PMC Update | March 2009

December 2008

The Programme Management Committee (PMC) is responsible for the running of the KOHA-PICD and HAF (Humanitarian Action Fund) funding schemes for New Zealand 's international development NGOs. It is holding five meetings during 2009; each meeting will be followed by an Update. These will include information on decisions taken by the PMC at its most recent meeting and items of general interest to the New Zealand NGO community regarding the two schemes. The PMC welcomes your feedback on the Updates and any suggestions you have for their improvement.

As well as being posted on the NZAID Website, this Update is also sent directly to people within KOHA-registered NGOs. We always welcome other names from your NGO to add to the distribution list. Just send the names and email addresses of people you would like to receive Updates directly to claire-louise@koha-picd.org.nz and we will oblige, starting with the next Update.

KOHA & HAF Update | March 2009

Introduction

The PMC met on 3-5 th March 2009, and addressed HAF matters during the Wednesday afternoon when Belinda Gorman (Deputy Chair, NDRF) joined us. We considered reports from the Block Grant Organisations (BGOs) and from the Independent Grant Organisations (IGOs) before taking decisions on IGO applications.

David Culverhouse, Aileen Davidson and Lee Sentes, Council for International Development (CID), attended our meeting to discuss the 2009 training courses and their early thoughts about approaches to training for 2010. The 2009 programme offers excellent courses for both new and experienced practitioners to improve their development skills and we encourage people to make the most of what is on offer. The PMC had a final update on preparations for the 2009 Forum event on a topical subject – sustainable development – and what it means in the context of best practice in community development. The Forum was held in Auckland , 23-26 March.

The main outcomes of the March meeting are summarised below along with related items of interest on the KOHA-PICD scheme for the community of New Zealand development NGOs.

Farewell and a big thank you

This was the final meeting for Robert Choy (CBM NZ) after four full years as a member of the PMC. Robert has made a terrific contribution over this time and his attention to budget details, KOHA principles and good development practice has been of enormous benefit to our work. Modest, cheerful, and always dedicated to the development community, Robert has been an important link in the transition from the VASS to the new KOHA Scheme and PMC. His work over the past year with the Disability Working Group was much appreciated. Thanks Robert!

Belinda Gorman will exchange her HAF hat at our next meeting in May to take up her broader duties as the new PMC member. The NDRF (NGO Disaster Relief Forum ) has yet to advise who will replace Belinda for the HAF meetings.

Positive review of KOHA by Audit New Zealand

The PMC is pleased to report on the findings of Audit New Zealand 's review of the KOHA scheme, done in 2008. Their review included the following statement:

“ We reviewed KOHA, a contestable funding programme, and performed a walkthrough of how the system works.

Based on our walkthrough of the system, it appears to be working well, with documentation on files that was clear to follow and showed that the members of the programme were being held to account for the funding they received.”

Given the scope of KOHA projects and the range of NGOs that are accessing funds, this positive assessment of the accountability exercised through all aspects of the scheme reflects well on the KOHA system. Maintaining these high standards of accountability is an ongoing priority for the PMC and, we are confident, for all KOHA-registered NGOs as well.

Audit NZ suggestion for BGOs

Audit NZ did make a suggestion around the timing of the receipt of audited financial statements that the PMC receives from BGOs. The current timing has BGOs providing audit information in the July-August period on the previous year's funding. For many BGOs this means that the current year's accounts are just being finalised and are therefore not available. Audit NZ recommends that BGOs are asked to provide audited financial statements as soon as the annual audit is complete. The PMC agrees with this suggestion and will follow-up with BGOs. This will allow for more timely reviews of finances and the identification of any potential issues that may need follow up.

Organisational Profiles

The PMC tabled two applications for KOHA-PICD membership and declined two others. The PMC is currently working on setting out a more clearly defined process for assessing new organisational profiles and then for graduating IGOs from “provisional” to “full” registration with the KOHA-PICD scheme. Our initial thinking on this will be presented at the regional meetings in May this year.

Meeting dates for 2009 and 2010

Although the dates for 2009 have already been advised in the October PMC Update, they are repeated here for your information.

PMC Meeting Dates for 2009
Deadline date	Meeting date
11 February	3-5 March
29 April	20/21 May
8 July For KOHA & HAF BGOs: Friday 3 July (AM&E report; Annual Notifications) Monday 20 July (Financial reports; BG applicn)	28-30 July
2 September	23/24 September
28 October	18/19 November

Other 2009 meeting dates:

NGO/NZAID regional meeting 4 May ( Christchurch )

NGO/NZAID regional meeting 6 May ( Wellington )

NGO/NZAID regional meeting 8 May ( Auckland )

Block Grant Organisations 18 May ( Auckland )

Individual Grant Organisations 19 May ( Wellington )

National meeting 15 October ( Wellington )

The following dates were confirmed by the PMC for 2010. Please note for your forward planning.

