Global Funding Situation and Fundraising Techniques Workshop

1. Training workshop on: Understanding the global funding situation and basic fundraising techniques. Session one: Introductions and reflections on the shifting paradigms in Overseas Development Aid (ODA), implications for development funding and important lessons Date: Monday October 22nd 2018 Zeremariam Fre(PhD), the Development Planning Unit, University College London and PENHA.

2. Outline • Official welcome and introductions (who is who); • Part one: Introducing/linking the Horn of Africa (HOA) to West Africa and reflections on development funding in the HOA; • Part two: Workshop aims, objectives, methods ,outcomes and future ambitions ; Break time • Part three – Shifting paradigms in Overseas Development Aid (ODA), implications for development funding and important lessons; • Part four: Conclusion and lessons; • Part five: Thematically based discussion groups and experience sharing on your organization’s funding needs priorities; • Essential readings and plans for next day.

3. Part one:Introducing the Horn of Africa(HOA) to West Africa and some reflections on development funding in the HOA.

4. Political map of the IGAD Sub-Region pre-2011

5. The Horn: Political map post 2011

6. The Horn: Demography, geography, shared civilizations and culture • Population in 8 countries = 220 million plus. 5 million square kms in area. • Ecological diversity affecting livelihood systems and six distinct ecological regions with which cultures, economies and livelihoods systems etc. are connected. • Coastal, sparsely populated hot arid areas along the Red Sea where fisheries, coastal trade and livestock production take place. • Deserts and dry savannah where livestock are extensively reared and sparsely populated (Northern) Sudan. Low rainfall areas. • Plateau or highland zones: densely populated, highly degraded, mixed farming areas with mild climate and high rainfall.

7. Ethnic diversity in Ethiopia

8. The Horn… • Region shares diversities of cultures, religions and different civilisations which cross colonial borders. • Abrahamic civilizations: Ethiopia and Eritrea Christianized during the third century AD and Islam was introduced around the 7th century. Both great religions lived side by side for many centuries, e.g. the A Negash shrine. • Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Northern Sudan were centres of old civilizations with written language, literature, art and old monasteries which go back to the 6th century. • The Eastern Horn (along the Coast) was colonized by the Greeks (the name ‘’Ethiopis’’ meaning sun burnt/black, Eritrean Sea now called Red Sea), the Turks in the middle ages and then by colonial powers (Italy, Britain and France) during the Scramble for Africa in the 1880s.

9. Trade and economic ties • Due to geographical advantages and strong trading links with the Middle East in the form livestock, agricultural products, gum Arabic. • Trade links with far East and Europe - petrol, minerals and agricultural products. China’s influence has grown considerably in the last ten years. • Professional and wage labour by thousands of migrants from the Horn. • Formal and informal trade within countries including wage labour, exchange of grain and other commodities including petrol. • According to sources, the Horn of Africa country spends an average annual 20 billion birr (USD 1.2 billion) to import fuel. Ethiopia is expected to import 2,176,188 tonnes of oil this year. (Sudan Tribune 2011) • North-Sudan conflict impacting on oil supply for Ethiopia affecting economic growth

10. Strategic significance and Global politics • Important strategic significance: Red-Sea, Gulf and Indian water ways (Soviet-USA during cold war and new powers in the last twenty years). • Post Cold War: China, Middle East and super powers) both military and trade. Bab-el Mandeb in the Southern tip and Suez canal in Egypt further North (route to the Mediterranean). • Somali piracy drawing negative global attention - locally perceived as ‘’coast guards’’ in a failed state. • During Bush era ‘’War on Terror targeted region’’ (Africom USA) based in Djibouti and more actors in the last 10 years. • Conflict proneness, drought and famine (very high military expenditure by national governments. For example the Ethio-Eritrean conflict, North–South Sudan conflict, Somali civil war. • Recent development s in Yemen and Horn Alliance and strategic implications(Iran-Gulf countries-Israel-USA).

11. Strategic…. • Over the last 40 years thousands of civilians exiled due to internal oppression and conflict crossing by small boats to the Middle East and Southern Europe. Mainly coming from Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Sudan. • Brain drain within Africa, the Middle East and the West. For example, in the UK there are more than 500 medical professionals from Sudan. • Huge contribution from Diaspora – remittances greater than development aid flows. • Somali coastal areas became dumping ground for toxic waste. • Growing unplanned urbanisation and high levels of poverty among the urban poor including pastoral peoples. Internal displacement. • Expansion of land grabbing phenomenon after the recent global food crisis (food production outsourcing).

12. Quick Reflection on development funding the Horn • Countries differ greatly fairly stable(Kenya);post conflict countries(Ethiopia, Eritrea and Uganda) and in conflict countries Somalia, North-South Sudan requiring different reponses from to development partners; • Historically(seventies/eighties) political crisis, relief and post conflict driven response with very little long term development funding from donors; • Nineties on wards more stability in some countries led by strong post liberation struggle ‘’development led’’ countries. Ethiopia is a good example where multi-partnerships seem to be working but very limited space for civil society and social movements; • Some of the countries are still in conflict (relief and rehabilitation mode) ; • Multiplicity of partnerships ranging from Arab, Chinese,Western ,Eastern powers with developmental, strategic, military and other interests. E.g War on terror and land grabbing!!

