Local Organisations. Continental Connections. Greater Impact.

Local Knowledge Is Essential to Effective Development

Across Africa, community organisations are often closest to the people, places and realities that development and humanitarian programmes seek to serve.

They understand local languages, community structures, vulnerabilities and emerging needs. They also bring trusted relationships, practical field experience and knowledge that cannot always be captured from a distance.

Yet identifying credible organisations with this level of local presence and capacity can be difficult.

PACON helps bridge that gap by making community-level organisations, their experience and their capabilities more visible and easier to identify across Africa.

The Pan-African Community Organisations Network (PACON) is a PAID-ESA initiative created to identify, map, profile and progressively verify community-based organisations and other locally rooted development actors operating across Africa.

Global Standards. Local Knowledge. Community by Community.

What Is PACON?

PACON is designed as a structured continental registry and partnership network for organisations with demonstrated community-level presence, local knowledge, established relationships and operational capacity.

Rather than simply recording an organisation’s name and country, PACON seeks to understand:

• where the organisation actually works;
• the communities and populations it serves;
• its thematic areas of expertise;
• what it can practically deliver;
• its language capabilities and local knowledge;
• its field teams and operational resources;
• its previous projects and partnerships;
• and the organisational systems and experience that support its work.

This information helps PAID-ESA and, where appropriate, its development, humanitarian, academic, governmental and private-sector partners identify organisations whose experience and capabilities may be relevant to future initiatives or assignments.

Community by Community

Your headquarters tells us where you are. Your field experience tells us where you can deliver.

PACON goes beyond country-level registration.

Organisations can identify not only their registered or headquarters location, but also the regions, provinces, districts, municipalities and communities where they have demonstrated field experience.

This geographic approach is central to PACON.

A national organisation headquartered in a capital city, for example, may have several years of practical experience working in specific rural districts or communities. PACON is designed to make that experience visible.

By building a more detailed picture of local organisational presence across Africa, PAID-ESA can support more context-sensitive identification of potential community partners.

Tell Us What Your Organisation Can Deliver

Your organisation is more than its registration certificate.

PACON is designed to capture both what your organisation knows and what your organisation can do.

Depending on your experience, your organisational profile may demonstrate capabilities such as:

• community mobilisation and stakeholder engagement;
• community consultations and participatory assessments;
• household surveys and field data collection;
• baseline and endline studies;
• focus-group discussions and key-informant interviews;
• community training and awareness campaigns;
• project and programme implementation;
• monitoring and field verification;
• humanitarian distributions and needs assessments;
• emergency preparedness and response;
• livelihood and economic-inclusion activities;
• conflict mediation and peacebuilding;
• translation and interpretation;
• participatory mapping;
• local logistics and event organisation;
• and other community-level implementation capabilities.

Your profile may also reflect relevant operational resources, including community facilitators, volunteers, enumerators, researchers, translators, community networks, offices, transport, meeting facilities, digital equipment and other field resources.

Areas of Expertise

PACON is intended to reflect the diversity of community-level development and humanitarian work taking place across Africa.

Organisations may indicate experience in areas including:

• Community Development & Local Governance
• Humanitarian Action
• Disaster Risk Reduction
• Emergency Preparedness & Response
• Anticipatory Action & Early Warning
• Climate Change & Community Resilience
• Environmental Protection & Natural Resources
• Agriculture & Food Security
• Livelihoods & Economic Inclusion
• Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH)
• Public & Community Health
• Education & Skills Development
• Women & Gender Equality
• Youth Development
• Women, Peace & Security
• Youth, Peace & Security
• Peacebuilding & Conflict Prevention
• Migration, Refugees & Displacement
• Disability & Social Inclusion
• Human Rights & Protection
• Cooperatives & Community Enterprise
• Entrepreneurship & Financial Inclusion
• Governance & Accountability
• Community Research & Data Collection
• Advocacy & Community Mobilisation
• Digital Inclusion
• Other emerging areas of community development

Who Should Register?