PMC Meeting Dates for 2010
Deadline date	Meeting date
10 February	2-4 March
2 April	19/20 May
7 July For KOHA & HAF BGOs: Friday 2 July (AM&E report; Annual Notifications) Monday 20 July (Financial reports; BG applicn)	27-29 July
1 September	22/23 September
27 October	17/18 November

Handbook changes re AM&E

We would like to thank Debbie Jack (Save the Children NZ) for her initiative in coordinating two useful meetings to discuss proposed changes to the KOHA-PICD Handbook and those who participated and provided feedback. The next steps are to circulate a revised proposal for changes in this section of the Handbook based on the feedback received. This will be done ahead of the regional meetings in May, when there will be a further opportunity for discussion.

Call for agenda items

Another opportunity for KOHA members to discuss the Scheme will be at the BGO and IGO meetings. These will be held on 18 th and 19 th of May respectively (see above). The PMC invites NGOs to send their requests for agenda items to the KOHA Administrator by the end of April. The PMC would encourage organisations to input into and attend these meetings as they provide a valuable opportunity to raise and discuss issues relevant to you as an IGO or BGO, with PMC representatives.

Multi-year project matters for IGOs

If you work for an IGO there are three matters relating to multi-year projects that the PMC needs to draw to your attention.

First, when making a project application (KOHA Form 2), it needs to include your intended activities for all years of the proposed project, not just the first year.

Secondly, when the 9-month or 12-month financial reports are provided, explanations must be given for all significant variations from the original budget item for the year. This is particularly relevant when reporting is made at the 12-month stage when an explanation of variances greater than 10% is required. We have received a number of reports that do not do so. At the 9-month stage it would be appropriate to identify budget items that are likely to be significantly under or over spent by the year end and to comment on the total overall spending to date against the full year budget

Thirdly, when identifying activities for all years of the project, please make it very clear which activities belong to which year. IGOs are also referred to an item in the December 08 PMC Update regarding reporting on multi-year projects.

AM&E for IGOs

A final administrative item for IGOs relates to their applications for funding for monitoring visits. The present requirement is for IGOs to calculate 5% of project funding over a 3-year period and to apply for AM&E funding up to this amount. It would be helpful to the PMC if NGOs could calculate the dollar amount represented by 5% of their KOHA-PICD project funds over the past 3 years (in question 23) so that a comparison with the AME grant being requested can easily be made. This prompt will be incorporated in the next revision to the KOHA 11 Form. The following example should clarify the point.

Example:

Year 1 funding KOHA $60,000

Year 2 funding KOHA $55,000

Year 3 funding KOHA $57,000

Total KOHA Funding = $172,000

AME grant available for monitoring or evaluation = $172,000 x 5% = $8,600

AME grant for monitoring being requested = $7,600

KOHA-PICD Reports

The PMC considered a number of project reports from block grant and individual grant organisations and accepted the following: ADRA (Sustainable livelihoods through micro-finance innovation, Mongolia); Christian World Service (Women's Centre, Sri Lanka; Human rights and democracy movement, Tonga); Family Planning International (Integrated care for people living with HIV and AIDS, Cambodia); Oxfam NZ ( Organic produce marketing support, Samoa); The Leprosy Mission ( Annual notification; Pondicherry Participatory needs assessment, India; Chittagong urban leprosy project, Bangladesh); World Vision NZ (Chata integrated crop-livestock-fish farming project, Malawi); HIDANZ (Rural water supply, health, nutrition and sanitation education, Cambodia); International Needs Network NZ (Prevention and withdrawal of children from the worst forms of child labour, Ghana; Capacity building through training of trainers, Bougainville; Capacity building for development committees, Bougainville); NZ China Friendship Society ( Partner capacity building and extension of rural cooperatives in Shandan County, China); NZCTU ( Labour rights training for Burmese migrant workers, Thailand); UNICEF NZ (Scaling up the response to HIV/AIDS for children, Papua New Guinea). Several other reports were accepted from IGOs covering PfD, AM&E, and OSG grants.

KOHA-PICD Applications Approved / March 2009

Cambodia Trust / Community-based development to reduce poverty amongst disadvantaged persons, Cambodia . GEN
Global Opportunities / Sanitation for Matigara village: early childhood education, India . AM&E
International Needs Network NZ / Project monitoring visit, Bougainville . AM&E
NZ Children's Health and Education Trust / Palm project, Vanuatu . GEN
NZ China Friendship Society / Post-earthquake community rehabilitation of selected communities, China . GEN
Rotary NZ World Community Service / Manzini youth care capacity building, Swaziland . CAP
UNICEF NZ / Child-friendly schools in three provinces, Solomon Islands . GEN

Organisational reviews items

The PMC decided to review the following four KOHA-registered NGOs during 2009-2010: Save the Children NZ, Oxfam NZ, Christian Blind Mission and Mahitahi. The reviewers for 2009/2010 will be Hilary Smith and Stephen Haslett.

