Evaluation of the Southern and Eastern Africa Regional Centre for ...

Views on sustainabilityIn light of the near total dependence upon Norwegian funding sources, and theobvious threat should that funding end or be reduced, the issue of sustainabilityshould be a priority for the Centre. However, we have seen very limited discussion ofthis, and that was only during the last (2012) regional board meeting. The RNE hasraised the issue of alternative sources of funding and financial sustainability of thecentre in annual meetings since 2010, when Norad also flagged this up in a memo(dated, 2010). Management at SEARCWL consider the funding for the programmesufficient and as a result have ‘not found it necessary to seek additional funding’(mid-term review, 2010). It also appears that the regional advisory board has onlyraised it in 2012. The process of getting to this point, we were told by the Director ofSEARCWL, was because they simply had not had to make alternative arrangementswhilst there was the predictable flow of funds from Norway.The Centre’s staff said in the SWOT exercise and in individual interviews that theyhave started the process of considering potential donors, but that they had notarrived at any conclusions yet. There are various views on the possibilities of gettingother donors for the Centre. The Director thought it might be challenging to findother donors given that more general democracy and human rightsprojects/programmes are more attractive to fund. Staff at the RNE, however,believed that it would be possible to find other donors, who could provide funding,at least contribute with part of the necessary funding and were willing to assist inmeans to achieve this. Professor Anne Hellum - the Centre’s collaborating partner atUniversity of Oslo- and also board member, Prof. Himonga, University of CapeTown, were both of the opinion that it would not be difficult for the Centre to findother donors to fund their work. An obvious possibility is like minded donors.In conjunction, an unexplored possibility concerns the NORHED programme.According to the Director at SEARCWL, the time frame for the most recent callconcerning seed funding had been unrealistic due to an arduous 18 month courseprogramme and that funding was already available for that period. One would alsoneed to consider whether NORHED is open for regional programmes. However,upon closer reading NORHED states “projects may consist of one partnerinstitution in a LMIC and one Norwegian partner institution. However, projects withmore than one LMIC partner institution are encouraged, in order to create andstrengthen regional academic networks” (page 11, NORHED draft programmedocument). Regional programmes and Master education programme form onecriterion. All LMIC in Africa are qualified for support, including Zimbabwe. Theevaluators have checked with the responsible person for NORHED in Norad thatcollaboration between Norwegian and Zimbabwean Universities as well as regionalcollaboration within Africa qualify for applying to the NORHED programme. Otherindicators of the scope for NORHED funding include that there are at least 3-4projects that have got seed funding that have a regional foundation, regional centres,etc. Currently, one project has got seed funding in Zimbabwe.The NORHED programme supports a wide range of activities that the centre currentlyundertakes, ranging from curriculum development, teaching, and research by staff andcollaborating partners, PhD scholarships, capacity building of technical and administrativestaff, support to library, and technical equipment. The NORHED actively encourages the47