Mid-Term Review of the AGIR Programme - Sida

1 I N T R O D U C T I O N
aftermath. Second, from a donor perspective, projects that provide a ‘value for money’
and the potential for outreach and impact are not as easily found in Tete due to its
peripheral location to the rest of Mozambique – a location often seen as geographically
unfavourable. In contrast, Nampula’s central localisation, high population and easy
linkages to neighbouring northern provinces are seen as more favourable.
Other sociocultural and political factors that can be taken as indicators demonstrating
the weakness of the local civil society in Tete include:
The thematic composition of civil society organisations is less diversified
than, for example, Nampula leaving gaps in thematic issue coverage;
Fewer national level CSOs have branches or well established partnerships
with organisations in Tete than in Nampula, and often negatively impact local
funding and capacity development;
Oftentimes a number of organisations can share the same leadership in Tete,
which is possibly an indication of a limited qualified leadership recruitment
base.
The selection of local AGIR partners was to provide examples and document the effectiveness
of the programme at the local level through three different types of direct
and indirect partners:
i) Direct AGIR partnership illustrated through direct contract between AAAJC
(Para-legal support and community development organisation in Tete) and
SCC/AGIR;
ii) Indirect delegation based partnership, illustrated through the Provincial Election
Observatory which is a delegation of the national Election Observatory a
partner of Diakonia/AGIR; and
iii) Indirect partnership with the provincial female network NAFET (Women’s
Network in Tete) that is a local partner of Forum Mulher, which is a partner of
Oxfam/AGIR.
Other organisations and/or institutions were contacted in Tete with the purpose of
collecting supporting documentation of local CSO networks and governance monitoring
relating to the Provincial Development Observatory. To this end, the Provincial
NGO Forum, FORPRONGT and the government secretariat of Provincial Development
Observatory were interviewed. The local member of SCC’s external partner
monitoring mechanism ‘Lareira Critica’ was interviewed in order to document the
nature of this function.
External Voices: The role of civil society in Mozambique and the position of CSOs
within civil society have been recognised by many international donor agencies as
being critical to the development of the country. Many of these international donors
support projects or programmes that, in one form or another, strive to achieve results
similar to those of AGIR. In an effort to gauge the depth of understanding, interest in
and opinion of these external voices about AGIR, the mid-term review team undertook
a series of interviews with representatives from a range of donor organisations.
These external voices are important, both in terms of current perceptions of AGIR as
well as to further the discussion on this important area of development.
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