As part of the review process, the PMC thought it might be useful to give the agency under review the opportunity to comment on the process of the review itself through a questionnaire (which has yet to be drafted) sent after the review has been completed and the final report received by the NGO.. This is not to replace any of the current steps or opportunities to comment on the review document itself. The idea would simply be to enable agencies to feed back comments directly to the PMC on the process itself so we can identify improvements and get other feedback that may help the process.

Response to the recent Fiji floods

Some NGOs have asked about the process used by NZAID to distribute funds for humanitarian work after the recent floods in Fiji . The PMC has been advised that NZAID wanted to target Fijian NGOs as well as New Zealand-based organisations. It decided, therefore, to distribute the funds through the New Zealand High Commission in Suva . There have been many occasions when NZAID has used other mechanisms, apart from HAF, to distribute funds for humanitarian work, especially in the Pacific. The process used after the Fijian floods did not represent a change in direction by NZAID.

Thanks to Oxfam NZ

The PMC thanked Oxfam NZ for the initiative it took in sharing the learning and outcomes from its recent HAF-related visit to Ethiopia , through the NDRF, with the wider community. We welcome such initiatives as a valuable way to use ‘lessons learned' experiences to improve practices, especially in very difficult situations.

Changing HAF bands

If your organisation wishes to move up a funding band need it needs to apply in writing to the PMC. Part A (section 1.3.1) and Part B (section 3.5.2) of the HAF Handbook provide the relevant information. The PMC will take into consideration the organisational capacity and track record of the NGO as well as the funds available. It will be up to the agency to provide all the necessary information to support its application. The PMC also thought that the process for moving up a funding band would benefit from further clarification in the HAF Handbook.

Wrap-up of the Asian Tsunami funds

This has been a long process, as many agencies that were involved will appreciate. Progress reports were submitted over the three application rounds, but in a few cases no final reports were received. The PMC thanked Belinda Gorman for the extensive work she has done in identifying the full acquittal reports that are still required. A final effort will be made to complete this documentation relating to the tsunami funds.

HAF Reports

The PMC accepted the following reports: Christian World Service (Dafur emergency response operation, Sudan); Oxfam NZ (Integrated public health and livelihood emergency drought response, Ethiopia); Rotary NZ World Community Service (Emergency boxes, Oceania); Save the Children NZ (Disaster preparedness and recovery in flood prone areas of the Zambezi River Valley, Mozambique); World Vision NZ (Annual notification; Water and sanitation intervention for Uganda floods, Uganda).

Reporting on the funding round for Myanmar

Following Cyclone Nargis that struck Myanmar in May 2008, several emergency projects were funded through the HAF. The PMC accepted a report from ADRA NZ (Emergency response, flood relief, Ayeyerwaddy Division, Myanmar ).

HAF Applications Approved / March 2009

Arena / Emergency response in Gaza , Palestine.

Chair's Comments

I'd like to reflect on two items this month. First, the Audit New Zealand report that the paper trail and accountabilities of KOHA-PICD met Audit NZ's high standards is extremely pleasing. This is a credit to the tracking systems that the scheme has developed, the scrutiny and attention that the PMC pays to all matters financial, and the commitment of KOHA members to meet accountability standards through their reports. Well done!

Secondly, as part of our PMC work we read a lot of reports about development projects. I'd like to summarise one of them for you. This project is on a remote group of islands in Vanuatu , population about 12,000 people. Scabies and lice were a significant health and hygiene hazard, but the local population could not afford to buy anti-bacterial soap to treat the problem. A few years ago, a New Zealand NGO trained a women's collective to use virgin organic coconut oil to make organic soap. Adding tea tree oil gave the soap anti-fungal and anti-bacterial qualities – ideal for treating scabies and lice. The 36 trained women produced 5,000 cakes of virgin organic anti-bacterial coconut soap for free distribution to mothers who could not afford it. They also now have a product they are able to sell in the local market.

Then plans were developed to expand their skills into a community development project by producing a quality commercial soap for sale in the hotels and motels of the distant capital, Port Vila. Benefits would be widespread: local villages would sell virgin coconut oil at a fair price to the soap makers; land for a soap factory would be bought; local builders (trained at a rural training centre) would be paid to build the factory. Extensive village discussions were held to work out a way to put all the profits back into the community to improve their livelihoods, education and health. This is economic development in a community context. With modest funding from KOHA, the locally designed factory was built on time and marketing of various products is going well. With the trust and understanding that had been built up over several years, the NGO has been able to contribute to improving the health, education and economic prosperity of remote communities and reverse the usual flow of consumer cash from country to town. Sustainable development has many faces, but increasing the resilience and well-being of communities is one of the most fundamental ones.

Kia kaha

Wren Green

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