Mid-Term Review of the AGIR Programme - Sida

4 R E C O M M E N D A T I O N S
Document, share and disseminate successful advocacy experiences among
partners and networks.
Particular attention should be paid to strengthening capacities at the local level
and for young/less experienced organisations.
Other Issues
There is a need to quicken the process involved with the transfer of resources
to partners at the local level. Defining a minimum level of funding to this level
would ensure that the programme is implemented with fewer regional imbalances
(as it is the case now). Alternatively, while sticking to the principle
of good-donorship and limited non-interference, intermediaries should commence
a formal dialogue with their CSO partners to assess the extent to which
the implementation of the strategic plans takes the balance in resources allocation
along the central-local axis into account. This can easily be justified as a
principle of good governance and integrated in the context of strengthening
partners’ capacity in internal governance. Intermediaries should also pay particular
attention to the challenges that might appear in the process of the allocation
of funds to partners’ local level organisations, namely in management
and reporting.
Additional donors added to the AGIR programme could potentially result in
more transaction costs, unless principles of good donorship are applied. The
progress made in this area in the programme through the focus on core funding,
the facilitation and lobbying efforts of the intermediaries to convince donors
to join common funding mechanisms, and through supported reporting
mechanisms to reduce the burden for CSOs, has laid the foundation for more
effective management of a multiple-donor funding mechanism. Perhaps key to
the discussion of the addition of new donors is their acceptance of the principle
of good donorship as it is implemented within the AGIR programme.
While there can be (as the review team observed within the AGIR programme)
management problems that are integral to its use (the difficulty of directed
support), the AGIR intermediaries have initiated a course of action that
can be instrumental to promoting good donorship in support of civil society.
The Embassy of Sweden can contribute to the effectiveness of the AGIR program
by engaging in “environmental” strategies. Environmental strategies are
actions and activities that improve the environment within which the intermediaries
work with their partners. Perhaps the two most critical strategies for
the Embassy would be to play a more visible role in the donor community regarding
the benefits of a “good donorship’ approach for the strengthening of
civil society. Helping other donors understand the mechanisms (positive and
negative) of this approach could lead to its use by others and a better understanding
of the AGIR programme. Secondly, a constant comment heard by the
review team from the donor community was the need for a dialogue between
donors regarding civil society strengthening within Mozambique. There is a
76