NZAID

KOHA / HAF Programme Management Committee (PMC) update
December 2009

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The Programme Management Committee (PMC) is responsible for the running of the KOHA-PICD and HAF (Humanitarian Action Fund) funding schemes for New Zealand 's international development NGOs. It held five meetings during 2009; each meeting was followed by an Update – this being the last one for the year. Updates include information on decisions taken by the PMC at its most recent meeting and items of general interest to the New Zealand NGO community regarding the two schemes. The PMC welcomes your feedback on the Updates and any suggestions you have for their improvement.

As well as being posted on the NZAID Website, this Update is also sent directly to people within KOHA-registered NGOs. We always welcome other names from your NGO to add to the distribution list. Just send the names and email addresses of people you would like to receive Updates directly to claire-louise@koha-picd.org.nz  and we will oblige, starting with the next Update.

KOHA & HAF update | December 2009

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Introduction

The PMC met over 2 days (18-19 November) to progress KOHA and HAF business. We had a very useful meeting with John Allen, CEO of MFAT and NZAID, and Debbie Player, NZAID, on the 18 th . Michael Vujnovich joined us, representing NDRF, for HAF business on the Wednesday afternoon. We also met with the organisational reviewers, Hilary Smith and Stephen Haslett, and with CID staff, David Culverhouse, Aileen Davidson and Lee Sentes on Thursday morning.

The main outcomes of the November meeting are summarised below along with related items of interest for the community of New Zealand 's development NGOs.

Congratulations to successful PMC candidates

First up, congratulations to Sally Russell (NZ China Friendship Society) on her re-election, and to Tara D'Sousa (Caritas) for her first-time election to the PMC at the Annual Meeting in October. It was a keenly fought contest with four candidates and it is very pleasing that such high caliber people put themselves forward for election.

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Organisational profiles

The PMC received three organisational profiles from organisations seeking KOHA registration. Two were tabled, and the PMC accepted the application for membership from Deaf Aotearoa New Zealand . Previously known as the Deaf Association NZ, this NGO works in New Zealand and is also active in promoting the wellbeing of deaf people in the Pacific region.

KOHA-PICD reports

The following reports were accepted from Individual Grant Organisations (IGOs): BANZAid (Chandpur total community development centres, Bangladesh); cbm nz (Samuha-Samarthya integrated therapeutic and rights-based community intervention for persons with disabilities, India; community-based rehabilitation for the visually impaired, Thailand; comprehensive community-based rehabilitation in Manzese, Tanzania); Family Planning International (PfD Education for young Solomon women, Solomon Islands); Fred Hollows Foundation (The right to sight: community eye health, Timor-Leste); NZ CHET (Palm project soap factory, Vanuatu); Rotary NZ WCS (Mwika community dairy development, Tanzania); Salvation Army (Capacity building for immigrant women, China); Toraja Rural Development Trust (Toraja rural development, Indonesia); WWF-NZ (Te Kaveinga Ora no te Aorangi, environment education project, Cook Islands; Promoting conservation through alternative income options and sustainable livelihoods, Fiji).

The PMC also considered and accepted a number of Annual Notifications and in-depth reports from Block Grant Organisations (BGOs).

KOHA-PICD applications approved for IGOs / November 2009

  • NZ CHET / Palm Project community coconut soap factory, Vanuatu . GEN
  • Rotary NZ World Community Service / Monitoring: Manzini youth care capacity building, Swaziland . AM&E; Wastewater sanitation, Fiji . GEN
  • The Family Centre / Trauma counseling community outreach programme: strengthening the capacity of Samoan youth facilitators, Samoa . CAP
  • UnionAID / Exchange programme with FTZGSEU, Sri Lanka . PfD

Organisational reviews

The PMC received the response from International Needs NZ on their follow-up actions to the recommendations made in their organisational review. These had been well summarised and satisfactorily addressed. The PMC discussed the draft review report on Mahitahi: Catholic Overseas Volunteers with the reviewers, Stephen Haslett and Hilary Smith. It has been a busy time for the organisational review programme with the domestic visit to Save the Children NZ in October followed by the related field visit to Nepal a few weeks later. The domestic visit to Oxfam NZ in late November was followed a week later by the partner visits to Vanuatu and Timor-Leste.

