Understanding Civil Society- Full version

Описание: Theme 3/7 series:
This video is part of a series of advocacy clips that captured the views and experiences of community members across Namibia on key issues related to healthy nutrition and food security in people’s lives.

In this clip, community members from across Namibia share their perspectives on what civil society means to them, the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) they know, the work these organisations do, and why they matter for communities and the country at large. Through their lived experiences, participants highlight the vital role CSOs play in providing support, driving advocacy, and promoting inclusive and sustainable development, while also sharing powerful messages to leaders and decision-makers on the importance of listening to communities and strengthening collaboration for meaningful change.

The entire series of clips covers all four pillars of food security:
1) Availability: food production, e.g. through gardening, with focus on existing challenges.
2) Access: addressing poverty and inequality through more efficient and economically transformative interventions, such as a Universal/Unconditional Basic Income Grant (http://bignam.org).
3) Utilisation: healthier diets, including awareness of addictive substances, such as alcohol and sugar – both of which are highly over-consumed in Namibia and linked to a variety of social and health-related problems.
4) Stability: effective multi-sectoral multi-stakeholder coordination systems, in which local Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) play a critical role in providing support to families and communities. However, CSOs face severe funding shortages, while their impact is not sufficiently recognized by other stakeholders, such as government and the private sector.

All clips of this series can be downloaded and screened free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes and/or to inspire positive change.

These videos were produced during NAFSAN’s project “Nutrition for Health – Ensuring good Nutrition Practices for All” (July 2024 to August 2025), and we are deeply grateful to the Commonwealth Foundation (https://commonwealthfoundation.com) for their support in producing and finalizing these clips, as well as their support in training over 60 Namibians on Nutrition-for-Health: Embracing our Namibian Food Systems (www.nafsan.org/n4h) and building capacity within 25 CSOs to improve nutrition through practical engagements and community dialogues - https://nutritiondialogues.org

We also appreciate the support from GIZ, the German Development Corporation - https://www.giz.de/en and their global Food Systems Transformation project that also has a footprint in Namibia: https://www.nafsan.org/wp-content/upl...