Associations for Progress (ORAP) in Zimbabwe and the School for International Training (SIT) in Vermont, USA.

Since its inception in 1996, the GP's primary focus has been a postgraduate diploma in NGO Leadership and Management based at BRAC. The diploma meets nearly half of the requirements for a master's degree program based at SIT. Beginning in 2002, individual courses in the diploma curriculum and new options for earning the diploma are offered through three additional NGO centers: Escuela para el Desarrollo in Peru and the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) in the Philippines and in Kenya.

Currently, the GP is in the process of adding centers in other global regions and planning additional courses and diploma programs in related fields of study and practice.

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Last modified: 30-Nov-2004