3. The New Partners Initiative
• The New Partners Initiative (NPI), a $200 million inter-agency
initiative designed to identify and strengthen new USG prime
partners under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief
(PEPFAR), was launched in 2006.
• Fifty-six Cooperative Agreements in total awarded by USAID, CDC
and HRSA over three Rounds (43 by USAID)
• Initial awards ranged from $600,000 to $9,000,000 to strengthen
and scale up Prevention, OVC and Care and Support activities in 14
PEPFAR Countries.
• Most awards centrally managed
• Three Technical Assistance Providers:
- CAP-NPI TA / FHI 360
- NuPita / JSI
- TA NPI / JSI
4. FHI 360 Program Overview
FHI 360 Core FHI 360 New Partners
Organizational Development Initiative supports 29
Focus Areas grantees in 13 countries:
• Governance Botswana Rwanda
• Program Management Cote d’Ivoire South
• Monitoring and Evaluation Ethiopia Africa
Haiti Tanzania
• Human Resources Kenya Uganda
• Financial Management Mozambique Vietnam
• External Relations Namibia Zambia
• Technical
Awards
INGOs: 14 Partners
Local NGOs: 15 Partners
Sub-partners: 0-29
Three year grants but 22 Partners received
cost or no-cost extensions
5. FHI 360 Field Liaisons (in Africa, Haiti, and Vietnam) and Regional Experts (based
in FHI 360 Kenya and South Africa Regional Offices) address grantees’ capacity
development needs through training, provision of materials, south-to-south
transfers, and customized technical or organizational assistance.
6. FHI 360 Model of
Participatory Capacity Development
• NPI grantees began
with a participatory
organizational capacity
assessment to review
their capacity in our
“core” organizational
development domains
• A technical assistance
(TA) plan was
developed to address
self-identified areas of
need
7. Lessons Learned: Our Approach
• Group training followed by tailored technical assistance
• Partners start out on different levels of capacity-progress at
varying rates
• TA needs to be customized and flexible
• Our model is more of a “coaching,” “encouraging” approach-
Trust is key
• Providers need technical/personal skills
• Partners don’t know what they don’t know
8. Lessons Learned: Building
Relationships with Grantees
• TA Provider not a grants manager
– Not holding the purse-strings has allowed for a more
honest relationship
– Trust and transparency
• Cannot impose TA/Partner must buy in
• Partners are busy!
• But …perceived as a level of supervision
• Little leverage to push partners
9. Lessons Learned:
Empowering Grantees
• Direct Funding from USAID
– Raised Partners’ status in field and with government
– Learned to negotiate with donors (i.e., USG)
• FHI 360 helped navigate their relationship, which allows for
different perspectives
• TA is not mandated
• But…Letting partners “fail”/mistakes
• Partners choose to push back
10. Lessons Learned: South-to-South
Collaboration
• Built peer networks/communities of practice
– Networks expose Partners to diverse program models
– Encourages collaboration
• Example: GRS supporting TLF in building their M&E database
• Hands-on experience through site visits
– Example: BORNUS nurses wanted to expand their OVC expertise. They
worked with their Mission to support a site visit to TLF (South Africa)
for optimal learning
• Peer Leadership (Modeling and Pressure)
11. Lessons Learned:
Planning vs. Flexibility
• Soft skills create hard impacts
– Soft skills such as leadership and internal organizational
communication can affect the outcome of programs and TA being
implemented throughout organization
• Some organization able to run with TA
– Example: Strategic Planning with WHI
• Partners resonated more strongly with tailored TA, adapting
to needs as they would arise
• Flexible planning skills to adapt to changing funding landscape
12. Challenges
• Mission/USAID DC — communication
• Direct Funding
– Large amount of funding initially required grantees to scale up rapidly
(low burn rates)
• Changing funding landscape- sustainability needs to
start from the beginning
• High level of staff turnover in Partners-
• High level of Finance TA
• Partners with weak leadership- Boards
• How to measure Capacity Building
14. PARAMETERS & LIMITATIONS
• This exercise was limited by the tools used at
baseline and end line; while common measures are
compared, different tools were used to assess status
at start and finish
• Organizational capacity assessments under NPI were
facilitated self assessments, therefore heavily
influenced by grantee perceptions of themselves
• Staffing changes within grantee organizations over
the life of the program influenced perceptions of
change
15. Overall Capacity Patterns at Baseline
• The majority of grantees assessed monitoring
and evaluation as the domain in which they had
the least capacity –most of their scores fell within
“beginning” (<70%)
• The majority of grantees scored themselves as
having solid capacities in External Relations and
Governance –most of their scores fell just above
“developing” (80%)
• Half of the grantees scored their functioning in
human resources at the “beginning” phase
16. Self-Assessed Level of Organizational Functioning from
OCA to CLOCA N=27
Level of Functioning at OCA Level of Functional at CLOCA
19. Selected Indicator Data
Patterns at OCA Patterns at CLOCA
• 48% of grantees had and used • 87% of grantees have and use a
a strategic plan to guide strategic plan to guide operations
operations
• 91% have and use an Admin.
• 35% had guidelines for travel,
Manual to guide travel,
procurement, and inventory
procurement, and inventory
• 21% conducted staff
performance assessments • 87% conducted staff performance
routinely assessments at least annually
• 48% had guidelines for financial • 96% have and use a Finance
management Manual to guide financial
management
Collectively, Grantees showed a 2% to 14% improvement across domains
20. Achievements in Securing
Additional Funding
Grantees reported submitting applications for
funding to different funding agencies
between Sept 2009 to Feb 2012. Among the
respondents:
• at least $22,425,638 in additional funding has
been disclosed to date
• 16 of 21 grantees have reported receiving
additional funding to continue program work
• Awards ranged from $694 to $4 million
21. FHI 360’s Approach to Capacity
Strengthening & Country Ownership:
Food for Thought
22. OUR CONTEXT
• Organizations (including governments) in low-resourced
communities with rigid social hierarchies and dependence on
external donors
• Many of these communities, in addition have experienced
years of disenfranchisement, disempowerment and cultural
alienation
• In today’s global village, all of these communities experience
– severe brain drain
– complex socioeconomic challenges
– effective, well financed social marketing that promotes lifestyles
and attitudes that cannot be attained by the majority
23. OUR GOAL
To create the conditions necessary for sustaining the effort we
have supported technically:
•Building local the capacity to:
– institute management practices that ensure effectiveness,
efficiency and accountability to the funders involved (… but not
necessarily to the intended beneficiaries)
– financially or materially carry on with desired activities
•Yet experience teaches us that the sustainability of institutions
or interventions occur only when the desire and capacity to
maintain a particular effort outlives external support --ownership
25. FOOD FOR THOUGHT
• …[capacity building] has to prepare people to play a
dynamic and constructive part in the development of
a society …in which progress is measured in terms of
human well being, not prestige buildings, cars or
other such things
– Julius Nyerere (1992-1999)
26. RESOURCES AND TOOLS
RESOURCES CURRENTLY AVAILABLE
• NPI Resource Guide
• NPI-Connect eNewsletters
• Implementation Tips for USAID Partners
• Organizational Development Toolkit
• Financial Management Training Series – Timesheets
UPCOMING RESOURCES
• The Role of Partnerships in Program Success – Case Study
• Financial Management Training Series – Completing the SF-425
• Sustainability Modules
