Support for Horn of Africa Resilience â SHARE (2014-2016):. ⢠Follow up to Food ... Consortium partners: iDE (lead),
Type of EU funding Food Facility (2010-2011): • In response to the 2007-2008 food security crisis (price increases, market volatility); • Topics: Improving access to food for 7,000 smallholder households and improving agricultural sector governance; • Intervention area: Enemore (Gurage) and Mirab Badewacho (Hadiya); • Implementing partners: Emdibir and Hosanna Catholic Secretariats (ECC-SDCO in coordinating role); • Management of the program shifted from Brussels to Delegation in Addis.
Type of EU funding Instrument for Stability - IfS (2012-2013): • In response to the 2011 drought (extension of Food Facility); • Topics: Improving resilience for 7,500 smallholder households; • Intervention area: Enemore (Gurage), Mirab Badewacho (Hadiya), Damot Pulasa (Wolaita); • Implementing partners: Emdibir and Soddo-Hosanna Catholic Secretariats (later split up, ECC-SDCO in coordinating role); • Consortium partner: VITA (lead); • Management of the program entirely by Delegation in Addis.
Type of EU funding Support for Horn of Africa Resilience – SHARE (2014-2016): • Follow up to Food Facility and Instrument for Stability; • Topics: Improving resilience for 7,200 smallholder households (livestock, job creation); • Intervention area: three districts in Wolaita zone; • Implementing partners: Soddo Catholic Secretariat (ECC-SDCO in coordinating role); • Consortium partners: VITA (lead), iDE and AMREF; • Management of the program entirely by Delegation in Addis, which set the boundaries and limits of: Intervention zones (clusters, among which Wolaita); Overall and specific objectives of the logframe; Consortium composition.
Type of EU funding Resilience building (and creation of economic opportunities) in Ethiopia – RESET (2016-2019): • Follow up to SHARE; • Topics: Enhance resilience/address root causes of displacement and irregular migration for 25,000 households (livestock, crop production, job creation); • Intervention area: four districts in Wolaita zone; • Implementing partners: Soddo Catholic Secretariat (ECC-SDCO in coordinating role); • Consortium partners: iDE (lead), SOS Sahel and AMREF; • Management of the program entirely by Delegation in Addis, which set the boundaries and limits of: Intervention zones (clusters, among which Wolaita); Overall and specific objectives of the logframe; Consortium composition.
Preparation, management, coordination, M&E Food Facility: • Formulation by head and country offices in collaboration with implementing partners; • EU managed at first from Brussels, then delegated to Addis; • Coordinating role shared by ECC-SDCO and country office (program coordinator and accountant embedded in ECC-SDCO). Instrument for Stability: • Consortium VITA/Caritas International Belgium/ECC-SDCO; • Formulation and M&E: mostly country office (also involved in coordination); • EU delegated management entirely to its Delegation to Ethiopia.
Preparation, management, coordination, M&E SHARE and RESET: • Consortia of consisting of five organizations; • Formulation, M&E and coordination: mostly country office (and ECC-SDCO) and in close collaboration with consortium partners; • Program management structure includes: Program steering committee, Addis (a.o. country representatives of consortia members); Program coordination unit, Addis (a.o. coordinators of consortia members’ program components); Cluster coordination office, Soddo (project management staff); Zonal and district steering committees (project management and government staff). At cluster level: each consortium partner is assigned lead in one thematic area and lead in each district is taken by different consortium partner. Implementation, coordination and M&E structure became increasingly complex.
Required capacities and human resources Preparation/formulation: • Almost full-time availability of country office program manager; • Expertise and availability of implementing partners for needs assessments, PRAs, baseline studies, formulation workshops, … Implementation: • Important country office involvement in M&E and capacity building support; • Continued role of ECC-SDCO (supplementary organizational layer).
Criteria for successful partnerships Diocesan (implementing) partners: • Previous experiences with small-scale projects financed with own funds; • Intensive involvement of country office in M&E and coordination; • Technical and capacity building assistance. Consortium partners: • Organizations of similar “strength” as ours; • Organizations with similar “philosophy/approach” of head office/country office relations: • Expertise complementarity.
Opportunities and risks Opportunities: • Funds for fight against poverty and food insecurity; • Learning process in interaction with consortium partners. Risks: • Overstretching (capacity to spend funds, financial management capacity); • Unwittingly embrace discourses and policies contradictory to our own vision/goals: Resilience; “Migration issue” (Trust Fund); • Having our fields of expertise circumscribed and (implicitly) decided upon not by ourselves but rather by EU program conditions and (contingent) division of tasks within consortia (livestock, job creation, (irregular) migration).
Lessons learned • NGOs cannot but operate opportunistically in response to funding opportunities; • Decentralized management of EU funded programs entailed shift of responsibilities from head office to country office; • Difficulty of cost recovery.
Issues • How to avoid competition for funds among Caritas organizations? • How to avoid that Caritas organizations lose control of their own agendas? • How to avoid that Caritas organizations are instrumentalized for fortress Europe policies? • Given the alignment of government and EU policies and given the delimitation of issues and intervention zones by the EU, aren’t relations between NGOs and government too close for comfort?
