PSO Visits IICD-supported Projects in Zambia
Apr 16 2009, Zambia [ZM]
- Source:
- Deem Vermeulen [dvermeulen(at)iicd.org]
- Country:
- Zambia [ZM]
- Sector:
PSO, a Dutch partner of IICD visited several IICD supported projects in February. PSO is the Dutch association for capacity development of Dutch NGOs working in developing countries. In Zambia PSO wanted to get a better understanding about how IICD works in the field and how capacity building works in the programmes of IICD.
Anneke Maarse, Programme Officer at PSO visited five of IICD’s project partners: the education partners Mpelembe Secondary School, Ndola Resource Center and Chawama Youth Center, the gender project ZARD and strategic partner One World Africa. She also prepared a few questions that were sent to the partners prior to Maarse’s visit. The questions were used as a basis for the meetings that Programme Officer Maarse had with the project partners. The discussions gave insight in how Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is used both at institutional and on project level.
A learning report
After her trip, Maarse composed a learning report that was shared both with PSO and IICD. In the report the Programme Officer from PSO is positive about the partnerships between the project partners and IICD.
“Partners seem to be clear on what they can expect from IICD. […] After funding stops the partnership will continue and will merely consist of advice and coaching. Because of this clear agreement partners are able to prepare accordingly, the certain costs that have been carried by IICD will have to be taken over by them. The partners show a large sense of ownership of the activities. They show accountability to IICD (they have to report quarterly) as well as to their own beneficiaries.”
The learning report can be used by IICD for the learning working trajectory to strengthen IICD’s capacity to better measure and define the capacity that local partners need in different phases of the project. The learning report is also valuable for IICD as a second opinion to understand what IICD does exactly in the country. For the project partners in Zambia, the report I also useful to help them to understand that capacity development is more than just training, but that it also requires advice on individual, organisational and institutional level.
As a next step after the visit PSO and IICD had a meeting to discuss and share the main learnings as described in the report. As a result of this meeting several follow up actions will take place such as a meeting to elaborate the plan of action for the learning working trajectory for 2009, and a meeting to explore each others monitoring and evaluation systems.