July meeting

The purpose of the July meeting is to:

• Seek to reconcile the drafts of the Implementing Partners and the Supporting Partners
• Discuss the implications of having common proposal and reporting guidelines eg cooperation in joint funding situations (auditing, monitoring and evaluation, common reporting cycles)
• Consider the adoption of a common Partnership Protocol to apply between Implementing Partners and Supporting Partners

This meeting will be facilitated by Dirk Frans.

Participants of this meeting will include:

• 2 representatives from Asia Working Group
• 2 representatives from Africa Working Group
• 2 representatives from Latin America Working Group
• representatives from Supporting Partners Working Group
• other Supporting Partners who wish to support the process

The process so far

The process began with a strategic conversation on partnership in Australia in May 2005 – 3 days of dialogue between a group of 30 implementing partners and supporting partners about biblical values of partnership and how this ought to shape our work as Christian relief, development and justice organisations. The participants produced a draft “Values Statement” and “Partnership Guidelines” and these were distributed to all Micah Network members for comment. You can download these from the Micah Network website http://www.micahnetwork.org/eng/index.php/home/partnership/guidelines

The Partnership Guidelines included recognition of the administrative burden faced by implementing partners with differing proposal and reporting guidelines across agencies. The supporting partners present (CRWRC, Tearfund UK, TEAR Australia, Tearfund Netherlands and World Concern) agreed to work on development of consistent guidelines in the period ahead. The objective to develop such guidelines emerged during the meeting in Australia following very frank and open discussions between the participants.

Since the content of proposal and reporting guidelines is important to both implementing partners and supporting partners, Micah Network suggested that working groups be established in Asia, Africa and Latin America to provide meaningful input into the process. Micah Network has facilitated these meetings over an 8 month period out of its core funding and with assistance from 2 supporting partners.

Workshops convened in Asia and Africa

Small working groups of 8-10 implementing partners were convened in Thailand in November 2005 and in Addis Ababa in March 2006. The participants were selected because they came from a range of implementing partner organisations and had extensive experience in dealing with proposal and reporting guidelines.

It was decided to use Tearfund UK’s proposal and reporting guidelines as a base document (rather than start from scratch).

The Asian implementing partners working group critiqued the proposal and reporting guidelines but also develop rapid response proposal and reporting guidelines. The need for the latter guidelines was deeply felt as the majority of participants in the working group had been responding to the Asian tsunami for the 11 months preceding the workshop.

The Africa working group started with the Asia working group’s draft and continued to review and critique all 4 documents.

An additional workshop for Latin American implementing partners is expected to be convened in June 2006.

Supporting partners working group

The supporting partners working group has involved TEAR Australia, Tearfund UK and World Concern since May 2005 and also Tearfund NL and CRWRC for substantial components of the work.

The group needed to be small initially given the mode of operation (predominantly teleconferences) and participation was limited initially to those agencies who had been at the Partnership Consultation in May 2005 – to further explore the possibility of achieving consistent guidelines and to talk through some potential sticking points.

It is now strongly felt that the possibility of achieving consistent guidelines is extremely real and World Concern, TEAR Australia and Tearfund UK have reached consensus on the draft guidelines.

Final stage – Micah Network global consultation

At our global consultation in Chiang Mai in September 2006, all members of the Micah Network will have the opportunity to review the drafts in workshops and the final versions will be launched by the end of the consultation.

You will of course have an opportunity to participate at this stage, however we strongly encourage you to get involved prior to then in whatever way is possible for your agency. We would also appreciate your ongoing prayers for this challenging and exciting project.

Eastin Bangkok Hotel

Single room fee: £35

For paid-up members of The Micah Network: £115 per person.

For others: £115 per person.