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NGOs for review in 2010-2011

The expectation is that BGOs are independently reviewed for their compliance with the KOHA-PICD scheme every five years and IGOs on a less regular basis as appropriate. Based on the review timetable, PMC decided that the NGOs to be reviewed in 2010-2011 would be as follows: ADRA (Adventist Development and Relief Agency); Christian World Service; New Zealand China Friendship Society; The Leprosy Mission.

Reviewers for 2010-2011

The term of the current reviewers ends on 30 June 2010 although Hilary and Stephen are contracted to write ‘lessons learned' reports subsequent to this date. In February 2010, there will be public notices calling for expressions of interest from interested persons to undertake the reviews scheduled above. We will then follow the usual procedure of interviews involving PMC members and staff from NZAID.

PMC management audit - update

As we mentioned in the Introduction, the PMC had the opportunity to discuss the PMC and the KOHA scheme with John Allen during our meeting. PMC members appreciated the opportunity to provide a briefing on its responsibilities and approach to decision-making associated with allocation of KOHA-PICD funds. This meeting was the first step for the CEO of MFAT to satisfy himself as to the robustness and fairness of the PMC decision-making processes. Given this check on the PMC's decision-making processes, the term of the independent Chair has been extended through to June 2010. This is a 3-year appointment and was due to end 31 December. It is anticipated that the position will be publicly advertised in due course in 2010.

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Policy initiatives adopted at 2009 Annual Meeting

At the October Annual Meeting, NGO representatives approved changes to the AM&E sections in the KOHA Handbook as well as changes to make the registration process more robust. There will be a greater focus on managing the risks around NGOs new to the scheme and a greater effort to check that their objectives align with KOHA. Both topics had been extensively discussed in earlier meetings of KOHA NGOs. Necessary changes will be made to the KOHA-PICD Handbook and will be available on-line. The PMC also responded to questions about the extent of the confidentiality of reporting provided to it. It was made clear that the NZAID representative on the PMC has a duty to share reporting with relevant colleagues when requested to do so, but that reporting remains confidential to those colleagues. NZAID recognised that the wording on confidentiality in the KOHA-PICD Handbook does not reflect this duty and apologised for this oversight. The PMC would welcome further discussion on this matter at the BGO and IGO meetings in February, after which changes to the KOHA-PICD Handbook will be made.

Policy issues for 2010

At the Annual Meeting the PMC committed to advancing three specific initiatives in 2010: finalise a clearer process for moving NGOs from ‘provisional' to ‘full' registration in KOHA; addition of questions related to sustainable economic development to relevant KOHA forms; and advance the capture and dissemination of ‘lessons learned' to the community. This last topic has been on our agenda for a while now and will be high on the agenda for resolution next year. The PMC will run out of time to hold its Policy Day at the end of 2009, due to the involvement of PMC members with December review trips. Instead, Policy Day moves to a late-January slot when we will be refreshed and focused on the year ahead. A January discussion on policy issues works well with the new time slot for the IGO and BGO meetings (mid-February). Tara D'Sousa has accepted our invitation to attend and contribute to the Policy Day in advance of her first ‘official' PMC meeting in May 2010. Other policy issues needing our attention may also emerge at the IGO and BGO meetings.

IGO end-of-year reports

Our thanks to all IGOs who have now submitted their end-of-year reports. These provide compliance with the need for acquittal of the administration funds and any organizational changes. The information helps the PMC manage the overall budget for this year and provides detail about the level of KOHA administration costs incurred by IGOs. Twenty-six IGO's submitted end-of-year reports of which 18 had received project administration funds. Eight mainly small volunteer organizations only used this money for their administration costs, four mainly with paid staff contributed up to 20% and a further six organisations, again mainly with paid staff, used more for administration, with a range of 27- 75% representing their own organization's contribution.

