The Community Development and Advocacy Centre (CODAC) was founded in 1999 as a woman-led development and human rights advocacy organization, aimed at promoting the well-being and empowerment of marginalised individuals and communities, especially women, children, and the very poor. It is registered under the laws of Ghana (Companies Act, 1963 [Act 179]) as a Company Limited by Guarantee with the Registrar-General’s Department with number CG010092016. The organization, with its Head Office in Bolgatanga, operates mainly in the Upper East Region though it collaborates with other Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) on national projects and programmes.

The founders of the organization having realised the need to contribute to the reduction of poverty, socio-economic development and gender inequalities as well as promote sustainable development decided to use social mobilisation and grassroots advocacy to achieve the vision and mission of the organization. CODAC, since its establishment, relied on short-term individual donor funding on projects related to its mission and objectives, and projects usually implemented in conformity with the funding agency’s requirements. Despite this, we remained steadfast to our mission and vision, while developing core competencies in social mobilisation, grassroots advocacy and technical development skills in our areas of expertise (i.e., good governance; child rights promotion and protection; women empowerment; citizen-government engagement; and promotion of broad-based active public participation in local governance at the community level). The organization has also developed its capacities in state-of-the-art and cutting edge people-centered and bottom-up approaches to rural development such as the Rights Based Approach (RBA) to human development.