13. Part two: Workshop aims, objectives, methods and outcomes Workshop aims and objectives • Have a clear understanding of the funders’ guidelines in terms of donor funding cycles, application formats, reporting requirements, etc.; • Fully understand the donors’ thematic areas of interest, political context for donor aid and how to align proposals to specific donor themes; • Clarifying the rationale for the proposal (why are you doing it, what difference will the project make, why is your organization best placed to do the job?); • Developing a clear overall aim and specific objectives, outputs of the project, and SMART objectives; • Reviewing the guidelines of a number of potential funders and developing specific proposals for the next phase; • Identifying possible funders and developing specific proposals for future collaboration involving Njala University, the Development Planning Unit, and other potential stakeholders.

14. Expected outcomes By the end of the training, the participants, who will be drawn from Njala University staff, SLURC, as well as local authorities and civil society, will: • Have a better exposure and understanding of the available global funding; • Opportunities of shifting donor interests and of how the funding system works globally and within Africa; • Gain specific skills on how to structure, prepare, and write good funding proposals as well as on how to follow up the funding application once the proposal is ready and have been submitted; • Get hands-on experience in fundraising by working in groups to develop specific thematic proposals for funding.

15. Future post workshop ambitions • Provide expanded training on project monitoring and risk management reporting and evaluation tools; • Organize training workshops on more sophisticated fundraising tools, such as log frame preparation, participatory budgeting, and local mobilization of financial /non-monetary resources; • Develop a broader long-term funding partnership between Njala University, the DPU and some key relevant local authorities, as well as civil society groups in Sierra Leone, building on the lessons from the current training workshop.

16. Break time • BREAK TIME!!!

17. Part three: Shifting paradigms in Overseas Development Aid (ODA), implications for development funding and important lessons Why is Development aid needed in the first place? and understanding the evolution of development aid under various contexts? ‘’He who pays the piper calls the tune’’ • Livelihood crisis emanating from epidemics, civil wars, drought, natural disasters and famine. • Governance crisis (authoritarianism leading to lack of civil rights): vacuum filling in the context failed or post conflict States for example Somalia and Sri lanka. • Post -second world war misery and destruction led to the emergence of home grown NGOs and quangos in the north e.g. Oxfam G.B(Oxford family for famine relief 1950). Now there are more than 30 Oxfam family organisations.

18. Shifting.. Phase one:1970-1990: • A period which saw a rapid expansion of Northern NGOs as a response to man made and natural disasters in the Global South for e.g. the great Africa Sahelian droughts of the early seventies. • Decade of great turbulences, cold war, apartheid in Africa, repressive but weak regimes all over the world, radical liberation movements, trade unions etc.. • Northern NGOs at that time developing considerable expertise in crisis management expertise, got richer in-terms of funds, emerging as the good guys in the eyes of their governments.

19. Shifting .. Phase two:1990-2000: • A period of greattransformation which saw the end of the cold war, emergence of democratic regimes in the global South plus Eastern Europe leading to dramatic increase in the numbers northern NGOs (Moyo; 2009 in ‘Dead Aid’) aid politiced and glamorized . • Emergence of strong southern NGOs/CBOs some of them based upon northern NGO structures but some not. Some in the form of radical social movements or trade unions thus becoming viable alternatives to Northern based NGOs. • Emergence of more failed states, last phase of decolonisation, tension developing between NGOs and southern governments (on sovereignty issues leading to new legislations in the South to have more control over NGOs).

20. Shifting… • Southern led NGO in Global practically non existent but instead strong political movements, associations as well as trade unions. Some countries are free for all for NGOs others are more restrictive in defining roles of NGOs. For example the new NGO legislation in Ethiopia 2009 clearly defining areas for NGO intervention. • Northern NGOs still received vast amounts of money from northern governments. NGOs adopting more corporate style of management. Many northern government prefer to channel their resources through northern and not Southern NGOs.

21. Shifting.. Phase three: 2000 onwards: (post September 11-2001 years) • Donor fatigue sets in and lesser easy money, more strings attached to donor money. • More questions asked about the added value of the NGO work in development. Not making decisive progress in helping in poverty alleviation more visibly. • Imposition agenda by many governments and the agenda includes good governance,democracy, gender equality, environmental protection, and more recently anti-terrorism alliance etc. • Bush doctrine ‘’with us or against us’ impacting on development aid (2003 post Iraq invasion). • Trump’s ‘’America first ‘’ doctrine(2016).

