In Acord Newsletter Issue 2: June 2001

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Article 4:

Programme News

HORN OF AFRICA
EAST AFRICA& GREAT LAKES
SOUTHERN AFRICA
WEST AFRICA

ACORD's Port Sudan Small Scale enterprise programme (SUD/12) was successfully handed over to the Port Sudan Association for Small Scale Development, a local and fully registered NGO established in 2000 to continue the delivery of activities previously provided by ACORD.

The overall aim of the association is to improve the quality of life and future prospects of poor people, women in particular. The main target groups are the urban poor, the displaced and refugees. The NGO has maintained a dynamic relationship with ACORD and is currently working with ACORD on the Eastern Sudan Rural Urban Linkages Programme (SUD/25).

Programme teams from Northern and Southern Sudan attended a Focus Meeting in Zurich on 21-22 May 2001 to design and present a unified country strategy as part of ACORD’s planning and consultation process for its future programming implementation in Sudan. The meeting was also aimed at sharing viewpoints, information and strategies with partners, supporters and colleagues working on humanitarian aid development issues. The meeting was hosted by HEKS, one of ACORD’s consortium members.

• ACORD recently undertook a Programme Management and Activity Review of the Eastern Sudan Rural Urban Linkages Programme (SUD/25) which focused on the role of Village Development Committees and the role of capacity building.

• ACORD will begin a new programme to provide support to the displaced in Khartoum (SUD/26). The programme will centre on micro-finance, HIV/AIDS, capacity building and advocacy and dialogue between different ethnic groups and between the displaced and other stakeholders.

• Most of the displaced in ACORD's programme area are being repatriated now that the UN buffer zone has been set up. ACORD's Emergency Programme (ERT/4E) is moving towards rehabilitation, providing support to the displaced as they make their way home, though there are still a large number of displaced people within the security zone

• A new food security programme for rural Dira Dawa has been submitted to the EU for funding.

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EAST AFRICA& GREAT LAKES

• A Northern Uganda Area programme has been defined to bring together existing projects in Gulu, Kitgum, Moyo and Adjumani. The overall vision of the programme is the creation of the conditions for peace in Northern Uganda. This will be build on the successful work done in Gulu which integrated practical responses to the consequences of violent conflict with research, dialogue and influencing seeking to create the conditions in which it could be brought to an end.

• ACORD has been awarded a grant by PPP Healthcare, a UK charitable trust specialising in health and sanitation, to fund ACORD’s water programme in Mbarara.

• ACORD-Rwanda have put forward a proposal to National Lottery (now re-named the Community Fund) for a new Rwanda programme.

• Staff from ACORD Adjumani, ACORD Southern Sudan programmes and two members of an indigenous Sudanese youth group attended an ACORD social exclusion training workshop in Nairobi in May.

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SOUTHERN AFRICA

• ACORD was successful in obtaining a £488,000 DFID fund over two years to fund new HIV/AIDS work in Botswana.

ACORD represented at Angolan Peace Building Conference
At the recent 'Angolan Reflections on Peace Building Conference' in Amsterdam on 11 May, Guilherme Santos, ACORD's Angola Country Co-ordinator gave a presentation on the practical experiences of institutional strengthening in the non-government sector in Southern Angola with the objective to cultivate the socio-political role of the NGO partners as agents of development and civil society.

Other presentations included: Reconciliation at Grass Roots Level: Experience from Caala Municipality in Huambo Province, Angola; Transparency, human rights and the culture of violence and research results on rural-urban migration and its effects on the mechanisms of solidarity and community organisations

The conference was jointly organised by the Netherlands Institute for Southern Africa (NIZA) and Interchurch Organisation for Development Cooperation (ICCO), two Dutch NGOs working on supporting civil society through institutional strengthening through lobbying, international advocacy on pacification, reconciliation, democracy and macro economy.

ACORD's presentation was co-funded by SNV, a Dutch NGO working in Southern Angola.

• In response to the recent floods in Namibia, the institutional strengthening programme in Southern Angola (ANG/06) provided three training modules on responding to emergencies. These included: liasing with INGOs, assessing the information needs of humanitarian organisations and working closely with them to ensure appropriate distribution. The partners were working closely with the UN Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

• The first draft of ACORD's strategic plan for Angola has been completed which, following comments from stakeholders, will be agreed and will define future programming in Angola

• NOVIB recently evaluated the programme for strengthening organisational capacity in Luanda (ANG/07).

MOZAMBIQUE

Niassa emerges from isolation: ACORD launches first internet café
Since its launch in March this year, ACORD's new Internet Café and Documentation Centre in Niassa Province, Mozambique has provided individuals and civil society organisations in the province with easier access to, and put them in a better position to exchange information and experiences with other Mozambican Provinces and the world.