PACON is intended for legitimate, locally rooted organisations working directly with communities across Africa.

This may include:

• Community-Based Organisations (CBOs)
• Local and national NGOs
• Civil Society Organisations (CSOs)
• Community associations
• Women’s organisations and networks
• Youth-led organisations
• Organisations of persons with disabilities
• Farmer and producer organisations
• Cooperatives and cooperative networks
• Pastoral and agro-pastoral organisations
• Community development associations
• Refugee-led organisations
• Peacebuilding organisations and community peace structures
• Environmental organisations
• Community health organisations
• Faith-based organisations engaged in development or humanitarian work
• Indigenous and traditional community organisations, where appropriately constituted
• Local humanitarian organisations
• Community research and advocacy organisations
• Social enterprises with a demonstrable community-development mandate

If your organisation has genuine community-level experience and a development, humanitarian or social-impact mandate, we encourage you to create a PACON profile.

Why Register Your Organisation?

Make Your Local Capacity Visible

Registration creates a structured organisational profile that helps PAID-ESA understand your experience, geographic presence, areas of expertise and operational capacity.

Show Where You Actually Work

Identify the countries, regions, districts and communities where your organisation has demonstrated field experience, not simply where your office is located.

Demonstrate What You Can Deliver

Document your thematic expertise, implementation capabilities, community relationships, language skills, human resources and operational assets.

Strengthen Your Organisational Profile

Present representative projects, previous partnerships, populations served and key organisational systems.

Join a Continental Network

Contribute to building a stronger picture of community-level development and humanitarian capacity across Africa.

Be Considered When Relevant Opportunities Arise

PACON creates a structured mechanism through which eligible organisations may be identified and considered when their location, expertise and capabilities match relevant initiatives or assignments.

From Registration to Verified Partnership

PACON makes a clear distinction between registration and verification.

The network is designed around a progressive process:

1. Registered Organisation

Basic organisational information has been submitted and a PACON profile has been created.

2. Profile Reviewed

PAID-ESA has reviewed the submitted information for completeness and basic consistency.

3. Verified / Pre-qualified Organisation

Relevant legal, governance, financial, safeguarding and operational information has undergone additional review or verification.

4. Proven Delivery Partner

The organisation has successfully completed an assignment, project or partnership engagement, subject to satisfactory performance assessment.

Registration alone does not constitute certification, accreditation, endorsement or prequalification by PAID-ESA.

A Growing Pan-African Partnership Ecosystem

PACON forms part of PAID-ESA’s broader vision for connecting expertise and implementation capacity across the continent.

PAID-ESA’s Pan-African Expert Pool (PAEP) helps identify individuals with specialised expertise.

PACON identifies organisations with local presence and implementation capacity.

Together, they can contribute to an ecosystem connecting:

Expertise → Local Presence → Implementation Capacity → Community Impact

This approach can help development initiatives combine specialist knowledge with organisations and actors who understand local realities and have the relationships needed to work effectively within communities.

Registration Is Designed to Be Accessible

PACON aims to build meaningful organisational profiles without making initial registration unnecessarily complex.

During registration, organisations may be asked to provide core information such as:

• organisational identity and contact details;
• registration and legal status;
• headquarters and operational locations;
• thematic areas of work;
• organisational capabilities;
• populations and communities served;
• working languages;
• representative projects and experience;
• and selected supporting documentation.

Additional governance, financial, safeguarding, policy and due-diligence documentation may be requested later where an organisation progresses to verification or prequalification.

Important: PACON Is Not a Grant Programme

Registration with PACON does not automatically provide or guarantee:

• funding or grants;
• contracts;
• employment;
• accreditation;
• partnership status;
• prequalification;
• or future assignments.

Registration creates an organisational profile within the PACON network so that eligible organisations may be identified and considered when relevant opportunities arise.

Any future partnership, contract, assignment or other engagement will remain subject to applicable requirements, assessment, due diligence and a separate agreement.