Programs: Advocacy, Civil Society Building and Institutional Development

Countries: Egypt

One of ADF’s major projects in Egypt has been the NGO Service Center, a seven-year, US$33.7 million development activity of USAID to strengthen the capacities of Civil Society Organizations to effectively, responsibly and sustainably contribute to Egypt’s social and political development. The NGO Service Center (the Center) was a leading activity in the Democracy and Governance portfolio of USAID/Egypt under Strategic Objective #21: “Egyptian Initiatives in Governance and Participation Strengthened.”

 

The Center served as an umbrella mechanism to manage sub-grants and assistance to over 600 Egyptian NGOs. Through a mix of training, technical assistance, grants and operational support, the activity focused on: 1) supporting the technical and institutional capacity of individual NGOs in areas of internal democratic governance, civic action and sound and efficient management; 2) supporting the infrastructure of civil society at large by encouraging networks and information exchange among NGOs, promoting dialogue with government and the business sector, formation of a gender network, and promoting public awareness; and 3) leaving behind a sustainable facility capable of providing NGOs with a range of services from training, technical assistance and material support to networking opportunities and information.

 

The Center was implemented by a partnership of Save the Children Federation (US), the prime agency, ADF and Infonex Corporation. The partners formed a single operating entity known as the “NGO Service Center” that comprised four departments and two regional field offices (one each in Lower and Upper Egypt). Save the Children was responsible for project administration, financial management, and sub-grants management; ADF led all of the Center’s training and technical assistance support to sub-grantees and other NGOs; Infonex was responsible for information systems management, performance monitoring, and project documentation, including progress reporting to USAID.

Office of Civil Society Strengthening and Promotion

America’s Development Foundation was responsible for staffing and managing the Office of Civil Society Strengthening & Promotion (OCSSP). This Office led the development of the Center’s training and technical assistance strategy; designed and developed standard curricula and appropriate resources (tools, manuals, pedagogical guides) for numerous areas of CSO strengthening; delivered extensive training and TA to grantees and larger civil society; developed and led the Center’s NGO mentoring and Training of Trainers programs; coordinated all Center-sponsored training administered by the Development Training 2 (DT2) project of USAID; led the planning and implementation of the Center’s two national conferences; and developed and implemented community dialogues to support citizen participation in local decision-making for development.

 

In the delivery of training and TA, the Center implemented a dual approach that combined: i) training workshops offering essential understanding and familiarity in the conceptual language and conventional practices in five main areas (advocacy, governance, management, networking and gender) with ii) targeted and practical technical assistance to grantees undertaking new organizational practices and building specific capacities that they had selected for their grant’s capacity building plan.

 

ADF gave initial emphasis to conceptual training. This was both appropriate and essential: initial outreach meetings with NGOs in both metropolitan Egypt and the provincial cities of rural governorates soon revealed that most of these core concepts were little understood by the great majority of NGO leaders. Few could even identify the Arabic equivalents of “advocacy”, “transparency”, “accountability”, “constituency”, “governance” and other core concepts. Indeed, many NGO representatives were leery of the concept of “advocacy” and considered the practice of advocacy as anti-government. Before ADF could begin any technical assistance to strengthen CSO capacities in these key areas, a common language and conceptual understanding needed to be developed with the clients, along with their commitment to the utility of such capacities and practices. For the Center’s first two years (FY2000 and FY2001), the conceptual training and education of a growing clientele to these concepts and practices had to be the first priority.

 

ADF conducted all Center training – and developed all of the training and training reference materials – in Arabic. In support of both training and technical assistance, the Center developed and used Arabic language training and reference materials, as well as tools covering a variety of competency areas and topics. In total, the Center developed 29 complete training packages – each package comprising a trainer’s manual, trainee’s manual and accompanying learning resources – appropriate for varied CSO audiences (e.g. medium size NGOs, business associations, small Community Development Associations, etc.) and suitable for various levels of institutional development.