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Discussion and review of training

The Council for International Development (CID) is contracted to provide a number of KOHA-PICD related training courses every year on behalf of the PMC. We had a good discussion with Aileen Davidson Training Manager, and Lee Sentes, Capacity Building , on the review of training courses in 2009 and about the 2010 programme that CID will be running. These courses are invaluable training for members of new development NGOs and new staff in the ‘old' ones. Next year will see more emphasis on in-depth 2-day courses on key topics. (See June 09 Update also) The objective is to increase the skills, professionalism and effectiveness of organisations and individuals within them. We would encourage all NGOs to give some thought to their skill levels and where further training would be of benefit.

Report on the 2009 Forum

The PMC passed on its congratulations to Aileen on the Forum report “Sustainability: by whom, for whom?” written and created by Melf Kuhl. The format of this year's Forum broke from the previous reliance on facilitators and was built around Aileen's concept of forum as ‘a space where interaction takes place'. The superb report by Melf fully captures that spirit and even those who were not there will gain much from a browse and reflection on its contents. You can download the Forum report from the CID website at: http://www.cid.org.nz/training/major-events/2009/

In-depth reports

A request to BGOs: please remember that the time period covered by an in-depth report needs to be clearly specified. In particular the period covered by the financial report of expenditure against budget should be clearly identified at the top of the budget in order to facilitate the understanding of the PMC.

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HAF reports

The PMC accepted in-depth reports from ADRA and Caritas as well as Caritas' report on the Myanmar response programme – rapid response phase.

HAF applications approved / November 2009

  • Triyog Himalaya Trust / Landslide recovery and reconstruction project for Bala and Tamku , Nepal .
  • UNICEF / Preparing children for disasters through the Riskland Board game , Papua New Guinea .

Indian Ocean Tsunami: Report and financial acquittal summary

In the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami the New Zealand Government contributed NZ$68 million to relief and reconstruction. Of this total NZ$19 million was allocated to match dollar for dollar funds raised through NZ based NGOs. The matching grants were allocated through the NGO EMDR process and administered by the then Project Selection Committee (PSC) of the Voluntary Agency Support Scheme (VASS), the pre-courser of KOHA-PICD. An initial NZ$5 million of matching funds were allocated to 25 agencies. A second round in February 2005 disbursed a further NZ$ 3.9 million to 22 organisations. At the conclusion of the final round, some 49 organisations had received funding allocated through the scheme.

The HAF PMC has recently completed a review of the narrative and financial reporting received in accordance with the reporting expectations of this special funding round.  The review concluded that:

  • 93.55 percent of the total funding allocated has been successfully reported on and acquitted
  • 95.51 percent of the funding allocated to KOHA-PICD registered agencies has been successfully reported on and acquitted
  • Twenty six (26) organisations have fulfilled reporting expectations.

For further details about the review and its outcomes please contact Belinda Gorman at UNICEF New Zealand, email: belinda@unicef.org.nz , Tel: 04 815 9370.

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How about getting involved in the NDRF?

The NDRF (NGO Disaster Relief Forum) is not just for emergency response specialists, but is a useful forum for all NGOs engaged in community development. NGOs are encouraged to be proactive in informing the NDRF of their engagement in humanitarian work. The contact for the NDRF is Justin Kemp at the Council for International Development, Wellington . Registration with KOHA-PICD also allows an NGO to apply for HAF funds, provided that the NGO has signed up to either the CID code of ethics or the Red Cross code of conduct, should a disaster occur in an area where the NGO is engaged in development work.

Chair's Comments

To borrow (with literary licence) from George Orwell – all years are difficult, but some are more difficult than others. From the sea-borne tragedies in Samoa and Tonga , to the global dithering over who should be doing what, and when, about climate change, our development community has had some particular challenges during 2009. Yet there have been many bright spots too, of course. We have all been working hard to improve delivery and performance. The discussions at the regional meetings with NZAID and with the PMC have been particularly useful, informed and well attended. Sharing ideas and approaches is cost-effective and a positive way to lift our skills. We on the PMC continue to receive innovative proposals and excellent reports on projects and programmes that are making a real difference in many countries in the pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals.

I'd like to thank all the people who have helped make this a rewarding year for myself and the hard-working members of the PMC. I trust the summer break will mean you have a chance to relax and recharge, enjoying the company of family and friends.

With best wishes for the festive season and for 2010,

Wren Green

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