22. Shifting… • More competition from robust southern NGOs, more legislative control from southern governments who favour more trade than aid approach. • Many Southern governments trying to depoliticize NGO work and wanting them to become service providers (health, education, rehabilitation etc) and keep out of rights issues. • Direct impact of financial crisis from 2008 onwards (less public money in circulation and smaller NGOs facing extinction). • Some negative public attitude and perceptions NGOs eat up too much money in the name of admin. and core costs but little to show for it.

23. Shifting.. In the last five to ten years we observe the following trends among donor countries: • Current trends on Aid-Trade-National Security and Knowledge economy nexus. • Rising nationalism with right wing governments or those who are moving in that direction tend to show less commitment to international development funding (charity begins at home approach); • Fortress Europe /America and growing anti immigration movements undermining the spirit of international cooperation; • “With us or against doctrine’’ which directly impacts on development aid allocation. Post September 11 situation money Aid determined upon religious principles (USA and Uganda aids prevention issue). Some funds are tied to religious affiliations or promoting certain values/ideologies. • Aid–trade-national security considerations;

24. Shifting .. • Funding can be from INGOs or UN though a National partner is essentially a sub-contractor to them but often these days work is done in consortia where National Universities/NGOs often play a role with the likes of consultancy houses or international organisations. These tend to be for more ‘commercial’ bids where the rules are a bit different. • In the past DFID and USAID were big in country donors and looking at OECD website they are still the largest bilateral with EC next in the queue followed by the Germany and Japan. • The logical framework - still a key programme design tool • Theories of Change - something that is becoming increasingly standard practice amongst donors  https://usaidlearninglab.org/lab-notes/what-thing-called-theory-change and NGOs https://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/what-is-a-theory-of-change-and-does-it-actually-help/ and is starting to replace the log-frame.

25. Shifting … • Value for money framework is another framework championed by DFID but increasingly liked by the donor community (from my perspective part of the lobotomisation of aid but sadly increasingly required(deprivation of independent thought);https://www.betterevaluation.org/en/resources/guide/dfid_appraoch_to_value_for_money • Payment by results (PbR) - another more recently reduced mindset for aid work most often used by donors when managing big more commercially oriented contracts. • OECD/DAC evaluation criteria http://www.oecd.org/dac/evaluation/daccriteriaforevaluatingdevelopmentassistance.htm- perhaps not so central to proposal development but something worth bearing in mind since nearly all western donors require evaluations to be organised around these criteria. 

26. Conclusions and lessons • NGOs are over stretched and under-resourced and this may lead to their ultimate down fall or change in their strategic approach to development response. • Increasing opposition from some Governments in the South (aid versus trade debate) which is out manoeuvring NGOs making them less relevant. • Increasing stakeholder pressure (at home and abroad) through conditionality, regulations, legislation, interstate relations etc. • Increasing politicisation of development Aid- e.g. good governance, civil society, gender, Aids etc. Prescription not accepted by powerful economies in the South.

27. Conclusion.. • Uncertain future of official aid and preference for soft loans etc. And long term funding commitment not feasible (3-5yrs) by many donors. • Short term aid e.g. food aid-humanitarian more likely to be available but many NGOs are development oriented and have moved out of crisis management. • New players emerging in the South CBOs, Unions, Academic institutions, Grass root organisations becoming more sustainable and not modelled upon Northern NGOs.

28. Conclusion… • Clearer strategy, mission and more sector- niche based approach..corporate approach with better marketing and fund raising strategies. • Proactive management and changing with the times ‘adapt or perish’ where compromising your principles becomes an issue. • Performance based and linked to continued funding. • Western governments in some cases provide up-to 40% of their NGO budgets. • Conduits for donor country and thus part of the Aid is kept in the country. This is becoming even more difficult under the present aid cuts.

29. Conclusion .. • Public money drying out because of the financial crisis from 2008 on wards and the recent Euro crisis :medium size and small NGO threatened. • Donations from Trusts, Companies, Foundations, deeds etc. and income generation activities-charity shops but a strategy for bigger NGOs. • Requesting project overheads up-to 20% but many donors do not allow it. • Becoming intermediaries or clearing houses for Southern NGOs who can't access northern funds directly due to exclusion. • More fundamental questions asked on performance and accountability to who?(Edwards and Fowler 2002)

30. Part five: Thematically based discussion groups and experience sharing on your organization’s funding needs and priorities Q & A and forming working groups • Forming six thematically based groups(5 to six persons) • Form working groups and purpose • Main contents for a concept note(six samples)

31. Important References 1.Towards a new conditionality? The convergence of international development, nation brands and soft power in the British National Security Strategy. James Pamment Department of Strategic Communication, Lund University, Box 882, 251 08 Helsingborg, Sweden. E-mail: james.pamment@isk.lu.se Journal of International Relations and Development (2018) 21, 396–414.doi: 10.1057/s41268-016-0074-9; Published online 20 September 2016   2.Brexit and UK International Development Policy: Simon Lightfoot et.al: In the Political Quarterly, Vol. 88, No. 3, July–September 2017. 3. Moyo, D. ’’Dead Aid’’.2009:Farrar, Straus and Giroux,2009.