The project, implemented by ACORD and its local partners, Esperanca Radio Station, and Mozambican TELEDATA, provides civil society in Niassa with a space to stimulate reading, to gain access to information, education and communication through the world-wide-web and e-mail and trains students, teachers and local associations on how to make full use of the technology. In so doing, the project is contributing to the five-year Government Plan to take Niassa Province out of isolation.

The project is also supported by part-time students and trainees who assist with the daily running of the Café, train new users and assist in the production of 'ABALI', ACORD's newsletter in Mozambique. The centre has been warmly received by civil society in Niassa and has had more than 300 users to date.

• ACORD's MOZ/05 partnership with AMDU is soon to be evaluated.

• The first 10 HIV/AIDS Stepping Stones trainers (five boys and five girls) have completed their training in Maputo (MOZ/05).

• A pilot credit group who received fuel-efficient stoves through the MOZ/05 programme, have all paid their credit in full.

• The Flood Rehabilitation and Sustainable Livelihoods Programme (MOZ/08) has just presented a funding proposal to DFID to continue its activities in Mozambique. Through the proposed project, ACORD will address the livelihoods vulnerability of up to 7400 of the most under-resourced and remote households in eastern Panda district by building on the successes of its first year of partnership within the communities in flood recovery activities and on an expansive programme to assist their development and ownership of organised social capacity.

• The MOZ/08 programme has successfully completed the rebuilding of the Bilanhane Bridge in Inhambane which opens up eight communities that were previously cut off from the district.

The launch was no small affair. Participants included a broad range of local leadership including the district's chairperson, its executive director, planning officers, development adviser, ward councillors and executive officers as well as village chairpersons and executive officers from all 15 villages. Also present were representatives of a number of civil society organisations.

Lively discussions centred on ACORD's participatory needs assessment which led to the programme identification and the links between good governance as prioritised in the 2001 District Development Plan and the programme.

The participants explored the specific roles of the different actors in the new programme and partnerships and discussed the qualitative evaluation of participation and governance. Division leaders were particularly interested in methods for achieving active participation.

• All ACORD's Tanzania programmes will be attending a Social Exclusion Workshop in Mwanza in July.

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• In line with ACORD's move towards larger Area Programmes, the Mali, Mauritania and Burkina Faso programmes are grouping themselves into a single Sahel programme. The visions and objectives of this cluster of programmes is to help some of the most socially and economically marginalised people of the region develop their own capacity to protect their rights and achieve justice. This will build on existing work around the decentralisation process and civil society in which ACORD has been engaged.

• After engaging in a process of social exclusion analysis in Ouagadougou in May this year, the programmes in the Sahel I cluster identified classism and sexism as the most important common issues.

• Based on a long involvement in poverty reduction, ACORD Mali has been invited by the government to take an active part in drafting a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP).
  
• ACORD Kidal has been involved in training newly elected representatives in pastoralist society

• As part of ACORD West Africa’s greater emphasis on networking and alliancing on an international level, ACORD MALI took part in the African Forum of Canadian NGOs in May. ACORD spoke of its experience and how to relate it to the broader concerns of trade, images of Africa and civil society/citizenship.
  
• As a direct result of ACORD’s work in capacity building with marginalised Haratines, a law has been passed which now entitles Haratines to the title deeds of the land on which their agricultural projects occur.

• The new Lake Chad (Sahel II) area programme is currently identifying issues facing people in the area (Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad). Results of the study will be shared at a planning workshop with actors from the three countries and detailed design will take place before the end of the year.

• The developing Forest Zone cluster programme will group programmes in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. ACORD worked in Guinea in the past and is currently working in one of the most hotly contested areas of Liberia. Given the programme's limited financial and managerial resources and the limited interest shown by the outside world for this particular region, ACORD will have to review how it intends to proceed in the months to come.

• Mary Musirika, ACORD's programme co-ordinator in Liberia, was evacuated to Monrovia from Gbanga, capital of Bong County, after the town came under severe attack in early May. The programme management had only recently been moved to Gbanga after similar attacks in Zorzor.

• It is ACORD’s opinion that those who will be most affected by the UN sanctions imposed on Liberia will be the nation's most vulnerable people. ACORD has decided to return to Liberia despite the sanctions which has meant changes in its programme strategy and methodology.

ACORD should work with internally displaced people and focus on lobbying and advocacy according to a recent needs assessment commissioned to understand the causes of the conflict in Guinea and its effect on the region.

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