 

The Center conducted a total of 226 “core” + “one-day” training events, in addition to 104 events funded from the DT2 activity, for a total of 330 training events over life of activity. The total number of CSO participants at these events were 5,916 attendees (of whom 37% women) of “core” and “one-day” training, in addition to 2,315 participants in DT2-funded events. Total participants of all events: 8,231 of whom 36% were women. The Center gave marked attention to outreach and including women in all its training events. And ADF is proud of the overall ratio of 36% women attendees – a ratio that far exceeds the overall ratio of women’s membership in the general assemblies and boards of directors of Egyptian CSOs.

 

ADF’s program graduated 6 different cadres of Trainers in the subject areas of: advocacy, governance, operations & programs management, gender, networking, and financial management. Each program of 5-6 months duration comprised careful trainer selection, thorough training in topic knowledge and effective trainer skills (training delivery methods and facilitation techniques), trainee testing & assessment, certification, services marketing support, and refresher seminars for graduates. A total of 126 prospective trainers from 116 NGOs participated in these programs. Of these, 109 (of whom 42 women) graduated as Center-certified trainers in one of the 6 topics. Each graduate also received both trainer & trainee manuals and appropriate learning resources for their topic. With these graduates, ADF significantly expanded both its own training staff resources – many of the graduates were subsequently contracted by the Center to provide training and facilitation to smaller CDA clients – and the local availability of training provides and consultants to CSOs all over Egypt. ADF actively assisted these accredited trainers to provide their services as independent consultants.

 

Under separate agreements, three other Strategic Objectives – in health & population, in improved export competitiveness, and in environment – provided supplemental funding to the NGO Service Center for sub-grants and assistance to NGOs in these areas of activity. The largest of these, the Center’s Population & Health NGOs Activity provided an additional US$ 7 million for sub-grants and assistance chiefly to 18 Egyptian NGOs implementing health and population activities. The Business Associations Strengthening Activity began with an extensive program of assistance to Egyptian business associations. ADF provided training and technical assistance to more than 120 Egyptian Business Associations to help strengthen their management, business and membership services development, and advocacy efforts in the Business Associations Strengthening Activity.  The Environmental & Natural Resource NGOs Activity was the last – and shortest (12 months) – of the supplemental support services provided by the NGO Service Center. This US$ 1.5 million activity provided small and medium sub-grants and assistance to 17 NGOs for projects in five priority themes of environmental activity in Egypt.

 

Each of the Center’s “add-on” activities also included significant training: ADF conducted 90 training events for 1,652 participants under the Business Associations Strengthening Activity (BASA), 14 events for 506 participants under the Population & Health NGOs (PHN) Activity, and 26 events for 681 participants under the Environmental & Natural Resources NGOs Activity.

 

The establishing of a permanent entity – an Egyptian non-governmental organization – as its legacy institution to sustain technical assistance, training, other services and material support to Egyptian NGOs, was a key objective and target result of the NGO Service Center. The Center’s role and approach to establishing this successor organization was to encourage and support the initiatives of the Center’s own volunteer Advisory Board – as the anticipated founding members and nascent Board of Directors of the new association – in the formation, strategic planning, choice of services, and legal registration of their institution. This effort succeeded in the establishment of the Egyptian NGO Support Center in April 2004 as a legally-constituted Egyptian NGO. Following the registration of the new Egyptian Center, the NGO Service Center provided sub-grant assistance and intensive consultative and staffing support to the development of management systems, new projects, funding resources, introduction to donor agencies, promotional materials and the Egyptian Center’s publicity launch in March 2005 on the eve of the Activity’s closure. Link to NGO Service Center Website.

 

TOT graduates established the “Egyptian Trainers Association for Development” as a nonprofit professional association dedicated to serving the ongoing professional development and interests of trainers. The Egyptian NGO Support Center, ADF and other NGOs are committed to continuing to provide these accredited trainers with information on training materials, advice on marketing their services, and continued opportunities for skills development to promote their role and use in future NGO capacity-building and civil society development initiatives.