Building on a working relationship:getting to the grassroots and back

• Humanistic Institute for Development Cooperation (Hivos) and IICD have renewed their strategic agreement to bring knowledge and resources to NGO networks in the South.
• The partnership continues to build on the proven work to-date that show non-profit groups in developing countries benefiting from applied ICTs.
• The strategic partnership expands on the previous agreement and continues to strive to:
  - Create awareness of applied ICTs in the Hivos network of 800 NGOs in 30 developing countries; and
  - Assist local NGOs to identify, formulate and implement applied ICTs geared towards strengthening NGO activities and outreach.

The partnership

Hivos and IICD have been jointly approaching ICTs for development since late 1999. It begun at that time with a recognition of the possibilities of ICT as a tool towards supporting the missions of NGOs within their networks that brought IICD and Hivos together. Realising this as a common goal, IICD and Hivos signed the first Memorandum of Under-standing (MoU) in November 2000. The MoU re-flected a joint programme of activities that was underpinned by a commonly held set of objectives. These objectives were to:

• Support Hivos' southern NGOs network by assisting them to integrate streamlining and effective ICTs into their programmes and projects;
• Contribute to building the needed ICT-skills capacity within the NGOs and locally; and
• Share expertise and resources in general, towards strengthening awareness around and the introduction of ICTs for development. The agreement will be signed for a three-year period.

The recent renewal of the MoU, now known as a strategic cooperation agreement, supports these same objectives. However, there are some quite significant differences.

A strategic alliance

The joint work programme has evolved since the start-up of the original partnership over 4 years ago. In our new strategic cooperation, there are a number of differences that mirror the lessons learned up until now. These differences are:

• multi-stakeholder approach: a heightened understanding of the need to more effectively include the private and public sectors in the national level ICTs for development dialogue;
• from project to Country Programme: a clearer vision of the linkages between individual projects and national level ICT enabled development programmes; and
• promoting international learning: a realisation of the need to catalyse South-South and South-North learning amongst project partners.

Given this learning, revised approaches are reflected in this second agreement's joint work programme. The joint programme is focused on IICD and Hivos working together in support of Country Programmes that target NGO networks. Further, partners from the Country Programmes targeted will become participants in sector-specific Thematic Networks.Each Country Programme is comprised of four elements.

The first of these is the ICT Roundtable workshop, which is geared towards assisting local sector stakeholders (e.g. health) to mainstream ICTs effectively into their programmes and projects. The results of the workshop are project ideas. Participants and their project ideas then enter a project formulation phase, with the objective being fully-fledged proposals including a 5-year technical, managerial and financial sustainability focus. During project formulation, local project owners and operators undergo IICD capacity development training in ICT skills needed to realise their individual projects; this is the second element in the Country Programme.

And thirdly, a proposal can reach implementation and at this stage, project owners and operators can turn to the IICD supported local Information exchange and Networking partner. This partner liaises with IICD to ensure that learning and experiences are shared in the national context and to strengthen advocacy at the policy-making level.

Fourthly, an IICD local partner monitors and evaluates the project's impact.

This bundling of services is known as the Country Programme and to realise each of the four elements, IICD works with a local partner.

IICD's Thematic Networks help bring together same sector project partners across Country Programmes, to ensure that South-South learning is strongly supported. Additionally, northern and southern expertise is brought to the table. The experiences and learning shared in these facilitated face-to-face and virtual environments assist project partners in their quest to most effectively reach development goals through ICTs.

IICD and Hivos decided to jointly approach Country Programmes with IICD being facilitator and know-ledge broker - investing human resources and activity funds. This complements Hivos' role to provide knowledge and project financial resources. In the case of this strategic enabling agreement, the targeted participants are members of the Hivos NGO network.

Specific to this renewed strategic collaboration are the countries identified in the joint work programme. IICD and Hivos have identified Zambia and Ecuador as the two countries. In Zambia, a Roundtable workshop on livelihoods opportunities was held in the 4th quarter of 2002 and is the start of joint activities in that Country Programme. Project formulation is already underway. The Roundtable workshop in Ecuador will take place in July 2003 and will reflect locally demanded interest in livelihoods opportunities with an emphasis on forestry.

More information

If you have any questions on the Hivos-IICD partnership or if you are interested in more information on how to partner with IICD, please contact IICD's Partnerships Manager at partnering@iicd.org. Be sure to visit the websites of Hivos (www.hivos.nl) and IICD (www.iicd.org) to learn more about each organisation and its activities in the field of ICTs for Development.